Chapter 6

Zach was going to kill himself. Find a bit of dirty brown broken glass and stab himself right in the jugular. If he was lucky, he'd bleed out faster than the time it took Baby to find him again, but he wasn't. He never was.

Baby stood at the clothesline with an umbrella propped up against her shoulder. Her civilian clothes were remarkably plain and consisted of a cotton blouse, wrinkled jeans, and a set of lotad plastered rubber rain boots that clashed with the colors of her umbrella. She wore her hair back in a pin straight ponytail that was almost as tight as the line between her lips.

Zach squared off against her on the other side of the line, fists clenched at his sides and shoulders bowed. A light drizzle tempered the tension between them. It drummed against Zach's overcoat almost as loudly as Baby's umbrella. "I thought I told you never to bother me again," he barked.

Baby pinched her toes inward and adjusted her umbrella with both hands to keep it from rolling into her bandaged chin. "I'm not here for you," she squeaked, almost as loudly as her boots.

Zach glanced over his left shoulder. Then, his right. "I'm the only one here!" he shouted, emphasizing the point with an echo.

Baby's eyelids suddenly dropped to suspiciously smug levels as if she had been waiting, and hoping, for such a response. Behind him, Minun and Plusle stuck their heads out of the cardboard box, one on top of another. They spotted Baby and cheered, rushing out to meet her despite the rain. Zach glanced down as they raced between his legs, shocked that they should pass so close to him without a single shred of reservation or hesitation. Baby crouched down to meet the two pokemon and respectfully kept her hands on her knees. Most irresponsible trouble making pokemon feeders tried to touch stray pokemon in the hopes of making a connection. A trip to the nearest hospital or clinic usually followed. But Baby knew better, and somehow, that made it worse.

Zach quickly snapped his head away. It wasn't like he was jealous of the attention they gave her or anything. So what if Baby wasn't completely incompetent? That didn't mean she was streetwise. Not in the slightest. But it did mean she dealt with strays in the past. This borderline stalker attraction to him had a uniform distribution to every abandoned reject in the city. Good. He was starting to think he was special.

Zach turned a shoulder towards them, hoping it would block them from his view. Whatever Baby did with those wretched vermin was no business of his. Maybe she'd even whisk them away and he'd never have to deal with their snoring ever again. Finally, he might get some peace and quiet. Zach cautiously peeked over his shoulder at the trio.

Baby reached inside her satchel and produced a bag of poke-treats. Deprived as Minun and Plusle were, they still recognized the sweet crinkling of a plastic bag as a means to an edible end. Baby tore off the seal and the aroma almost put the two pokemon in a faint. She set two individual treat cubes on the ground. They were perfectly placed between the pokemon to prevent any confusion as to which confection belonged to whom. Minun and Plusle stepped forward in unison, took their treat with both hands, and happily gorged themselves until sparks popped from their cheeks. Baby watched with so much delight that she didn't even realize Zach was upon her until his boots came toe to toe with her own. She jumped up in surprise and he snatched the bag of treats from her hand.

"Don't feed them that garbage," he snarled. "It'll make'm sick."

"I checked the ingredients," Baby defended. "These are specially made for electric types."

"As much as a fat greasy burger is for a diabetic."

Baby's smile was comically wide for her small face, especially when she suddenly stuck her neck out farther than a doduo and pointed her chin at him. "So you're the type that likes to baby their pokemon?" she mused.

Zach puffed up faster than a qwilfish. "I don't give two shits about those vermin!" he spat.

"Then, you won't mind if I give them another treat," Baby replied as she picked the bag out of his hands with an expert flick of her wrist.

That bitch.

"I'll do whatever the hell I want," Zach snapped right back. He swiped the bag from Baby's hands, flinging several compact cubes across the alley in the process. Baby puffed out her lips to match the size of his chest and snatched the bag back into her possession. Zach reached for the treats again, but Baby jerked them out of reach. He tried a second time and she slapped his hand away. It might as well have slapped all of the hair off of his face.

"You can't hit me like that!" Zach shouted.

"I can do whatever I want," Baby quoted before she promptly turned her back on him. She had some nerve talking to him like that. This was his house, his territory, his pesky vermin!

"Who do you think you are?" Zach demanded.

Baby grinned and spun around so fast that her umbrella twirled in place on her shoulder. She thrust out her hand. "Annie Cofield," she proudly declared. "And you?"

"If I tell you, will you leave and never come back?"

"I promise."

The end was finally in sight.

"My name is Jingles," Zach flatly lied.

"That's not your real name."

"It's a nickname."

"It's a cat's name."

"A little pussy never hurt anybody."

Baby blushed and quickly pulled back her hand.

Zach laughed harder than he intended to. "At least, not for most of us," he continued.

Baby lost her grin then. She lightly touched the rain dampened bandages wrapped around the back of her hand and looked down at Zach's leg. When she saw two feet instead of one, she picked up her chin once more. Only idiots smiled like that. The only reason they walked away from yesterday's attack with little more than a few scratches was because the devil cat wanted them too. Fancy electrical weapons, formal training, and luck didn't have anything to do with it. Persian merely made the mistake of playing with her food before eating it. Even a bumble headed idiot like Baby understood that.

