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“No,” I say again, defying Widow for a second time.

“Ava . . .” She sighs, stands. “It can’t—”

“I am going up to the office,” I say through my teeth, boldly taking a step toward her. “I am getting gloves, I am getting a clean towel, and I am coming back here and when I do, I’ll find this cat alive and w—”

I cut myself off, aware of the impossibility of what I was about to say.

“It ain’t gonna be well,” Widow finishes for me. “But I won’t kill it.”

Things are even worse under the light. Widow rolls the examining table into the office, and we get our first good look at the extent of the injuries. I know it’s bad—real bad. I’ve worked here long enough to know that the smell coming off her body is rot. But the kitten rolls her head, meets my gaze with her one eye. Like Pete Wagner, she can’t say what happened. But her tiny, skeletal tail twitches.

“The jaw’s half gone,” Widow warns me. “Any time she tries to eat, food will fall out the side of her mouth.”

“I’ll push it back in.”

“For the rest of her life?” Widow asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“This tail will need debridement.” Widow sighs, clinical gaze returning to the cat. “Front paws, too. Whatever happened, she fought like— Oh.”

“What?” I ask, bending closer, the funk of the abscess filling my nose.

Widow lifts the kitten, tilts her toward me. Between her shoulder blades, almost entirely covered by dried mud, is a bright pink slash of color.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Dogfighting ring,” Widow says. “She was a bait cat. Pink’s a color that a dog can see real well, that plus blue and green. Different colors mean different things; they teach the dogs to kill, torture, or eat them as part of their training.”

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” I say, staring at the paint.

“She’s lucky she wasn’t green,” Widow says. “She was halfway down a dog’s throat and fought her way free, which is a miracle in itself. But she’s going to need one or two more if she’s going to make it.”

“What do you need me to do?” I ask, straightening.

“First, she needs a bath. See the fleas on her? This cat already lost a lot of blood, and what’s left is going into them. Run warm water in the utility sink and grab a bottle of Dawn. We’ll break the abscess while she’s in there, see what the next horrible thing is.”

The next horrible thing was an open wound along her inner thigh on the back left leg, and after that, a mass of subcutaneous fat dangling from her gut where she’d been torn open.

“Didn’t get her intestines, though,” Widow says, leaning over the edge of the utility sink. “That’s good.”

The list of good things is short—no obvious internal bleeding, no difficulty breathing—but it does give me hope. So does the fact that the kitten starts purring when we put her in the warm water.

“She knows she’s safe now,” I say, wiping away a tear.

“They do that to self-soothe,” Widow warns me. “I’ve seen cats purring as they died. She’s not happy; she’s in pain. Now grab two pairs of tweezers and tell your parents you aren’t coming home anytime soon.”

I do both of those things, ignore the follow-up texts from Mom, and spend the next two hours picking fleas off the cat one by one with Widow, chasing down the fleas that the Dawn hadn’t smothered, plucking off the dead bodies when we find them. Both wounds need stitching; Widow slides a nitrous oxide mask over the cat’s face and gives her a small puff.

“You stay here, keep an eye on her,” Widow says, stripping off her gloves once she’s finished stitching. “I’ll go up to the dollar store, get some wet food. If she can’t swallow—”

“She will,” I say, not allowing the truth to be anything else.

“Maybe,” Widow says doubtfully. “If she’s still alive in the morning, I’ll take her to the vet, see about debriding the tail and front feet. He owes me some favors, but that’s asking a lot.”

The office door closes behind her, and I rest my head next to the unconscious kitten, touching my nose to hers.

“I need you to live,” I whisper.