Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“No,” Dakota says, and her shoulders shake as if she is about to cry. She presses a hand to her mouth. “Maybe we don’t talk about this in front of impressionable ears.”
“Oh, whatever, Mom.” Rabbit rolls her eyes.
“I was referring to Murr,” Dakota says. “And I expect stripper talk to come from Aggie and not you, Dottie.”
“I’m old. I ain’t dead.” Dottie snorts. “I’ve seen some shit.”
“Why am I getting roped into this?” Aggie asks. “I didn’t do anything! I’m just minding my own business.”
I frown as I listen to their banter. There is something I am missing. I have made great strides in picking up their language, but some things still elude me. “What is this ‘stripping’? Why is it bad?”
“It’s not bad,” Dottie says to me. “It’s very, very good—”
“Enough,” Dakota says, interrupting. She frowns at Dottie. “Don’t you have something you could be doing?”
Dottie holds up her knitting. “Doing it.”
Dakota shakes her head and moves towards me. “I’m sure you have questions, but trust me, stripping is nothing to concern yourself over. It was something that happened in the Before, and no one does it anymore.”
“If you like, I can,” I offer.
Aggie snickers.
“Very sweet of you to offer, but no.” Dakota shoots Aggie a hard look over her shoulder. She puts her hands on my arms and frowns. “And you are cold. Let me get you a blanket.”
She is changing the subject and bustles inside the bookstore. I am suddenly frustrated that something else has happened and it is not being told to me. I look over at Rabbit, but she has gone silent, and her expression is impossible to read. Her lips are pursed in the way I have learned that means she is not happy. Perhaps she wants to know more about stripping and these convenient pants, too.
Rabbit hops to her feet. “I’m going to go check on the ferals in the other building. Make sure they’re warm. Murr, you want to come with me? They like you more than me.”
I nod. She has a good heart and wants to make sure all the cats are comfortable. “I go with you.”
She cups a hand to her mouth. “Mom, we’re going to check on the ferals! We’ll be back soon!”
“But Murr needs something warm to wear,” Dakota calls back, worried. I hear her footsteps racing as she moves to the doorway and she opens the door again to frown at us. “Just wait—”
“He can go dragon and stay warm. Come on, Murr.” Rabbit sticks her hands in her pockets and heads across the parking lot, abandoning the campfire. I glance at Dakota. She does not seem upset at this new turn and shrugs. I follow after Rabbit, shifting to my battle-form the moment I am clear from the bookstore’s overhang.
It is much warmer in this form, the cold air unable to penetrate the hardened scales that cover my body. It would be easier to fly the short distance over to the other building, but Rabbit is walking, and so I follow after her, stepping over cars and trailing a few paces behind. She’s silent all the way over to the other side of the big flat area called a parking lot.
When we get to the other building, the one with the ferals and the hay inside, Rabbit opens the door and looks at me. “Change and get in here, Murr. You and I need to talk.”
CHAPTER 53
MURR
I shift into my two-legged form and follow after Rabbit, curious. She says we need to talk, but I find this confusing, as she is already talking. “Do we talk same time?”
She turns and gives me a weird look. “What do you mean?”
“You say talk. You talk now. What different?”
Rabbit waves a hand. “It’s just me telling you that I want to talk with you in private. Away from Mom and Aggie and Dottie.”
Ah. “I away. Talk now.”
She steps deeper into the building, eyeing the mounds of trash and debris that are now covered in piles of hay. There are no cats to be seen but I can smell them underneath the scent of the cut grasses. “Are the cats in here?” she asks. “Can you tell?”
“Cats here,” I agree. Is this what we came to talk about? “Want…find?”
“No, I don’t want to scare them. I hope they’re all right. I worry about the cats, that’s all.” She crouches low and puts a hand in her pocket, pulling out a clear bag that is filled with dried meat chunks cut fine. She tosses them in front of her, and when one cat—a big fluffy gray—appears and hisses at us, Rabbit clicks her tongue. The cat growls a warning but moves forward enough to steal a few bites of food. Another cat emerges and sneaks towards the food as she tosses it. This makes Rabbit happy. She smiles at me over her shoulder. “Whew.”