Well apparently quite a few of you voted for me. I didn't even know about it until after the voting was closed, so… Boo me. Anyway, here's your update to the puzzle that is Somewhere Only I Know. Caution: Refresh your memory and read the prologue again. I'll be tying in some things.
"Hey, Cat," she said weekly, smoothing down the front of her pink blouse. Her dark blue sweatshirt jacket hung loosely over her shoulders and her hair was damp.
I heard the thunder and a crack of lightning, confirming where she had been.
"What're you doing here?" I mumbled, tiredly.
I could see the fear in her eyes as she shrugged. She held up a soggy textbook in her hand. She placed it on the coffee table. "I followed you guys here," she wiped her hands on her dark wash jeans, "Quite a while ago."
"It took you three hours to return a book?" I asked, confused and fatigued.
She took a step closer to the couch. I wrapped the blanket tighter around me, as if it would protect me. "Well, no, not exactly," she answered.
"So, what?" I asked. "You thought you'd run a few midnight errands?" I questioned.
"Cat, just give me a chance to explain and I will," she said.
I looked at my pink watch again. Nope, not sleeping tonight. Not one wink. I stood up and walked towards the kitchen. I looked back at her. "Fine."
She breathed a sigh of relief and sat on the counter stool. "Look, Cat – "
I hushed her. "Be quieter. Robbie's probably asleep."
She nodded and lowered her voice. With that, she began her long drawn out explanation. "From the beginning, shall we?" she started. "I noticed that Robbie had left his school book at my house when I kicked you and him and Skyla out.
"It wasn't that late then so I followed him here. I would have just given it to him, but then I saw that you and Skyla were with him. So I went back home. I went to my room to study, but I was only there for about a minute when Trina came home and started yelling at my dad about some guy friend of hers.
"My mom told me that I could go outside for a little bit while my dad lectured Trina on respecting authority or something like that. So I came right back here, expecting that you and Skyla would be gone."
She paused and looked at me. I obviously was still here, so the story obviously wasn't complete. I was getting kind of upset with her mentioning Skyla so often. Skyla was just another reminder that I did have important people here. But she kept going.
"I was going to leave the book on the porch, but then I heard screaming, and the door was unlocked, so I just came in. And I went to where the screaming was coming from, which was… The guest bedroom."
My mind flashed back to the screaming in the guest bedroom. And if Tori witnessed that, then she heard. She heard everything.
"And I stood in the hallway and watched. And what I watched… Did not make sense at all at first," she said, looking down at her hands.
My breath caught in my throat. So maybe she didn't know.
And, but of course, I was wrong again.
"But I eventually got it," she finished. She looked back at me. "Is there a reason that you – "
"Stop making this complicated, Tori," I interrupted. "You know. Fine. Whatever. You know how Skyla's from somewhere completely different than here and I just had her ripped away from me so she could go back, but you don't know everything."
Tori raised her hands in defeat. "Cat, I didn't say that I knew everything. But I do know more than you think."
I raised my eyebrows in interest.
"I just… Came to seemingly obvious conclusions," she said. There was an awkward pause as I tried to figure out what the obvious conclusions were. "Like… How if Skyla's not your cousin, but you're still caring for her, she's not a stranger to you. Meaning you know her from where she's from. And somehow, Robbie's roped into that."
Yup, she knew more than I thought.
"Is Skyla… your d – "
"Was," I interrupted quickly, not wanting to hear that one word. I was sick of hearing it. "Okay, she was. But she's not here anymore and Robbie was her…" I stopped, but she already knew. I left it hanging. "I'm pretty sure that he misses her, too, so it'd be great if you'd stop bringing her up in this conversation that we shouldn't even be having," I rambled.
"Cat, I'm sorry… You wanted me to explain and I did."
The most dangerous thought entered my head at that moment. "Tori…You're not gonna tell anyone…"
She looked down at her shaking hands on the countertop again. I grabbed them to get her attention.
"TORI! YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE!" I yelled, not caring if Robbie was asleep or not.
"But, Cat! I – "
"Tori!" I leaned over the counter and closer to her. "This is none of your business and you shouldn't even know about this or be here! You don't have any right to tell anyone because if you do they'll have me questioned by someone with some massive authority, and guess what? I have too much at stake here to be put in a wacky shack!" I yelled at her, about an inch from her face.
"Cat, I'm not gonna tell anyone, I can help you!" she replied, loudly, but not nearly as loud as me.
I shook my head and let go of her hands. "No," I pointed towards the door. "Leave, please."
She rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed, walking towards the door.
Wait. I can help you. Tori was a lot of things, but not a liar. Okay. Decision on a whim time. "No stay!"
The more reviews there are, the closer you get to Bade. Keep that in mind. And as for the readers who only started reading this for Bade, I hope I've made a Cabbie shipper out of you, too. It's occurred to me that I'm writing like season one Cat. Because, as we all know, she turned into a five-year-old in season two and progressively gets younger.