Page 52 of Burn Bag
Daphne ran aheadof me and flung the door open, shooing the cats away. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified to enter my house. I was going to have nightmares about cats attacking me in the night. I wasn’t sure how I would ever get over this.
As I walked through the door, a little calico cat scurried away from me, running up the stairs. Calico. That wasn’t…
“Hey, I thought we had black and white cats,” I called out, wondering where Daphne had run off to.
“Uh…yeah!”
“And then the orange cat,” I said, remembering the one from yesterday. No, that was this morning. Two cat attacks in one day. What were the odds?
“Right. Black and white, and then there’s an orange cat.”
I nodded as she walked around the corner and smiled at me. “But the one that attacked me this morning was white.”
Her face paled and she hurried away, grabbing a pillow and fluffing it on the chair. “Uh…was it?”
“It was definitely white.”
She chuckled nervously. “Well, that’s odd.”
“Not as odd as the calico I just saw running up the stairs.”
“The…” She finally faced me, swallowing hard. “That is strange.”
“Daphne,” I said in a warning tone.
She took a step back, nearly tripping over the chair. “Yes?”
“How many cats are in the house?”
She licked her lips nervously, her eyes darting around to escape my intent gaze. “Um…six?” she squeaked out.
“Six?” I shouted, my voice booming through the house. “We have six fucking cats?”
“Seven!” she shouted. “I don’t know why I lied. I’m so sorry!”
Seven fucking cats. That was… ”Why the hell do we have so many cats?”
Again, tears filled her eyes and I found myself softening. Fuck, what was I going to do? I needed to find a way to get this shit under control.
“They were doing horrible things to them. I had to!”
“And then you brought them with you here? Why didn’t you take them to a shelter?”
“Because I couldn’t trust that they would take care of them. Besides, they’re one litter. They could get separated, and that’s not fair to them! They’re family!”
“That family is going to rip my balls off!” I shouted.
Her face crumpled and I instantly regretted yelling at her. Stalking forward, I wrapped my arms around her and held her to me, trying to calm her down. “Hey, I’m sorry I yelled. I just…you took me by surprise.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you about them. I just couldn’t let them go.”
Sighing, I rubbed my hand up and down her back, trying to console her as best I could. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah?” she asked hopefully, wiping the tears from her eyes.
I smiled down at her and swiped my thumbs over her cheeks. “Yeah, it’ll all be okay.”
“Thank you,” she said through a watery gaze.
