Other than being strapped down, she could find nothing else physically wrong. Her mind cleared quickly, the only smell was an antiseptic coldness that caused her nostrils to flare, and her eyes had finally adjusted. Turning her head, she could see only bare concrete walls; and that effort was halted when a sharp pain exploded behind her eyes. Trying again to focus, she found vague hazy memories of arriving at the Institute in the armored car, some large guard approaching with a hypo in his hands... and that was it. They must have drugged her, explaining for the thickness in her voice as she tested her vocal cords. What she struggled with was why. She hadn't fought, had remained silent and passive the entire time they were driving. Did they really think she was so dangerous that they had to drug her when she was behaving? Kat smirked coldly to herself. If only they knew.

She was disturbed from her thoughts when an unseen door slid open, and clicking footsteps announced a visitor. The stranger was moving down near her feet, and unable to lift her head to see, Kat shifted uncomfortably on the hard cot and waited for him to approach in her field of vision. It was a man, she noted obliquely, eyeing him warily as he advanced, stopping to tower over her, watching her with an icy analytical expression on his face that matched her own.

They stared at one another for a few long moments before he spoke. "Katera Quistin?" Kat remained silent, eyes narrowing as she flicked her fingers impatiently. He knew her name. Why all this feigned ignorance? There was obviously something here she was missing, and that angered more than frightened her. The man took her silence for defiance, and motioned to someone else she couldn't see. A tall nurse appeared, hypodermic in her gloved hands, and Kat struggled against the restraints, hissing at the shocking pain that finally made her stop, growling deeply in the back of her throat as she bared her teeth at the man.

"If you don't wish to be sedated again, you will cooperate. Now answer my question. You are Katera Quistin?" She licked her sharp canines smugly as she glared up at him with serpentine eyes, voice a slurry, muffled purr when she finally managed to speak. "You... already know... my name. Ask me... something, you... don't know."

"That's an improvement, but you will have to do better, Katera. That is, unless you prefer to be restrained for the rest of your years here. Don't fight me, little girl. I'll tell you now that you stand a slim chance of being rehabilitated and released from this facility. There is a chance. But cooperation is key. Now... are you going to answer my questions? Answer them honestly?"

Kat grinned, still watching the nurse nearby with evident rage. "If... that's what you... want." The man nodded curtly at her, waving the woman away as he took a seat beside her head. She turned to look at him, wincing slightly at the now dull ache in her head. He took notice of that and smiled shortly, cold eyes and set face leaving her little doubt as to how this questioning session would go. Just like at the IF facility. Don't tell them anything, and eventually they'll leave you alone.

"Now then. You have been admitted to Charybdis for your attack upon Hunter Gabriel and Rebecca Solenis. There is no use denying what you did. I merely would like to know why."

She closed to her eyes before answering. "They attacked me... first. Self... defense." The disapproval from the man washed over her in an invisible wave, and Kat opened her eyes again to see his frown. "I've already heard your version, and that is not what I'm interested in. Why."

Her eyebrows furrowed in drugged confusion. What did he mean, why? Gabe had attacked her first, jumped her in the bathroom after using Mai as a lure to trap her inside. Luckily for her, she'd allianced with Jax earlier, unbeknownst to Gabe, and her boy came in time to stop her death. He'd saved her life... too bad he hadn't been able to save his own. An almost undetectable gleam of wild satisfaction flashed in her gaze, but she fought it down in time to present a blank mask to this cold man who was asking things he had no right to know. "I... don't, understand."

He changed tactics. "And how do you feel about your attack upon your launchmates? Guilty? Any remorse or anything I should know about, Katera?" Stupid, stupid man. Guilt. Remorse. Those were for weak people who weren't capable of doing what was necessary for survival, for revenge, for life. Gabe and Sol had deserved their beatings, just as Jax had deserved his death. It was all so simple, so clearcut, and this stranger's obvious ignorance gnawed at her patience. She gave him the same answer she'd given the other psychiatrist at the IF facility. One word.

"No."

It was then he pushed himself up from his chair, shaking his head with disapproval. She licked her lips as she glanced up at him, eyes narrowing as she saw his frown, saw him nod toward the nurse. The woman came to her side, and Kat hissed angrily, pulling at her restraints again in frantic rage. But it was no use; the needle stabbed into her arm painfully, and she could only watch with unfocused pupils as the plunger descended and the nurse moved away, a tiny trickle of blood meandering down her shoulder.

They kept her constantly sedated, for "easier handling" as she was told tauntingly. On the occasions of her therapy or interrogation sessions, her dosages were lessened enough to allow for coherent speech and some measure of rational thought. Other than that, she was kept strapped to her cot, in a perpetual state of muddled half-consciousness. As she adapted to one medication and regained awareness, the doctors would frown playfully at her and switch drugs until she retreated into the gloom again.

Hallucinations haunted her days, nightmares during the dark periods when the compound lights shone harshly in through the small window in her cell. The line between dream and reality was frightfully blurred, as the psychiatrists discovered the first night she woke half the sleeping lab staff with her wild animal shrieks. Every face became Jax's, every smile his shark-like smirk, every laugh his harsh mirthless chuckle. Whenever someone tried to approach, she'd strain frantically at her restraints, snarling with ferocious feline rage, ear-splitting screams abating only when the attendants managed to give her another sedative shot.

After her first month of "conditioning," the tests began.

She'd been classified as Delta, borderline Epsilon. Epsilons were given only the most painful, twisted experiments the military could create, and they never failed to be lethal. That borderline verdict, give on her first day by the IA interrogator, saved her life. It didn't, however, keep her from a living hell.

