Page 49 of Tracking Snow

I need to pretend I'm not about to commit violence.

Slowly, I set the flat iron aside.

"Nice kitty," I say, in a voice so sweet it tastes like poison in my mouth. "Sweet little Lucifer. Precious baby monster. Come here."

Ariel makes a strangled sound behind me.

Lucifer watches me.

I take one careful step forward.

His claws sink into the corset.

Riiiiip.

Lucifer drags one claw along the boning with surgical precision, his eyes locked on mine as if he wants me to understand this is a message.

Something inside me snaps clean in half. My hand dives under the hem of my skirt, and a dagger is out of the little thigh holster before I decide to pull it.

Ariel throws herself at me from the side, both arms wrapping around my waist with shocking strength at the same time the blade leaves my fingers.

Lucifer launches off the bed.

The dagger thunks into the doorframe an inch above his disappearing tail.

"Snow, no."

"He chose this."

"You can't kill him. Cats don't really have nine lives. You do not want to be a cat murderer for the rest of your life." Ariel tightens her hold around me, the weight of her chair holding me back. "He has no real home. No family. No one who wants him. That's punishment enough."

I stare at the little crime trail of glitter paw prints leading out of my bedroom.

"The hell it is," I say. "That corset was expensive enough to qualify as a dependent on my taxes."

My eyes drop to the glitter streaking my legs, my skirt, the floor, and back up to the mirror. I study the remnants of the violence across one side of my mouth. Then I stare at the shredded corset. My voice comes out low. "We're burning sage later."

Ariel releases me carefully, as if I might still sprint after my enemy. "For an emotional reset?"

I narrow my eyes. "No. To see if it hurts him."

"Bingo!" Ariel shouts, slamming her hand on the table with enough force to rattle both our drinks.

A couple hours later, an outfit change, a hell of a lot of makeup remover, and two Snowdrops in, and I'm sat on the cold, uncomfortable stool in the Pumpkin Coach Club for Bibbidi Bobbidi Bingo.

The Snowdrop is a blue gin-and-lemonade concoction the Pumpkin Coach Club made for me during a Poison Apple crossover night. Each Lost Girl got her own branded cocktail in an attempt to lure the Poison Apple crowd to their club afterward. Mine is electric blue, tart enough to make my tongue tingle, and fizzy with lemonade, which makes it seem much more innocent than it is.

By the second one, the tight band around my chest has loosened, and Lucifer’s continued survival feels slightly less offensive.

No, scratch that. Death to devil kitty.

The people around us groan or laugh, and one woman in a gold romper yells, "Check her card! I think she's cheating!"

"Ma'am," the drag queen on stage, Lola La Loca, calls back. "This girl is real down to her fabulous copper hair. Don't tell me how to do my job."

Ariel wheels over to the stage, grinning. The queen bends to inspect her card, one hand dramatically pressed to her chest as if each correct square wounds her personally.

Lola is Latina, short, plus sized, and dressed in green from her eyelids to the tops of her thigh-high boots. Her sequin bodysuit hugs every curve as she bends over Ariel's bingo card. With one hand, she brushes a curtain of long black hair back over her shoulder, flashing nails so long and elaborately painted they must have taken an entire afternoon. As she taps each square, the mic picks it up—clack, clack, clack—over the thump of the music, while the whole bar waits for her verdict.