Nothing was worse than failure; Katherine had discovered that minutes within her first mission's miserable end. Failure meant beatings. Failure meant being treated even worse than Elizabeth on a bad day. Failure was a horrible thing to experience. Failure was unacceptable. If she was being honest with herself, and she never was, this treatment from their caretaker was odd. It didn't matter though, not at this time. What mattered now was getting back to the shared residence and cleaning herself off. She was almost as bloody as the dead body on the floor next to her right arm. The suit, pencil skirt, and heels she wore didn't allow for a lot of movement, so the struggle had been difficult and had contained a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. The struggle had been so difficult, in fact, that Katherine had still not gotten up from the hardwood floor. Rolling onto her stomache and pushing herself up as quickly as she could on the bloodslick wooden floor, she began looking for her briefcase and the carton of gasoline that she had brought along. While Katherine may have been young in human years, she wasn't stupid. Figuring that the Americans felt the same way about murder as Mother Russia, walking down the street at night covered in blood when a murder had been discovered recently wasn't the best idea for remaining inconspicuous.

Quickly locating her previously forgotten briefcase, Katherine began to pull her bloody clothes off. After her dress shirt had gotten caught in the bun that was holding her long brown hair up for the umpteenth time she simply pulled at it until her curly hair tumbled down her back. The dressing process moved much faster after that, and after finding a mirror and checking her outfit, which was identical to the previous one, she kicked off her heels and held them in one hand. Her other hand grabbed the opened gasoline as she left the crime scene, steadily pouring gasoline and smashing picture frames of a happy family as she went.

"Katherine, what the hell are you doing?"

The man who had spoken was not a man, but a boy. Just as Katherine was not a woman, but a girl. Katherine stopped walking when she got to the porch, turning to face the boy who had spoken, "Salutations, Jacolby," was her only reply, spoken in her thick Russian accent. Jacolby stomped over to Katherine, grabbing her solid green tie and harshly pulling her towards him. His crystal eyes shone as he searched her face quickly and angrily until Katherine pushed him away, forcing him to release her. He willingly released het at the push and he stepped back. Hands dropping to his side and curling into fists, Jacolby narrowed his eyes at her angrily.

"What the hell is this? You said this was over, that you were done."

He was obviously desperate for an answer, his New Yorker accent shining when he spoke. Katherine regarded him cooly, both not understanding what he was saying and why he was there in the first place. I do not have time to converse with old ghosts at the moment, Katherine thought while she stared at him passively.

"Farewell, Jacolby of the Adams manor. May we meet again in hell."

Katherine quickly splashed Jacolby with gasoline before pulling out her matchbox. With a practiced flick of her wrist, the threw it into the corner of the porch where it landed on a declaratively weaved chair. Jacolby cursed as fire immediately sprung to life and began to eat away at the house, and he cursed again when Katherine kicked him to the ground. His blue eyes met her bright green ones before she swiftly turned away. Walking at a brisk pace to escape the hungry flames, she stumbled on her sore feet as she walked away from her injured friend and the burning house she had left him in.

Four minutes later, Katherine was still walking away from the blazing house and her terrible mistake, the container empty and no longer pouring gasoline as she walked down the sidewalk in the direction of the manor. Katherine felt like a mess; her red lipstick had faded, her feet hurt from walking without shoes, tears were pouring from her eyes because of the smoke, and her heart hurt for no apparent reason. The events of her misdion kept teplaying in her mind like a broken record, making her unfocused and more prone to stumbling. The quick vibration of a call from her phone startled her, making her stumble once again and nearly making her trip and eat concrete. She quickly pulled it out of her suit jackets pocket, flipping it open and accepting the call just in time.

"Salutations-"

"Where in the bloody hell are you?

"Salutations, sister Elizabeth. I am on my way back. Also, we are aware that you are British, but we are also aware that you can tone down your accent."

"You are truly insufferable, you git. Get home before the bitch considers you late."

"If I put together the evidence, I can assume that you are hiding in limbo at the moment, so that our dear Mother does not hear your harsh words."

"Fuck no, I'm in the kitchen. I'm not scared of that pixiestick twat."

The call ended with a quick beep from the other end. Quickly flipping her phone shut, Katherine slowly put it back in her pocket. While she usually would have called on sister Mary to pick her up or to drop off a firm of transportation, Katherine felt like she should walk home this time.

****

By the time Katherine arrived at the manor, Mother was waiting for her in the Foyer. Mother was a strange creature; nobody in the house knew exactly what to call her. Mother towered over everyone in the manor, and none of them, aside from Mia, were short. The thing they called mother was terrifying, but almost beautiful in a horrific way. Mother was extremely tall, and she was unnaturally thin; her arms hung down to what would be her knees, this as rope used to hang criminals. Her legs were only slightly thicker than her arms, and they were horrifically long as well. Mother had a long neck, and, in Katherine's opinion, a beautiful face. Mother was paler than the moon, with large eyes so dark that you could swear she didn't even have them. Mother's hair was very black and very straight; it follower the curve if her head and neck, which made an odd looking shadow, but it was still beautiful. Mother dressed them in the same way it dressed itself; a suit jacket, a dress shirt, a tie, a pencil skirt, and black heels. Mother was beautiful.

Katherine looked up at Mother lovingly, and Mother looked down at her as she usually did; without expression. Mother's hands, with fingers like needles, gently cradled Katherine's face. "You are late," Mother said in her usual whispery tone. The soft treatment of the thin hands became harsh as Mother shifted them. "I apologize, Mother. I will do better next time, Mother," Katherine replied in her sweetest voice as she continued to look at Mother.

No other words were exchanged, sweet or not, as Mother shook its head and snapped Katherine's neck.