Based off writing prompt: When he rips out someone's eyeball for you

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Lizzy was a cat person through and through. She liked coexisting with cats much more than owning a dog. She had had cats in her house (or her relative's houses) most of her life, only one at a time, and all of them had been black and fluffy. She'd had barn cats, house cats, obnoxious cats, you name it. They were all just as content to claw her in the middle of the night as they were to curl up on her chest or sit in the entrance of another room and stare at her. She was pretty sure one time in elementary school she had been visited for a month by four look-a-likes of her cat. They had only visited at night or dusk, often just appearing inside the house, and her parents had never known. Long story short, Lizzy had a history with cats and no matter how untrusting, feral, or mean, within a week they would be snoozing on her lap.

This meant she was perfectly acquainted with their eccentricities. A crippled mouse or disemboweled bird on the doorstep didn't even faze her. Waking in the middle of the night to see two shiny eyes watching her from her desk or next to her face only amused her. She never hung feet or arms off the side of her bed because there really was something under there, something that would sink its claws in deep and hid in the shadows. It seemed every time she walked into a different room her black fluffball would slink in after her.

There were some things, however, that Lizzy was not prepared for. Especially not at 11:30am on a Saturday when she had just gotten up after a pretty shitty night.

This wasn't a dead rodent on her step, it was an eyeball. A human eyeball. And there was her cat, smug and proud as a cat could be, mewing for her to open the door. The eye was actually in pretty good shape, she observed distantly. The dull blue iris and bloodshot sclera stared up at her from the cheap plastic doormat. What the hell? What the bloody hell?

Her cat, Argus, was now lightly scratching at the door, probably leaving small, bloody paw prints on the white paint. She let him in. Then she looked at the eye again. On one hand, it was someone's eye. On the other hand, she shuddered at the realization, it was a gift. She took a few photos (for proof she wasn't crazy) and scooped the thing up in a sandwich bag, sealed it, stuck it in a non-see-through Tupperware, and hid it in the back of her fridge to keep until she could figure this out. Through the haze of sleep, shock, panic, revulsion, and uncertainty, she had an unsettling feeling that she had seen that color eye before.

She spent a solid hour making sure every trace of blood was cleaned from her porch and her cat, as well as what he had tracked into the house. She even took out a small UV light to make extra sure she got as much as possible. Then she cut the side of her arm on an edge of metal in the back of her old truck and made a trail over what she had just cleaned, as well as to her first aid kit and the sink and let it all dry. Then she cleaned again, but much less thoroughly.

That being done, she reheated her dinner from the night before and finally ate some breakfast. Argus watched her from the kitchen floor. She ate mechanically, and cleaned up in efficient, practiced movements. Then she turned to confront her cat.

"I" she declared "will absolutely lose it if I don't get an explanation very soon."

Argus blinked slowly up at her. His tail swished a bit at her tone. They stared at each other. No answers were forthcoming.

Lizzy sighed a long breath. Her brain seemed to be stuck on the 'What the hell?' aspect of this scenario and hadn't bothered trying to actually think.

"I feel like I just cleaned up a crime scene for you." If her cat reacted she didn't see, too busy staring blankly at the space above her fridge. If she looked closely she could see the little pile of this month's shopping receipts.

She didn't let Argus outside for a week after that, no matter how many times he meowed and walked on her face at four in the morning.

She didn't tell anyone about the eyeball sitting in the back of her fridge like the world's weirdest condiment.

The next day she let her friend Lula freaked out a bit over the cut on her arm and practically slathered it in alcohol and salves to keep it from getting infected. Lizzy went to her part-time job bartending and Keith, her flatmate, got back from spring vacation midway through the next week. Not wanting him to stumble across the freaking eye in their fridge, she finally disposed of it by dumping it in the river that went past town. She knew something would eat it and even if it was found, she had been careful not to leave any sort of dna trace on it. Classes started the next Monday and Lizzy hadn't seen or heard anything in the news about missing eyes or vicious animal attacks. She let herself relax.

