Jack is the perfect gentleman, pulling out my seat.
I force a smile. “So, what did you want to discuss?”
He shakes his head. “You’re right to the point on this stuff; no dawdling on small conversation pieces. Susan was like that. She’d always cut straight through the bullshit.”
“So?” I ask, not wanting to be given the run around. Just needing to know what’s going on.
“We had a mutual friend, Susan, I figured we could talk about her.” He shrugs. “Plus, it’s not a crime to ask a pretty girl on a date.”
I lean back to grab one of the books off the shelf. It was a bit behind me, but I could just reach it. My face flushes red, but not from embarrassment and instead more so from uneasiness. “If that’s your plan, don’t waste your time. I’m a lesbian.” May as well get that elephant in the room out of the way. And I don’t trust his flirty comments. To begin with, he saw me befuddled at seeing an empty casket. Second, he was trying to access an enemy with this whole coffee charade.
“Were you and Susan intimate, then?” He asks, the gleam in his eyes already seeming to know the answer. It wasn’t rocket science, anyone who saw those pictures would be able to figure it out. I instantly feel the urge to facepalm.
“That was a long time ago.” I play with a strand of hair, feeling the need to finick with something. Anything.
“I see.” He tilts his head to the side, studying me. There’s an awkward silence, and I desperately wish Annie would hurry up with our drinks.
“Here are your drinks, you two.” Annie reaches our table. “Your frozen mocha,” she gives it a questionable look, as if that would never be something she would ingest as she sets it down. Her loss, they were delicious sugar rushes. “And your cafe americano.” She turns towards Jack, handing him his drink.
“Thanks, sweetie.” He smiles at her, and she narrows her eyes.
She brushes it off, putting on a peppy smile. “Well enjoy your drinks you two.” She walks her way back to the counter, to help another customer. I had to imagine she had some experience, because making coffee drinks couldn’t be that easy, not a job that I envied. Especially with the lack of enthusiasm from the morning rush.
“So this is awkward.” I break the silence, giving an uneasy smile. “How did you and Susan meet?” I ask him.
“Sorry, I’m terrible company,” Jack laughs, pushing back a piece of almond colored hair. He’s good-looking for a guy, a few other girls glanced his way to check him out in this encounter. They could have him for all I cared. The never-ending five o’clock shadow and the tousled hair. Bad boy vibes with his leather jacket and silk dark blue button-up that really brings out the ember of his eyes. “We met five years ago.” So right after she left me, I feel a pang of hurt. “She was just getting out of a breakup and looking for a new job. An interesting bird, that one. Once we started to know each other better, she mentioned her interest in animal experiments and how it could change the world.”
Hm. Maybe the truth serum was already starting to work, as he let that slip. “That’s,-”I start.
“How did you meet her?” Jack asks, cutting me off from wanting to ask how she wanted to change the world.
“In college. Susan was the professor, and I was the student.” He raises an eyebrow at the slightly forbidden romance. “We were together for a while.” Then I proposed, she seemed thrilled, and then she left me. I fiddle with the tassel on my dress, not really wanting to make eye contact.
“What were you studying?” he asks.
Ah, one of my other regrets: never finishing. But I guess if I had more time in the future, I could go back towards my psychology courses. Wanted to be a children’s counselor, help lost kids learn to live with harder hands dealt to them. “Business,” I answer, lying, figuring it was a useful degree to have. “With a minor in literature. When we broke up, I kind of dropped out.” If only she had broken the news to me sooner, I could have dropped out of those classes before I paid for them. Shit happens.
“Sorry.” He actually means it.
“She was an amazing woman.”
“Indeed,” he agrees, taking a long sip of his drink. He’s drinking it at this point like it’s some sort of drug, and he’s probably a third of the way through. Maybe I can start asking the more intense questions?
“So, you said she wanted to change the world … How so?” I tilt my head to the side. At my reluctance towards animal experiments, she didn’t delve much into it. Figured I could never understand her need to make an impact, with her crazed ideas. Plus, when we were an item, she was just starting to get plans together.
“For so long, they were beneath the food chain. Susan figured with her experiments that she could help the army win wars and stuff like that. She didn’t get the chance to follow that experiment. Didn’t get far enough along.” He takes another gulp of his drink, eyes widening. “So we went with her plan to do that and experimented on rats, bats, birds. The whole nine. But she wanted to go further than the rest of the company wanted to.”
“How far?” I pressed. She must have given his drink quite a bit of the honesty stuff.
“She wanted to go towards cats. She actually experimented on her cat before they cut her off. They decided she went too far. She finally managed to get the enlargement formula right, but there were a few other subjects she had to perfect as well.” He sighs. Were there others besides Tiger, and Maori that I wasn’t aware of? “Susan was never fully satisfied, but her cat killed a few humans, and then she was on the run. She wanted to make it so that their fur was impenetrable.” Bulletproof fur.
Invincible cats. That’s something to fear.
“Cats are so easy to get with all the homeless ones around.” He says as if it’s obvious. “Stronger than birds, rats, all of those other pesky ones. Plus the humans were going to try to kill some off anyway with the toxic plants they put down for cats in some areas.” Why couldn’t humans see their world could be shared with others besides them?
