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Although she'd been waiting for it, Nathan's sudden shout from behind still managed to startle Katherine and she jumped. She looked up at him with a glare, but before she could fully register the fact that he was coming towards her with a borderline terrifying expression her phone was ripped out of her hands and sent flying across the parking lot. She heard it land with a distant clack on the cement, the screen more than likely turned into a spiderweb or hairline cracks if it didn't shatter completely. She turned back to him, jaw set, both rage and some perverted sense of lust making her head swim. "You shithead," she bit out, but her words were dominated completely by his next outburst, and it was as though she hadn't spoken at all. In fact, she doubted very much whether he'd even registered that she'd said something, let alone heard her. When he began ranting about how he should have killed Frank, how she was a liar, she tried to open her mouth in protest but he drowned her out again. There were still frustrated tears in her eyes but she had, at least, managed not to let them fall. She was almost relieved to hear it was the cops that had taken Frank, that he wasn't being tortured somewhere by one of Nate's goons, but her relief was short-lived, and not only because of the charges that could and would almost definitely be brought against him. It was Nate's proclamation that Frank was behind bars being raped that jarred her. "No!" she shouted, losing herself for a moment. "He would be in a holding cell! He'd have to go through a trial before they locked him up!" Wrong, a voice in her head told her. This isn't America's legal system--this is Arcadia's legal system, owned and operated by the Prescotts. If Nathan asked it and gave his father enough in return, Katherine had no doubt Frank could be behind bars in the county jail right this minute. "You bastard," she whispered, but she didn't move. She wouldn't leave, she knew that as well as she knew that Frank would have to get used to jail for a long, long time. Because despite it all she loved Nathan, and in some sick, demented way, she loved him because of it. "So what are you gonna do now? Start using some totally random dealer? Some product you're not even familiar with?" She laughed sardonically. "You fucked yourself over. Just in time for your stupid fucking Halloween prep club party."

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Katherine felt her body tensing with both anger and real, honest-to-god fear. The idea that he'd gotten him arrested crossed her mind, but she didn't dwell on it, because what she was more scared of was the thought that maybe Nate had only taken the gun out of Frank's mouth last night just to appease her, and had never really had any intentions of letting him live. The way he unfolded his napkin so leisurely and began cutting into his sausage made her blood boil. "Chloe went to pick up and said he's gone," she bit out, watching him with a stare so intent she thought lasers might shoot out of her eyes any moment. "Pompidou is still there. Frank doesn't go anywhere without that dog." She paused, giving Nate a chance to say something, anything, to affirm or deny it (the latter of which she was hoping for, although she clung to that hope feebly. This was Nate's doing, she knew it). And then he did deny it, and Katherine was brought up short. "Have I talked to him?" she repeated incredulously. "Obviously not, or I wouldn't be asking you where he is." She hated that for as much as she really didn't care about anyone else, Nate was even more ruthless than she was. She didn't know why he wasn't owning up to having something to do with Frank's disappearance, just that he was enjoying how flustered she was becoming. "I told you I wouldn't talk to him anymore," she said, her voice rising, soup cooling off to the side. "Why couldn't you just leave him alone, Nate?" That smug look on his face was almost too much for her, and despite how much she loved him, she knew that in a second she would reach across the table and slap him in the face out of frustration. That would end badly not only because she knew she would eventually feel guilty after her temper had cooled, but also because Nate was liable to lash out violently if she did so. She glared at him a moment longer before grabbing her purse and sliding out of the booth. She folded her coat around her and marched out of the diner in a flurry of emotion, something which was incredibly rare for her, considering her emotions were generally subdued. It was this back-and-forth between Nathan and Frank that was driving her mad--she knew she couldn't talk to him anymore despite how much she wanted to, but she could at least live with that. Knowing, however, that Nathan had gone behind her back and done something to him anyway? It made her feel sick. With angry tears in her eyes that she absolutely refused to let spill over her cheeks, she pulled her phone out again and began trying to contact Frank. Half her mind was focused on that, and half was wondering if Nate would come after her, well aware that a majority wanted him to do so, and to force her to stop what she was doing.

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Nate’s subtextual comment about Frank made her give him a sharp look, but she didn’t say anything. She was almost positive he’d meant something by it, but out of both a sense of foreboding and an unwillingness to know what he was talking about, she moved past the subject without a word. She thought it most likely he was giving himself an illusion of control by telling himself he wouldn’t let her buy from Frank anymore, which was fine, since she knew Nate would find someone else fast, and even if he didn’t, it wasn’t as though she couldn’t sneak over to Frank’s RV one night to pick something up. She was absolutely resolute about not letting anything get emotional or sexual with him again, not because she didn’t want it–which a small part of her still did–but because it wasn’t worth losing more of Nathan’s trust if (when) he found out. She loved Nathan. It was just that she loved attention as much as she loved him. And attention from men so much older than her–like Jefferson and Frank–was like a drug. Their greediness for her youth turned her on. With Nathan, it was his bloodlust that did it for her. “Better watch out she doesn’t spit in your food, honey,” Katherine said after Joyce had walked away, both amused and unimpressed by his intentional slip-up of her surname. “It’s not her fault I fucked her daughter.” She said this with a smug smile intended to get under Nathan’s skin. However, the smile slipped quickly when he mentioned Victoria. She supposed bringing up the Vortex Club and that leech Courtney hadn’t been the best way to avoid the topic, but she was annoyed regardless. Slumping a little in her seat with a roll of her dark eyes, she looked away toward the window. As soon as she felt his hand on her thigh, however, a small smirk curved her lips, and his pun didn’t go unnoticed by her. She laughed softly and slipped her hand under the table to cover his. “You know I–” But whatever it was she was going to say went unsaid, because at that moment her phone started vibrating again, this time with a call. From Chloe. “Hold on,” she said impatiently, answering the call and lifting the phone to her ear. “Chloe, seriously, I’ll call you later when I’m–” She stopped talking when Chloe cut her off, rambling on about how she was picking something up from Frank but he wasn’t there, just the dog, and did Katherine know where he was, because she really needed some fucking pot. Katherine’s throat tightened and she looked at Nathan with her jaw set and her shoulders suddenly tense. “I’ll call you back,” she said, and ended the call, placing the phone back down on the table. Joyce came by with their food, but Katherine only had eyes for Nathan, her stare burning a hole in his skull. Joyce must have sensed the sudden tension, because she didn’t even stick around to refill their mugs, which were almost empty. “What’d you do?” she said softly, her voice tight. “Where’s Frank, Nate?”

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gypseann

@thekatwalk: 180 mgs of morphine, 15 mgs of methadone. see y’all bitches l8r.