Page 111 of Tracking Snow

"I don’t suppose you want to use your super speed abilities and grab this asshole lickety split?" I ask One, panting from exertion.

All he does is continue to look at me with that haunted look.

"Right." I return to the game, ready for the second half. It only takes another few minutes before I’ve edged Lucifer out onto the fire escape.

With a final hiss, he gives me his little puckered asshole and leaps off the ledge to trot down the stairs.

I round on One, brushing away the hair stuck to my sweaty face, out of breath and feeling like I’ve run a mile. "Okay, so I know why I don’t like the black furry avatar of Satan, but what’s your deal with him?"

One opens his mouth, but the screech of tires interrupts him, followed by a long loud honk. I get to the window in time to see it.

Lucifer is in the street, black fur stark against the yellow line, his head whipping toward the oncoming headlights.

For one awful second, he freezes.

The front right tire catches him before the car fully stops, dragging him under with a sickening thump.

"Lucifer!" I scream out even as I yank the first-floor window open and climb over the sill. My boots hit the narrow strip of alley grass outside before I sprint for the street.

The car peels off with a guilty level of speed. I don’t even have it in me to scream after them, instead I drop down next to the cat. My hands over his crushed body, afraid to touch him as if I might do him more damage.

It’s my fault. If I hadn’t forced him out of the apartment...if I hadn’t exhausted him, he would have probably skittered out of the way. But the center of his body is dented from where the tire rolled over him, and grief grips every muscle in my body as I desperately wish I could take it back.

"You fucking horrible, horrible cat." Tears stream down my face. "You can’t go die. That’s..." I swallow a sob with a sniffle, "rude."

I sense when One comes to stand behind me. "Snow," he says gently.

"I’d threatened to kill him a hundred times, but I never really meant it." I can’t stop crying, and I can’t help but pick up his limp body and hold him to mine. "He was an asshole, but I didn’t really want him dead. And nobody probably even cares that he’s gone. He always hung around our apartment, no home, no family. I should have been nicer."

"Snow," One says again. "You need to put him down."

I shake my head, my tears soaking his fur. I bury my face in him.

"Snow," One says with such uncharacteristic sharpness, I look up at him.

"You need to put the cat down, sweetheart, or you’re going to get scratched to hell in two seconds."

"What?" I look up at him, like he’s lost his mind. The poor cat has just been run over and he thinks⁠—

"Ow!" I cry out, as the body suddenly jerks up, claws out and swiping.

I drop the furry body the same time my hand claps to my neck. I pull it away and find a little blood.

My skin goes ice cold while my blood rushes hot. Two images keep grinding together, Lucifer crushed in my arms, Lucifer alive on the street, and my stomach turns.

The dent is still in my hands. My fingers stay curled around the weight of a dead cat.

But Lucifer shakes himself off, as if disgusted I ever touched him. His ears flatten and his tail lashes once. Then he lifts a paw and starts licking it.

"What. The. Hell." I'm not sure what the fuck is happening. "He was dead. His body had a tire-sized dent." My words come out through numb lips.

After finishing licking his paw, Lucifer flashes me his arsehole for the second time tonight before trotting off into the dark.

I round on One. "You knew. How did you know?"

His discomfort is palpable as he digs his toe into the ground and avoids my eye. "The cat is...he is...that one has more than nine lives."

I get to my feet. "More than nine lives?" I throw my hands in the air, completely unsatisfied with his answer. "What are you talking about?"