I decide to test the waters further. “Was anyone working with her on the project?”
“Me,” he answers.
Strange, he didn’t seem to have an interest in it before. But honesty could change a lot of things. “What happened to her?”
“She had another goal to achieve with these experiments. She wanted to find her parents’ killers. Then she got too close to finding out the truth.” That couldn’t be him who took them out, he was hardly older then her. And their deaths happened when she was so young.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t add any more comments, much to my dismay.
“Were there any other cats she experimented on?” I ask as he takes a long drag of coffee.
“One.”
“Who?”
“An ex-lover’s cat. Black and white tuxedo cat that has a sassy mouth on her. Believe it or not, she can talk.” His face beams with a grin.
I grind my teeth, livid about the fact that Maori can’t be in my apartment anymore. How would new missions go if she wasn’t there as backup? There was Charming…but he seemed to attract danger more often than not.
“What happened with the tuxedo?” I ask.
“Things went well until they didn’t. I mixed with the mixture so the chunky tuxedo would go all killer on her and I would get off scot-free.” He gasps as he tells me the last part, finally noticing the secrets he’s revealing. Took him long enough. “What the hell was in this coffee, bitch?”
“Just enough to get you to spill the beans.” I had no reason to lie, if he already caught on. And I’m tempted to kill him myself, with all the danger and pain he caused my loved ones. Annie rushing from behind the counter, to join me.
“We got everything we needed?” Annie whispers in my ear, barely legible.
I nod.
She goes up to taser him, but he’s too fast as he steps up, pushing his chair in her way as she falters. He pulls out a gun. How I hate those weapons of violence. Killing her right there. College st
udents finally tear away from their computers to take a frenzied look at what’s going on, others running off.
“This isn’t the last we’ll see of each other, Cat. You got more from me than what was planned.” Great, another enemy. He backs away fast, aiming the gun at me, so I’m frozen in place. I can’t die, I had too many responsibilities on my shoulders. Before he just rushes out the door. He wouldn’t let me die that easily, after I fucked with his head.
Well fuck.
Chapter 15
Cat
"And then he got away," I tell Gen, finishing telling her the recount of what happened. "He killed Annie." My voice breaks. I liked her. How many more would he kill before we caught the motherfucker?
We’re standing in the lab as I check with the science guy to see how the experiments are going.
"He killed another person. At least he won't be able to able to walk the streets, face is sure to be painted all over the news from the coffee shop shooting. And we found out some valuable information."
Not everything. I fucked up. I should have asked what happened with Susan's body and why it wasn't in the casket.
"Don't beat yourself up, Cat." Gen lays a hand on my shoulder as if being able to read my mind.
"They were talking about using the cats in the army. I think he's planning some type of way to reanimate her body." I’d had suspicions about that before, but he made noises about her work not being complete.
Gen nods. "I was thinking something along the same lines, but I don't think something like that would be possible. Reanimation? That would take more than a few measly experiments." The scientist gives her a glare as if offended by such words.
"Experiments aren't measly. They are works of art in their own way," Hank defends. "They are more than measly. It's not something that just anyone can do. You have to have the right skill set, the right ingredients mixed together. It's a medley."
"Sorry, Hank, I wasn't aiming that at you." Gen gives him an awkward smile. Then, she turns back towards me. "He'll probably have to find some type of dark magic to complete something like that. And if anything like that goes on in the area, our radar will light up like a damned Christmas tree." I know she means the words to be comforting, but I still felt uneasy. Jack could do it somewhere else in the world. He could find some type of encrypted magic room that would allow him to do so without being detected.
"Better not be, or I may decide to join that Jack guy instead," he mutters sarcastically as Gen gives him a dark glare, letting him know that shouldn't be something to joke about in these quarters. Not unless he wanted to be labelled as a killer as well. And the only things Hank kills are rats in his experiments.
"I’m scared I screwed things up, though, he will be on the run now." My head hangs low. If I didn't ruin things so much, maybe I could have had the chance to delve in further.
"Cat, if you went too far in, you could have gotten yourself killed, and that wasn't the aim of the mission, hunny,” Gen gives me a supportive look. "We know more than we did before, and we know what else Jack is planning now. Though, I doubt the army would accept overpowered cats. Especially with how Tiger went all exterminator.” That’s a good point. But then, if the army didn’t accept the experiments, what if Jack tried to gather enough cats to take them out and gather a new one. "Thank you for updating us. I'll see you later." Gen takes off to do another thing that was no doubt on her mile-long to-do list. I don't know how she ever has time to sleep.
I turn back towards Hank. "How is progress going today?"
"I think I've come to a breakthrough!" Hank tells me excitedly. Has he given himself a break from working on this? He was hours into it even this morning when I stopped by. "Do you have time so I can show you how it works?" He asks.
"Sure." Accepting the goggles, he passes me, anticipation of what this will come to. Would it unlock the cure for Maori? Stepping a bit further back than I did the first time, in case rat guts went flying every which way.. I don't know how well I could get blood out of my white peasant dress, and I’m not looking to find out.
