A/N: This is the result of a self-imposed challenge to see whether I could write a complete story in thirty minutes or less. Also, I hope no one's coming to this directly after reading "A Man's Gotta Sleep", or else you'll probably conclude that I'm a sick, sick person.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
It's remarkable, thinks Cat Valentine as she sits cross-legged on her bed clutching Mr. Longneck tightly, how every drip of liquid has its own special sound. She remembers the leaky faucet in the kitchen, months ago; it dripped quickly, plinkety-plinkety-plinkety-PLUNK. Not this one; it is slow, thoughtful, seeping through the crack in the bedroom ceiling with the remorseless patience of a glacier. Sluuuurp-PLUNK. Sluuuuurp-PLUNK. Into the bucket. She wonders whether every drip everywhere in the world is unique, like snowflakes.
Cat checks her watch. Ten more minutes until they arrive.
She rises stiffly, like a clockwork doll, retrieves a towel from the bathroom and stuffs it in the bottom of the bucket. It absorbs the falling drops efficiently, soundlessly.
Cat resumes her position on the bed.
No – that was a mistake, she thinks. The silence is unbearable now. She removes the towel, wrings it out in the sink.
Sluuuuurp-PLUNK. The steady noise grows strangely comforting.
Five more minutes.
She hopes that her mother and brother have taken off safely by now. Frankie hates flying, and yesterday he threw a temper tantrum that ended in broken dishes and an overturned kitchen table.
But he stopped the moment Mr. Valentine took off his belt.
Cat's mother couldn't understand why Cat refused to go with them, take this chance to escape for a week. "I have something to do," was all the little redhead would say, over and over again.
One more minute.
Jade will understand. Tori won't, but Jade will. Jade will stand up for her, Jade will shield her when the barrage of questions begins.
A car door slams below. Two squabbling voices on the front step: "Next time, I drive!" "You drive like an old lady, Vega, and you know it. With you at the wheel we'd still be stuck on the freeway." "Yeah, but with me at the wheel we wouldn't have knocked over that fire hydrant!"
At last the doorbell rings. She raises herself with great effort and descends the stairs.
"Hey, Cat!" Tori, as ever, is smiling broadly. "Ready to finish that screenwriting assignment?"
She nods, silently. The two girls follow her to her bedroom.
"Where's your family?" Jade asks.
"Mom and Frankie are on vacation in Cancun."
"And your father?" the Goth girl asks, more quietly.
Instinctively, Cat pulls her sleeve lower, to hide the welts that his fingertips left on her bicep. "He…he went away too."
Tori notices the bucket first. "Leak in the ceiling, huh? God, I hate when that happens. A couple of years back we had the worst problem with our drywall, and…"
"Nobody cares, Vega." Jade flops on the bed. "Let's just get this done, huh? I've got a new pair of scissors I want to try out."
"Fine, fine…" Tori looks into the bucket and freezes in her tracks. Slowly, she looks up at the ceiling, then down again.
"What's the matter, Vega?"
"This…this isn't water."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Jade examines the bucket. She turns to Cat with a look of utter horror on her face.
"Oh, kitty cat, what did you do?" she whispers.
"It's coming from the attic," says Tori. She runs off to investigate.
"I would have helped you, Cat. You could have stayed at my house. I could have given you money to run away. It didn't have to come to this."
"He would have found me, eventually." Cat's voice is a perfect monotone. "This was the only way."
There is a moment of silence. Then, from directly above them, an ear-splitting shriek.
Cat pats her stuffed giraffe's head. "Do you think they'll let me take Mr. Longneck with me to…to the place where I'm going?"
"Oh, my sweet kitty cat…" Jade begins to sob.
And still the blood seeps through the ceiling – Sluuuurp-PLUNK. Sluuuuurp-PLUNK.