At that moment, he punched me in the arm. I jerked upright, startled from my thoughts. “Wake up, Macavity! We’re trying to play a game here, in case you didn’t guess.”

“Huh?”

“If you don’t wake up, we’re going to get tagged and lose! And if we lose because your head is in the clouds, I’m going to beat the kitty litter out of you.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not.” I smiled when he raised his eyebrows. “You never win when we fight, remember? Now, let’s see where my wonderful brother is.”

I moved forward and spotted my brother seriously surveying the junkyard. His face was almost serious enough for me to burst into laughter. I clapped a paw over my mouth and backed up quickly. “Captain Serious is right out there,” I snorted through my paws. Orion’s upper lip twitched, trying to hold back a grin at my rather stupid sounding noises.

“Right out there?”

“Yeah. We’ll have to go the other way.” I giggled again then tightened my grip over my mouth. I sounded like an idiot giggling and I wasn’t going to give Orion the satisfaction of making fun of me.

Nodding, Orion crept forwards toward the fence, towards the great tire in the center of the junkyard. I followed closely behind him, covering my mouth so that I wouldn’t burst into laughter as Munkustrap’s ears jerked forward and he spun to face some unseen foe. No doubt he’d spotted one of the other kittens playing with us as he crept in the opposite direction.

Orion made a circle next to his ear to indicate that my brother was nuts and poked me. I shrugged him away, refusing to look at him, lest I burst into more demented giggling. We darted behind the tire, grinning to ourselves. We must’ve looked like crazy kittens to anyone watching us.

My smile instantly slid off my face when we got behind the tire. I staggered back with a gasp.

“Cassie?”

She looked up, frightened and startled. She was pressed close against Alonzo and it was pretty clear that they had been kissing. Alonzo grinned sheepishly, his arms still around her waist.

“Don’t you guys knock?” he asked blushing. Orion snickered.

“Why don’t you get a room, Lonnie? Then maybe you wouldn’t have people barging in on you.”

Cassandra seemed to be the only one aware of me. Her mouth opened a little and her eyes widened. I could see terror of what I might do welling up inside of her. She shook her head slightly, trying to convince me not to say anything.

Suddenly, as if I didn’t have any control over my body, I reached out and jerked him away from her. Wide-eyed, he didn’t say anything as I jerked him to his feet. He stumbled over his own feet and when I did have him up, he was still a few inches shorter than I was.

“Get your damn paws off her!” I snarled.

“Macavity, stop!” I could hear Cassandra shrieking at me now, but I didn’t pay her any heed. She didn’t have any idea of what she’d done, did she? How dare she try to stop me? I turned my attention back to Alonzo.

I gave him a hard shake and he seemed to leave his temporary state of shock. His spotted fur tumbled into his eyes and he tried to push me away.

“Macavity! What are you doing? Stop it!”

I shoved him hard against the fence and he let out a yelp of pain as one of the wires dugs into his back. That startled me enough for me to relax my grip. He shoved me back and tried to run past. I tripped him and jumped on top of him. I heard a rush of air as I knocked the breath out of him.

“Macavity!” I felt Orion try to pull me off, but I shoved him away angrily.

I felt my paw connect with Alonzo’s jaw and felt a jolt of pain shoot up my arm, but my anger was too hot for that to stop me. He cried out and tried to cover his face. I could hear Munkustrap running towards us calling for our grandfather. Calling for some sort of adult help. Alonzo managed to flip over and started to crawl away as I hesitated, wondering what sort of trouble I was in for now. Quickly, though, that thought abandoned my mind. I pushed my full weight onto him and he was pressed flat onto the ground.

A nasty cracking sound brought me abruptly to my senses. Time seemed to slow down. The other kittens fell into silence. Orion’s eyes widened in horror and Cassandra looked as though she were going to faint. I saw Munkustrap freeze in shock and stand with his paws hanging at his sides. He shook his head slowly, his eyes meeting mine.

Then Alonzo let out a scream of agony.

I leaped off of him, horrified. I staggered away, my breath coming in rapid gasps from exertion. I looked down at the other, younger kitten, wanting to turn back time more now than ever before.

He rolled onto his side, bringing his legs up towards his chest, trying to protect his injured arm. Deep gasps and sobs were coming from his shaking body. He held his right arm close to his chest. For a fleeting moment, I couldn’t figure out why he was so upset. Then reality snapped back into play and I reeled farther away from the younger kitten.

“What’s going on here?”

I didn’t dare move as Skimbleshanks knelt beside Alonzo. He drew the nearly hysterical kitten into a sitting position. I could tell that his paw, maybe even his arm, was broken the moment I caught sight of it.

“What happened?” Skimbleshanks demanded again, angry now. I shook my head and backed away.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“Not a step further,” Skimblshanks growled. “Don’t you dare move!” He wrapped his arms around Alonzo.

