Beautiful Catastrophe

Chapter Nine:

"Kim, we need to get out of here. Right now."

Those were the first words she heard that night. Nathan was shaking her in order to wake her. She could be a heavy sleeper at times and so he was finding it a difficult task to do.

"God damn it Kim. Do you want a repeat of a few days ago when those men stormed the place with their karate kung fu s**t?" Nathan had grown irritated very quickly, considering she had yet to make a move to get up and they had such a limited amount of time.

"You said Kung fu wasn't Japanese." She grumbled, not sure whether this was reality or a dream. She hoped it was the latter. She was in no mood to fight off scary Japanese men again.

"There's no time for f*****g around Kim. Get up."

It took Nathan two seconds before he ripped her out of the bed and threw her over his shoulder. All of a sudden, she was awake and alive. She squealed and hit his back repeatedly but he didn't put her down, only grabbed the duffle bag and his keys. He checked around the room in case he had left something behind and then went on his way down the stairs to the car park.

Kim didn't kick up a fuss about where Nathan's hands where, or how she wanted to get down. She just let him carry her; unable to process fully the fact that someone else was after them. As he put her down, the noise of a car screeching nearby caught her attention and she looked in horror as a black van raced towards them. She began to scream but Nathan soon cut her off.

"Get in the car!" he yelled before pulling out a gun and firing it at the tires on the car.

Kim did as she was told and waited anxiously for him to follow her. It was less than a minute later, Nathan had stopped firing his gun and jumped inside then, throwing the duffle bag on her lap before starting up the car. He rushed down the road and shot out the window at the same time, aiming at the van behind them.

It was beginning to slow down because of the punctured tires but kept going until it could drive no more. Nathan focused solely on the road then, continuing to check in the rear-view mirror every couple of seconds to make sure no one else was behind them. Kim felt she was gasping for air, while trying to figure everything out and stay calm at the same time- a task that was extremely difficult for her to do right then.

Nathan noticed her distressed state and looked at her out of the corner of his eye a couple of times. She was trying to stop herself from shaking, she didn't want to seem weak, she didn't want to look like a victim. It took her a short time to adapt to the aftermath of the last attack they had on them, she just needed a little quiet time to register everything in her mind.

"Kim you need to relax. They're gone for now, everything is going to be okay."

"Is it though?" Definitely not, she thought to herself, answering her own question.

It was still dark out and she could see very little from her window on the passenger side of the car. She still examined the outdoors while Nathan eyed her with consideration. He let out a sigh and continued on driving.

"How long will it take us to get to D.C?" Nathan was surprised by her question. It almost felt like she wanted to go then?

"A couple more days."

"Okay." Kim croaked out. It stirred something inside of him, something that felt a lot like sympathy but he tried not to dwell on it. He shrugged it off and continued on driving.

After an hour or two on the road, Nathan decided to stop off on the side of the empty roads to stretch his legs. He was tired from lack of sleep and one of his colleagues calling him to warn him of the men hot on their tail. Nathan's moving around in the car woke Kim from her light sleep she had just fallen into only minutes ago. She looked at him with a grim expression still plastered on her face.

"Let's get some air." He said before unbuckling his belt and stepping out of the car.

The sky had begun to brighten and the air was crisp when it hit her. She took a deep breath and sat down at the side of the road, looking out at the shadows of trees in the forest in front of her. While her eyes focused on the beautiful landscape off in the distance, the sun rising perfectly on all of the trees, Nathan changed out of his pyjamas. No one was around and she hadn't turned her head while he was changing.

"Maybe you should get dressed too." Nathan said as he sat down beside her.

"No, I'm good. I might sleep in the car for a little while when we get back driving." Kim's voice was soft, he almost thought it was sweet. He could tell by the calmness of her tone that she was obviously very tired.

"Suit yourself." He got comfortable on the dusty ground of the deserted road.

"Are they going to keep coming after us Nathan?" Kim didn't want to sound scared but she couldn't help it. The seriousness of this situation was beginning to dawn on her more than ever before. It was almost making her regret everything she had done to get justice for herself back in Chicago.

"Yes, but don't worry about it. I'm going to get you back to D.C. I never fail to get a job done."

"Why don't we just fly there? Why is it just you? Wouldn't it be safer if there were more people involved-"

"I work alone." He butted in eagerly, his voice held some kind of anger that Kim found strang. The harshness of his tone made her turn her head to look up at him.

"W-why?" There was a long pause after her question. She wondered whether he was going to answer it at all or choose to ignore it. Nathan was trying to decide if letting her in on this subject would be a good choice or not. It startled him a little- the thought that he was even considering telling her about his life.

"I always have. It's my one rule since I started working with the CIA."

"How long have you been working there?" Kim was curious. She was still looking at him but his gaze had settled somewhere in front of them.

"Since I'm eighteen. Everyone has been involved in the agency for generations in my family."

"So your mother and father are both agents too?" she noticed how he flinched at the mention of his parents. She wondered if she had asked too much too quickly, would he be angry with her?

"They both passed away when I was sixteen." The words were difficult to say as they left his mouth. He was confused as to why he had even told her that information anyway, maybe it was because of how tired he was.

"I-I'm sorry to hear that."

She felt terrible for even mentioning them, although Nathan came across as a man of little emotions, the death of a mother or father was certainly a catastrophic event that would definitely change a person's life forever. She didn't want to bring it up unless he was comfortable with talking about it. Nathan noticed her discomfort. Despite having dealt with the fact that his mother and father were both dead, there were things that had not been buried with them. Justice was not done for either of his parents- yet.

