“I’m not arguing with that,” I said. “But why are we talking about this now, like this?” I felt like I was twelve years old again and getting lectured by my oh-so-older and smugger sister.
Keeping her voice steady she said, “They’ll need us to be there for them—”
“And we will be—”
Her patience finally vanished. “But you’re never here! You’re always off on some weird trip or celebrity adventure. Tell me, how can you help if you’re not here? You never help—”
“You never ask!”
“I shouldn’t have to!”
Something inside me extended claws and growled. I felt a tension, like a leash stretching, then breaking. Snapping, with a satisfying whip crack. And I felt free. So free, all my limbs stretching outward. A prickling, bristling sensation sprouting just under my skin—
I had to go. I had to get out of here.
“Kitty—” Cheryl said, her tone demanding, as I turned and walked out. “Kitty, don’t go ignoring me, you can’t just walk away from this.”
A hand landed on my arm, and I turned, bared my teeth, made a noise— My sister stumbled away from me. I couldn’t guess what she saw.
I had to leave. I went out the front of the house, left the door open behind me, heard my sister call, “Kitty!”
But I didn’t hear, not really. I ran, past my car and down the sidewalk.
Wolf was trapped; we had to run, it was the only thing for it. Run, and run. But concrete and asphalt stretched all around us. Rows of houses, a concentrated mass of civilization hemmed us in worse than any chain or bars of a cage. We could run, but where could we go? We tipped our nose to the air and smelled, searching for the wide open spaces and natural shelter that would mean our release, our only release.
Too many people here. Too much prey. Wrong kind of prey. I couldn’t stop running, to try to get away from it. To run until exhaustion took me. I’d be running all day.
Then, we found green. A swathe of prairie had been preserved in the middle of this modern suburb, a creek-cut ravine covered with dry grass and cottonwoods. A dry, washed-out, hemmed-in version of nature. But it was open. It smelled clean. I ran, pulling my shirt over my head, dropping it, not caring, and steered toward a stand of cottonwoods. Wanted to hide. Wanted to run.
Wanted to be free, and Wolf slashed my skin with her claws and tore her way out. I hardly cared.
* * *
DOESN’T THINK of much of anything but the movement of her body, claws digging into hard earth, wind in her nose. This isn’t where she wants to be, but she’s trapped on all sides by steel. She will run in circles.
The prey here smells different, wrong, of oil and trash. Prey living trapped by concrete. She is angry, starved for blood. Blood will staunch the anger, so she hunts. So many trails to follow—raccoon, rabbit, fox, even coyote. But the musky, feline scent catches her attention because it is different.
Her target is fast, agile—a challenge. Makes her more fierce. Her blood thunders, her mouth waters, she bares her teeth to the sky. And pounces. It lets out a high-pitched yowl, but only briefly. She devours it, ripping through skin, picking past dense fur. The meat is stringy, there isn’t much of it. She finishes it in moments, cracking bones and gnawing them until nothing remains but a smear of blood, fur, and viscera on the ground.
She licks her lips and paws, cleaning herself, then looks at the sky again and howls. No one answers. How lost is she?
Only thing to do is run, her sides heaving and skin quivering.
She runs until exhausted, as the sun drops across the sky. In a hollow under a stand of cottonwoods, she finds shelter, an inadequate den where she lies, panting. Too unhappy, too insecure to sleep.
After minutes or hours or some other vague length of time, a scent crosses her awareness—of home and safety. At th
e same time, she hears a call.
“Kitty.” A low, steady sound. Calming.
She pricks her ears, raises her head high.
“Kitty,” the voice says again.
Her mate, his sharp and welcome smell cutting through the noise, stinging in her nose. Without thinking, she stands and runs to him.
He is on two legs, which doesn’t seem right. Lowering her head, she paces, uncertain. They should be hunting together. She loops a wide circle around him, waiting for him to join her. But he waits, standing calmly, his gaze turned, his body relaxed.