“Are you all right?”

His bright eyes glanced at me and he shrunk back in fear. His nose was bleeding onto his white fur and I felt my heart sink. He buried his face in the older tom’s coat. “Macavity... he... he....” He didn’t get any further than that since Skimbleshanks scooped him off the ground. His sharp green eyes narrowed at me.

“You follow me!” he snapped. He glanced back at the other kittens. “You, too.”

I followed him, feeling more drained than ever before in my life.

I’d been punished, of course. A month of having of having to stay in my den with Jellylorum bringing me food and water. What had drawn me into a numb, blurry state was the raw hatred in Alonzo’s eyes as his paw was bandaged and the anger and disappointment in my grandfather’s eyes.

When I got back to my den, I flung myself onto my bed. After a moment, I felt eyes on me. I sat up and turned around to see Munkustrap standing in the doorway, looking for once unsure and ill at ease.

“What do you want?”

“Why’d you do that?” he shot back.

I slumped back onto my bed and facing away from him. “Go away.”

“Not until you answer me.”

“What do you want to hear?”

I could almost see him trying to figure out the right words to say to me. “I want to hear what you have to say! I don’t want some answer just to get me out of your face.”

“You wouldn’t understand, even if I told you,” I said softly, still refusing to look at him. “You just… you just wouldn’t get it. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Macavity, I want to understand.” I could hear him come closer and remained still as he knelt down on the edge of my bed. “I’m your brother. If you can’t talk to me, who else can you talk to?”

“Please leave.”

“No!” Munkustrap snapped. “Not until you answer me! I deserve an explanation!”

“I broke his arm!” I shouted. “And I would’ve killed him, I think! Can you understand that? Can you understand what I just did?”

He was silent save for shallow, nervous breathing. I could picture him, his face screwed up in concentration, struggling to understand what I had said. It was probably a foreign idea to him. He stayed safe within the junkyard and innocent of anything outside of it. I was the one with the urge to explore and I was the one who had seen more things than perhaps I should have. Death and violence wasn’t a new discovery to me as it was to him. Of course, there was the fact that I had a violent streak that he lacked.

“What happened?” he asked carefully. I could tell that he was trying to ask it in such a way as to not upset me. I rolled over to finally look him in the eye.

“He was kissing Cassie,” I told him slowly. Munkustrap glanced down at the bed with his eyebrows furrowed. He shook his head.

“So?”

“So? She’s supposed to be my best friend.” Munkustrap shook his head helplessly. “And, we had taken a step beyond just being friends. I had thought that she wanted to be with me, but she was probably just trying to make me feel better.” I laughed bitterly. “I don’t know if you understand this at all, but I really thought that she and I were going to take a new step in our relationship. Instead, she wanted to be with him more than me.”

Instead of answering me with words, Munkustrap bent his head down and pressed his forehead against mine. His eyes were closed, so I reached up and pulled him towards me for a hug. He flopped down beside me, nuzzling my head and shoulders, trying to comfort me like we had done when we were much younger kittens. I sighed heavily and he opened his eyes to look me in the eyes. His dark eyes were surprisingly sad.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he said softly.

I closed my eyes again, trying to figure out exactly how to handle this situation. I decided to tell him the truth. Maybe then he’d be able to better understand why it had hurt so much when Cassandra betrayed me.

“They didn’t want us, you know,” I told him.

“Who?” he asked softly.

“Our parents. They never wanted us. We’re mistakes.”

I opened my eyes to see him shake his head in disbelief. His dark eyes, so expressive and innocent, looked betrayed and hurt. He opened his mouth but no words came out. He shut it and squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“That’s not true,” he whispered. “It wasn’t that they didn’t want us. Grandpa said so. They just… you know…” He trailed off and opened his eyes. The hurt in his eyes didn’t stop me from barreling on ahead.

“It is true, Munkustrap,” I told him honestly. I suddenly felt ashamed as his eyes began to grow watery with tears. “Why else would we have been left here? Think about it.”

He sat up suddenly, brushing the tears from his eyes with hard, frantic swipes. “Why do you hate me?”

“What?” I asked, knowing exactly why he was saying what he was.

“You hate me!” he shouted. “I don’t know why, but you do!”

My mouth dropped open. So, here it was. This is what he thought of me. He actually thought that I hated him. It wasn’t hard to understand why, of course. I couldn’t even seem to stop hurting anyone who was stupid enough to try getting close to me. I sighed, more disgusted with myself than him. He had every right to his accusation. Maybe I did hate him a little bit for being the more handsome, sturdy kitten of two parents we had no memories of.

“I don’t hate you,” I said weakly.

“Shut up! I’m sick of trying to help you! I’m sick of trying to be friends with you and you insulting me and trying to hurt me! All I get is grief for helping you!” He shook his head, backing away. He stumbled over a piece of stray garbage and tumbled to the ground.