Of course, that's when everything went wrong. First of all, Devin was there. Second of all, his face looked like it had been mauled and a bandage was wrapped tightly around his left eye. Or rather, Lizzy suspected, where his left eye had been. Devin wasn't actually a student but he did handyman repairs around campus and could be seen pretty regularly. He also sold drugs and had strong connections to the local gangs. Sketch af too. He was a bit pushy with the girls but generally kept to the ones he was supplying. Didn't mean it was a good idea to meet him on a backstreet. It was kinda an unspoken policy to always have a knife on you no matter who you were or what you were connected to, at least that's how Lizzy had grown up, but she would bet money that this kid was also packing regularly. She prayed to God or whoever would listen that the creepy asshole didn't know what her cat looked like.

Lizzy still didn't know why her cat had gone psycho on the dude. She might've seen him at the party on Friday night, right before this whole mess started, but she couldn't remember much except that she had gone to the house party with Erin and Bri and had left the party with them. She'd been drunk as hell and stillmore sober than Erin. But even if this had all been triggered at that party how the hell could her cat know about it? Her childhood declarations that her cats were her protectors flashed through her mind. Argus was her third cat and she had said that for all of them. Lizzy groaned in frustration and thumped her head onto her Vector Calculus textbook, completely missing her friend's exasperated eye roll.

"Maybe this wouldn't be so frustrating if you had just done your homework over break" Joelle teased. Snobbishly self-assured of her superior study habits.

"Fuck off Jo, some of us plebians need a break from school during our break from school." Lizzy's head was still buried in her book. Jo just snorted (elegantly) and planted the medium mocha with extra chocolate that was Lizzy's regular order on the desk in front of the girl's nose and took a sip of her frappe.

"But seriously, what's up Lizzy?"

"I think something happened two Fridays ago."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I was at a party and I can't remember much." Jo's face turned serious at that.

"Were you drugged? Were you sore in the morning?"

"NO no nono, nothing like that I think. I mean I entered and left the party with Erin and Bri and it wasn't like losing time, it's more like my memories are blurry or som'thin." She propped her head up and reached for her mocha.

"Why're you so caught up on it then?" Jo seemed to be losing interest in the conversation, her eye roaming over her stupidly neat notes.

"Cause I think Devin was there, and now his face looks like it was fucking mauled a little over a week ago." Jo froze at that before piercing Lizzy with her sharp hazel eyes.

"Devin? The Bad News, drug dealing, gang member Devin? How could you be so stupid as to go to a party with him there?" Lizzy winced at the anger in her friend's voice. She wasn't wrong.

"Well it's not like I knew beforehand!" Lizzy winced again, she had a bad habit of being too defensive. Jo's eyes just narrowed but thankfully she let it go, for now.

"Be careful Lizzy, don't mess with gang shit."

"I won't."

Lizzy was planning on drawing as little attention to herself as possible, feigning tiredness to avoid socializing and sticking to her friend group throughout the day. Apparently something had Gone Down that Friday night and one of the gangs was spooked. Devin's gang. Keith's cousin worked in a grocery in one of the more sketch neighborhoods and had picked up some gossip. Sounded like he'd been jumped by some hellbeast like a dog with claws, snake fangs, and a scaled underbelly. Devin's buddy, CB, had sworn up and down it had been a monster, like the muts from the Hunger Games. That was both a relief to Lizzy… and completely horrifying. Maybe it hadn't been Argus, after all her fluffy chunk of a cat certainly didn't look like that. On the other hand, that thing probably could have devoured Argus and left nothing but fluff as evidence.

Lizzy also no longer felt bad about not reporting the eye, Devin gave her the slimiest vibes.

She and Keith drove home together, chatting about the break and listening to alt rock. Lizzy was an engineering major and Keith wanted to go into social services with the specific purpose of remaking the foster system into something that didn't allow abuse and child suffering to fly under the radar. Keith's cousin had kept him out of the system despite being barely 20 himself. But he'd been far too close for comfort. They'd actually met before Lizzy had moved out of state for college. He'd been road tripping with his cousin and she'd been a sailing instructor doing boat tours during the local festival. He'd stuck around for the week and they'd become friends, exchange numbers and Instagram and all that. Then they'd bumped into each other again in first-year orientation in Northern California of all places. Since then they'd become best friends and flat mates since sophomore year. He even tolerated her cat despite being more of a dog person.

"Lizzy" his voice turned serious "Joelle told me you were at that party." Lizzy considered playing dumb but it would only delay the inevitable.

"What of it?"

"Stay out of gang shit Lizzy, you'll get hurt." A wave of defensiveness crashed over her.

