In the end, Katie uncharacteristically didn't go after the beast that fled. She supposed she would feel a tad guilty given how the beast turned and ran without even attempting a fight. Plus, the beast was really fast for its size, and Katie had better things to do than to go on a wild goose chase when there was another prey in the room.

Instead, she turned her attention to the bartender, who was still trying to recover from what he just witnessed. When he brought the beast out, he expected a quick and easy victory. Reality knocked him over like a sledgehammer to the head.

He was still in the transformed form, and if anyone took a random glance at the bar, they would think this was a typical horror slasher movie where the monster would gruesomely dissect the innocent, defenseless girl.

The reality...it couldn’t be any more different. The beast was shaking in terror, and the ‘innocent, defenseless girl’ was tilting her head and grinning.

“So...which limb would you like to lose first, my friend? Personally...I prefer to take out the legs first, but it’s your body, so...your choice!”

The bartender growled, an otherwise menacing action that now seemed hollow and pathetic. He leaned forward, as if he was ready to charge Katie, but just as Katie adjusted herself and braced for impact, the bartender darted back for one of the rooms. A room that Katie previously heard cries for help from.

This brought a frown onto Katie’s face, but all she did was sit back and observe with her arms folded. Could she have stopped him in time? Sure. But why would she bother with that?

The beast disappeared into the closed room. Seconds later, he emerged with a boy in front of him. One of his claws rested on the boy’s neck, close enough to slash open his neck at a moment’s notice.

“Hmmm...what do we have here?” Katie raised her eyebrows. She sounded cheerful. “Looks like we’ve got a hostage situation!”

The beast couldn’t talk, so he did his best to make his intentions clear with his actions. His claw pointed at the door, at Katie, and then back at the door again. Even as he made these gestures, he did his best to hide his body behind the tiny boy. It was actually strangely amusing...at least for Katie. Both the boy and the beast behind him were about to pee their pants.

“You want me to leave?” The brunette glanced at the door again before returning to the beast. “Otherwise you’ll kill him? The hostage?”

The beast nodded. He remembered the initial conversation he had with the girl. The girl mentioned the boy, fresh out of high school, who they kidnapped. The way she talked about this person...maybe she really cared about him? Maybe she would want to save him because she was a nice, compassionate human being?

Katie chuckled before turning to the door. The sound of her sports shoes clicking the ground was loud and clear in the silent bar. She reached the door, but just as she was about to leave the building, and just as both the beast and the boy took breaths of relief. she suddenly turned back to face them again.

“Actually, I just remembered something. It’s a strategy about saving hostages.” Katie said quietly as she drew a handgun from her leather jacket pocket. Both the boy and the beast found themselves turning pale at the sight of the weapon.

“Calm down!” The boy cried out in horror for the first time. What the hell do you think you’re doing, lady? Aren’t people in your situation supposed to leave and then return to strike the kidnapper in surprise a few hours later to save the hostage? And if you want to do something, do it quickly! What’s up with all this talking? “Please! Don't...don't do anything!”

The beast’s claw got closer to the boy’s neck. One more inch, and he would be cutting into his skin.

“Oh relax! I promise! Everything will be just fine!” Katie reassured the boy before raising her handgun and taking aim. The beast whimpered as he did his best to hide itself, but no matter how hard he tried, he was just too big.

And then, Katie pulled the trigger.

Bang!

In front of her, the boy collapsed with a hole in his forehead, killing him immediately.

The beast looked down at the corpse on the ground before him. When he looked back up at Katie, a ‘WTF’ look was on his face. Which part of saving the hostage includes shooting the hostage in the damn head? Before he could even react, Katie shot him in the leg twice. The handgun bullets bounced off the carapace on his leg, achieving very little.

Katie sighed, walked up to the beast, and kicked him in the wounded leg, snapping the limb and sending him collapsing to the ground.

