"How long are you going to be in there?" Jean asked, frowning. She folded her arms across her chest and shivered. Despite the fact that the car's heater was on as high as it could go, she could still feel the cold piercing through the door and seeping through her clothes.
"A while, okay? We're getting someone a present for their birthday and we don't know what they'd like. If you don't want to wait for me then you can walk home," her sister Ren said as she turned off the engine and yanked her purse from the back seat. "Besides," she pulled out a bright shade of lip gloss, "I told you yesterday that I wouldn't be going home straight away. You don't get to complain."
Jean watched her through the rear view mirror while she organized herself, her cool blue eyes reflecting back towards her. Ren's eyes were a light brown and hers were a dark blue-ish green-but that wasn't even the biggest difference between them, really.
Ren was older, wiser, smarter, and much more stable compared to Jean, not to mention that Jean wasn't as skinny, as tall and, by far the most noticeable, was that Jean wasn't asian. Yeah, Ren was the adopted one.
Before she was born, their parents weren't sure they'd be able to have kids so they went
out and adopted her from an orphanage in Oregon when she was two. Three years later they found out they were pregnant with their second daughter, Jean. So now, Ren was 26 and Jean was 21, both living together in central California with Ren's boyfriend, Heath.
Ren stepped out of the car and pulled the keys from the ignition, shutting off the heat. Jean frowned and brought her knees up onto the seat.
"Hey, I'm sorry, y'know? Do you want me to get you anything? No? Hey, if anything, this should inspire you to get your license!" she said, smiling with encouragement Jean opened her mouth to comment, but before she could, Ren slammed the door with a sheepish smile and ran off, purse bouncing off her hip. Dark grey clouds swirled outside and strong winds shook the palm trees lining the sidewalk.
After a half an hour of painful silence, Jean hopped out of the car, locked it from the inside, and shut the door with her phone shoved in her pocket and the hood of her sweatshirt covering most of her head. She just wanted to go home and sleep, but no, Ren had to go shopping after picking her up from work. Couldn't she have just dropped her off first? How hard was that? She told her to walk home which was five or ten miles away right before another storm!
She climbed down the embankment and crossed the street so she was directly across from the mall. If she could just make it before the storm hit, she'd be okay.
"Stupid Ren. Stupid friends. Stupid mall," she mumbled. Maybe she could call Heath and have him pick her up? But wasn't he at the academy now? He wouldn't be able to leave. She didn't even know if he'd have his phone on him when she called. Abandoning the idea, she shoved her phone back in her jeans pocket.
Ren met him during her final year in middle school. One of the first things he told her was that he was going to be a detective and, at the time, she didn't believe he could do it. In high school, he was never very decisive. He joined the baseball team, then the basketball team, then the wrestling team, the tennis and volleyball. He even tried to golf for crying out loud! Three years after graduation he finally started the long and intense training required to join the force and, after two more years, he was accepted into the program. Ren couldn't have been more proud and more scared for him.
It was when she was two blocks into her walk that the rain started to fall. She cursed and began jogging, trying to remember the shortcut she used to take on her way home from school next to the old gas station on 2nd street. She ran down the familiar alley with the dirt path and turned right at the rotting pine tree, speeding towards a steep hill that led to the park she grew up playing in. Halfway down, she leapt over a small bush and landed on her feet with an avalanche of dirt. She maneuvered her way through a couple of trees and squeezed past another bush when she lost herself in the thrill and tripped over a crevice in the rock. It wasn't until she was falling forward and scraping the side of her forehead on the bark of some tree that she realized what had happened, like life had been racing behind her trying to catch up.
She tumbled down the rest of the hill, over fallen branches, rocks, and through a few dead bushes before she hit the base of a tree stump next to a pile of old garbage and beer cans. The dust settled around her and she picked herself up, groaning and trying to wipe dirt off her face. The side of her head was just starting to bleed when she stood up.
"Dammit," she breathed, wiping herself down. A couple of dead leaves had tangled themselves up in her hair and each crevice of her clothes was covered in mud and dust-she couldn't believe her luck. What made it worse was the stench of stale beer and piss from the abandoned area she found herself in. Graffiti covered the brick walls across from her, their bubble letters spelling out curse words and odd words that didn't quite make sense to her, maybe because they weren't words or maybe because she couldn't read their handwriting. There had to be about a dozen smashed, empty beer cans around her feet and a cord of old wire was draped over the tree stump. Jean raised an eyebrow and stood up. She was about to leave when a large cardboard box caught her eye.
