Serve and Protect

Chapter 47

[Content warnings: violence, gun use, blood, death. Please see the end of the chapter for specific details and take care when reading.]

Prime's words played on a loop in Catra's mind until they lost all meaning. What he was telling her to do and the idea of actually going through with it created a cognitive dissonance so strong that Catra's head ached.

She turned the gun over in her hands, hyper aware of the cool metal against her skin. The weight of a handgun — so little yet so heavy — always struck her as strange. She recognized something of herself in it: they were both small, easy to underestimate, but deadly all the same.

The gun felt foreign to her, like a word in a language she didn't understand. Which was strange, because this wasn't the first time she'd held one. All Horde kids were taught to use a gun. As soon as they were strong enough to hold one at eye-level, the kids learned how to clean, load, and fire the small collection of illegal firearms in the Horde's arsenal. The kids weren't allowed to carry them — hell, Catra didn't even have one now, despite her elevated position in the gang — but they had to know how to use them, just in case.

It had been years since Catra fired a gun, but she still remembered how to use it.

The question was: would she use it now?

She could feel Prime's eyes on her, watching. This was a test Catra wasn't sure she could pass.

"Is there a problem?" Prime asked, his voice as cold as a biting winter wind. He dropped his gaze down to where Shadow Weaver sat in a quivering lump on the floor. "I thought this would be easy for you, little sister. After all, think of what she's done to you."

Adrenaline surged through Catra's veins, her nerves flaring. It was as if Prime was reading her thoughts. Did he know how many times she'd wished for an opportunity just like this? The number of nights she lay awake on the filthy mattress she shared with Adora, fantasizing about all the ways she'd get back at Shadow Weaver if only she was a little bit braver? A bullet between the eyes would be a mercy compared to what that miserable woman deserved. Catra would carry the evidence of Shadow Weaver's sins on her until she herself was turned to dust.

In the scars across her arms and back.

In the fissure through her heart that never seemed to heal.

In the way that trust would never come easily ever again.

Yes, Prime was right: killing Shadow Weaver would be the easiest thing Catra ever did.

She watched as her hands repositioned the gun in her grip, seemingly of their own volition. Her finger tip grazed the trigger, feeling the smooth slope of it and marveling at how something so small could lead to so much devastation.

"What are you doing??" Glimmer cried, her wide eyes locked on the gun. "Put that thing down!"

Catra barely heard her over the hammering of her own heart and the rush of blood in her ears. She stared down at Shadow Weaver, both revolted and transfixed by the horrified look on her tormentor's ruined face.

"You wouldn't," Shadow Weaver said, though her tone said she herself wasn't so sure.

"Stand up," Catra commanded. She motioned upward with the barrel of the gun, making Shadow Weaver flinch and Glimmer gasp.

Shadow Weaver hesitated. "Why would—"

"Did I stutter? I said get up!"

This time Shadow Weaver did as she was told. Disheveled and trembling, she scrambled to her feet and held her hands up, pleading. "Catra, please. I—"