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CHAPTER SEVEN

ENDER

I watch as Rylee rolls around on the floor with the cat.

Even though I told her it isn’t staying, I’m pretty confident she’s so in love with the cat that she’d sacrifice her life for it.

What the hell are we supposed to do with a cat?

Every time we have to flee, we now have to make sure we carry a fucking tray of kitty litter with us?

“What if the cat stays with Orin?” I ask. “And then you come visit it?”

Rylee looks like something out of a horror movie as her head slowly turns to look at me, mouth agape, eyes horrifically wide. She very well might be possessed. “Noooooooooo. P-Please. Ender. Please. I love him so much. I love him so much .”

“How do you expect he’s going to handle being dragged around the city?”

Orin peeks around his book. “He adjusted here quite well. He seems like a pretty easy-going cat; he’ll probably be happy going anywhere as long as his people are with him.”

My eyes snap over to the man who very much should have kept his mouth shut. He looks up from the book he’s reading and smiles at me, which does nothing but irritate me more.

“If you want to stick your nose into something, then you’re watching the cat,” I say.

“There’s no reason for you not to stay here tonight. Isn’t it nice knowing that someone is watching Rylee when you leave her alone?” Orin asks.

“I don’t trust you,” I declare.

“Says the man who demanded I become council head.”

I ignore him, but I really did plan to go out tonight and Rylee would be safest here. “Just for tonight.”

“Understood,” Orin says.

“I can keep the kitty?” Rylee asks.

“For one more day, then he’s Orin’s. You can visit him if you listen to me and don’t run off with strangers.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I heard Senor Fluffybottom’s cries of despair.”

I stare at her as I contemplate whether or not I’ve just heard what I thought I did. “Is this why you asked me what the closest word to ‘mister’ was in Spanish?”

“Sure was! You really should teach me more Spanish! That sounds fun compared to the boring math homework you made me do.”

“You really should rehome the creature just so he has a better chance at having a good life with a decent name.”

Rylee gasps. “He loves his name. It’s Fluffybottom for short. But you must call him Senor Fluffybottom the Great and Fluffiest Fluff.”

“I will call it ‘cat,’” I inform her.

She picks him up and carries him over to me with a mischievous look on her face. She has unlimited confidence that she could get away with anything when I’m positive she couldn’t even lie to me about eating a piece of candy.

“Don’t you do it.”

Her grin is expanding to dangerous levels at this point. I know that I will not enjoy any moment of this as she scoots closer and closer.

“I do not want to hold that cat.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says as she drops the cat right into my arms. I grimace as I question what I’ve done to deserve this. Isn’t it enough that I care for the child? I go above and beyond for her, and this is how she thanks me?

The cat begins kneading on my legs, wickedly sharp nails digging into my flesh as his purrs fill the room.

“He loves you,” Rylee says. “Pet him.”

“I don’t want to pet him.”

She picks up my hand and sets it on his head and he quickly headbutts me, wanting more pets and a less limp hand. She starts forcing my hand to run over his long hair. For how disgusting he looked, he’s quite soft after they bathed him.

“Rylee.”

“En?”

“No.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t like it! Love it!”

I’m over here convinced she’s horrible at conniving when she’s playing the long game. Her plan is obviously to get me to form some sort of attachment to the beast so I won’t make her get rid of it.

“I think it’s well past your bedtime.”

“No!” she whines.

“Come on,” I say as I set the cat back in her arms. “Did you brush your teeth?”

“Why do I have to brush my teeth? I’m a vampire, I shouldn’t have to!”

“You ate enough candy to rot them out. How do you plan to bite anyone with rotten teeth?”

Rylee groans and heads off for the bathroom as I trail after her. “You’re not going out tonight, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please? Just stay here. Aren’t the bad people gone? Can’t we just have a normal life now? I get scared whenever you leave.”

“You don’t have to be scared, Orin’s here.”

“No! Not like that,” she says as she squeezes her cat to her chest. “I get scared you’re never going to come back. I don’t want you to disappear or die.”

“I won’t disappear or die.”

“You’re not the best at making friends and you seem to bully a lot of people.”

“Only people who deserve it,” I assure her.

“Finn said you bullied him and he’s super nice.”

“Sometimes I make mistakes,” I say. “I was led to believe the VRC was involved… I was rash. This is why you should do your homework. So you can analyze situations better than me and don’t rashly throw someone off a bridge.”

“Did you do your homework?”

“I never went to school.”

“NEVER?” She gasps. “Why do I have to do school then? You’re all smart and stuff and never went to school. I’m not going to school anymore.”

“You are doing schoolwork,” I say. “Did you listen to anything I said?”

“Yeah! Of course I did!”

“Finish getting ready for bed.”

“Then will you read me a bedtime story?”

“Depends how well you listen.”

“I listen the best of the best.”

“Sure,” I say as I head to her bedroom to wait for her. She comes rushing back, cat still in her arms. I’m positive he’s in a bliss coma or something. As long as she’s touching him, he would go through anything for her.

She crawls into bed, and I pick up a book Orin had set out for us. I start reading it to her and she follows along before I tuck her in and give her forehead a kiss at her request.

“Senor Fluffybottom also needs a goodnight kiss.”

“Don’t push your luck, kid,” I say as I head out the door.

I go to my room, honestly not sure what else to do.

I feel like I’m caught up in so much turmoil.

Do I keep pushing forward and by doing so, put Rylee at more risk?

Do I draw back now that I have her and let them get away with everything they’ve done and are doing and hope that they never come looking for her again?

But he’s hunting me. He’s always hunting me.

She’ll never truly be safe until he’s dead.

But pulling her along with me puts her at even more risk as time moves on.

I drop down onto the bed and decide that one night won’t change anything. Hopefully…

Closing my eyes, I drift off into the darkness.

Sleep grabs me with a vengeance. It tears me down and threatens to not let me go.

I’m suffocating, drowning in the stifling depths of it.

Nothing but death awaits me. I try to pull back, desperate to get away, but it surrounds me.

It’s all that’s left and my only option is to destroy them all. To tear them all apart to?—

“ENDER!”

I jerk awake and grab the person hovering over me.

“En, it’s me,” Rylee says as she gives me a shake. “Wake up.”

“I’m awake,” I mutter as my hold on her loosens.

“You said you were better.”

“I am better.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

“Go back to sleep,” I urge her.

Rylee hesitates, then runs back to her room before returning with the cat. She pulls my sheet back and tucks him in next to my chest, as though I want to cuddle him. “He’ll keep the nightmares away,” she decides. “Good night.”

“Take the cat, I don’t need him.”

And she’s gone.

The cat rolls onto his back and looks up at me with adoration in his eyes.

I stare at him, not quite sure what to do with the thing.

He seems to realize that he’s not getting the same attention here as he was in Rylee’s room because he gets up.

I assume he’s planning on leaving, but instead, he sidesteps closer and basically throws himself against my face so he’s tucked as close to me as he can be.

“I don’t like you,” I mutter as his purrs fill the room and his hair fills my nostrils.

He’s thrilled with this arrangement. Does he not know that people were the reason why he was left out in the cold, half starved?

That someone failed him? Threw him out and left him to nearly die?

Yet he forgives them so easily. Oh, to be a cat and be able to just leave that resentment and hatred behind…

I know that I don’t want to face sleep again, so after a while, I get up.

I debate leaving the cat where he is, but I pick him up and carry him into Rylee’s room.

I set him next to her as she sleeps away.

She doesn’t stir as he settles in and I head out the door, needing some answers so I can give her the life she deserves.

The sooner this ends, the sooner I can change everything.

And the sooner I can give her that life.