My eyebrows quirked at the name and I realized she’d meant Kitten. “Joshua,” I mused. “Who named you that?”
“My birth mother named me Josue, and my adopted mother changed it to Joshua. My brother and I are from Brazil.”
“Adopted?”
“Got a problem with it?” he asked sullenly.
“Did they change your brother’s name too?”
“He was older than me when we were adopted, so they kept his name. How about you,Cipher, what did your mother name you?”
“None of your fucking business,” I snapped. His eyes went wide and he drew back sharply as if I’d struck him. I probably should have apologized for my hostility, but I didn’t.
Artemis cleared her throat, then continued discussing the logistics of our trip. My good mood was fading fast. Something about this kid got right under my skin and turned me into a snarling, snapping hound.
We finished up with dinner and loaded up our packs. Mine felt twice as heavy as before but knowing it was full of food and necessities meant that I’d manage. We were just getting ready to set off when I noticed Kitten tying a jacket around his stomach in a weird way. At first, I figured it was just a strange local fashion, and then I saw him tucking his cat inside it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, stomping over to glare at him.
“I’m making a sling for Little Miss Purrfect.” He scowled back at me mulishly.
“You’re bringing your cat? No fucking way. No pets. House rule.”
“Screw your rules. She’s coming with me.”
“Family meeting.” I called everyone to attention. “Someone tell the little brat our rule about non-essential items.”
“She’s not an item, you bossy prick, she’s my cat, and besides, are your drugs really an essential item?” He made air quotes around the last bit.
“You little fucker—”
“I found a dolly,” Teresa said and pulled a baby doll from behind her back. The doll had seen better days–its hair was tangled and matted and only one of the eyes was working properly, kind of like the calico cat in question.
“The fuck is going on here?” I demanded of my companions. I went to sleep for a few hours and there was mutiny on my hands, and I knew who was at the root of it. I turned to him again. “We need to be able to fend off Rabids,Joshua, or ill-intentioned raiders, and you can’t do that if you’re loaded down with feline.”
“I’m not leaving without her,” he said, and the stubborn jut of his lower lip drove me absolutely insane.
“I guess this is a bad time to bring out these,” Macon said and withdrew a pair of cowboy boots from his pack.
“The fuck are you going to do with those?” I hollered. “The boot-scootin’ boogie?”
“Maybe a little two-step,” he said with a grin, tipped his nonexistent cowboy hat, and shimmied in the tall grass with his hands on his hips.
“Artemis?” I said, appealing to her as the voice of reason.
“Let’s take a vote,” she said in her aggravatingly diplomatic way. “All those in favor ofone,non-essential item, raise your hand.”
Kitten’s hand shot up first, no surprise there, as did Teresa’s and Macon’s. I looked to Gizmo and his wheelbarrow of electronic bric-a-brac.
“I kind of have a hoard of nonessential items already,” he said sheepishly.
“It’s settled then. Majority rules that you are allowed one non-essential item. However,” Artemis added, staring pointedly at Kitten. “You are responsible for carrying your own belongings, and if that cat gives us any trouble...”
“I’ll eat him,” I finished for her.
“It’s a her, asshole, and I’d like to see you try it.” Kitten laid his hand on his knife– suddenly a badass–and tried to look intimidating. As if on cue, the damned cat hissed at me again. Kitten followed suit, baring his sparkling white chompers, and then Teresa joined in, until it was a chorus of hissing, spitting kitties.
“Fuck this,” I said to the group. I grabbed my pack and stomped off toward the tree line to scout the path ahead of us. “I’ll see you fuckers there.”
