AllFreeNovel
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The retirement home was a sprawling one floor building once, but by the looks of things it’s been in disrepair for ages. The windows are all either broken or boarded up, part of the roof is caved in and grass, bushes and tree saplings are growing right up to the building, and on the porches, steps and walkways too. It reminds me of the shitty whorehouse I spent three years of my life locked up in, but I don’t want it to.
“Sunny Acres?” Ruin says, reading the sign above the main doors. “Of what? Shit?”
“More like Cat Heaven,” I counter.
We saw several cats sunning as we drove up, but most of them fled at the sound of his bike. A huge orange tabby is eyeing us menacingly from the side of the building and a black and white one is doing the same from the roof.
One of the organizers—Marcia—is explaining how and where we should set the traps. Then we do that for about half an hour, then retreat back to the road to wait.
“How many are you looking to trap?” Ruin asks her. “All of them?”
She laughs. “We’ll be lucky if we get twenty. We’ve been here before and they remember the cages, they remember their brothers and sisters getting taken away, so they’re wary.”
Just as she stops talking the sound of a cage snapping shut echoes, followed by the scream of a cat.
“Is it hurt?” I ask breathlessly, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
“No, I doubt it,” Marcia says. “Just angry.”
She walks to the cage where a sleek, lean tabby is now trapped. The cat hisses and snaps at the bars as Marcia walks up.
“Yup, just a very angry kitty,” she says in a pleasant voice. “But don’t worry, we’ll take very good care of you and then bring you right back.”
The cat doesn’t like the sound of that and continues hissing and ramming into the bars of her cage. I hear more cages snapping shut all around us. It sounds like chains rattling and now my whole body is shaking, nothing I can do to stop it. I’ve been in chains. I’ve been in a cage. I never want to remember that.
“We have to let them go,” I say. “We can’t do this to them.”
I don’t recognize my own voice. It’s not toneless. It’s full of fire and need. The same fire and need that I felt trying to get free in the beginning, when I was first caged like this poor cat, before they destroyed me and erased any and all desire from my soul. I fought and screamed and banged against walls and doors and men to get free.
“We have to free her!” I yell. “Let her go!”
Veronica is running towards me, but it’s Ruin who wraps his arms around me. “It’s OK, nothing’s gonna happen to her.”
Marcia is just standing there with her mouth open and her eyes very wide, muttering something incoherently.
“They’ll take care of her and release her,” Ruin says.
“No! She’ll die. We have to set her free.” I try to rip myself out of Ruin’s arms, but he’s holding on too tight. I can’t get away. He won’t let me. And now it’s not just the cat I’m worried about. I hate being restrained. I swore I’d never be restrained again.
I start thrashing around and yelling. Veronica is trying to calm me down. Eden is too. But Ruin just takes all the blows and keeps holding on tight.
He wraps me in a strong bear hug to keep me from twisting around. “You’re safe, Ariel. I won’t let anything happen to you. Ever. You’re safe.”
He just keeps repeating that and eventually the words break through the fog of panic in my brain. I believe him. I like his strong arms around me. His steady warmth. His soothing voice.
“Take me away from here,” I whisper back, my voice hoarse from all the screaming.
I try not to look at anyone as he leads me back to the road and his bike. Everyone’s looking at me, some of the children are crying, and now that the fit is subsiding, I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. I wish I could stop shaking, but I can’t.
“Ariel, are you OK?” Veronica asks as we reach the bike. “I’ll take you home, now.”
I smile at her, or at least I try to, but she sort of recoils at the sight. “I think I’d rather go for a bike ride.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, glancing at Ruin and back at me. I don’t like the look in her eyes. It says she’s afraid he’ll take advantage of me in my current dishevelled state. But I still hear the soft echoes of his voice promising he’ll keep me safe. And I believe him.
“I am sure. And I’m fine. I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself and ruined everything.”
“You won, though,” Ruin says and smiles. “You probably scared all the cats away with your screaming, so no cages for them today.”
