I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 115: The Sleep

It was another long day for Alisha. Tye dropped her off this time, and he was still exhausted looking too, but she had fully regressed into exhaustion.

Tye gave her to me, like a babysitter returning a child to their parents and headed out for the night.

I took a deep breath and repeated much of the same routine as the night before, though Alisha at least brushed her own teeth at the sink this time. She was numb until she was sitting on the bed, slowly peeling off clothing and tossing it to the floor when her eyes lit up just a little.

“You got your car today,” she said.

“Mm,” I agreed,

“How is it?” she asked. It was the most conversation we’d had in a few days.

“It’s wonderful,” I reassured her, and tried not to stare at her bare chest after she pulled her bra free.

“Is there anything it needs?” she asked, and started to wriggle free of her pants.

“It’s perfectly fine,” I said. Her legs were long, the flesh pale and supple. Part of me wanted to touch every inch of her, but she didn’t need that right now. She was awake, but only because she was still running on cortisol and adrenaline.

“Are the seats well tailored?” she fretted. “And the seat warmers are warm enough?”

I kissed her forehead and she stilled, her energy draining.

“Everything is okay,” I told her. “You can sleep now.”

She blinked, almost confused that she would be given permission to sleep, but she settled into the sheets, almost entirely nude. I tried not to ogle, she was exhausted and pale with an almost sickly pallor to her skin. I covered her with the sheet and comforter and finally went to brush my teeth and do the rest of the bedtime routine, making sure the water pitcher was refilled, and starting the vaporizer with another couple drops of oil, and I turned the crystal lamp’s brightness down a bit. The corners of the room were still visible but painted almost red rather than amber.

I settled in next to her, pulled her limp weight closer and once again fell asleep holding her.

Her phone prompted me to wake up. It was just a little bit at first. A vague awareness that Alisha should be stirring, and then more awareness that she wasn’t, and the phone was still ringing.

“Alisha?” I murmured and started to shift, feeling her warmth against me. Her breathing didn’t change. I pushed myself upright and looked over at her. She was still out, gently snoring away in her dreams. For once, she looked relaxed and I wished I didn’t need to do this, but I put a hand on her shoulder and shook her.

But she didn’t wake up.

“Alisha?” I repeated more urgently this time, glancing up at the phone. The ring had crescendoed to something generic but demanding. The contact was ‘Tyrone Gallagher,’ so at least I knew who was calling, but why he was calling at three in the morning was unknown to me.

I shook Alisha again, aware I was playing with fire. If she woke up in a panic, I could get hurt, but I didn’t care. I’d rather get hurt and know she was okay than watch her wither away in her sleep.

She wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t waking up either.

The phone stopped, going dark for a long moment as I stared at her, completely lost, then scampered into the bathroom to get a washcloth and ran the coldest water over it from the tap. The ringing resumed as I was coming back, though this time from the other phone, still with Tye’s name scrolling across the screen. Of course, if Alisha didn’t answer the phone, it was the phone breaking, not Alisha. Alisha didn’t break down. It just didn’t happen.

I let the wet cloth slap against her face, a cruel technique to wake someone up, but she just turned her head the other way and murmured, “...five minutes…”.

My breath shook and I scrambled for the phone, pulling the charger free and swiping the call to answer.

“Alisha-”

“Tye,” I cut him off. I could hear the panic in my voice as it was.

“Kit?” he asked.

“She’s not waking up,” I managed to explain.

There was silence on the other side. I tried shaking her again, and threw the washcloth to the floor.

“What do you mean she’s not waking up?” he asked, his voice wary.

“I mean she’s just— not waking up. She doesn’t respond even if I shake her.”

“Is she breathing?” he asked.

“She’s not dead,” I snapped. Right? She wasn’t dead. Dead people didn’t talk in their sleep.

There was a pause before Tye continued. “I’ll be right there with her doctor. Let me know if anything changes.” Then the line went dead.

I stared at her, terrified and hurting. Part of me was angry. How could she do this? How could she ignore me?

But another understood that she hadn’t wanted this either.

I got a robe from the bathroom and got her into it with a great deal of effort. At least she would be decent when the doctor came.

It felt like forever, waiting, trying to wake her up, wondering if this was a form of poison that someone had slipped her and she never would wake up. Maybe she’d slip peacefully into death like this, or go into a coma and be suspended between her life on Earth and wherever children who were abused into submission went… 

Or did that kind of forgiveness go away once you hit eighteen years, the same way legal protections did.

I didn’t know but I didn’t want to picture her soul burning in hell for all eternity because her choices were to die or be evil.

With a final shake of her shoulder, I gave up and kneeled next to the bed, tears pushing out of my eyes. My lip was trembling in that ugly-cry way and I kept a hand over my mouth so the sounds weren’t so deafening.

Her head turned again, and I thought maybe her eyes slitted open briefly before her hand twitched.

I grabbed it like a lifeline, holding it until she sighed in her sleep and mumbled, “it’s okay, Kippen.”

The tears didn’t stop coming.