Chapter 2.
‘Christian’
I think I handled myself pretty well for my second debut as a human.
All those nights binge-watching ‘Syndicate’ with Christian and the team, crowding around the living room to watch our all-time favourite crime series, definitely came in handy… and I’ve watched Christian for long enough that I think I did pretty well mimicking him. Maybe.
I open my eyes to bright ceiling lights. I thought cat eyes were pretty sensitive but I’d forgotten how different human eyes are, the new range of colours is still jarring.
I’m blinded for a few moments before the room comes into focus—a small space with a single bed—and when I look down, my torso is bandaged spectacularly.
I admit, when I shot myself in the chest to recreate the bullet wounds of a dying man, I didn’t expect bandaging it to be so utterly impossible. They made it seem so easy in Syndicate.
I have the limitations of the body I shift into, so my collapsing is a stark reminder that even though I can’t die, losing blood will still render me unconscious. As long as my cores are undamaged, the body I’ve chosen will heal over time. They’re the only parts of me that matter.
A familiar face comes into my line of vision, leaning over me and my expression softens. I’d been meaning to wake up when no one was here so I could shift back into a cat and escape… but Dahlia hasn’t left my side even once in the past two days.
I can only pretend to sleep for so long.
She looks tired. I’ve seen her many times while following Christian and the team on his adventures, and she absolutely adored me as a cat—she’d often scratch that sweet spot beneath my neck and leave warm milk for me whenever she could.
I’ve watched her closely in all those moments… so I know she’s been holding in the tears. I know because her usually vibrant skin is pale, her black wavy hair now lies flat and dull around her shoulders instead of its usual well-kept waves. One look into her eyes and I know her soul is breaking.
It’s a stark reminder that mine is breaking too.
She collapses over me to wrap her arms around my head and my eyes sting.
I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt the warmth of another person, and every single time, it was Christian.
Whenever he rubbed my fur his hands were always warm.
Whenever he made space for me in his bed, his body was almost hot to the touch, keeping out the chill during the winter nights…
But when I’d laid next to him for the last time, his body was stiff and cold. His blood was sticky beneath my paws and against my fur—the scent of it lingers in my nose even now, and his pretty eyes—the bright blue that mesmerized me every passing day…
They were dull. Lifeless.
The heart in my chest squeezes painfully, and my hand hovers over Dahlia hesitantly before finally gaining the courage to rest on her back… and for a moment the world is just barely warm again, a glimpse of the past peeking its head out of the darkness.
“Welcome back, Christian,” Dahlia whispers.
And just like that, the warmth is gone, sucked out of the air to leave behind only bitter cold.
My hand freezes on her back and my throat tightens painfully. Dahlia pulls away to watch me with such a bittersweet and grateful expression, that I have to turn away because the tears have started to fall.
Because she’s wrong.
Christian Adler didn’t come back.
What she’s holding in her arms is solely an imitation I created to clear his name and kill Everett.
I can still feel the strands of that weasel’s hair on my fingers.
Still feel the hatred. The warmth flowed through my bones like sunlight when I pulled the trigger and destroyed his knees.
The satisfaction that writhed in my blood and threatened to break out of my skin when I stuffed the grenade in his mouth.
But all I can see now is Christian’s face.
The face I stole.
‘You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?’ Christian’s singsong voice bursts through my memories. A strange light twinkles in his eyes and I watch him hesitantly as he stoops to reach his fingers out to me.
Even though I’ve been following him for weeks, I’ve never shown myself until now. And it’s been so many days since I started wandering this world in an animal’s form, I thought I was content with just watching his adventures from afar. The adventures of him and the rest of his… Adler Squad.
‘You really saved my ass back there.’ His smile is gentle, and even in the dim light of the alleyway, his blue eyes are bright and unafraid…
it pulls me forward, out of the shadows and into the light of the lamppost. If I hadn’t yowled to get his attention, the assailant sneaking up on him would’ve shot him when he was distracted.
It was just in time that he was able to put down the intruder quickly with two bullets between the eyes.
Christian’s hand on my head suddenly expands the world. His smile, the twinkle in his eyes, they make the space brighter—they fill me with warmth I’m not used to.
A warmth made worse by the sound of his voice.
‘I owe you one.’
I’m pulled out of the memory so viciously the world is blurry. My eyes are stinging like crazy—maybe it’s a side effect from losing so much blood—until something wet rolls down my cheek.
