A pale figure rises to her right. He is tall. Big, but not, I think, one of the three I recall. There is something about him that suggests youth, despite his worn face, the grit that accentuates the lines around his mouth. He is less bulky, less stiff than those three – though how I know this, when I only saw them in silhouette, I cannot say. Outlined against the window, he stretches. I suspect we are supposed to find him cat-like, but his movements are exaggerated. He is hiding something in his assumed nonchalance.
‘You’re back.’ I see the question rather than hear it. The boy – young man – who has spoken thrusts his jaw out. He’s been hurt. Rejected, I’d say, and I glance at my companion to gauge her response. ‘Sorry about …’ His voice softens. ‘About what happened.’
She shrugs, unaffected. Or, no, sad. ‘Thanks.’ Her voice has flattened from its natural cadences. She is pretending at something with this boy. ‘AD around?’
He nods toward the back and she passes him. I follow, keeping my distance, all too mindful of his unclean body. My whiskers bristle, aware of his eyes on me as I pick my way through the broken wall. Aware, too, of the others who have woken with less fanfare and who gather now in our wake.
‘Care.’ One word, but she looks up. We’ve entered a back room, she stepping over a pile of bricks, me through a smaller hole in the stove-in wall. The figure addressing her is squatting by an open flame. Like the others, he is rank, stinking of sweat and this close, river mud. Of something else as well. Bitter and sharp, it emanates from the fire and I sink back into the shadows. It’s not the flame – although I distrust that blue sprite – it’s the odor that offends. The wall behind me is open, the wooden frame holds more worms than plaster, and I leap up to a crossbar for the cleaner air and a better view.
‘Want some?’ The fire-keeper looks up, shadows playing across his angular face. He’s older than the others, his eyes sunken and dark.
Care – could that be a name? – shakes her head, dismissive. This is a conversation they’ve had before, the details understood. ‘I’m here for my things. I’m heading out.’ Despite her anger, her tone is tentative, explanatory. This man has some kind of power over her. ‘Moving on,’ she adds, for emphasis.
‘Moving on?’ He stirs the fire and the shadows shift. Something else does as well. Care can hear it, too. He’s smiling. Mocking her. She holds her silence, though I can feel her tense from here. He wants more. ‘You still sore about your old man, darling?’
Your old man? Darling? I recoil. The greasy lout’s endearment reeks of possession and entitlement, and my feline sense of propriety is offended at the idea of a creature such as this being the child’s love interest. But no, the girl – Care – is shaking him off.
‘It’s not like he’s going to need you.’ He tries again. ‘He’s not going to need anyone to do his dirty work anymore.’
I didn’t require the repetition to get his drift, but the speed with which she reacts sets us both straight.
‘It wasn’t like that.’ She snaps, anger doing more than comfort could to rouse her. ‘He was teaching me how to be an investigator. I helped him on his cases.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He turns back to his fire. She has passed some kind of test, the rules of which I do not understand, but she does.
She crosses over to a pile of cinder block and shoves one aside.
‘You might want to talk to Tick.’
‘Tick?’ The girl whirls around. This means something to her. To the others in the space, too. From my vantage point, I sense a shift. ‘He’s here?’
‘Hey, Care.’ The watchers part as a small figure comes forward, skinny as a rat with a mop of dark hair that nearly covers his eyes. He nods at her, pushing that hair back, then turns toward me, his hand outstretched. ‘Check out the cat.’
I hiss. He stops, mid-reach. He’s small, for a human, but I’m not taking chances. Any closer and I’ll jump.
‘Whoa, kitty. OK!’ He backs up, hands raised, but the sparse crowd that has gathered has converged behind him and he must stop. He’s watching me, and I him. There’s something wrong here.
‘Tick, what are you doing here?’ Care is talking to the boy – a mere slip of a child, skinny as a wraith – but he keeps staring at me, his dark eyes huge in his thin face. I don’t like that direct stare. Never have. My back begins to arch. People. You can’t trust them, and this boy is making too much of a fuss. ‘Tick?’
‘Care!’ A girl butts between them, dragging a young man behind her. They’re stumbling, impaired. I smell that burning again and draw back, the wet of my nose stinging. The gang leader nods at her, approving. ‘She’s back,’ he says.