AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yeah. At this point, it could get very porn-y.
It doesn’t, though. I slowly walk forward, pull down my cloak—who knows why I’m in a cloak instead of my normal hoodie, but whatever—and Libby muffles a startled scream. She keeps her composure. It’s very Beauty and the Beast. Her eyes widen, but she is touched by my innate, kitten-rescuing kindness. She takes my hand and doesn’t wince at its coating of fine hair. “Won’t you come in? I’m all alone on Valentine’s Day.”
“Not anymore.” I thrust the flowers at her.
More swooning.
Kissing. I slip into her apartment and it feels like home, with the four of us.
I sigh.
These kittens have a lot to accomplish.
Chapter Seventeen: Libby
Returning to work comes with the best gift ever! Not only have my eyes and nose stopped running, but there is also a bunch of healthy kittens and one long, lean black mama cat with fierce golden eyes and a low “I will rip your face off” growl in her chest. Only Doc can get near her kittens.
“We’re going to spay her and release her back into the feral community in about a month. After they’ve had some shots and a few days of evaluation, I’ll take them to a feral fostering expert I know of. The kittens can stay there until they’re old enough to neuter or spay, and then we’ll release them, too.” Doc squints at the cage full of kittens and the light shines off the silver bars just right, meaning his eyes are hidden under flat silver discs. My spine shudders.
Probably still getting over that cold. Or maybe it is my heart sinking so fast that it buckles my back.
“R-return them to the wild? But, Doc, couldn’t I foster one? Or adopt one? I’ve always wanted a kitten. Ever since I was four, I wanted a kitten I could name Felix, like the Felix the Cat cartoons we used to watch. A little black kitten with a white tummy and white paws. I found one at the SPCA, and he was going to come live with us right when school let out so I’d have someone to play with during the summer.”
I stop talking as the happy memory goes sour. So many of my memories do. The SPCA called the landlord to make sure that pets were okay. The landlord we had back then was drunk at the time. Heck, he was always drunk, which made him terrible at fixing things, and likely to try to use his key when he thought he could catch my mom in her nightgown. Even though he had promised and sworn upside down that it was okay to have a cat, he yelled at the woman from the SPCA and said he didn’t let his tenants have pets, not so much as a canary or a goldfish.
Mom couldn’t convince them otherwise, so she dragged a crying, screaming four-year-old down to the Dairy Queen to get a Blizzard and curse out Drunky McDrunkerson.
Come to think of it.... That night was the first night I heard my mother play her metal really loud, and I watched her stomping and thrashing in the kitchen making dinner, letting all her anger out.
And I got it. You could scream and stomp and rage because sometimes life hurt and you couldn’t do anything but be mad... and if you punched out all the people who deserved it, you’d lose your apartment.
Thus, the four-year-old metalhead was born...
“I take it the adoption wasn’t completed?”
My voice is soft and short. “No.”
“I’m sorry. Later on? Did... did you ever have a pet growing up?” Doc’s gentle voice cuts the painful memories away like debriding a wound.
“Not... not a cat.” We moved around a lot. I stuck to little things I could keep safe in cages and hide in case the next landlord turned out to be an ass. “It’s one reason I became a vet tech and want to be a vet one day. I can be with all the pets.”
Doc opens his mouth—and it buzzes.
“Oh. The phone.”
“Ah. Just hold that thought, Libby. And-uh—don’t touch the kittens. Mama won’t like that.”
Don’t I know it. “Okay, Doc.”
I sit across from the kennel and look at the kittens with my head on my knees, silence and sadness welling up in me. In the stillness, I can hear soft purring from contented little bodies as they nurse and the soft, low rumble of Peterson’s voice.
“I’m not sure how much, but definitely part bog cat. Six. No, I think that’s why two were rejected. Too dangerous for ordinary humans. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll bring them by next week.”
Bog cat?
What the hell is a bog cat? I bet he said bobcat. He must have said bobcat.
But what the hell did he mean by ordinary humans?
