Short Story. Content notes apply only to this part.
Seven
I’m in the catio with Miss K and Nacho, enjoying the sun. I’m wearing sunscreen, just like Vortex wants me to, because it turns out I “burn easily.”
I wish I had known about this stuff while I was on the run. The first few weeks out in the sun had made me miserable until I figured out I need to cover up, even if I was sweating.
I smile when Nacho jumps to the top of the cat tree and mrrps at a bird that sits at the bird feeder just outside the catio.
“Sorry, Nacho,” I say. “You can’t hunt the birds.”
I love the catio. Vortex, Havoc, and I had assembled the cat trees together while Caleb watched. Caleb said he would pay to have it installed, but Havoc and Vortex argued that we needed to build it with our own sweat and tears. According to Havoc, it was bad enough that Caleb had paid contractors to add the patio.
I’d sweated, and maybe a few tears were shed, but it looks amazing and the cats love it out here, with all the shelves and the cat-safe plants and fresh air and sunlight. I’ve got a lounge chair and small table in here too, so I can hang out with the cats.
Miss K suddenly jumps down from her spot on the tall cat bed and walks over to the corner of the catio. She meows and starts scratching at the ground.
It’s not like her.
Nacho is usually the one to try to test the limits of the catio, too eager to get to the birds that are forever out of his reach.
I wander over to her and crouch down to pet her, but then I hear a soft, pitiful sound coming from the outside of the catio.
I frown and peer outside, and my eyes find something that it takes me a moment to recognize: a tiny kitten.
I have no idea how a kitten could’ve wound up out here, but I make a beeline for the door leading out into the yard. It only takes me a moment to find the baby cat, which is making the most pitiful meeping sounds.
Nacho had been small when I’d found him, but this cat isn’t much bigger than my small hand. I think Vortex’s would dwarf it.
I carefully take the kitten into my hand, gingerly pressing it against my chest and holding it there. I hurry back inside, having to toe Nacho and Miss K back away from the doorway.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I tell Nacho. He meows in question at me, but I need to find someone else who might know what to do with a kitten.
Caleb.
I don’t know how old Miss K had been when he’d gotten her from Lori, but he’s the most likely to know what to do. If not, he can take me to the vet.
I rush through the mansion, heading straight for his office.
He’s on the phone, because of course he’s working, and I hold the kitten up in my hand in a silent plea for his attention. The kitten lets out another of those pathetic little meows, and I pet its tiny head.
It’s so fragile in my hand.
Caleb frowns, but he says, “Let me call you back.” He ends the call and puts his phone into his pocket before walking over. He takes a close look at the kitten, but he doesn’t attempt to touch her.
“Where did you find her?” he asks.
“How do you know it’s a her?” I ask. Is there an easy way to tell that I don’t know about? I shake my head, though. “I found her outside. Well, Miss K sort of found her. She was making only a little bit of noise. I don’t know how she got there. Do you know what to do with her? She’s so small,” I ramble.
“She’s a tri-color cat. Black, orange, white. That means she has to be female.” Caleb takes his phone out again and starts tapping. “Go find a small box and some towels and place her in them so she can be warm. I’ll call the vet and find out what we should do.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.” I keep cradling the kitten against my chest. Her meow is pitiful but loud up close, which means she has to be healthy, right?
We still have some boxes from the move, I think, and I find one before finding a few small hand towels to put inside it. I have to set her down on the floor long enough to fuss with the towels before setting her inside, then I carefully carry the box back to Caleb.
He’s on the phone with someone — the vet, because he’s nodding and saying he understands and is repeating information back to her — and I wait patiently as I rub the kitten’s head.
“Okay. Thank you,” Caleb says. He hangs up and gives me a soft smile. “Our job is to keep her warm and fed. I’ll tell Havoc to swing by the pet store and buy kitten formula and bottles and syringes. But, Seven…” Caleb’s expression gets serious. “If the mom abandoned the kitten, she might already not be doing well. And kittens are fragile. If something happens to her, it’s not your fault, all right?”
If something…
No. Nothing’s going to happen to her.