"First, we'll go over this part again." He takes out another rat, making me wonder if he had a factory of them on hand. Hopefully, this one won’t have an exploding death like the other. Did that hurt a lot, or was he dead or in shock before the pain could sink in?
Poor confused rat is standing on the table, sniffing around for his cage so he can hide. I imagine your bones growing then shrinking in such a short time strain would be excruciatingly painful.
"The enlargement formula." Hank puts a few drops of it on a slice of cheese for the rat to eat, who looks like he wants nothing to do with it. "Come on, boy," he encourages him, and the rat goes up to sniff it. Soon enough, he's eating it like it's his own personal drug. Moments later, the rat is growing up to ten times his size, looking around befuddled. A sad look to his cage, as hiding was well out of the options now, as he couldn’t fit through his home’s door.
That must mess up his sight a lot as he looks around. Everything seeming smaller than before.
"Now, the one to shrink him back to size." He gets more cheese, putting a few drops on it. But the rat wants nothing to do with that. Instead, he wants something better to better fit his enormous size. "He should want to eat it. This doesn't make sense." Hank rubs his fingers on the sides of his nose, frustrated that nothing seems to be going well.
Instead, the rat sets his eyes on me. It’s the size of a fucking cat and running towards me like he’s a damned horse. Fuck my life! Hank grabs him with a blanket just in time to wrap his arms and legs in. He forces his mouth open to put a few drops in. The critter then shrinks back to average size. Hank carefully putting the ratto back in his cage.
I think it still needs some work. Instead of the rat dying, he just wanted to kill me. Joy.
"See, perfect?" He nods towards the rat, who is now going killer on his cage walls. "Or it was perfect earlier. Maybe someone messed with it while I was out of the room." He frowns as I raise an eyebrow.
Maybe he didn't realize the rat was trying to go all killer earlier? Maybe I just pissed the rat off by coming in here smelling like cats.
"Or maybe the cheese offset it.” Hank picks up his notebook by the cage to see where the error could have possibly been made. Uh-huh. "Well, it's more than anyone else in this building can do." He had me there. "I just need to make a few adjustments because you probably wouldn't want Maori to turn into a killer." Susan's shredded body is back to mind at those words and how Maori killed her.
"Likely not." I nod in agreement.
"Stop by tomorrow, and there might be more progress by then."
"What about him?" I question, looking at the rat who is desperately chewing on the wires of his cages to try to get out, to try to taste one damned drop of human blood.
Hank reopens the cage, holding psycho rat in a constraining pose so he can’t move. Putting a careful a shot to its throat that sets it in a deep sleep. "He should hopefully feel better when he wakes up."
Would someone be daft enough to mess around with the experiments? My mind evidently goes to Brian, but he's not a science guy, so he would be more likely to cause an explosion if he messed with experiments. "I promise I should have a better solution by tomorrow."
"No rush." I give him a hint of a smile. I'd rather the formula be right instead of rushing for when it finally gets used on Maori.
Chapter 16
Maori
Crunch, rustle, crunch, I hear footsteps in the woods heading my way. Her scent mixing in with the autumn forest air. “Some good and bad news,” Cat tells me as she appears from behind a tree. Hopefully, the bad news isn’t that she forgot my brush. My fur could really use it. Plus, it feels so good to have it scrape against me.
Her hair is a bit of a mess as if she had a life-shaking encounter earlier, or just slept wrong on her pillow. Hell, knowing her, it could be a matter of reasons. Everyone knows to steer clear of her while entering the woods unless they wanted to be killed by yours t
ruly.
“What’s going on?” I ask her, my eyes widening in excitement at the kitty brush is taken out of her purse. Yes! I lay down so she can start brushing my fur. She begins behind my ear, as I close my eyes feeling content.
“Several good and bad things, actually,” Cat clears her throat. Oh no.
I notice she’s actually dressed pretty nicely today. A cute white dress. “Hot date?” I question, but I know it couldn’t have been that. Unless she was daft enough to have forgiven Raven and actually went through another first date with her.
“There was this guy Jack.” Shivers run down my spine. “I think he’s going to try to reanimate Susan’s corpse. Use her as a slave of sorts to work on experiments with her knowledge. Without all the pesky Susan emotions included.” Wonderful. “He purposely spiked your dosage so you would kill her. I was getting the impression he was trying to do the same as Tiger, after the people he killed, but that didn’t work out as well.”
But Tiger wouldn’t kill her. Or she escaped before he got the chance?”
“I would have killed her if I had the chance.” Tiger passes by, offering his two cents. He must still be livid at me since the comment is directed at Cat alone and not me. The asshole.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asks, noticing the tension between us two giant cats.
“Nothing,” we answer at the same time. Tiger narrowing his eyes at me, before running off to do god knows what.
“They want to use cats in the army,” Cat tells me. What cat would be dumb enough to participate in human wars? Hell I’d rather spend my days sunbathing.
I can’t help the cackling laughter that comes out of my mouth when she says that. I love Cat, but I won’t put my life at risk because people have to solve their problems by killing the enemy. “She wanted to expand it to make cat skin impenetrable so that they were basically unkillable.”
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