The experimental drugs they gave her had to be carefully monitored, as they learned quickly. She was the youngest subject, eight-year-old body tiny and incredibly receptive to their medications. Her doses had to be controlled, almost constantly increased with each passing day as she readily adapted. Months of this continued, until one day when an excited physician arrived with a newly delivered serum to test. All they needed was a victim. Kat wasn't conscious to see them all turn to stare at her with quiet smiles.

It was the closest they could come to liquid death, pain in a bottle. Her blood thinned until even the lightest touch bruised her, and by the end of the first morning, she was completely black and blue from head to toe. Even shifting on the bed caused more bruises to blossom, and if she'd had the strength, she'd have cried out with every breath. Her hard-earned muscles atrophied, her nose bled daily, but no one expected the most gruesome side effect of all.

The serum made all her old scars and wounds reopen.

The first indication came when she woke one morning to find the scar on her cheek bleeding as if fresh. Her screams of "Jax!" alerted the doctors to this new discovery. Everyone watched as the scars along her arms streaked crimson over her bruises, and beyond gauze and bandages, she was left alone to relive every moment of her battles. Through the fog of her thoughts, Kat wished desperately for death to take her.

Redemption came four days later when an attendant discovered her in a pool of blood.

No one had taken into account the hidden scar that ran along her side and lower abdomen. No one but herself knew what the severity of that injury had been. The long wound was the result of a knife fight before she was taken to Battle School, and no official records of her subsequent surgery were ever released. Her father, afraid she might be arrested for the assault, had taken her to a private physician. And so no one at the lab expected to find her with a ten-inch slash bleeding across her stomach, and her semi-conscious and crying for her father.

She was sent into surgery, a hundred and fifty new stitches resealing the wounds of her past. Outside the operating room, normally used to end life rather than preserve it, her IA mentor ranted in wild rage. "You weren't supposed to kill her!" he shouted. "No more testing for the girl again, ever again!"

If Kat had been awake to hear his saving grace, she might have died with relief. As it was, they had almost killed her, and death became a distinct possibility during the hours of her surgery. But one, then two days passed, and Kat woke from the blissful oblivion to find herself in hell once more.

The coldly rational part of her begged for death the moment she awoke from her anesthetic emptiness. It had some very good points to argue. Jax was dead, along with Zion. Her revenge had been completed. What did she have to live for now? She'd never see her father again, never escape from this Institute. Kat didn't know of her protection from any further testing. All she knew was the pain of her injuries, scars inside and out, and death would be a very welcome release from that torture. She could join Jax, and maybe he'd forgive her. Maybe he'd love her again, rule her again, and heavenly happiness could be hers.

Or maybe not.

Her survivalist psyche fought to stay alive, and despite her best efforts to ignore the taunting voice, Kat found herself alive every morning. All the cold heartlessness and icy hard ruthlessness she'd fostered before came back to save her. It kept her breathing through the long nights, kept her sane during the endless days and interrogations, kept her fighting as the weeks passed and she gradually regained her strength. And it constantly berated her for even thinking about giving up.

Your greatest love, your greatest enemy, is dead. Remember his look of painful betrayal, a mirror of what you felt when he left you the first time. Remember the feel of your dagger in his back, his weak struggles, the taste of his blood on your lips. To die now would make all those years of hatred worthless. Yes, your revenge with him may be complete. Jax may be buried in that shallow grave you dug yourself, killed with your own two bare hands. But remember the thrill of vengeance, that icy pleasure? One nemesis is dead, and you must live to enjoy your triumph, your hard-earned victory. And never, ever forget what happened to get you sent here. You cannot die now. There is still vengeance to be had. There is still Hunter Gabriel and Rebecca Solenis to kill...

Gradually, weeks, months, years trickled by. She was never submitted to that laboratory torture again. Her therapy sessions lessened, her strength and hate increased, and life continued onward.

She found herself the most hated, loved, and feared inmate at the Institute. She became a predator, always stalking, always hunting. Her prey and battles provided a distraction to the danger of her memories. Whoever dared to become involved with her soon found themselves broken, bleeding, kissed before she knocked them unconscious.

Kat was the black widow of the Charybdis Institute.

Hunting became her favorite past-time. Unsuspecting boys and men fell before her malicious wrath, and broken bodies scattered the paths behind her. More than once she found herself in the infirmary-- but more often than not, her toys came out worse than she. Nights alone in solitary were soon a ritual; the welcome solitude afforded her time to scheme, to dream. Memories of Jax pervaded her thoughts, although Gabe and Sol were never far from mind. Never far at all.

Six years passed, time transforming her into a tight predator, a wary cat with slitted serpentine-gold eyes. Frequent battles developed her strength, lithe muscles beneath taut tan skin. More scars accumulated, contrasting pearly white against her shadowy darkness. More victims accumulated too, but the administration gave her nearly free reign. She'd been there longer than any other inmate, and she had hardened. Her IA guardian continued to work with her, searching for any sign of remorse or guilt that might free her from the Institute. If Kat had known that, she might have repented and manipulated and charmed her mentor to be freed. As it was, she remained unaware, and her dangerous hunting continued.

But her sources of prey eventually dwindled as the other inmates quickly learned to stay away from her. Her friendship brought only pain, her kisses promised excrutiating torture, her claws drew blood. She became filled with raging frustration. There was no one left to break, and she was bored.

Six years had passed, and Kat was ready to find herself a partner, an ally, a mate.

She was in solitary when her wish came true. Years of waiting were about to pay off. Kat didn't know just how much she'd come to love this man, couldn't possibly foresee what the future held for them. All she knew was that a new toy had arrived, and she was going to be the first to break him. Bloodlust burned when she was told he'd come in fresh that morning.

Nathan Terrence had come to Charybdis. Nathan Terrence had come to Kat.