Read Chamber 9 :: Chapter 4, Pt I: Cat and Dog

As Dak Lang Lau regained consciousness, he saw the blurry outline of Kat’s face in front of him.

“Good evening Dak Lang!” greeted Kat with a warm smile.

“You! Where's Rudy?!” snarled Lang.

“I’m right here Dad,” dully responded Rudy from the corner of the room. She was rubbing her temple with her hand.

“Huh?! You’re not dead?!”

“Thanks for believing in me, Dad.”

“What’s going on? Why aren’t you two fighting? What happened to your face?!”

“Long story. Basically, we ain’t tryna kill each other… for now,” Rudy answered.

Suddenly, a large shadow perched on the bedroom window.

“Onee-chan, are you okay?”

“Adrian! I told you to stop following me on my missions. You know I work alone.”

“Hey! I know you! You're the Takagi with deep pockets!” exclaimed Rudy.

“What does she mean by that? Do you two know each other?” Kat asked.

“He’s good business for us,” grinned Rudy. “Wait, are you two siblings? The hell you Takagis eating to get so damn tall?”

“What happened to your face?" cried Adrian, "Your ear is bleeding too!"

Kat waved him off, “Dog had more bite than I thought, hand me my coat over there Adri.”

Adrian passed the coat to Kat, from which she pulled out a small black pouch.

The next moment, five men in full tactical gear burst through the small bedroom door. They swiftly formed a half crescent formation around Kat and Adrian, their rifles trained on them.

“Rudy! Lang! Is everything alright? Where’s Wu lóuh báan?” said Koeng.

“Stand down Wolf team, they’re not a threat,” Rudy ordered.

“Aiya, not a threat!? Lang looks like shit, but you! You looked like you got a clinic pulled on you! There’s a fucking hole in your cheek! Who are they?!” demanded Koeng.

“Takagis,” plainly stated Rudy. Her left brow twitched at Koeng’s commentary.

“Huh?! Aren’t they here to wipe Queens off the face of the earth?”

“Hey! We’re assassins, not nuclear bombs,” corrected Kat.

“Long story Koeng Suk, but they ain’t going off, not yet,” Rudy explained. “We made a deal of some sort. We’re looking for Wu Suk and the Takagi who killed the First Finger.”

“Wu lóuh báan’s missing?! A Takagi killed the First Finger?!” Koeng exclaimed.

“A bit stuffy in here, ain’t it?” casually remarked Kat.

The small bedroom in Queens felt even smaller, stuffed with nine of the Underworld’s deadliest men and women.

“Koeng Suk, go downstairs, secure the safehouse, and form a perimeter. Get someone to look into Wu Suk’s whereabouts and some ice for my dad,” groaned Rudy as she collapsed onto Koeng’s shoulder.

“Rudy!” Koeng and Lang cried.

“I got this,” reassured Kat as she pulled Rudy off of Koeng.

“Sit down,” Kat ordered as she forced Rudy down onto a chair.

“Huh? Why the fuck should I listen to you?” spat Rudy.

“You should probably shut up if you don’t want that hole in your cheek from getting any bigger.”

“What? You some kinda doctor? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Actually, I am,” said Kat as she pulled a pair of bright blue nitrile gloves from the small bag and stretched them over her hands. “A psychiatrist, actually, but I’ve done my fair share of suturing with my other job. Adri, tetsudatte*.”

Adrian grabbed the small bag and stood next to Kat like a seasoned surgery technician.

“You’re shitting me! You take lives, not save them. Who the fuck let a murdering machine like you become a doctor?”

Kat retorted with a mist of antiseptic onto Rudy’s cheek.

“Ow scheiße! That hurts! This part of your pre-execution torture?!”

“Calm down, it’s just a bit of antiseptic. Don’t want an infection making your mouth more foul than it already is.”

“Oh, aren’t you high class for someone whose lineage is famous for putting people in the forever box.”

“Don’t need to hear that from a family that gives out guns like free candy.”

“Hey! We sell quality goods to worthy customers! You’ll back me up, right, Adrian?!”

Both Kat and Rudy snapped their gazes to him. Adrian stiffened, caught between an angry panther and a hungry wolf.

“Uuuuuuuuh,” Adrian blinked as sweat beaded over his brow.

A Takagi, a harbinger of death, was treating a wound on Rudina Lau, the Iron Door, thought Koeng as he looked at the two bickering in disbelief. “You two get along like a cat and a dog.”

“Shut up,” the two said in unison.

Koeng promptly left the room to join the rest of the Wolves downstairs, his brows still furrowing in an attempt to understand all that transpired within the past hour.

“Adri, pass me the lidocaine.”

Kat forcefully grabbed Rudy’s chin and turned it to the side before sticking the needle next to the wound.

“Tch. I thought you were done putting holes in me,” grunted Rudy.

“You’d rather feel the sutures being passed through your skin? I wouldn’t mind that if that’s what you wanted, but now I need you to shut up, for real this time.”

With a needle driver in her right hand and the Adson forceps in her left, Kat elegantly weaved the needle through the edge of Rudy’s wound. Rudy winced but avoided making any noises by clenching her teeth. Kat continued her work, graceful and precise as she produced a neat, simple interrupted suture. She snipped the ends of the suture, sprayed some antiseptic on a piece of sterile dressing, and taped it over the suture.

“There. Now we still need to do the suturing inside of your cheek, but I’d rather not do that here. I’ll also give you some antibiotics later. At least you don’t have a gaping hole in your cheek now. Don’t go yapping the sutures out though. As for the blunt force trauma I gave to your chest, liver, and temple… you’ll walk that off. You’re tougher than you look,” said Kat, patting Rudy’s shoulder with a wry smile.

“Tch,” scoffed Rudy with a bombastic side eye.

She reached up to touch the dressing with her left hand. Kat swatted her hand away like a cat’s paw.

“Don’t touch it.”

“Ow! What are you? My mom?” Rudy grumbled, then blinked at the blood dripping onto Kat’s collar.

“Hey, what about your ear? It’s still bleeding.”

“You gonna apologize for it?”

“Fuck no, not after what you did to my mouth. Why are you treating me first, though?”

“My patients take first priority,” Kat said.

Her sincere smile caught Rudy off guard.

“Hmph, you ain’t bad, for a quack,” said Rudy.

She turned to the side, her cheeks looking a little warmer than usual.

“Thank you. Can I also call you Rudy?”