Kai almost visibly preened at being told acknowledged that his sixteen-year-old self had been highly trained. Look where I am now, sensei, he thought, more bitter than gloating. He knew he ought to keep his feelings under wraps, not give away an ounce that he didn't want Madeline to see, but what the hell, the good doctor knew talent when she saw it. Heard about it. Ever since Selina Kyle had slunk into his life and kicked his achievements in the stomach, he'd craved appreciation.
Focus, he warned himself. Madeline might be want to be on his side, but this was formal flattery while she made him dredge up that night. His pacing around the cell picked up speed. The walls seemed to be shrinking closer, the darkness from the back of the tiny room rushing forward to grab him. He coiled an arm around the bars of the cell, leaning nonchalantly against them as he struggled to re-orient himself.
Matchbox-sized filthy space. Comfortingly, there was the window on one end, and the unwelcome view of Blackgate's interior on the other. This wasn't solitary. Firmly facing Madeline, he dropped back to his emotionless, formal tone of voice. He even kept out the asperity when he said: "The girl did not stop me. She only interfered."
He could re-imagine every detail of the Galler Gallery. The only security had been the patrolling guards. The exhibits had been ensured, but there was CCTV without laser grids or electrified fences. Drop-kicking Selina through a stone statue hadn't set off a single alarm. He refocused. The iron-wrought gates swam into view. The old-fashioned house-turned-gallery building formed three walls around the great statue of the pharaoh. On his lap, sat a larger-than-life cat. He, too, was protected by an enormous empty suit of armour and the traditional American Lady Justice statue. Kai remembered the grooves worn into the pharaoh's stone headdress, his shoulders, chips broken off from his face. The dome of the cat's head was polished and gleamed in the moonlight, as he skimmed the rooftop of the gallery building, looking to make his descent.
"The girl came from below to steal the bejewelled medallion around the pharaoh's neck. It bore a picture of Bast; she was expected to bless him in the afterlife." Kai shrugged, trying not to pass too much judgment on whoever had built the thing. It had been the centrepiece of his struggles, for better or for worse, so he wasn't about to crap on its failed iconology. "I threw her into the suit of armour, but she did not relinquish her grip. She was a common thief who retaliated with her whip; I caught it. But it was too late."
Memories of his effortless victory didn't bring him any pleasure. Every time the sole of his foot connected with her vital organs, or his fist into her face… The memory was tainted by how she eventually got her revenge by usurping his life. The three parallel scars down the right side of his face still stung from the time Selina had scratched him.
"She had touched the statue. Defiled it. I should have killed her for getting in the way. I swore to kill her if I ever saw her again." He said it so matter-of-factly that he needed to do a double-take to remember Madeline was in the room. That there were ears everywhere in Blackgate. He was already on his way to death row for what he did to Whidmore; casually admitting to violent tendencies might fasttrack his way there. In a weak attempt to move away from there, he added, "That is how she stopped me. Without skill of her own, but by her sheer filthy presence and poor timing. As for why Bast…"
He drew away from the bars of the cell, no longer needing physical support. His mind flicked back pages and years, trying to remember who he'd been before his idealism was ground down to just being a bodyguard-killer for hire. He relived the desperation bid for power from his childhood, but the softer details were gone. He shrugged, like it didn't matter. "I was told from a former sensei the statue would be an appropriate centrepiece."
It sounded as plausible as whatever the truth could have been.