"It's not safe to be out here by yourself," she began.

"I could've told you that," Zach scoffed. That was one thing they had in common. So why wasn't she practicing what she preached?

Zach suddenly noticed the bulge on Baby's hip. Her shirt bunched up over it, exposing the bottom of a badge and a holster. An officer of the law like her was never off duty. "You didn't come here just to check up on me," Zach suddenly realized. "You're looking for her."

"Her?"

"Do you have some kind of death wish?"

Baby quickly snapped her free hand down to her side like she would at attention at the academy. When her small little fingers clenched into a fist, it only made her wrists that much thinner. "I have an obligation to protect the people of this city," she firmly replied. "And if that Persian isn't found, more people are going to get hurt."

"The only one who is going to get hurt is you," Zach snorted. "Try thinking about yourself once in a while."

"It's my job not too."

"And so far, you've done a pretty piss poor job of it." Maybe she'd finally break that hero complex if he kicked the soap box out from underneath her. "Every time you show up, shit happens. It's only a matter of time until you drown in it."

Baby watched the rain drip off of the edge of her umbrella.

"This isn't some scrawny party filler pokemon we're talking about," Zach continued. "That cat's a tournament trained killer." He jabbed a finger at Baby's chest where her badge normally was. "One bite and she'll punch through that dinky little shield faster than a sheet of tin foil."

"It . . . she, is still out there and I'm the only one willing to do something about it. I have to find her before she hurts anybody else," Baby answered.

"You don't find a pokemon like that. They find you."

"And what, kill me?" Baby proposed, almost as easily as Zach would.

Zach leaned in closer to her, right up underneath her umbrella so that he could look her dead in the eye when he told her the truth. "And eat you," he whispered. "Keep you alive just enough to keep the blood pumping over your organs when they spill out of your gut. A little extra gravy to help them slip down their gullet."

Zach swayed in closer and came chest to chest with her. His big black overcoat cast a shadow over her, darkening his own features as he spoke. "They stay warmer that way," he explained. "If you cut them open without causing them to bleed out, you can still feel their heartbeat. One beat. Two beats. Getting slower and slower. It's enough to lull you to sleep."

Baby leaned back as Zach pressed forward. "And the little gasp they make when you finally bite into that soft tender flesh . . ." Zach closed his eyes and smiled. "It's ecstasy."

Two rattata climbing over the garbage cans a block away scattered when they heard the slap.

"I wasn't talking to you," Baby yelled while clenching and unclenching the handle of her umbrella. She meant to come up to bat with it next if she needed to.

No longer feeling quite so hungry, Zach rubbed the tender spot growing along his jaw. "For muck's sake woman! What the hell is wrong with you?" he winced.

Baby fluttered out of her outburst and quickly stuck out her umbrella between them to share its coverage. "I'm sorry," she said, "but it worked last time too . . ."

Last time? What the hell was she talking about? And what did she mean when she said: 'not talking to you?' Zach looked over his left shoulder. Then, his right, and there was still nobody there. It was just Baby and him. They shared an umbrella, and to make matters worse, Baby's presence wasn't suffocating in the slightest. In fact, standing underneath her umbrella was quieter than standing in the rain. Zach quickly back stepped out of her reach. The rain ran cold down the back of his neck, jolting him with a shiver of paranoia.

"I don't need your protection," he firmly declared, bowing up again.

Every day was a fight for his life. He didn't need an off duty rookie cop mucking up his winning streak just because they felt obligated to interfere. The devil cat persian was just another means to the same dismal end, one that ended sooner rather than later for his kind. Baby could play cops and robbers somewhere else. Down below, Minun and Plusle bounced electricity off of her double insulated rubber boots. Zach grabbed them up before she could pollute them with her fancy shallow virtues.

"We don't need your protection," he said again. Minun and Plusle sparked underneath his grip. Electricity snaked up Zach's arms, over his shoulders, and down into his tailcoat. He released the two pokemon with a curse and they ran off towards the refrigerator box. Zach shook the burns from his hands and looked back at Baby.

"You're like a magneton of chaos!" he shouted. "My life was already perfectly miserable without you in it."

Baby apologetically held out the bag of treats.

"And stop that smiling," Zach demanded as he snatched the treats from her hands. "It's getting on my nerves."

Baby firmly smashed her lips together, but the chuckle that built up behind them broke through with a snort.

"What now?" Zach groaned, utterly exhausted by her endless good humor.

"It's nothing," Baby said, waving her hand in front of her face. "It's just . . ."

"Just what?!"

"It's just . . . you won't stop talking to me . . ."

Zach paused, contemplated the thought, and stiffened with the soul sucking realization that Baby was right. He clenched his teeth as hard as his fists, spun Baby around by the shoulders, and pushed her out of the alley without another word.

This time, somebody else could help Baby find her way home.