“She’ll be fine,” I insist. “What do I need to do?”
“I’ll text you instructions. For now, just make sure she’s warm while we wait for Havoc to swing by with the supplies. You can get her set up in your room. I would keep Nacho and Miss K away from her for now until we know how they’ll interact with her.” Caleb ruffles my hair. “I’m going to check outside to make sure she’s the only kitten.”
I hope she’s the only one who was left alone.
I don’t want any other kittens to be abandoned.
But this one won’t be. I’ll take care of her like I took care of Nacho, until she’s old enough to run around and play with him.
It can’t be that long, right?
She’s small, though, and she’s only a fraction of the size Nacho had been when I’d found him.
I take her to my room, nudging Nacho aside when he tries to come inside, and close the door behind me. I stare down at the kitten in the box.
I’ll have to name her, too, and I start to go through the different possibilities in my head. I don’t have any good ideas off the top of my head.
I should probably leave her in the box, but I pull her back out — still wrapped up in the towels — and hold her against my chest. She has to be cold, right? The warmth can’t be bad for her, and it has to be comforting to her.
I hope.
At least it was a warm day out. She was laying in the shade, so the sun wasn’t burning her. But how long was she out there without me noticing?
My phone dings, and it’s the text Caleb promised me about caring for newborn kittens.
My eyes swim at all the information.
I have to feed her every two hours? I have to help her use the bathroom?
When was she last fed? It must have been more than two hours ago, and my eyes start to water when I imagine this kitten mewing for her mom, hungry and desperate.
I know too well what it feels like to cry for my mom, only to be abandoned and alone.
At least this cat doesn’t seem to have been—
Somebody knocks on my door, startling me out of my thoughts.
I’m grateful for the reprieve.
“Come in!” I call out. “Just don’t let Nacho in.” I’d seen his paws under the door, and it’s hard to ignore his offended meowing when I didn’t immediately concede to his demands to be let in.
Havoc opens the door. He has to use his foot to keep Nacho out so he can shut the door again.
He’s holding two full tote bags. “I wasn’t sure what stuff was best, so I just bought it all. Caleb says he’ll order more online, but we can’t wait for it to be delivered.”
He sets the bags down on my bed and starts rifling through. “She’s still tiny, right? Here, the store clerk said we can fill the syringe with kitten milk and let her suck from the tip.”
“Will she know how to do that?” I ask, my anxiety through the roof. This tiny little creature is depending on me to stay alive, and it’s a huge amount of pressure. “What if I give her too much at a time? Havoc, I don’t know if I can do this without hurting her!”
“Whoa, Seven, calm down.” Havoc takes a syringe from the bag as well as something that looks like a nipple. “Caleb said he sent you information about it, and we can look up videos on how to do it.”
Oh, right. I fumble for my phone and find the document again. It lists how much I should feed the kitten based on how old it is. I don’t know how old she is though.
Under one week old—eyes aren’t open yet.
I look at the kitten again, and it’s true, she hasn’t once opened her eyes.
Is there something wrong with her eyes? What if they’re supposed to be open?
But no. There wouldn’t be instructions for a cat without its eyes being open if it wasn’t normal, and she is that tiny.
I set her back down in the box, still wrapped loosely in the towels, so I can pull out my phone and look up a video on how to feed a kitten with a syringe. I bite my lip, but I take the small syringe from Havoc and set the kitten on my lap so I can start to drip the formula into her mouth.
The instructions said to keep the kitten on its belly, because that’s the natural position it would be in while drinking from their mom.
She laps at it immediately, and I’m glad, but I also worry about how hungry she must have been. It’s messy at first, and I make sure to push the syringe down very slowly.
I wonder if I drank from my mom, or if she’d handed me off to be bottle fed immediately.
My eyes tear up.
I don’t want to think about her.
I have a feeling she’ll be on my mind a lot, though, as I keep this poor abandoned baby alive.
I won’t abandon her.
I get the hang of feeding her, and after a short time, she’s finished off the small amount of formula. I don’t want to overfeed her, but I’m afraid she might still be hungry, too.
Two hours. I’ll feed her again in two hours.