"Dammit Keith! I'm not gonna run off and get myself killed in a frickin gang war! I hadn't even known Devin was gonna be there!"

"Gabe told me he saw you two… talking… that night."

Lizzy's blood ran cold and the truck wobbled dangerously as she took a turn.

"I did what?" She spared a glance at Keith, feeling the slimy tendrils of fear in her gut that had never quite gone away since that night. Keith was stone faced, determined to stop whatever he thought she was doing.

"Keith, what happened?"

He must have heard the fear in his voice cause his face crumpled a bit and she saw his worry plain as day.

"You don't remember?"

"I remember entering and leaving, everything else is kinda fuzzy."

"Gabe said you had a stupid look on your face, like the girls that hang round Devin, and last he saw you two were cozy in a dark corner."

Lizzy felt sick. No wonder everyone was warning her off if that's how it'd been. Her skin crawled. Keith sent her an assessing glance and growled, punching the bench seat between him.

"I'd mess him up real good if that fucking demon monster or whatever hadn't already beaten me to it."

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

…. . .

Lizzy was standing in the kitchen staring at her cat again. Argus had one eye open and was observing her from his place sprawled in the sunbeam. She slumped and lowered herself to the floor, leaning against the cabinet under the sink. She was surprised when she realized she felt a bit like crying. Blinking her eyes, she patted her leg in invitation to Argus. It was the first time she had invited him to sit with her since he'd dropped Devin's eye on her doorstep. The lazy bastard didn't even twitch. Obligingly, she closed her eyes and rested her head as if she was going to take a nap right there on the floor. She counted the seconds silently. At 84 she felt something close to her left hand and opened her eyes, smiling at her cat who had just so happened to wander over. She sat there scratching Argus' ears until Keith walked in looking for dinner.

…. . . …

The wind rushed through her short hair and buffeted her quick-dry clothes. Her sunglasses were scratched and had a leash of spare cord but they kept the sun and glare out of her eyes. Her small boat plunged downward into a trough and she was instantly soaked by the wave that slipped over the edge. Lizzy grinned and tightened the mainsail to angle the bow closer to the wind. Soon she was skipping across the waves out towards open water. Her favorite part of spring term in North Cali was the sailing. It was different on open water than it had been on the Great Lakes but damn it was amazing. She had managed to get herself a place on the local small boat race team the year before and had not once regretted her nearly full-time access to the team's small fleet. Sailing helped her let go of her stress and she especially needed it after what Keith had told her yesterday.

She finally came in a few hours later due to hunger and the unfortunate reality that she needed to study for her Chem test on Friday and get cleaned up for work later that night. When she walked out of the team locker room with her backpack and a towel around her neck she did not expect to see Gabe sitting in the entrance waiting for her.

"What're you doing here Gabe?"

Gabe held his trademark easy grin as he stood up.

"Can't I drop by to see an old friend?" The guy was obnoxious but they were friends. Of a sort.

"Somehow, this feels less like a social call and more like concern." Lizzy's voice was dry but her body language was tense.

"I heard through the grapevine that you were the one to see me 'an Devin at that party."

Gabe fell in step with her as she walked to her truck.

"You two looked awful close." His tone didn't give away much.

"Sounds like such a sweet memory, too bad I don't remember any of it." Lizzy sent him a suspicious look to his surprised one.

"Nothing?"

"Entering and leaving, that's it."

He leaned against her truck while she threw her gear in the back.

"Think you were doped up instead of just drunk?"

Lizzy rested her arms on the tailgate and felt her body sag.

"Dunno man. I was piss drunk by the end of it that's for sure but I wasn't shaky or itchy in the morning."

"Well whatever happened, you're gonna want to steer clear of Devin and the rest 'o them Blackfingers. Tensions are high and there's word of some new cops pokin around." Cops? Cause of the attack?

"Anyone else been hit by that thing Gabe?"

"Not that I know, cept maybe CB, you know, that kid that saw Devin get attacked, I heard he was raving bout that devil creature watching him at night."

"Kid was probably tripping worse than a fat man with his tighties round his ankles." Lizzy dismissed. She shuddered at the niggling, ridiculous suspicion that it had been Argus.

Gabe snorted at the imagery.

"Yeah whatever, just take care of yourself. There's something strange in town."

Lizzy couldn't help but agree.

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