"Let's not talk about them anymore." He decided it would be better for both of them to talk about a different topic.

"Okay." Kim's voice was just above a whisper. She nodded slowly in agreement with him and a short comfortable silence fell between the two for a couple of minutes until she felt like speaking again.

"You know, if I thought all of this would've happened from what I done when I was twenty-one, I think I would have reconsidered my options." Kim smiled sadly, looking at the forest in front of them again.

"Why did you do it in the first place? Why steal from your own father's company?"

"Nathan I told you already-"

"Why did you take something from your father that you knew was important?" he rephrased his question.

"I-I guess I just realised what my life had become. I was sick of saying yes to everyone around me to keep them happy, finally saying no felt so liberating. I can't explain it. I made a bad decision, I was tricked into agreeing to make something for my father and his Japanese investors and when I realised this I backed out of the project and took back all of the files, everything I had created to stop them from reaching their goal."

"So you didn't know that the software or malware you were creating was going to be used in order to steal information from customers and the U.S Government?" Nathan questioned bluntly, not believing her at all.

"No, I didn't think it would be used for something that serious." She was telling the complete truth yet Nathan wasn't convinced. He eyed her with inquisitiveness.

"But didn't you think about it while you were working through the project that maybe it would be used for bad rather than good. The production of such things would never be seen as good anyway- whether it was linked with the government or not." Kim understood what he was saying. She felt foolish because of his words, because it seemed so clear to him and even her now- but at the time things were different.

"There was a time when I would have done anything for my father. For his approval. For him to consider me as a someone, a great and powerful person just like him. I know it's difficult for you to believe me, it's hard for even me to believe myself now, but I was so blinded by my father's lies and my obsession with seeking approval that I believed back then, the project would benefit the company and the investors. I didn't understand the true motive behind it all until later on when I discovered it myself. My father was lying to me and I allowed that to happen so I suppose I need to take responsibility for my actions." Nathan didn't know why, but he felt her words were the truth. He would never tell her that though.

"As soon as I realised what was going on around me, with the project, the investors, my father, hell my whole family and friends- I backed out of everything. I took back all of the files and all of my work I could take and destroyed every piece of it. I didn't want them to continue on with what they were trying to do and wanted to make it hard for them to achieve their goals without any of my work to help them."

"But it didn't matter, they found someone else for the project." Nathan added.

"Yes, they did..." she hesitated. She wondered if Nathan knew who exactly it was that continued on with the project. "My fiancé." Her words made him look at her in all of the bewilderment he was allowing her to see, which was very little but enough for her to realise he didn't know the man who took over was someone very close to her.

"Shane Parker is your fiancé?" he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Was. That bastard's nothing to do with me anymore." Kim corrected him. "The name Kim Parker wouldn't have suited me anyway..." Kim added humorously.

"But why?" Nathan didn't understand. Kim had sounded like somewhat of a man-hater from the beginning when he first met her, but he understood now her reasons behind it.

"Because Shane loved my father. He wanted power and status within the company, I guess he needed that more than he would ever need me..." Although she sounded and looked pathetic by what she was saying, she couldn't help it- or the tears that welled in her eyes the moment the words left her mouth. She blinked them away quickly as to not let any of her emotions show in front of Nathan who was trying to work this girl out right then. She was an intricate puzzle, ruined by betrayal and lies. He wondered whether it was a good idea to try and solve her or not, everyone was messed up- even himself.

"That's what people want Kim. Power and status are more important than love." Nathan spoke truthfully and bluntly to Kim, his words awakening a strange cocktail of anger and agreement within her.

"I trusted my father, I trusted my brothers and I trusted Shane. I even told him about my discovery and how I was planning on moving after ruining the project. I took all of the trust I had put in my deceiving family and put every last bit of it into the one person I thought truly loved me. The one I would go home to after every shitty day, the one I could confide in, the one that didn't need convincing of my value. He was supposed to love me no matter what- despite everyone else deciding I wasn't good enough- he reassured me day after f*****g day. I put my faith in him, I trusted him with everything I was saying because he was supposed to understand but he didn't. Shane lied to my face and then went back to my father and told him every god damn thing I had trusted him with." Kim took a breath. She knew she would regret telling Nathan anything at all later one but thought that if these were her last few days, depending on what the CIA done with her, she wanted to get a few things off her chest.

"You can justify Shane's actions because of the importance of power all you want. I get it. You're an asshole, like every other man I've come across." She spoke her last few words with a matter-of-fact tone.

Her speech had pushed Nathan in the direction that her story was more truth than lies yet he didn't want to believe it. He was so used to seeing the story in a different way when being told by his co-workers and by doing his research that Nathan didn't want all of his preconceptions to be false. Everything he had thought about Kim's situation would be completely wrong if what she was saying was true.

Since he started on the case, he had thought of her as a conniving, scheming, selfish person who wanted everything to be her way- that was why he thought she had ran away with the files from the project in order to start something from her father's idea herself. He had imagined her as an intelligent and ruthless human being. He even thought of her as evil but since they had first met, he began to think the story he had taken from everything he learned about her situation could be nothing but lies.

"But I don't mind if you're an asshole or not. I don't expect much more. Once you get me to D.C safe and sound I don't give a crap." Kim spoke gently, coming to terms with the words that were leaving her mouth. She let out a deep breath and rested her head on Nathan's shoulder, admiring the view in front of her amongst the quietness that surrounded them.

Sometimes there were the virtuous among the sinful. But it was difficult for Nathan to face the reality that with bad there was also good- it always had been a struggle for him.