I look back at the information Caleb had sent over. I’m supposed to burp her and help her urinate, too, and that seems to be difficult to do with such a tiny cat.
“Can you get me a wet cloth?” I ask Havoc. I bite my bottom lip as I try to figure out how to burp a cat, but I put her over my shoulder and pat her gently.
Havoc nods and goes to my en-suite bathroom. I hear the water running, and when he comes back he has the damp cloth in hand.
“Fuck, she’s tiny,” Havoc says as he passes the cloth to me.
I nod, turning her over gently in my lap so I can rub her with it like the video had instructed. I think I see her pee, even a little, but I keep going for a moment to make sure. She squirms in my hands, and I grab a dry towel so I can wrap her up again.
“Um,” I say. “I’m supposed to have something to keep her warm with. Do you have a heating pad, or maybe… I think it said something about a sock with rice or a water bottle or something like that?”
What if I can’t get her warm enough? What if I get her too warm?
Did my mom ever care about my body temperature?
“Yep, I got a heating pad,” Havoc says. He finds a box from the bag and uses his utility knife to get the box open.
We set the pad up on one side of the box and turn it on to the lowest setting. I place towels on top, then set the kitten down on it.
The moment she’s out of my hands, I want to pick her up again.
“All right.” Havoc kisses the top of my head. “I’m gonna check with Caleb. Set timers on your phone so you’ll know when to feed her. And, uh.” He rummages through the supplies again. “Here, this is a food tracking sheet.” He hands me a thin notebook with a picture of a puppy on the cover.
“It’s for dogs?” I ask in dismay.
Havoc shakes his head. “Nah, you can use it for kittens too.” He opens the notebook and points to the lined paper. “Write the date here, then the time you fed her here, and how much. There’s a column for weight too. Oh, I bought a scale to weigh her as well. That way you’ll know if she’s gaining weight from day to day.”
This is so much.
But I’m not going to think of her as too much. Caleb, Vortex, and Havoc will help me, but in the end, she’s my responsibility and I’ll care for her.
I close my eyes, though. “I should take a nap,” I tell him. “If I’m going to be up every two hours for… a while.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll go figure out lunch. Take a break.” He kisses me briefly, then gives me a worried smile. “I hope she makes it.”
I stare at him. “She will make it,” I tell him.
I pretend I’m not worried.
I pretend I’m confident.
But inside, I’m terrified.
Still, I set the box on the floor so I don’t accidentally knock it over in my sleep and get under the blankets. I’m not tired, and my thoughts are racing, but I force myself to rest.
It’s going to be a long few weeks.
***
My alarm goes off, telling me it’s time to feed the kitten again. I still haven’t named her.
It’s been three days. I should give her a name already.
The vet said I was doing a good job yesterday. She’d given me more tips on how to care for her, and what to look out for.
Sudden loss in weight. Not gaining weight. Not eating. Sluggishness. Not urinating.
There are so many things that could go wrong.
I shuffle over to the desk where I have the kitten set up.
I freeze when I realize she’s not there.
Where did she go? She’s too small to have gone anywhere on her own. She wouldn’t have been able to get out of the box, let alone to wander away.
What if…
What if something happened, and Caleb had taken her away so I didn’t see right away?
But no. She’s been doing well. There’s no reason to think that anything bad had happened while I was sleeping. No reason at all.
I search around the box, but I can’t find her.
She’s gone.
Tears start to spill from my eyes, and I fumble with my phone as I call Caleb. As soon as he answers, sounding groggy, I burst out, “She’s missing! I don’t know where she is. I need help. I can’t—” I nearly choke on a sob as I realize that the door to my room is open. I know I closed it. “The door is open. But she couldn’t have wandered off!”
“Seven!” Caleb says sharply. “Take a breath, pet. That’s an order.”
I gulp in a breath, but it doesn’t halt the panic. “I need to find her,” I whisper. “But I don’t know where to look. You didn’t… She didn’t… You’d tell me if something happened to her, wouldn’t you?”
I hear Caleb moving around. “I would not have taken her without telling you, Seven. I know how much she means to you. So, steady. We’ll find her.”
