“I should come up with a name for you,” Amelia mused one day. “I’ve searched all the lost pet postings I can find, posted your picture on some social media sites, but I can’t find anyone who seems to be missing you. There were a couple of people who said they were, but it was pretty clear they just saw a Bengal cat and wanted it and weren’t legit. So I don’t know if you got really lost or your people died, or what, but it seems you’re without a home, so I guess that means I can keep you? I’ve always wanted a cat, so that’s kind of cool. What name works for a Bengal cat?”
I felt kind of bad about the idea of leaving her, knowing she’d be upset, but what option did I have? I didn’t really want to be treated like an actual pet cat. Not in some ways, at least. Petting, fine. Being given food and shelter, fine. I might even be okay with vaccines. But…yeah, there were some things I didn’t think was worth the convenience.
I liked Amelia, though, so knowing I couldn’t stick around while she was over there trying to come up with names made me feel even worse. Maybe I had already stuck around too long. Maybe I needed to escape soon and head back out on the streets. Nowhere close to where Amelia lived, of course, but somewhere out there.
All thoughts of that flew out of my head when a knock came at the door. I stiffened, but Amelia looked happy and hurried to open to so she could let in the woman who I presumed was her girlfriend, based on the kiss she gave her in greeting.
“Zar! Welcome! Oh, I think I’m going to be able to keep the cat! You can help me come up with a name for him.” Amelia started eagerly listing off some of the names she’d thought of while the other woman, who seemed a little amused, threw a glance in my direction.
She immediately stiffened when she met my eyes, and I felt a sinking feeling that went far beyond just feeling bad about needing to leave.
Oh no. This could be very bad. Amelia’s girlfriend was a supernatural – fairy, I thought? That would make sense, come to think of it, because Amelia had a golden protection mark on her forehead, which was a fairy thing. I hadn’t even thought about it, though, until now, when I saw the reason for that mark and it finally clicked. Amelia’s girlfriend was a supernatural, which meant she would recognize that I was a shifter, not a real cat.
This could be really bad.
“Hun,” the girlfriend said through a tight smile, “where’d you say you picked up the cat? That kind of cat isn’t usually a stray, it doubtless has a home somewhere.”
Amelia groaned as she took the fairy’s umbrella and shook it out a bit before putting it in the rack. “I know, I know, but I’ve been trying to look, you know? I’ve posted about him, called all the shelters and vets I could think of. I even checked with some other areas. I think he’s probably really far from home, and I don’t know how to find his original owners.” She turned to look at me where I was perched on the windowsill, biting her lip. “I really think he’s lost, Zahara,” she half whined, half pleaded. “Like really lost. He acted almost feral when I first encountered him, and the vet said he’s pretty young, not full grown yet, so if he’s been on his own for a while, then it doesn’t seem like his people are looking for him. Or at least, not anywhere nearby.” She paused. “I can’t search the entire country, you know!” She burst out. “I’ve done way more than most people would, the vets and shelters have all said so, but I can’t find a single person who actually is missing him. So, I think I can keep him. I want to keep him. If owners end up showing up later, then, well,” she straightened up a bit, but looked like she wanted to cry, too, “then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Then she lost her brave demeanor and looked at her girlfriend anxiously. “You think it’s okay? I really did everything I could to find the owner, and he’s much safer in here than out there.”
Zahara opened her mouth to say something, but looking at Amelia and her begging, almost watery eyes seemed to make her reconsider. Instead, she groaned. “I – maybe. Let me look, too, though, just to be safe, okay? Maybe I’ll think of someone you haven’t reached out to.”
Amelia kind of pouted about that and grumbled under her breath about how Zahara just didn’t want her to be happy as she headed back to the kitchen and away from us.
The moment Amelia was out of earshot, the fairy swung around and marched over to me, almost glaring at me and I sank down as small as I could go, my ears pinned back.
“You cannot keep pretending to be a cat,” she hissed at me. “She knows about supernaturals, so you have two choices here – tell her the truth, or I will. I’ll give you a day or two to think about it, but you better choose soon, because I’m not going to see my girl’s heart get broken over some dumb shifter,” she paused, searching for the word, “prank? I don’t even know what on earth this is! I’ve never heard of a shifter pretending to be a pet cat, for crying out loud.” Then her eyes narrowed. “You’re not trying to just spy on her while she’s dressing and stuff, right? You’d better not be!”
I sank down even smaller onto the ledge, keeping my tail tucked tightly around me and avoiding looking directly at her. Zahara was probably average height, but she looked like she worked out and somehow she gave the impression of being much larger than she was. Like a cat arching its back or a bird poofing out its feathers. Until I’d lived on the streets and been chased around by actual cats as well as by people who didn’t like cats, I hadn’t really had to worry about being beaten up before, but somehow, this fairy was scarier than all of them. I felt like she could face down anyone without batting an eye and come out on top.
That didn’t even mention the threat she was adding on top of that. She wanted to tell Amelia the truth about what I was, and I couldn’t risk that.
She looked at me, her eyes still narrowed, but straightened up and took a step away as Amelia came back into the room.
“Zar, I’m trying that asparagus dish you mentioned, but I’m 99% sure the recipe went wrong. Why can’t you like normal dishes? What’s up with the weird cuisine that comes from some place I’ve never heard of and can’t even pronounce? Most people liked steamed or grilled asparagus, you know. What’s wrong with that?” Amelia kept ranting as she went over to her bag and dug around in it, soon after producing a small piece of paper she handed to the fairy.
“Here’s your ticket to my performance, and an extra in case you want to bring a guest!” Amelia batted her eyes dramatically. “But be prepared to cry, it’s a sad play.”
