Me: Fuck off, Matthew, and Jesse, if this isn’t the best idea I’ve ever heard, I will blackmail Michaels into replacing you.
SIXTEEN
Liam
I stare into the void and scowl.
The void stares back at me, and when I reach down, the void opens up its dark maw and snaps down.
“Um… maybe the cutie patootie just wants to stay in her carrier!” the woman says. Her elf hat jingles every time she moves, increasing my distress. And anyone who evenhasthe words “cutie… cutie pa…”—hell, I can’t even think them in my mind—in their vocabulary should be banned from ever speaking again.
“She’ll be fine once she’s out,” I assure her as I debate whether or not Lucy Fur would tell Gabriel if I just flipped the carrier over and kind of… shook her out like a Tic Tac. She’s acting like I kidnapped her away from her father… which I kind of did.
With Mabel’s help, which it disgusted me to ask for, I managed to pull Gabriel away from his cat for a single afternoon where I commenced Jesse’s Christmas idea of a Satanic photo shoot.
When we arrived, Margarine oozed out of his carrier like butter and I plopped him down on the stand with ease where he is still sitting, front feet tucked under him in a way only cats can sit.
Lucy Fur, on the other hand, is living up to her name as I just commit and reach in.
She explodes, shredding my arms up and making me question if welding gloves would have been the more appropriate apparel for this adventure.
“Oh goodness me, maybe we just photograph the good one,” the woman suggests while she eyes Margarine, but Gabriel’s love lies with this demonic beast for some reason.
“No, it must be this one,” I say, carrying Lucy Fur over to where Margarine is still loafing. I plop her down as I drip blood onto her fur.
“Give me the outfit,” I instruct, prepared at this point to be the blood sacrifice Lucy Fur requires for a successful photo shoot.
“I think outfit-less would be best,” the woman says, oddly concerned about the state of my arms.
“She’s fine,” I tell her, since Lucy Fur really is acting just fine now that she’s out of the carrier. She’s a princess who is used to only Gabriel cooing her out when he hauls her back and forth between our houses with ease.
Her tail is twitching while she surveys all of the humans she will wish death upon in her dreams this evening.
I slip the little outfit on her I’d brought, knowing that she’s used to wearing clothes for Gabriel’s numerous impromptu photo shoots. Then I snap antlers on Margarine’s head and step back to let the two people do their magic.
And it better be fucking magic.
“You can, uh… get cleaned up in the bathroom back there.”
“Sure,” I say as I head back to wash the blood off my shredded arms. Then I just slap paper towels over them which are held down by the seeping wounds before I sit back and watch her helper try his absolute hardest to get either cat to play with his toy wand. Margarine stares straight ahead with half-lidded eyes like he’s never been so bored in his life, and Lucy Fur just wishes the helper would get close enough that she could assassinate him.
“Maybe if you tossed down the blood of a virgin, she’d roll in it or something,” I say. “Do you have any of that?”
The woman bites back a laugh. “We… strangely enough don’t carry that. What about treats? Does the baby like treats?” she coos.
The “baby” would like her to get close enough to be within striking distance.
“What if Dad holds a licky for them?” she says as she holds it out to me.
I stare at it like she’s holding out a grenade she’s already pulled the pin on. Honestly, I’d prefer that.
I wad up the paper towels I’d been using to keep blood off their floor and dispose of them before taking the tube of disgustingness and proceeding to throw my life on the line. “Do you have a knife?”
“Like… a butter knife?” she asks.
“She prefers them to be sharp, but maybe she’ll be fine with a dull one,” I say.
“For the cat?”
