Page 122 of Snake It Off
“Could have just said you did,” he grumbles. “I figured I’d ask. It’s easy to put that place in a box so you don’t have to think about it and shit.”
I want to scream, to lunge at him, to brandish Baby and demand he be as pissed as I am. Instead, I let my shoulders collapse inward, my spine stiffening as I remind myself that he doesn’t have all the information yet. Everyone will be furious when they see what I did, but until we get a fix on where the hell Deli is hiding, I can’t share the images I can’t get out of my mind ever since.
Also, he isn’t the bad guy here, and we’re all working hard not to take fury out on the wrong people now.
Rafe stands there, his arms open, but when I don’t come over, he frowns. “Why are you being so… cold? Are you that worried?”
I watch the way the light from the window halos his golden hair, and I have to push away the emotions I feel for him. The possibility of violence when I find the cat is still there, but the possibility of tenderness surrounds my husband. For a second, I don’t know which I want more, and I grit my teeth so hard I might crack them.
I break the stalemate by saying, “I have to do this so I can focus. You know that.”
If I stay here, I’m going to upset him, and I don’t have time for that. I have to get to her before I lose my steam.
Turning on my heel, I leave. I don’t slam the door on my way out, but I want to because I’m so damn infuriated that we can’t go a week without something tearing us apart. When I stomp down the stairs, the foyer is still again. I stalk through the house, glaring at things that remind me of what my family could be doing instead of constantly fighting. There’s a bay window where we could read on rainy Sundays, and a library full of books to choose from. The pool and gardens are perfect for frolicking rather than people collapsing near death during a storm. It makes me rub my chest as my stress-level spikes.
I count my breaths, my heartbeats, and my grudges. While I was part of most of the things we’ve survived, nothing I did is as bad as what she’s done. And I am not just searching; I am hunting, and the difference is not lost on me.
Deli is not hiding anywhere that we usually find her in her sorrow or grief, but she’s also not working as if nothing happened. I don’t know if that means that she regrets her betrayal, or that she doesn’t care how it’s going to affect our family. Does she even know that she’s been caught? If not, that might be why she’s so damn scarce; she’s just doing something secret and has no idea what’s waiting for her when she comes home.
Our cat has unleashed a tsunami of trouble and disappeared like smoke in the wind.
That’s when I reach for her again. It’s a reflex now, the way I test the perimeter of my consciousness, sending out the smallest pulse to see what vibrates back. It’s like a dog whistle, but for trauma. I touch the bond between us hopefully. Yesterday, I could sense her anywhere in the city, like a thread tugging at my ribcage. Now, she’s shrouded, but I try anyway. I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and force the connection open.
Deli is not nearby; she is somewhere else, and the bond is so faint that I know she wants it that way.
I don’t bother relaying that to my husband. He would want to come along and that is not a good job with my current mood. Instead, I slide my shoes back on and step out into the gloomy day outside. The sky is the color of old bruises, and the wind slices over me painfully as I walk to the car. She’s hoping we won’t find her because she’s so far down that she doesn’t even want anyone to look at her. I’d give her space, but I can’t this time.
She has to answer for this whether she wants to or not.
There’s only one place she would go now that she knows I’m looking for her. It’s the kind of logic that only makes sense if you’ve spent your life expecting the movements of something wild, something that loves you and hates you in equal measure. She’ll hide out where she knows I have no interest in being—which, ironically, is what my husband asked about. Starting the car, I take off with a grimace that isn’t going away.
This ends here.
The Zoo glaresat me from the end of the block when I arrive, a festering tumor on the face of our community. Since Belle left, it’s often empty, especially now that everyone is pretending it wasn’t a weapon. I cross the street in a diagonal, noting the way the tumultuous weather bends around my anger. I want to kick the door down, but I don’t. I slip through the doors, my jaw set as I prepare myself to face her.
The pain in my chest reminds me that I am not numb, no matter how much I want to be, and I take a deep breath.
Inside, the air is stale with old booze and new mildew. It’s colder than I expect, but my body runs hot as I’m always ready for the next emergency. I scan the darkness, see nothing, then blink twice and see everything. The tables are upended, and chairs flung around like toothpicks. Broken glass crunches under my boots, and I sigh, ready to scream until I see it. Someone has painted the words ‘everything changes’ in red across the back wall.
They’ve been here, too. I see the website address scrawled under the words and let out a snarl of fury.
I feel Deli now; she’s closer than before. I follow the pull up the narrow staircase to the balcony, where the pool tables rot beneath tarps. She’s perched on the edge of one, her tail curled around her feet and her eyes like twin wounds in the gloom. She doesn’t run; no, she just watches as I approach, the way shealways does. It’s obvious she wasn’t avoiding me or her primary; she wasn’t even avoiding her husband.
This disappearing act is about withholding shit from herself, so she’s upset about the wrong goddamn thing and will expect me to fix it.
It makes me want to yell, to drag her home by the scruff of her neck, to shake sense into her because I love her so much, but I also want to murder her. Instead, I look at her with all the ugliness in my heart and mind since I saw that motherfucking video. It’s a lot, and I’m sure she feels it through the bond.
She makes a sound that’s more surprised than scared, and I suck in a breath to calm myself.
“You fucking bitch,” I whisper. “We asked for one thing… one bloody thing. How could you?”
She blinks, looking confused for a second before hopping from the balcony to the bar below. I chase her because, of course, I do. She leads me through the maze of tables, out the back door, into the alley behind the bar. I have no idea why she’s taking me outside this cursed bar when she also led me here, but that’s how the cat handles being scolded—she runs.
I am too old for this bullshit, but too furious to give up.
She finally stops at the edge of the alley, looking at me as we face one another like we’re in a duel. I pull the stupid note out of my pocket, tossing it at her in a wadded-up ball as I sneer.
Unfolding it with shaking hands, the woman who just deep-sixed all our progress frowns as she reads it. I wait as she turns it over, looking at the drawing and the words on it. My heartstutters. I look at her, but she just pulls her phone out to look up the link.
“Why?” I ask, though I know she won’t answer yet. “Why did you do it?”
She flicks her tail, and for a moment I think she might run again as it plays. But there’s only the silence and the memory of all the promises our family made that she just broke. Rafe warned us she might crack. He warned us that the inner and outer turmoil might cause a big bad problem. I believed him, but I would have never suspected this would be how it happened.
That’s why I’m going to start this fight. I won’t let her get away with it, not when there’s video proof.
I’m not naïve; I know they set her up. No one has a webcam security system enabled in their home if they don’t plan to use the video for something. She took the bait, though. The cat owes us an explanation, but I’m first. She’d better not lie to me, or we’re done.
Everything is ruined, and it’s all her fault.
Why couldn’t she let them all go?
