Arriving at Shadow's base, Katherine kept her usual attitude when she got inside despite her troubled heart. She went directly to her own bedroom which was on the west wing of the base – every agent in Shadow had their own quarters even though they have their own places outside the base after they become full-fledged agents so going to her own room was not out of the ordinary.
When she entered her room, she locked the door, opened the ceiling vent and pulled herself up gracefully like she had done it plenty of times in the past.
Crawling her way through the small space, she pushed herself forward until she reached a certain office which was on the opposite wing. Reaching her destination, she stopped and peeked through the hole to make sure no one was there before she pushed the vent cover and climbed out of it. She was now in Parker's office.
"Sh*t." A curse escaped her mouth when her arm got scraped as she tried to get out.
Deciding to get into Parker's office was very dangerous for her but she had to do it because she was sure to get the information that she needed from his computer. It was impossible for her to do so in Chris' office because it had glass walls and the agents on the training ground would definitely see anyone who came inside his office.
"Alright, let's see what you're hiding in here, Parker." Katherine sat on his chair and started typing on his keyboard.
Every agent was taught a certain level of hacking, therefore, getting into Parker's security was not going to be a challenge — or so she thought.
Except, she did not know that to gain access into the confidential files on his computer just like Operation Scorpion, there was another security measure: Parker's blood. Her eyes darted to the side and saw that there was a small device beside the computer that had a tiny needle poking out of it.
"Son of a-" Katherine scoffed. "You sure are very meticulous." Resigning, she didn't have a choice but to leave. Hearing footsteps and noises from outside the door, she hurriedly climbed in the vent again and was able to close it just in time when Parker and Styles came in the office.
Katherine heard them talking about the next missions and how they were going to go about it. Hearing Styles's voice, an idea suddenly hit her.
'Time for Plan B,' she thought.
She crawled once again until she reached her bedroom. Fixing her things like nothing happened, Katherine put on her normal-looking face before walking back to the hall and headed towards the IT station.
Entering the room, Katherine saw that there were only a couple of people inside. One IT guy looked at her as if questioning her presence inside their domain. She flashed him a friendly and flirty smile and placed her delicate hand on his shoulder, subtly running her finger on his nape like it was unintentional. "Don't mind me, sweetheart. I'm just here to do some research." She winked at the already blushing IT guy, making him go red even more.
Katherine was doing it so casually that she seemed so natural but the poor IT guy almost bled his nose and peed his pants because a really beautiful agent with the softest fingers just touched his neck.
He didn't say anything and just faced his computer, trying to avoid Katherine's sticky gaze while she sat down at Styles's table very slowly.
As soon as her face was covered by the monitor, Katherine's serious look replaced the slutty one. Her expression changed in a split second and no one even noticed it. With quick fingers, she was able to get into her personal mission.
Her fingers danced across the keyboard like she was very used to what she was doing and in a matter of seconds, she had already hacked into Chris's computer remotely from Styles's desk. Because of her close relationship with Styles, he gave her free access to his computer. Chris wasn't in his office at the moment so she had the chance. Using Chris's login credentials, which she secretly got a couple of years ago, she was able to access the file that she wanted. Unlike Parker who had more secrets, Chris didn't have that friggin' blood security measure.
Without reading the file that she wanted to see, Katherine copied it to her flash drive. She had just closed the windows from Chris's drive when she saw a bunch of the agents' folders in Styles's hard drive including her name. Her brows furrowed when she opened it and saw hundreds of files inside. She wanted to read them right there but she didn't have any more time so she quickly copied those instead.
"What are you doing in here, my Queen?" Styles appeared in front of her when she had only managed to close everything that she opened.
Smiling like nothing happened, Katherine casually flipped her hair and acted nonchalantly as she stood up. "Nothing much, I just did a research about my next mission. Are you heading home already?" She changed the subject smoothly.
Styles didn't notice anything unusual from her so his response was also just like usual. "Not yet, I need to finish up some things first."