Ah.
Human tears.
That’s new.
My chest hurts too. It hurts so much worse than before—grief and hatred and frustration, painful and agonizing.
The world is too blurry for me to see Dahlia clearly, but even then, I can’t bear the look in her eyes. It burns me—the gratitude and relief inside them. She truly believes her friend, her comrade, has come home.
But Dahlia, the truth is, the person you’re looking for never came back. He never will.
My vision blurs. How is water leaking from my eyes when I’m dehydrated? That doesn’t even make sense.
“Does it always hurt?” My voice still sounds foreign to my ears and I both hate and love that it’s Christian’s voice, “When you lose ‘home’?”
I can’t make out Dahlia’s expression, but I can feel her sorrow in her voice as she takes a seat beside my bed, “Always.”
“… Does it ever stop?”
She squeezes my hand, before reaching out with the other to wipe the tears from my face, “It will one day… when you’ve found a new home.” She puts on a brave smile, but I know Dahlia lost her home when she lost her husband.
Her new home was the Adler Squad; she’d handpicked and trained them herself. She was their family, vicious but fiercely loyal.
This would be the second time she’s lost her home.
How many more would she have?
How many more would she lose?
I can’t understand why she would bother going through that cycle.
I look up at the ceiling. If I can’t do anything but lose it… “Then I don’t think I want a home,” I say softly.
“Sometimes home finds you instead,” she replies, “and you can’t stop it.”
‘What the fuck is that now?’ Mitch’s voice pierces my memories again. ‘You know Dahlia will kill us if we adopt a pet. She’ll throw him into the river.’
‘He’s not a pet,’ Christian retorts and I jump out of his arms to sit on the kitchen counter and meow my greeting.
‘And Dahlia can try but she’d have to catch him first,’ Christian continues with a smile, ‘He’s a slippery one.’
‘Get it off the table, before I shoot it,’ Max’s voice is soft from the corner of the kitchen but his scowl is fierce. I meow again and jump off the table to sit in the chair and the room turns quiet.
‘Hold up, did he just fucking listen to you?’ Mitch watches me with wide eyes.
‘He’s a great listener too,’ Christian looks ridiculously pleased with himself, ‘he saved my life today.’
‘You’re joking,’ Mitch deadpans.
Three shots pierce the air. Max’s weapon is drawn before the rest of the team can blink, but I already anticipated them. I leap off the chair to avoid the shots, somersault in the air and land on Max’s shoulder.
His gun clatters to the floor as he jumps up with new horror, waving hysterically, ‘Get it off me, get it off me—!’
I jump down to leave him be for now, returning to Christian’s side and jumping onto his shoulder instead. I walk to his other side, brushing against his neck with a small purr, and he barks a laugh before turning his head to pet the spot between my ears.
‘You’re an amazing little guy, aren’t you? I know exactly what to call you.’
There’s that smile again, lighting up my suddenly bright world—a world that’d been dark for exactly 824 days.
‘Beau.’
The memory shatters again, replaced with cold emptiness.
For me, there will never be another home like Christian.
There will never be another home like the Adler Squad.
The door swings open and a vaguely familiar man with dark eyes enters the room with a big grin, “Ah. My brand-new traitor-killer’s awake.”
‘Brand new’ doesn’t sound accurate.
My brows furrow. I recognize him from that night, inside the office with Dahlia, but now that I’m no longer bleeding out, I can focus a lot more clearly, a tall man with enchanting and slanted black eyes.
His wavy black hair carries a natural, unruly tousle, pulled back into a messy bun, but the sides are shaved and strands of his long hair fall at the sides of his cheeks, framing a handsome face.
A black jacket hangs over broad shoulders and a white turtleneck hugs his chest, tucked under a black belt and baggy pants.
His presence seems to shrink everything in the room, an unspoken confidence in his every movement that would make normal humans look twice, but a strange energy clings to him.
A chaotic mass that triggers strange instincts and makes his supposedly relaxed smile appear absolutely frightening.
If Christian was the sun, then this man would be complete darkness.
I watch him cautiously, “You are—”
“Reuben Taiga,” he finishes for me, stopping by Dahlia’s side but I don’t allow my surprise to show, my only tell is an instinctive crease in my brows.
“One of the Don’s sons,” I guess accurately from memories of talks with the Adler Squad.