Chapter 51 The Cat And The Artist Sing The Blues
The Cat And The Artist Sing The Blues
DELILAH
Four hours worth of whiny, immature bullshit to figure out shit I already knew.
That amount of time is what it costs to be a high-functioning empathetic leader in a world where perception matters more than intent, more than dead bodies or even the simple act of getting your hands around a problem and wringing its neck until it stops twitching.
Four hours of sitting with people who think their needs are greater than anyone else’s, and the sharpest weapon isn’t my claws, but someone’s traitorous tongue.
I spent every minute suppressing the urge to carve up the sheep-like idiots with Talia’s former blade for fun.
By the time Lily called the meeting, I felt like a caged pitbull at a vegan daycare.
Once I was free, I did exactly what I said I would do. I grabbed my husband, went out, and made a spectacularly gruesome mess at a known den of inequity on the other side of the portal.
Taurus and I ran the entire outfit through the wringer until the floors bled.
The first two targets were warm-ups, and I barely had to break a sweat.
It’s always the same—some greasy little fucker with a warehouse and a contingent of rented meat-shields thinks they can defeat us.
I don’t believe in quick or clean anymore; if efficiency was all I wanted, my life would be run by spreadsheet, and I’d have deleted the problem children long ago.
No, I wanted to feel everything.
The grit in my teeth, the burn in my calves, and the way the world slows down when you line up your next move…
you know with a white-hot certainty—that you’re about to end someone who sorely deserves it.
Taurus says I get a look in my eye when I’m about to be a problem.
I’d ask him to clarify, but he spends most of those moments looking at me like I’m the world’s most delicious steak, so I doubt he’s paying attention to subtext.
We killed, devoured, and fucked with the city lights reflecting through the windows off his canines. Our little adventures are like a three-act play of horror—violence, appetite, and then aftermath.
I’m nothing if not capable of paying homage to the classics.
Afterward, Taurus walked the perimeter, leaving me on the floor as I came down from the pleasure.
He’s a connoisseur of violence in the same way some people collect rare vinyl, and he loves to see my work.
He counts my kills with his tongue pressed behind his teeth, every number making his smile wider.
It would’ve been easier to use my magick, but I’m technically on probation.
Mickey’s exact words last time were “Try not to attract any more attention than normal killers.” That’s like telling a tornado to mind its elbows, but I made do with claws and my knife.
It was more labor-intensive, but I get satisfaction from taking out this kind of scumbag no matter what the manner of death is.
Taurus gets satisfaction from watching me bleed, and then seeing who bleeds more.
By dawn, we’re both spent in the way only apex predators can be.
I’m scatterbrained, my skin is singing, and my mouth is slick with copper and adrenaline.
We apperate home holding hands like honeymooners, and I tell myself I’m going to shower and sleep.
Instead, I slide into leggings and a leotard and stretch until my joints pop like bubble wrap.
Sometimes, I can’t help being such a masochist.
It’s Tuesday, which means I’m working on ballet.
I’m improvising a schedule, trying to convince myself that self-care is a thing I deserve.
I rotate between tumbling on Mondays, weaponry drills on Wednesdays, and contemporary on Thursdays.
Taurus calls it ‘domesticated rage’, which is the most backhanded compliment he’s ever given me.
He says I’m easier to live with when I’ve worn myself raw, and he’s not wrong.
I need to move to think, and I need not to move to not think.
Movement is the only way I can contain the overflow of emotion from a night like the one we just had.
My mind is a crime scene and the only forensics team I trust is my own.
I throw myself around the gym until my pulse drowns out everything.
By the third song, my calves are shaking and my arms feel like someone else’s.
It’s not a bad feeling; there’s a memory in my aches and pains.
They’re like a permission slip that says I survived again today.
My reflection follows me edge-to-edge across the mirrored wall. My hair is a rat’s nest, and my shirt is soaked. I look like a drowned ballerina, but I’m not here to be pretty.
After the last jump, I collapse against the barre and slide to the floor. Gravity is my friend as I breathe through the stitch in my side and focus on the sweat beading down the back of my neck. I take a minute to inventory my joints, then two, then three.
If this is what a quiet mind feels like, I could almost get used to it.
But there’s a hole in my chest, and it’s getting bigger by the minute.
Taurus is gone—off to whatever mission he couldn’t say ‘no’.
Talia is holed up in some endless debrief, probably drinking her way through a gallon of coffee.
I love them, but the emptiness isn’t about their absence.
It’s about what’s left of me after that nightmarish meeting and all the discoveries I made during it.
I know exactly who can help within seconds. Rafe is the one whose soul was welded to mine first. My primary may not be solely focused on me anymore, but he’s the kind of clone you add to your bloodstream and let him poison you in small, delectable doses.
He’s my antidote, and my aftercare when I need things the other two would never understand.
I haul myself upright and wipe my palms on my tights before I stagger toward the kitchen.
I eat a banana with my head in the freezer because the cold feels good against my cheeks, and then chase it with a shot of vodka and a handful of prenatal vitamins.
There’s a note on the fridge—Leo’s handwriting—suggesting I try the protein bars he made that don’t taste like cardboard this time.
There’s a smiley face at the end, and my heart swells.
My family loves me even when I don’t love myself.
I don’t bother showering or changing. Rafe has never cared about sweat or blood or the chalky residue that clings to my skin after a workout.
If anything, it makes him softer around the edges.
I pad through the house, up the stairs, past the sunroom to the high-ceilinged studio that has become Rafe’s cathedral.
The door is open; it always is because Rafe welcomes everyone.
