Utterly Mad

The truck roared to life and Catnip jumped, slamming down the hood and yipping her success to the sky. If the truck suddenly and noisily coming to life didn't pull L from her dire recollection, Catnip sprinting to the window and pounding on it with the palms of her hands most certainly did. "It runs L! It runs!" The truck behind her lurched forward with Kyle behind the wheel. He waved to L, showing a smile that almost glowed with delight. The small patch seemed to lean in the direction of the truck, perhaps sensing it's vibrations but unable to reach whatever it was disrupting the air. Once the truck was out of the back yard and Catnip back inside talking L's ear off, Kyle went back with a jar of diesel set the dangerous patch aflame.

"Can you imagine what we could get done with a tow truck like that? The kind of stuff we could haul?" Catnip asked. L grimaced, the mechanic had grand ideas and grand plans. L had seriously grown to like her like a long time friend in only a couple days. She could tell that Kyle felt something too. Catnip wanted to earn her keep, earn her way home. She would certainly earn, but not her keep and not in the way she seemed to think.

Kyle came back around, tossing both their tools and some scavenged parts and supplies into the tow truck. "Kyle," L called, "Kyle can I talk to you? In private?" She glanced at Catnip playing with the crane and making adjustments.

"Yeah, sure, what do you need L?" Kyle asked. He didn't like the conflict he saw in the set of her body, but how could he when he felt it too?

"Kyle, are we really going to do this? I mean... Can we really just let Mark..." She couldn't finish, but she didn't have to.

"Put a collar on her? I don't know. I don't want to, and I can see you don't either."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. I think I'll talk to Mark when we get back, maybe he'll-"

"He won't though! That's the real problem isn't it?!" L shouted, anger rising to the front of her mind. She knew as well as Kyle did that once his mind was made up, Mark wasn't going to change it. More, this whole scavenging trip had been one massive financial loss. Mark would take the easy way out and sell off what he could. It didn't matter if the debtors gave him time to pay them off or not, he wouldn't want the responsibility hanging over his head. It wasn't just Catnip either, Kyle saw. L was still technically a debt slave. He could just as easily slap a collar back around her neck as well as Catnip's if it crossed his mind to.

Catnip was watching them, grinning a sly ratty grin ear to ear at them. Pleased as punch to be helping out. Happy to be working, doing something she loved. Kyle and L looked back, smiling their troubled smiles. Were they really going to clap this young girl in irons and sell her to the highest bidder? This young, talented mechanic who wanted nothing more than to help as best she could and find a way home?

"Maybe..." Whispered L, "We should just... leave him behind?" Kyle didn't say anything. They couldn't do that. As much as they disliked it, they couldn't leave him. Not because they couldn't, but because Catnip most likely wouldn't.

"She has no idea." Kyle said ashamedly.