AN: I finally have a small break from the stressful thing that is life, which means more updates! Yay!

Katherine had completely lost track of how long she'd been in the basement. She knew it couldn't have been all that long, and yet she still couldn't remember the last time she'd slept. She was given one cup of water a day, and she'd only been given one meal so far - if you could call a piece of bread a meal. She didn't know how much longer she could go, and felt bad about thinking that. She was sure most of the boys had gone longer without eating, but she'd never gone more than a day. Her back ached from the regular beatings, not to mention any other physical assaults The Man felt like giving her.

Katherine pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees. She wondered how Jack handled things like this when he was in The Refuge. Then again, she already knew part of it... maybe it'd work for her too. She heaved a sigh, and began to imagine what it was like in Santa Fe. Hopefully it would provide an escape for her just as it did for Jack, because if it didn't, she wasn't sure how she would be able to stay sane.

oOo

Jack was pretty sure he was going crazy. He'd looked everywhere he could imagine a kidnapper would take someone, and nothing had happened with any of the posters he drew. It had been almost two weeks by now, and he was terrified every time he thought of what would happen to Katherine if they missed the deadline. He didn't have the faintest idea what to do, but he had to do something. So, every day after selling, he wandered around, checking the same spots, hoping something would happen.

And then something did.

"Hey, kid." Jack stopped and looked around, despite the fact that he was alone, so this person was obviously talking to him. He turned to see a simply-dressed woman who looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties looking at him. "You're Jack Kelly, yeah?"

"Who're you?"

The woman laughed at his suspicion. "Relax, I ain't gonna hurt you. Does Pulitzer have the money?"

"I dunno what you're talking about."

"Yeah you do." She rolled her eyes. "I work with the guy who took Pulitzer's daughter."

"The - "

"Not the kid on your posters, that's Colin, he just delivered the message. He was s'posed to come find you, but he's a coward, thinks the posters were done by the cops. Clever idea, by the way, too bad it didn't work."

Jack shook his head. There were so many thoughts and questions going through his head, he didn't know which ones to voice. "Katherine... she's okay?"

"She's fine, for now. I ain't seen her though, we aren't allowed in. I'm not here for you to ask questions, though. Don't suppose you got the money on you."

"Does I look like the kinda person who carries 500 dollars around in my pocket?"

"Fair enough. But Pulitzer has it?"

"Yeah, we - "

"Take me to him."

It was safe enough to say that Jack hated this woman already, and he definitely didn't trust her. But he figured if she wasn't who she said she was, Pulitzer could deal with her. So, he began leading her to The World (a place he'd been far too often for his liking lately) and naively hoped that this would all come to an end soon and Katherine would return home.