I’m still clutching the phone when he pushes the door open.
He pauses and checks the latch. “Did you remember to push the door in all the way?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, until I realize what he’s getting at.
The door doesn’t latch properly sometimes. Nacho used to be able to push the door open if I didn’t make sure it was latched.
Had I done that before I’d turned in? I’ve been so tired, since I keep getting up every few hours for the kitten.
“You think Nacho stole her?” I ask, my voice still uneven. Why would he have done that? How would he have done that? What if…
No. I don’t want to think about the possibility of him hurting her, even by accident. Surely he’d have only gotten into the box with its heating pad for warmth, but he’s nowhere to be found. Not in my closet, not under the bed, not behind the toilet.
Neither is Miss K, but that’s not unusual. She doesn’t usually come in here, though she’s been at my door just as much as Nacho lately.
“Come on.” Caleb adjusts his glasses and steps into the hallway again. “Let’s check the usual cat hiding spots.”
I wipe my eyes and follow him. We check all the obvious hiding spots. Nacho is in the cat room, dozing on the cat tree next to the window. I pick him up, startling him out of his sleep, but there’s no kitten here. I set him back down, and he gives me a look before bumping his head against my hand in a demand for pets.
Caleb peers into the cat caves and shakes his head. “Ugh. Maybe the catio?” He suggests.
“Do you think Miss K…” I trail off. I blink back tears, but I hurry down the hall to the catio. The catio door has a flap at the bottom for cats to get in and out. It’s designed to activate with the microchips in the cats so it only opens for them and not any other animals. It means the cats can go outside even at night.
I hit the outdoor lights to illuminate the area. At night, the summer desert air is a lot cooler.
The kitten must be freezing if she’s out here.
I whimper and look around.
I almost don’t see Miss K at first, dark as she is, sitting in one of the cat caves out here. It’s only because her eyes reflect the light back at me that I notice her.
I rush over to her, and I’m about to pick her up, too, when I see that there’s a small ball of fur next to her.
The kitten.
Relief and terror flood me in equal measure. How did she even get the kitten out here? And why?
Caleb steps through the catio door and joins me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“Miss K,” I whisper. “What are you doing?” Like she can really tell me what she was thinking.
Miss K ignores my question and rubs her nose against the kitten’s forehead. Then she starts grooming the kitten, just like she sometimes does for Nacho.
I freeze. “Is she…” I glance at Caleb. “Did she steal the kitten so she could cuddle with her?” I inch closer, then reach out to pet Miss K on the head.
“I guess she has mothering instincts, even though she’s spayed,” Caleb says. He yawns. “It wasn’t nice of you to scare Seven like that, Miss K,” he admonishes lightly.
Miss K keeps grooming the kitten.
“Can I… can I take her back?” I ask Caleb.
“Yeah. You need to feed her, right?” Caleb reaches into the cat cave and pulls the kitten away from Miss K. She meows in protest, but Caleb has a harder heart than I do and he has less trouble ignoring the cries.
“Maybe you can do supervised visits in the future,” Caleb suggests as he passes the kitten to me. “So Miss K doesn’t feel the need to steal her again.” He takes Miss K out of the cave and hefts her against his shoulder.
I nod. “I’ll let her during the day when I’m up.” It has to be a way to keep the kitten warmer, right? And if Miss K helps groom her… “But for now, I need to feed this baby girl.”
I carry her back to my room, preparing a bottle for her.
I’m wired now, the adrenaline having completely woken me up. My hands are shaking a little as I start to feed the kitten, but I go through our usual routine. She mewls and drinks and does her business.
Time to put her back in her box.
I press her against my chest.
I don’t want to let go of her right now.
Caleb has followed me, but he closes Miss K out of the bedroom — and latches the door properly.
“I need to name her,” I say, petting her head.
Caleb nods. “You do. She’s growing well, and her bloodwork was clean so odds of survival are good.” He smiles at me. “She won’t remember any of this, but I’m sure she’ll love you forever, Seven.”