Normally, a box in the middle of some dump wouldn't concern her, but it was bright red and wiggling. Yeah, wiggling. She wanted to walk over and look inside, but the fear of something feral or rabid staring back up at her tore at her conscious. All that crossed her mind was the possibility of some racoon or mutant rat jumping up at her as soon as it laid eyes on her round face and long brown hair. In the end, curiosity got the best of her. So what if she lost an eye? She had survived worst. Besides, she figured a quick peek wouldn't kill her. Hopefully.
She slowly inched towards the box and leaned forward just so she could glance over the edge. The tapping sounds stopped just as she caught sight of the first fuzzy kitten in the box.
It looked up at her and it's eyes narrowed. She cooed at it quietly and wiped dirt matted hair from her face. Along with the one silver cat were nine additional siblings of various colors and sizes, even a blue and red cat were among the mix. A beautiful dark grey cat with pointed ears sat poised in one of the corners and looked to be the only female cat in the box. She sat next to a bright orange tabby with black markings who crouched at Jean's approach, growling. Several of the other cats also growled and hissed when she knelt next to them.
"It's okay, it's okay!" She said. The only cat that seemed to be interested in her was a small black cat with orange and auburn splotches. It meowed and purred up at her while clawing at the side of the box for her to pick her up. She melted at the sight of him.
"You poor cats...what kind of bastard would leave you out here? What the hell?" She said angrily.
*~*~*Kitties POV*~*~*
"You poor cats...what kind of bastard would leave you out here? What the hell?" She said angrily.
Pein and Konan both sat in the corner with their tails swishing around in an irritated manner. The two of them both looked up at the brunette with blood dripping down the side of her face. Tobi gave out a cry of happiness and skittered to the wall closest to her.
"Girl-chan, girl-chan!" He yelled.
"Stop," said the black cat, his eyes turning red then back to black in half a second, a silent threat. Tobi looked back at Itachi, up at Jean, and back to him again, trying to decide what was better. In the end, he kept jumping up and down trying to get out.
"Such a cute cat," the girl mumbled, reaching in to pull him out. The silver cat, Hidan, and a blond, long haired cat, Deidara, both lunged forward half heartedly as if to stop her. She pulled him out of the box and cradled him against her chest, rubbing the back of his neck. Below him, Deidara gagged.
"That's disgusting, un," he said. Hidan frowned and hissed up at her; she looked down at him unapprovingly.
"What's your problem, dumb cat?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow, "Why are your eyes purple? Some kind of mutation?" Hidan's fur bristled and he flexed his paws.
"Watch it, princess, I can still sacrifice you to Lord Jashin, cat or not," he growled. Kisame laughed at him and sat on his haunches.
"She doesn't understand you. I don't know why you bother trying," he snickered.
"Because there's nothing else to do if you haven't noticed, fucking fish!" Hidan snarled, his tail twitching.
"Enough," said Pein, his pupils paper thin, "We've been here for at least one whole day with no way out. We are unable to use our chakra and unable to climb out of this box. If we attack her and she decides to leave us out here then it is unlikely we'll be found again," he explained. The rest of them frowned. He was right, they couldn't mess this up. Hidan flattened his ears and laid down next to Sasori to sulk. "Nobody knows how we got here. The sooner we can get out of wherever we are the sooner we can start finding answers," he finished.
The girl put Tobi back in the box and stood there. A drop of blood landed in the box and Hidan eagerly ran to lap it up, curious if his jutsu would work at all. Much to his disdain, it didn't.
" There goes your theory," Sasori smirked as he lounged next to Itachi. Hidan bore his
teeth and let out a throaty meow.
"Stop that!" she scolded from above, "Such an annoying cat. It's too bad I can't just leave you and take everyone else. That'd just be mean, though."
"No, we'd all be quite grateful, un," Deidara sighed.
"Shut. The fuck. Up!" Hidan yowled.
A second later and the box shook with a jolt of energy. All of the kittens looked up and tried to steady themselves as the woman lifted the rotting cardboard up into her arms with a grunt.
"I hope Ren and Heath won't mind if I bring home a present for their excellent treatment recently," she snickered, moving away from the dump. The cats looked at one another and back up at her, confused. As desperate as they were to escape, there was nothing else to do but go with the flow. At least they were making progress. Little did they know, though, was that this was only the beginning.