Zahara seemed a little amused by this. “I’ve gone to all your plays, hun, they’re all like that. Your department head seems to love tragic plays.”
“We did put on that comedy last year,” Amelia responded thoughtfully. “It was kind of fun to get to try something else and get more practice, you know? After I graduate when I’m going to auditions all the time, I’d like to feel confident that I could pull of a convincing comedic performance just as easy as an emotional one. Anyway, how was work?”
She kept chattering while she headed back down the short hall to the kitchen, and while Zahara followed after her, a slight smile on her face, she had enough time to still pause and give me a deathglare before trailing after Amelia.
If I’d been human, I’d probably have started shaking. I didn’t think Zahara would actually physically harm me, even if she gave that impression, but she was still seriously intimidating, and, more importantly, her threat was truly terrifying. Instead of shaking, though, I just jumped off the windowsill the moment they disappeared from sight and bolted under the couch, crouching there and firmly refusing to come out even when Amelia called me later for dinner.
This seemed to confuse Amelia greatly and she looked around for me. When she figured out where I was, she attempted to coax me out from under the couch, but instead I hissed and tried to climb up into the couch frame where she had no chance of reaching me.
“That’s weird,” Amelia sat back on her heels. “He’d gotten so much better! Oh, I suppose…I suppose you’re the first person I’ve had over since I took him in. He probably got freaked out by a new person. He was good at the vet’s so I kind of forgot about it, but it took me weeks to earn his trust, so it might be a while for you.” I could almost hear the apologetic smile in her voice. “Guess that means you’re going to have to work to win him over, Zar. Or – I mean, aren’t fairies supposed to be good with animals?”
Zahara snorted a bit. “Eh, don’t worry about it. He’s probably just startled or something. He’ll come out later to eat his food once I’m gone, most likely.”
I stubbornly stayed exactly where I was the rest of the evening, listening to them talk and laugh. Amelia laughed a lot, I noticed. She seemed happier with Zahara around. That was good. Amelia was nice, and I felt kind of bad about what needed to happen, but Zahara would look after her, right? Meanwhile, I needed to go. I needed to get out of here as soon as I could because Amelia’s apartment was no longer safe.
Zahara left a while later and Amelia then attempted once more to get me to come out and eat, sighing sadly when she was unsuccessful.
“I hope you’ll come out after I sleep,” she murmured quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you with a new person here, it’s just – she’s with me, you know? She’s usually over here a lot, she was just busy in some training thing at her workplace recently, so she hasn’t been able to come over and meet you until now. She’s nice, I promise! And she’s a fairy, which means she likes animals. I don’t suppose you know what that means, but supposedly animals just know fairies are safe instinctively.” She paused. “That’s…odd, then. Why didn’t that happen with you? Did whatever happen with your previous people scare you enough that you don’t even listen to fairy pheromones or whatever it is that makes animals like them? Honestly, I have no idea how that works, I probably shouldn’t speculate. It’s probably not pheromones, is it? Huh, I wonder what does make animals usually like fairies?” She kept talking to herself, getting further and further down the rabbit hole, before remembereding she had a rehearsal in the morning and needed to get to bed. She reluctantly bid goodnight and went off to her bedroom, the door softly clicking shut behind her.
Once again, I found myself waiting for someone to fall asleep so I could escape. I hadn’t planned to need to do this twice in my life, but maybe I should have expected it as soon as I let Amelia take me in. It wasn’t like there were too many other options for how to sneak out of an apartment.
After I was sure Amelia was asleep – which was easier than it had been the other time because Amelia tended to snore – I carefully hopped up on the umbrella rack.
A regular cat probably wouldn’t know how to turn the lock on the door and then turn the handle, but I wasn’t a regular cat. It was a little tricky with cat paws, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk to shift even just to open the door, so I just figured out how to make it work instead. Soon enough, the door slid open a bit and I hesitated, glancing back in Amelia’s direction. I felt bad that she’d be upset that I had disappeared, but…well, there wasn’t any other option. I couldn’t risk staying.
So I attempted to pull the door closed and got it mostly shut, although I lacked the strength in cat form to get it to latch entirely, and then slipped off down the hall. I found an open window in what appeared to be a janitor’s closet and leapt gently to the ground.
And then it was time to start running again. Obviously, I couldn’t stay in the area or Amelia would find me. She’d probably call around at all the shelters or post lost cat signs, so I couldn’t even risk hanging out anywhere close to her apartment just in case someone who saw her signs also happened to spot a stray Bengal cat and decided to call her about it. Back to the busses it was, then.
The long distance busses – as opposed to local ones – weren’t anywhere close to Amelia’s place, so it took me a while to get over there, only to discover, to my dismay, that the only busses leaving any time soon were back in the direction I’d originally come from, the one direction I couldn’t risk going. I’d have to wait until mid-morning before one going the other direction would arrive, and that kind of scared me. Realistically, maybe it shouldn’t, because what were the chances Amelia could get up posters made and handed out that soon and that someone out here at the bus station would see them? Still, just to be careful, I found a hiding place behind some luggage and tried to make sure I stayed out of anyone’s direct sight. Which honestly was also a good idea in general just to make sure no one caught me sneaking onto the bus when it was time – for some reason, most people didn’t take kindly to a cat hitching a ride on a bus.
It started raining soon, which meant I got wet pretty quickly. That wasn’t fun, but I didn’t have any way to avoid it, so I just huddled down as small as I could and waited. Waited for the hours to slowly pass until I spotted the bus heading in the right direction.
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