Tears well up in my eyes again, and I swallow hard. “She doesn’t need to remember for it to be worth it,” I tell him, my voice hoarse. “And I’ll love her forever, too.” I nibble on my bottom lip. “I was sort of thinking Hope. For a name. Because I had to hope she would do okay, and she’s doing okay, and it gives me hope that she’ll keep doing better.”
“Hope is a great name,” Caleb says. He sits down on the edge of my bed. “Do you want me to spend the rest of the night here?”
“You have work in the morning,” I point out, even though I want to say yes. It’s been a few days since I’ve spent the night with any of them in my bed, or in theirs, and it’s gotten lonely without even Nacho to cuddle with. “You don’t need to be woken up every two hours.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive. Or maybe I’ll call in sick.” Caleb gets under the covers and sets his glasses on my bedside table. “Good night, Seven. Good night, Hope.”
I gently set Hope back into her box and fuss with the towels around her. “Night, Caleb. Night, Hope.”
I cuddle up with Caleb, sighing in relief at the feeling of his warmth against me.
“See you in two hours,” I murmur.
***
Hope meows from the top of the catio.
Not the top of a cat tree in the catio, but from the mesh roof, where she’s clinging upside down with all her tiny claws.
“How did she even get up there?” Vortex asks, amused awe in his voice. “Not even Nacho climbs like that.”
Havoc snorts. “I think Hope might have fewer brain cells than Nacho.”
“She does not!” I say, offended for Hope’s sake until I realize he’s also insulted Nacho. “Hey!”
Though if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s a long-running joke that ginger cats all share a single brain cell, so I guess I can’t be too upset.
Vortex reaches up to help Hope out of the mess she got herself into. She digs her claws into the mesh, but a three month old kitten doesn’t stand a chance against Vortex. He’s still gentle with her, his large hands eclipsing her, and I take her from him.
“What are you getting yourself into?” I ask Hope, kissing the top of her head. She’s almost the size Nacho was when I’d found him, though I think he was a little older. “You’re going to get yourself stuck one day when we aren’t around to rescue you, you know.”
She meows again, trying to scramble out of my hands.
Probably to get herself back into the same predicament.
I shake my head but set her down on the cat tree. “Stay here,” I tell her firmly.
She immediately climbs up the tree, and she was probably going to try escaping via the roof again, but something distracts her.
Something big, dark, and fluffy.
She raises her butt, wiggles it around, and pounces on Miss K’s tail.
Miss K, who was napping on the shelf above where Hope is, makes an irritated sound and lifts her tail away. It doesn’t deter Hope, who climbs up to the same shelf and starts batting at Miss K.
Miss K takes one look at the kitten, bats her nose with her paw, then lies back down again.
I smile, then go sit back down in Vortex’s lap. “Hard to believe she was so small, huh?” I ask.
It’s nice to be able to sleep again, but I’m glad I put the work in.
She’s worth every night I spent waking up every two hours for her.
“She was barely the size of Vortex’s cock,” Havoc says, which gets him a punch in the arm from Vortex. “Hey!”
While they squabble, I spot Nacho making his way up the tree. Hope sees him too, and runs down the ramp to one of the other cat trees to hide in the cave there. Nacho follows, and the two of them bat at each other’s feet.
I look over my shoulder when I hear the door to the house open. Caleb walks out with a tray of drinks and snacks, and a deck of cards.
“What are we playing for?” Havoc asks as he sits down at the table we’d brought out.
“For fun,” Caleb says. After a beat, he adds, “And the winner will get a blowjob from Seven.”
“What if I win?” I ask.
“You never win unless you cheat,” Vortex retorts.
I scowl at him. “I don’t cheat.”
“He doesn’t cheat,” Caleb says. He sets the tray down. “I cheat, and he helps me.”
“That,” I say. I lean back to kiss Vortex, but before anything can start to get too heated, Hope is in my lap. She purrs loudly, signaling that she’s ready to be petted and that I’m to be a good human and oblige.
I smile down at her and pet her, even when her tiny claws dig into my legs.
“If the cats will let us,” I say.
And if they won’t, well. It’s still time well spent.
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