“So...shoot the hostage in the leg as a distraction and then shoot the kidnapper in the head. Wait...did I mix the two up? Oops…then again, I’d say it’s not that big of a deal.” The girl shrugged casually as she stood over the injured, cornered beast. She tossed her handgun to the side before pulling out her Knife once again.

“Same question. Which limb would you like to lose first? You see...you could’ve just done nothing, and this poor boy…” She pointed at the body of the hostage on the ground. “could’ve still been alive! You killer! I’m ashamed of you!”

The beast laid there. Its mouth hung open, but no word came out. He...he was speechless.

Thirteen minutes later, Katie found herself standing in front of the bar’s door. In her hand was a giant bucket filled to the top with thick red blood.

“Let’s see…” Katie ran her bloody fingers down her chin. She reached into her pocket before pulling out a piece of paper covered in all sorts of scribbling. Finally, her eyes landed on one of them, and with the blood in the bucket as paint and her own hand as the paint brush, she started to draw out a symbol on the door of the bar.

By the time she was done, there was a bloody symbol on the wooden door. The basis of the symbol was a closed lock, which was placed over a stack of vertical lines.

It was a lock in front of some wood. Lockwood. As ambiguous and childish as this drawing was, Katie thought it was quite clear in terms of its meaning.

“Looks good, huh?” Katie turned to the bartender’s decapitated head carefully placed on the ground beside her. The pain and horror on its face was clear as day. “I really hope this gets the attention of some important people so I can make a name for myself around the country. Why go after fun things when fun things can come to you? A lock and some wood. Lockwood! Sometimes I really respect my own creativity!”

The hollow eyes of the head looked back at her blankly.

“Plus, I have a feeling I’m gonna piss a lot of people off in the future, in addition to the people I’ve already pissed off.” When no reply came, Katie continued as if she was explaining to other people, but the only bystander she had was a severed head and nothing else. Well...Katie was never known to be the most sane. “How are they supposed to track me down and claim their vengeance if I don’t leave them any clues? See? I’m just being a really nice person! I’m just giving everyone a chance to take a jab at me!”

For a while, she stood there in front of the wooden door with her arms folded, marvelling her own bloody work. Just as she was about to finish, her phone suddenly rang, and she picked it up.

“Sup?”

“Uh…” The voice on the other side paused, clearly not expecting Katie’s casual greeting. “Lockwood?”

“Yep! That’s my name! Well...I guess it’s also my code name? Anyways...how can I help you, John?”

“Oh lord...please be quiet and listen to me!” The man on the other side paused, trying to get back to what he was calling to say. “I am calling you to ask if you have identified the idiots that kidnapped the Madison boy. After all, that’s what I’m paying you for!”

A few weeks ago, after Katie left Riverside High School, she took a trip to the safehouse, packed some weapons and money, and set on a trip to the other side of the country. She drove for days until she eventually reached California. More specifically, Los Angeles, the city of angels.

Katie didn't know if there were really any angels in Los Angeles. All she knew was that after finding herself a rather interesting place to live in and spending several days wandering around the city in boredom, she suddenly had nothing left to do. She no longer had any more games to play, nor did she have a woman to protect. As a matter of fact, her magnetic attraction to supernatural events appeared to have faded as well.

Dressing insufficiently, wandering across the darkest corners of the city, and luring out and brutalizing would-be rapists was cool and all, but it just wasn’t enough to satisfy Katie. Of course, the building she lived in did help relieve some of her boredom, but...

That was when Katie looked through her contacts and tracked down the only person she knew that was still miraculously alive. Ben. Katie last saw the weapons dealer and assassin middle-man when she and Caitlin hired a veteran sniper in an effort to take out Mr. Isaac. What was the sniper’s name again? Katie didn't remember at all. All she knew was he didn't die peacefully.

