We had barely a moment, time suspended as we stared one another down. I watched the gears move behind his dark eyes. Finally, he gave in and nodded, but he said no more. The door opened and the cop appeared with a scowl across his face.
“Go spend the rest of the day with a friend,” Maddox said to me.
He didn’t want me to be alone. I appreciated the sentiment, but the cat winding between my legs needed attention. There was no way to know how much longer it had left without its master, and I wasn’t about to bring it to Cerri’s apartment only to have the poor thing die in her living room.
Maddox led me back to the living room with a hand at the small of my back. To those around us, the gesture looked gruff. I knew better, though. Maddox’s hand was warm at my back. A bit of tension bled out of me, and I foolishly let my guard down.
Of course, the moment I set foot in the living room, my arcana used that as an opportunity to wander a bit. It slipped out of me and flowed across the room in search of dead things. I tried, futilely, to pull it back. The power wanted to touch the woman’s corpse, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I swallowed my curse. Panic lodged itself in my throat. My power clawed its way toward the woman. I inhaled sharply as the deathly power pulled at the investigators filling the room. One by one, their faces drained of color. Their shoulders slumped, whispers of exhaustion dancing in the air.
The woman’s finger twitched. I let out a small squeak in alarm. Investigators glanced my way, but the dead cat saved me by leaping at the other curtain still hanging on the window. The sound of tearing fabric was followed by the clang of the curtain rod on the floor.
The cops yelled in unison, their words turning into a dull roar while the cat spun out on the hardwood floor. I slipped out of the room just as the cat ran out the open door.
My power still reached towards the dead woman. I could feel the life draining from the room and slipping into the woman. If I ran, I would save the investigators from my power, but there would still be a dead woman trying to move on the floor. I couldn’t let them see.
“Who let that cat in here?!” the police officer shouted.
Maddox snapped back at the man.
While the two argued, I snatched up a potholder with trembling hands. My power slowly sank into the dead woman. I could feel it filling her muscles with new life, even as I turned the ignitor on the stove burner. Every click of the lighting mechanism made me flinch. The smell of gas reached my nose.
Finally, the burner flared to life. I slapped the potholder onto the open flames and made a dash for the backdoor. It wasn’t long before smoke filled the kitchen and poured out after me. I could hear the investigators shouting in alarm.
Thankfully, they were distracted while I pulled myself and my power away from the house. Before long, the cat found me again. It rubbed up against my leg. I looked down at it while listening to the chaos I’d caused.
“Why is this so hard?” I asked the cat that couldn’t respond.
Together, the cat and I slipped out of the crime scene. It spared one last glance back at its dead master. I wondered what the feline was thinking. Did it have regrets? Once we were away from the house, I bent and picked the cat up. With it in my arms, I studied its paws. There was a bit of blood in its claws, but I had no way of knowing if that belonged to the killer or if the dead cat simply…leaked from time to time.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I said to the cat.
The cat rubbed the top of its head against my cheek. I sighed. I never wanted a cat. How was I supposed to keep this thing alive when I barely wanted to use my own power? The thing’s rattling purr made me forget all about the horror movies about pet burial sites. A bit of warmth blossomed in my chest as I cuddled the little creature with messy gray fur.