Page 121 of Tracking Snow

The thought settles over me like a glass lid.

My limbs go heavy. My breath thins. The apartment fades at the edges until all that’s left is the couch beneath my cheek, the taste of something bitter at the back of my tongue, and the slow, poisoned dark closing around me.

A movement by the window forces me to slowly raise my gaze to meet the motion. The dark shape moving into my apartment should strike terror into my heart. I should jump up and fight him off. I should finally put an end to his miserable life like he wants, but I don’t.

Instead, I just lie here.

His shadow rises over me, and all I can do is close my eyes, waiting for the final blow. Shock sparks through the numbness, but I keep my eyes closed.

It happens again.

And again.

A tiny, disgusting kiss from a dead cat who refuses to stay dead.

My breath catches hard enough to hurt.

The tongue scrapes up my cheek once more, insistent and warm, and some small, locked thing inside my chest gives a weak, pathetic kick.

I open my eyes.

Lucifer pulls away from my face to look down at me, yellow eyes narrowed.

"What are you doing?" I ask, though I know he can’t answer.

From behind Lucifer, there’s a flapping sound. The white flutterbun followed him into my apartment and lands on my coffee table, a safe distance from me.

"You palling around with your new friend?" I ask in a croaky voice. "It’s nice to have friends."

Even as I say it, tears stream down the sides of my face. I’m so tired, I can’t hold it in.

Lucifer goes back to licking my face, and soon I feel a weight on the couch as the flutterbun cuddles up to me.

The flutterbun’s little nose twitches against my wrist.

I suck in a broken breath. Slowly and gently, I lower my arm until it covers the flutterbun, and it sinks down to lie next to me. Then Lucifer walks over and cuddles between the two of us until we are a pile.

Even through my pain, I can’t help but feel awe as Lucifer starts to lick the top of the flutterbun’s head, paying extra attention to the tiny horns and long ears.

"Is this what you needed all along?" I say, reaching out a hand toward the devil cat, ready to be scratched to hell at a moment’s notice. "You just needed a friend?"

My fingers find the soft part of Lucifer’s head. He pauses his grooming, and I still at the same time.

After a while, I let my fingers stroke over the top of his noggin, and instead of turning around to eviscerate my bowels, he allows me to pet him.

The flutterbun then twists its head from a lying position to start licking Lucifer. After a minute, a strange rumbling sound kicks up.

"Are you...are you purring?" I whisper.

Lucifer’s eyes turn hooded.

"It must be hard to go through life alone, without a friend," I continue to whisper, changing the angle to behind the ears. The black devil cat pushes into my touch, seeking more. "Now that you have one, you basically have a personality transplant."

I tried with Lucifer in the beginning. Left food on the fire escape, made stupid kissy noises, bought him a little fish toy on a string. Then he scratched me, pissed in my boots, knocked over my favorite mug while staring me right in the eyes, and I wrote him off as a lost cause.

But he’d been alone. Not just alone, killed, resurrected, then trapped, likely cut open, tested on over and over because someone wanted to know how many times he could come back. And if they did that to Lucifer, they did it to The Seven too.

The thought makes my hand still against Lucifer’s head.