Either way, after that plan screwed up, Ben proceeded to forget all about what happened as it was connected to the games. Mr. Isaac was gone, but the curse wasn’t completely gone, as shown by the fact that what happened in Riverside High School never got on the news and none of the families of the victims ever sensed something was wrong. Regardless, Ben and Katie were still on fine terms.

Katie called Ben. The girl has never told Ben she was now in the other end of the country. Ben was a little annoyed, having not a single clue of how lucky he was just to be alive, but Katie was more of a freelancer and he had little control over her. At Katie’s insistence, the man gave her the contacts of a colleague of his in Los Angeles so Katie could receive some missions from him to carry out for money.

Money wasn’t really a problem for Katie, but the chance to access missions that might or might not end badly was priceless for her.

Ben must have put in quite a good word for Katie, because this new middle-man John placed quite the trust on Katie. He had given Katie a few missions, and Katie had completed all of them nicely...sort of. There was just a single problem…

“Yeah…” Katie bit her lips as she looked around the scene of the massacre. “about that…I may have done a little more than identify...”

“Damn it, Lockwood!” On the other end, John knew what was going on all too well. After all, he has seen way too many of such occurrences for the past few days. “Please don’t tell me everyone is dead, again!”

“You sent me to get rid of a problem. I got rid of it.” Katie replied casually as she strolled up to the bartender’s head on the ground and gave it a solid kick. “Plus, I tried to be nice and polite and do some investigating first! But guess what? They locked the door on me and tried to kill me! I swear I had no choice but to defend myself!”

That was technically true...aside from some missing pieces of information that would’ve made the narrative completely different.

John didn't care much about Katie’s lack of ability to follow orders. After all, Katie wasn’t his underling and the two were mostly just colleagues. Instead, he still had the tiniest strand of hope up for something else. “Just...please tell me the Madison boy is alive and well!”

“I…” Katie’s voice trailed off. Where was the boy’s body again? Back in the bar? “yep! He’s standing right beside me! Here, come over and say hi!”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yep! Congrats, you saw through my deception!” Katie replied with not a care in the world. “In my defense, he was dead before I arrived! I couldn’t have saved him even if I tried! That may or may not be a lie!”

A wicked smile was on her face even as she said those words. The interesting thing was that she didn't need to lie, at all. She was just toying with the man on the other side for the sheer fun of it.

John growled at the response. He was anything but happy. “The Madisons paid extra for their son to be returned alive! And guess what? They’re not just gonna accept a refund and call this a day!”

“So?”

“So...you do know that the Madisons have mafia connections, right?” The man continued. “This is not gonna end well for you, Lockwood. I have my own connections to keep them off my back, but you...I know you are something of a badass, but guess what? The mafia assassins won’t be playing fair. A sniper here. Some poisoning there. All it takes is one mistake, and...”

“Mafia assassins? Oh right...that’s a thing!” Katie raised her eyebrows at the very idea. Mafias? What’s that? She never really paid much attention to factions that could be dealt with by bullets. Also, poison? Sniper? If some poison and a few well-placed snipers killed her, people like Mr. Isaac and Kameron should kill themselves from shame...assuming they were brought back to life first, of course.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting idea, which was why…

“Actually, now that we’re talking about mafias...you know my address, right?”

“Uh...no?”

“Ok. Well, I’m sending you my address now. If the Madisons ask, just tell them where I live and that I welcome them to come after me whenever they feel like it. Also, if they’re trying to ambush me, they better throw their handguns out of the damn window and pack some machine guns instead. As for the poison...don’t bother with that. Save it for other people. No need to waste good poison on me.”

Katie said quickly, and before John could say anything else, she added.

“Anything else? No? Ok! I’ve gotta go. You know...take pictures of everything for you to show the Madisons and destroy the rest of the evidence. The boring stuff. Ok, bye!”

She ended the call before John could say another word. Pulling up the camera function on her phone, she glanced at the bartender’s head a distance away before walking over and lifting it up next to her own head and taking a selfie.

“Ok...say cheese!”