I got up and hurried to him. He hung his head, trying to hide his tears. I wasn’t sure if they were tears of hate or sadness. I tried to put an arm around his shoulders, but he shrugged me away.

“Stop,” he whimpered. “I don’t want you to try to make me feel better.”

“Please, Munk, I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please listen to me,” I pleaded. He looked up at me, but instead giving me a small smile like I’d hoped, his face was granite cold.

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“What?”

He pushed me suddenly and, being already off balance, I toppled over. He stood up and glared down at me.

“I knew I was right about you,” he hissed. “All you care about is yourself. You’re in pain, so you have to try to hurt me, too.” With that, he spun away and ran out. I leapt up and ran to the door.

“Munk! Wait!”

He halted and turned around to glare at me. I felt my blood run cold. “Don’t bother,” he growled. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with you!”

I watched him storm away, wondering what I was doing to everyone around me.

“Please, Macavity. Please listen to me. You need to understand what happened!” she pleaded. I swallowed.

“What do I need to understand, Cassie? That you were leading me on? Is that what I need to understand? Because I think I understand that much,” I growled, still not looking at her. She drew in a shaky breath.

“That’s not it at all.”

I spun around. She shrunk back, probably remembering what had happened to Alonzo. Not that I could blame her.

“Then what is it? What could you possibly have to say to me!”

She hung her head. “The kiss... it wasn’t what you thought it was, Macavity.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean... I mean, that I don’t have those feelings for you,” she whispered. I could tell how hard this was for her to get out, but I didn’t care. Once again, I felt that everyone seemed to have little concern as to my needs and feelings.

“Then why did you kiss me like you did? I thought that we...” I trailed off, my anger disappearing. I felt cold and defeated. My head slipped down so that my chin rested on my chest.

“I know, Macavity. I’m sorry. I never meant for you to think that.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” I asked, not moving. She began to pace back and forth and I knew she was struggling for an answer that I wanted to hear, much like I had done to my brother only a short time before.

“Because you needed it. Because you needed to know that someone wanted you.”

“Only, not you, right?”

“Oh, Everlasting Cat, Macavity. I do want you, but not like that. I want you here with me because I love you and you’re my best friend. You’re my closest friend, but you’re not who I need to be with.”

“So, who is it that you really care about?” I asked. Without warning, I felt my temper flare up. I looked up at her and narrowed my eyes. She stopped pacing to stare at me. “Do you even care about Alonzo at all or is he also not someone you picture is good for you? Or, is it that you think that nobody will ever be good enough for you?”

“Please, don’t. You don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Why are you trying to twist everything I say to you around so that you can hurt me with them? Don’t you care that you’re hurting me?”

“Do you think I care if you feel sad? Do you even realize what you’ve done?”

“Macavity, please-”

I stood up suddenly and snapped my arm out to clamp onto her wrist. She let out a nervous gasp as I pulled her tight against me. I could see her swallow hard, as though she was struggling not to cry or reveal how frightened she was fast becoming. Perhaps she had forgotten how easy it was to smell fear.

“I might’ve killed Alonzo,” I growled. “Do you realize that? Do you understand that? Or don’t you really care?”

“Stop,” she whimpered. I could see her start to wince in pain as I tightened my grip on her wrist. “You're hurting me!”

“Of course,” I spat, releasing her wrist and pushing her away from me. She stumbled backwards and tucked her wrist against her body. She rubbed at it, looking sad and hurt.

“You were my friend once,” she whispered. “But now that I see the real you, I’m not so sure that I want to be friends with you.”

I laughed then. It was colder than I’d ever heard it before. I think we both noticed that. “Go right ahead. I don’t need you or anyone. And besides, maybe you can go make a Macavity-hater club or something. Thanks to you, both Munkustrap and Alonzo hate me, too.”

“You brought that onto yourself,” she hissed, standing. “I didn’t tell you to act like a lunatic and try to kill him. That’s what you are! You’re a horrible cat and I can’t believe that I ever thought any good could come from you!”

Without thinking, my paw lashed out and slapped her across the face. She reeled backwards and stumbled against the doorway. I almost stepped forward to help her, but one look at her eyes told me to stay put. She lowered her paw from her face after a few seconds and looked down at like she had been expecting blood. Her eyes snapped back up to her face.

“Thanks for proving what a complete bastard you are,” she hissed. “I don’t blame Munkustrap from thinking you are a lunatic.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head violently. “Just stay the hell away from me, all right?”

She turned and fled from my den. I watched her leave and rush into the young queens’ den. The moment she was out of sight, I felt myself grow weak and stumbled back over to my bed.

I had slapped my best friend- a queen, no less!- and now nobody would have anything to do with me. I lowered my head and groaned. I wasn’t sure whether to feel angry, sad, or hurt. Maybe I could just stick with feeling all three.


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