Re: [Bar: Cat & Jack]
Cat wasn't there to dodge bullets, but things always seemed to be especially complicated when Jack was around. He was a harbringer of some sort, and Cat was hyperaware as she leaned back against that bar. She wished she was anywhere but here, but here was where she'd landed, and she wasn't here to find out about any children being sold. Oh, she knew it happened in Second City, but there it was controlled and not about sex. Down there? Pedophiles got treated like they did in prison, and sometimes crime areas, high crime areas, policed themselves. This city most certainly did. Mafia families, high power ones, had to ensure their territories were safe, taken care of. It was a war, yes, but the only reason there were warriors was due to the protection offered by the Dons. That protection extended to children in their jurisdiction. Cat wasn't here about child trafficking - she was chasing another lead - and she stood there realizing the information she was procuring wasn't what she'd though it was. Maybe it was a bad lead. Whatever the reason, she didn't think she was going to find what she was looking for here. No paths to New Orleans, no experimentation on sea life, no voodoo gods. Wonderful. And, sure, there was a chance this had nothing to do with sex, but that didn't make her feel better about any of it.
She didn't watch Jack as he changed the song, and she only pretended to be bubblegum-snap flirting with the man at her side. He'd sidled up, and Cat knew him to be a pimp, but this was how girls got turned out on the street. They fell in love, and love went hand-in-hand with making money for your man. Cat chewed on her straw as the man whispered in her ear, and Billie sang, and shots rang out.
She was armed, because of course she was. The gun was tiny, micro, something pretty and tucked into a garter; Sasha would've approved. She crouched against the bar, and her pimp crouched beside her. His weapon? Was much bigger, and, fuck, pulling her own out would give her away. So, like any good actress, she batted her lashes while her heart raced. And the man at her side, he wasn't particularly cautious. Or maybe he was too cautious. Or, maybe, he was there for ulterior motives too. Whatever the reason? He pointed his very impressive weapon at the person who'd shot the kid, and he blew their face off, all while keeping an arm draped over his new girl. Oh, this was going to be a party. It almost reminded her of home, except that Cat was nowhere as smooth as she'd been once. She was rusty. She would never call it PTSD, but that changed nothing. Fuck.