Page 67 of A Brother At My Back

“Okay, come on, then.”

I went around and took her hand and we went up the stairs. I stayed out in front and couldn’t help but swear when we got to her door, “Aw, shit, no.” He’d nailed her cat, fur slick and dark with blood, to her door, guts spilling out onto the ground.

I heard her gasp and I turned right around, pulling her into my chest, pressing her face into my shoulder as she shuddered and hushing her. “Shh, don’t look,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Wahine. Don’t look.”

She was trying so hard not to fly apart, she was being so brave, but this? I don’t know how she did it. How she held it together.

“Let’s just go inside!” she cried and I nodded.

“Gimme your keys.” She fished them blindly out of her purse at her side and shoved them into my hand. I turned around and she hid against my back as I worked the locks and tried not to get anything on me. I opened the door and shoved her through, once I knew there was no one inside and followed her in, shutting the horror back out on the other side.

“Max?” she muttered in disbelief. Her damn cat stretched on the bed, kneading the covers with her paws and meowing quizzically. “Max!” she cried and I felt my muscles loosen.

“Thank fuck,” I muttered and set about moving around her kitchen, looking for trash bags.

“Oh my God, thank you,” she said, and held the displeased animal tightly to her, kissing her between her ears.

“You got something to carry her in?” I asked.

“Pillowcase if I have to,” she said, tears leaking from her eyes.

“Clothes and essentials in here,” I said. “I’ll take care of out there.”

“O-o-kay,” she stammered and reluctantly put her cat down. Fuck, I can’t say how happy I was to see that insane furball.

We made quick work of her place. I bagged the dead animal, a different stray from the neighborhood, I reckon, and threw it in her apartment’s dumpster. We loaded her clothes, Mad Maxine, and her laptop and school books into trash bags, pillowcases, and a knapsack, as much as we could carry in one trip between the both of us.

One trash bag held the cat’s food and dishes, another her litter box and such. It was heavy, but we managed it all in one go, which we needed to do. She set the hissing, growling, struggling cat between us on the flat seat of the truck and the rest went in the back.

“Where are we going? Your place?” she asked.

I shook my head and said, “Someplace safer,” and headed for the clubhouse.

She was shaking, but not from the cold. She kept murmuring to the damn cat who wasn’t having any of it, and it all just broke my damn heart.

---