"Okay, well... I have to go. I need to do laundry." She rolled her eyes like it was annoying for her to do the chore. She patted Styles on the head before she finally headed out of the base.
...
Katherine's Apartment
Katherine was in her living room, painstakingly going over the file in her computer. She had just discovered the most heartbreaking thing after opening the Operation Scorpion document.
She could not fathom how that person could do that to her parents. Her parents were the most kindest people in their city yet they were killed cold blooded because of that wretched human being.
Katherine then swore to avenge her parents' death no matter who they were and no matter who was in her way—she will persevere.
But she did not stop there as she opened the other files that she found on Styles's drive and learned the disgusting and painfully distressing truth. Every file she opened was like digging her own grave in the darkest soil. It felt like she had reached hell after knowing everything, causing her to rush to the toilet and puke her guts out.
She was horrified and repulsed.
Katherine felt like she wouldn't be able to recover from the shock that she just experienced. Tears streamed down her face as her heart continuously broke into pieces as if that was possible to happen over and over again. The more she walked, the heavier she felt.
Unknowingly, she had already reached her large walk-in closet.
Seeing everything that Shadow gave her for her missions like the clothes and accessories, she felt sick.
"All those people… All those people died…" Katherine collapsed on the floor as she let out a sorrowful scream.
Katherine had just found out that among the people whom she had killed before, there were actually innocent lives who died in her hands because of the lies that Parker fed her. All the missions that were direct orders from Parker were actually "assassination missions". She was ordered to kill with no questions after telling her that this and that man did horrible things when the truth was, some of them were just innocent enemies of vile politicians or wealthy people.
Because she did not doubt Shadow before, she believed that everyone she killed or every mission that Parker ordered was for the good of the country.
Katherine had just discovered that she was not actually raised by Shadow just to be a secret agent but rather she was trained to be an assassin.
She was broken.
After some time, Katherine's tears had stopped flowing however, she was still enraged. Getting up from the floor, she pressed a button on the table and the center shelves in her closet opened, revealing her equipped armory.
She scanned the rows of weapons before picking out a few things. "You raised me to be an assassin. How could I ever disappoint you?"
...
Riding her Ducati, Katherine arrived at Shadow's base in just a few minutes. She entered it as per usual and went to some specific locations of each wing, secretly stashing something on inconspicuous places.
Katherine had just made the best and the worst decision in her life. She was already going to hell anyway... so why not go with a blast? Literally. To hell with Parker and his Shadow. She knew what she was doing was probably not the best idea there was but because of her hatred and extreme rage against Shadow, she no longer cared.
"Tonight, I will show you Queen's wrath. You must be proud."
Meanwhile, Chris had just discovered something on his computer screen when he sat in his office chair. Looking at the notification, his eyes went fierce and his jaw clenched.
In the IT station, Styles received a text message from Katherine in which he quickly responded.
Queen: [ You home yet? Wanna grab dinner? ]
Styles: [ Soon. 5m and I'm out. See you. ]
About five minutes later, Chris entered the IT station with a murderous aura. When he found Styles, he angrily walked towards him and without second thoughts, he grabbed his collar and dragged him out of the station until they reached an area where there were no other people.
"Hey! What's going on? Where are you taking me, goddamit!"
Chris pushed Styles against the wall and almost choked him with his hand. "Why the f*ck did you hack into my computer? Do you have a death wish?"
"What are you talking about? Why would I do that?"
"Then if it wasn't you, why would I have a notification that it came from your computer? Huh?!" He pushed harshly again and Styles winced in pain.
"It wasn't me! I swear!" Styles denied until his voice trailed off. "Katherine…"
"What?"
"Katherine was at my desk when I arrived."
Chris' face went pale and the two of them headed back right away but before reaching the main lobby, they saw Katherine leaving through the exit.
"Katherine!" Styles called out making her snap her head to his direction. Her eyes went wide as she yelled out, "What are you still doing here?!"
Before Styles and Chris could even say anything else, an extremely loud and groundbreaking disturbance cracked through the entire base.
And just like that, Shadow's base blew up.