He’s perched in the bay window, sketchbook balanced on his knees as his pencil moves in quick, decisive slashes.
The sun pours over him like honey, catching every highlight in his impossibly gorgeous hair.
He’s as beautiful as ever—more, maybe, now that his wrists are wrapped in ink and silver.
He’s wearing a paint-spattered t-shirt and a pair of jeans that have seen better decades.
I want to curl up in his lap and purr until he shoves me off with a laugh to say he’s done being a piece of furniture.
Instead, I lean in the doorway and watch him. There’s something in the way he glances up and out at the ocean as if he’s waiting for a sign. I know it means that he senses me because he always does.
He doesn’t stop drawing, but his voice is gentle when he says, “You’re tracking blood all over my rug.”
I look down. There’s a smear of red on my calf, dried and flaking, and another on my right foot where I must have stepped in something more substantial. I shrug and go to him anyway, too tired to care and too needy to hide it.
“Hey, you. Can I come in?”
Rafe looks up and smiles, setting his board aside. Patting the open part of the seat, he chuckles. “You don’t need to ask. Come have a seat.”
That’s how we work and it infuriates everyone else because we don’t need words; we just know.
Plopping onto the cushion, I chuckle as he drags me into his lap and sits his chin on my shoulder. “You’re unsettled and maudlin.”
I nod. “I am.”
“You realize you’re mourning the rose-colored picture of what you thought this place was.”
“I do.”
My primary sighs and runs a hand over my bun. “You only bundle yourself up when you can’t let everything out because you’re afraid it’ll spill onto everything.”
I chuckle. Leave it to my frightfully observant yet emotionally oblivious primary to know that when I’m upset I even bind my clothing and hair to help keep it in. Everything about me gets sharper and more severe when I’m trying to process trauma without letting anything into the universe.
“It’s an external representation of what you do inside—the doors, the seals, and the forbidden zones. You dress to match what you’re doing to the pieces of your heart and soul.”
“I’m growing tired of having to build more doors.”
“Me, too, love. I’m tired of watching you do it. It worries me that someday you won’t have any joy left to let out.”
I turn to kiss his temple. “Nature has an infinite capacity to rebuild and restore after destruction.”
“But we do not, my night bloom. You may have a well without a bottom that your power originates from, but there’s only so much your heart can take before it shuts down. Every time, I worry it’s the last time.”
Nodding, I lean back against him. “They say the blues are good for your spirit. You only learn to appreciate joy compared to sorrow. Without both, you do not know how they differ.”
He snorts and shakes his head. “We’re going to the bottom of the ocean today?”
“I could. I should try it and see what’s down there,” I muse. “I’ve learned that many things exist that I didn't expect to find.”
“Do not go to the bottom of the ocean and drown yourself. Simba will never forgive me for putting that idea in your head.”
I swat his leg and grumble. “Spoilsport. You’re all spoilsports.”
“What does your new picture of our world look like, love? Maybe I could draw it for you and bring it to life so you can accept it.”
My brows furrow and I murmur low, “It looks dark. It’s grasping and needy. Everything is bleak, like a Gorey print, but not as cartoonish. People are not people, but caricatures of their worst traits. There is no sunshine and no rainbow—no hope. It’s like looking out into the wasteland.”
“How very T. S. Eliot of you. You’re stuck in a post-World War I apocalyptic nightmare.”
I roll my eyes at him and shrug. “I’m not ready for anything shiny and happy yet.
All I see is the falsehood of the past picture and the hopelessness of the future.
Except for our family and Lily, I was so wrong about everyone.
All of their motivations and their greed: it’s like looking over a mass grave.
There’s this sense of horror in scope and finality; it’s a feeling that everything is beyond redemption. ”
That’s true and I have no idea how to fix it—not that I think he will either. I just need to get this out.
Frowning as I fiddle with my wrap skirt, I worry that I’m being dramatic.
Losing my friends—even en masse—is not comparable to an entire town being killed.
It feels like a mass death in my heart. Sari scooped up everything I had faith in and slaughtered it without having to get an iota of blood on her hands.
I’m left to deal with all the corpses of my friendships.
“You’re not alone with the corpses.” He blinks and grumbles. “Jesus, doesn’t that sound like a line out of a horror movie. Bit ironic, too, because you are rarely alone amongst corpses in reality as well. Blade got a call about your mission from last night and she was raving about the reviews.”
“We live a very weird life, my darling,” I say, cracking a small smile. “Corpses and blood and roses, notwithstanding.”
A black rose bush appears in the landscaping outside his window, crawling up the pane as it grows. “Little on the nose, isn’t it?”
Shrugging, I add a night-blooming jasmine bush as well, watching them climb and twist around one another, soft and fragrant mixing with thorns and darkness.
It’s not a terrible metaphor. “I’m okay with being less obtuse today.
After the mess last night, I believe being as specific as possible at all times may be called for.
People aren’t bright enough to catch the subtle shades. ”
“Very true, love.”
“Want to go to the awful place and sing a sad song about supporting the people you care about? I could go for a little musical release.”
He grins. “I’m covered in charcoal and you’re trussed up like a Russian doll. Are you okay with that?”
I think for a moment, contrasting my current and old pictures of the place I’ve called home for years. “Yeah, I think it’s time I stop hiding all the facets. If they can’t handle the diamond, they’re going to get the coal.”
“Well, darling woman. Take us away to the grungiest place in the Rift.”
Grinning, I pop us out with a wink and a tiny smile.
The day’s bound to get better with music; it always does.