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“That’s a baby miniature donkey,” Diana confirmed. “It was dying, and the owner wanted to put it down. Matilda thought it would be a great idea to bring it here.”
“I live in a van, Diana.” Matilda threw up her hands. “I can’t very well keep it in the back seat with me.”
I grinned, sensing the perfect opportunity to get Matilda to move in with me dropping straight into my hands.
“I can’t. We don’t have a fenced yard.” Diana groaned.
“It doesn’t look like it’s dying,” I found myself saying. “It looks like it’s doing just fine, to be honest.”
Diana scoffed.
Matilda turned her warm eyes toward me. “Hello, lover.”
I blinked, startled by her words.
Not in a bad way, though. In an “I can’t believe you just said that in front of your best friend” kind of way.
“I already told her all about it,” Matilda read the question in my eyes. “But only because Bain told her that we did.”
I looked at Bain, who was being quite quiet throughout all of this.
I scowled at him.
He grinned unrepentantly at me.
“What?” he asked sheepishly. “I was excited.”
I scoffed and turned back to Matilda just as Diana said, “This isn’t the time for that nonsense. What it’s time for is for you to figure out where this baby donkey is going, and do it before we go to sleep tonight.”
“I have a fenced yard,” I offered. “And a small pond that it can drink out of.”
The pond used to be a koi pond before I’d moved in. When I did, I was told that a crane had eaten all the fish out of it. Now it was just a glorified water feature that served absolutely zero purpose other than being a noise nuisance to the neighbor next door.
Ask me how I know.
Fuckin’ Bob.
Every single morning, the douchebag mentioned it, as if I had any control over what’s at a place that I rented, for Christ’s sake.
Matilda’s eyes turned to me, but I was already holding up a finger. “But you’re going to have to stay with it. If it needs bottle-fed, or taken care of in any way, that’s all on you. I don’t mind helping when I have time… but right now, I lack it. Badly.”
Matilda’s eyes warmed, and her mouth turned up into that smile I was quickly coming to love.
It was one of her best features.
Though, she had a lot of “best” features, if I had to admit it. I couldn’t choose just one.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Matilda asked.
I was about to answer when the damn donkey took me out at the knees.
One second I was standing, and the next I was staring up at the sky seconds before I hit the ground with a solid thud.
“Oooof,” air belched out of my mouth in a quick rush. “Owww, fuck.”
Three sets of eyes suddenly came into my vision.
All of them looking down from laughing, but slightly concerned faces.
“You okay there, buddy?” Bain asked, sounding slightly euphoric.
I opened my mouth to respond, but no sound would come out.
I’d well and thoroughly had the wind knocked out of me.
Bain reached down and hauled me to my feet, allowing me to draw my first big breath in a minute.
“Thanks,” I wheezed.
There was a snicker from Diana, but my glare quickly cut her off.
“Are you sure that you want to take that thing home?” she asked teasingly.
No, no, I wasn’t sure.
Not anymore.
“Of course, he wants to take it home still,” Matilda walked up to me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and then burst out laughing. “That was freakin’ great!”
I wrapped my arms around her and started to squeeze, causing her to let out a squeak.
“Hey,” she squeezed out. “It wasn’t me that hurt you!”
I let up.
“No, but you sure did laugh,” I grumbled. “I spent years in prison and wasn’t ever taken out like that. Then I get out, and I’m taken out by a donkey that weighs less than a bag of trash.”
There was a lot of chuckling before Matilda finally said, “Well, let’s go do this at Etienne’s house then. So we don’t have to chase the damn donkey… we just have to catch him first.”
“We tried that,” Diana grumbled. “That’s why he took out Etienne. Because he didn’t want to be caught.”
Was that what had been going on?
I felt something butt against my leg, looked down, and stared at the little terror.
“You know,” I said to the mutant. “I already have a Genocide in my family. I don’t think I can deal with another.”
“Genocide?” Diana asked.
“My sister Jenna’s nickname,” I explained.
“Oh,” Diana snickered. “That’s pretty inventive. This donkey doesn’t have a name, though. Feel free to name it. I was calling it Satan in my head.”
I looked down at the big, creepy eyes.
“Their eyes are fucked up,” I said as I studied the pupil.
