“Because . . . because it’s a chicken!” Zach sputtered.
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “And? She’s scared and alone and I’m not just dumping her back in the woods to be eaten by some predator!”
“I’m pretty sure she could take on theactualPredator and come out victorious.”
“She’s tiny! She’ll become something’s lunch.”
“Yeah, mine if I have my way!”
“Zach!”
He gave his boyfriend a serious look, but he could already tell that he’d lost this fight. “Drew.”
“Please, will you help me look after her?” Drew asked, his eyes wide and imploring.
Zach threw his arms up in the air. “Fine! What is it that we need?”
Welcome to the Family
The house was quiet. Zach had gone to Home Depot to buy supplies, leaving Drew and the chicken alone. He’d laid some newspaper down in the corner, along with a bowl of water, and she’d already had a long drink, dipping her beak into the bowl over and over until she’d sated her thirst. She’d also relieved herself, twice, both times keeping it to the newspaper. In fact, it was the second time, when she’d gotten down off the couch, walked over to the corner to shit, and then returned to the couch that sent alarm bells ringing.
Unless she was a highly trained indoor pet—which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but highly unlikely—she might not be a regular, run-of-the-mill chicken. Drew snapped a photo of her and sent a text off to Kensington, asking him to drop around when he was finished with his emergency.
“What exactly are you?” Drew mused as he stroked the soft feathers on her back. He couldn’t believe how inky black her colouring was. Zach’swing feathers were black, but they shone with a tinge of red. These feathers were so dark it was as if they sucked all the light into them like a singularity. Her black skin, eyes, and comb were initially unnerving, but the more she sat calmly next to Drew and allowed him to pet her, the more he found her beautiful.
“I just have a feeling you’re not someone’s lost pet,” he murmured to her.
The chicken made a soft trilling noise that almost sounded like a purr.
“I think you might end up living here with us. Would you like that?”
Another chicken-like purr.
“You’d have to be nicer to Zach, though. You really did a number on his arm and that’s not okay. He takes good care of me, so I won’t have you hurting him. Okay?”
The hen blinked slowly in his direction.
Drew had the crazy idea that she could understand every word he was saying to her. But was it really so crazy? Zach could transform into a freaking cat, and when he was in that form they communicated telepathically with one another. Was an intelligent chicken so impossible?
“I guess we’ll need to give you a name if you’re going to stay here with us,” Drew told her. “How about Ebony?”
The hen gave him a haughty glare.
“Hmmm, what about Sabrina?”
Shebokkedgrumpily.
“Raven?”
She nipped at his finger.
“Ow!” Drew sucked his finger into his mouth. “Fine, we won’t use any of those. What the hell do you want to be called then?”
Leila.
The thought came to him with such clarity that Drew gave the hen a shrewd look. Had that idea come from him or from her? “If you can understand me,bokonce for yes and twice for no.”
Leila stayed silent, but she did give him a look reminiscent of the ones that Harriett used when Drew had done something particularly stupid. Before Drew could come up with other ways to test her sentience, he heard the door to the garage open and close and then voices on the stairs. A moment later Zach appeared, carrying a plank of two-by-four timber, and Kensington followed him in, laden down with a plastic feeder, waterer, and a bag of feed.
