Page 69 of Scream For Me
He rounds the hood before opening my door, offering me a hand, and helping me out. The cold air bites every piece of my exposed skin, and I fend off the shiver that tries to take hold of my bones. Great. I show up to the fancy part of the airport in a fucking corset and stockings in the middle of winter.Nice work, Kat.
The building is small with no signage. There’s a few cars parked in the lot, but I don’t have anything to go on. I don’t even know if we’re still at the airport—the only indication that we are is the small jets parked a hundred feet away.
My eyes catch on a car I’ve seen before, parked outside of Headstone. Elias takes my hand in his as we walk towards it, and Gareth steps out.
“What’s going on, Elias?” I say warily, my heart beginning to race.
Gareth moves suspiciously slowly to the back passenger door. As he opens it and reaches in, my entire world tightens around me.
Time itself seems to stop.
I’m aware of Elias beside me, his warm hand against my back the only tether to this world. I’m aware of the icy wind biting into my exposed skin and the distant sound of planes readying for takeoff, but none of it exists in this moment. The only things that exist at this moment in time is me and…
Freddie
No. That’s impossible. Freddie is hundreds of miles away. Freddie is—
Before I know it, I’ve let go of Elias’s hand and I’m running across the parking lot, my boots thudding against the tarmac. My legs struggle to keep me moving, partly because of the cold but mostly because the entire reason for my existence is now thirty feet away from me. Twenty-five feet away from me. My vision blurs. This has to be a fucking dream.
Twenty feet away.
Tears form behind my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. Ten feet away. My chest is tight as I push myself the last few feet. I stop abruptly in front of Gareth, who hands the carrier to me with a small smile.
My hands shake too much to hold it, so I drop to the floor, knees screaming with the pain and cold as I pry the carrier open. A big ball of orange fluff steps onto my lap, not even allowing me to open the zipper fully. Everything inside me shatters. The tears I was holding back now fall freely. I pull him into my arms and nuzzle into his fur.
“Freddie!” I sob.
He rubs his face against mine and purrs loudly as he nestles into me. The sound of his purrs reaches the deepest part of my chest. I would know that purr anywhere. My body folds over him protectively as another sob rips free.
“Freddie, I’m so sorry,” I say, kissing his little head, now wet with my tears.
He rubs his nose against my cheek, leaving a cold, wet trail behind. My body is now shaking with sobs.
“I’m so sorry I left you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to leave you there,” my voice breaks completely.
For weeks after I left him at the shelter, I imagined him alone, scared and thinking I’d abandoned him. I didn’t stop crying for days. Eventually, I convinced myself that he was safe and warm, lying in front of a fire with an old married couple. Their 2.33 kids had left for college, and they wanted an older cat to look after. That had to be the reality, because the alternative tore me to shreds.
“Feisty little thing has been clawing me for hours, and now he’s a cuddle bug?” Gareth scoffs behind me, and I release a broken laugh through my tears.
I look up at Elias, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear tears were building behind his eyes too. My chest fills with everything I want to say to him. I want to thank him, to kiss him, to ask him a million and one questions. I open my mouth, but the words turn to cement in my throat. Only one word escapes.
“How?”
Gareth takes this as his cue to leave the conversation. He turns on his heel and walks inside the building, the door thudding closed behind him.
Elias doesn’t answer, he simply gives a long exhale and drops to the floor beside me. His hand goes instinctively to my lower back.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is he’s here now,” he says gently, giving Freddie a small scratch on the head. The gesture both fractures and heals something inside me.
I pull Freddie closer to me. He’s smaller now. He used to be more rotund, but he’s definitely been on a diet. He still smells the same. I’ve even missed the way his claws prickle into my skin. I just missedhim.
“I’m so, so sorry, Freddie. Please forgive me. I promise I will never leave you again,” I tell him as I rub his ear, his purrs deepening. “Why? Why would you do this for me?” I ask Elias.
His features soften as he drops to the floor beside me, his eyes burning into my own. “Because you deserve this. You deserve everything, Kat.”
Freddie’s purrs rumble deep in my chest as Elias’s words vibrate through my heart.
Thirty
