Chapter 13
Silvestro sat up from her bed, the room dark with night and the rumble of the sleeping cat beneath her bed. She glared at the far wall with annoyance and discomfort, before groaning and swinging her feet down from the mattress and rummaging through her drawers.
Her stomach twisted and tensed in sporadic patterns that left her grimacing as she speed-walked to the bathroom. The feeling of her insides dripping made her rumble in frustration as she dropped herself down on the toilet seat and yanked at the lower layers until a patchwork of deep, freshly splattered red presented itself along the centre of her underwear.
"Great," she sighed, kicking off the bloodied garment and replacing it, laying a cotton menstrual pad to the seat of the cloth.
After folding back the reusable pad box, the woman cleaned her hand and glared absently at the mirror of the vanity, the corner of a MediSil patch peeling off her cheek. She sighed loudly before starting in surprise as the fresh hell of Ruggine's yowling began outside the bathroom door; the creature clawing at it in demands for passage.
"Oh, would you stop?" Silvestro snapped, pressing a hand to the low of her stomach after she opened the door and was greeted with the cat rubbing up against her leg. "Just because I'm awake doesn't mean it's time for you to eat. You can handle a couple more hours."
Ruggine didn't seem to appreciate the sentiment as he hissed at her quickly before shooting off to God knows where, the knowledge that no food would come from sucking up making there be no point in socialising.
The ex-militant rolled her eyes at the cat's nature and padded back to her room, intent on getting a couple more hours of sleep before the hellcat began screaming again for sustenance. She yawned and stretched before falling down into bed - then she yelped and vaulted up, her fist coming up beside her head in preparation to punch the lights out of whatever firm form was laying with her.
Silvestro paused, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and left her staring down at a familiar man in a lab coat who sat propped up against her headboard.
"So the subject has conformed to her timetable...fascinating," Verde breathed, scribbling in his notepad, not looking up. "I would never have thought it so willingly flexible. What else has changed?"
"Verde!?" Silvestro hissed, snapping the lamp on beside her bed. "What the hell are you doing in my bed? How did you get in here?"
"I climbed through the window again; I do not possess a key to your apartment nor do I believe you will answer the door this late at night."
"You can't just do that!"
Verde glanced up and frowned a bit, lips tugging downwards in the corners.
"You believe me to be a hazard; A threat to your person, property, or social circle. Do not be concerned, I have no interest in such pointless actions or behaviours. I am merely here to gain data on the subject in its unfamiliar environment since it has made it obvious it will not return to captivity."
The scientist glanced away from his notebook for a split second before lifting up from the mattress and following after the feline without another word, leaving Silvestro gaping at the dent he had made in her sheets with his presence.
"Verde- you know what," she switched suddenly, straightening up. "It's too early for this. Goodnight Rugg, goodnight Verde. If you wake me up, I'll kick you out the window."
There was a faint grumble in response from the kitchen as the Russ woman locked the door to her bedroom to satisfy her paranoia and squirmed into a comfortable position. A grimace came to her expression as her pad didn't settle right and a bloom of annoyance spread as she envisioned the blood missing and sliding down her thigh to stain and pool in the sheets.
"And thus the week of hell begins," she grumbled, tugging her pants up higher and pouting into her pillow.
000
Silvestro rolled over with a groan as Ruggine pawed as her, batting at her ears and nose to rouse her as he screeched to high heaven in demand of food. She let out a long-suffered sigh and pulled her blanket over her head, curling into a fetal position as it began trying to dig under and follow her into her cavern of abdominal pain and sleep.
"Go away, Rugg," she grumbled, feeling an uncomfortable twang in the right side of her stomach that persisted for minutes on end. "Chase a bird or something. Be an actual cat again."
Ruggine responded by shrieking like a spluttering motor into her ear, claws tugging at her blanket.
"Ruggine!" She whined, rubbing her face into her pillow. "...Dear God, fine, let's have breakfast then."
The large feline yowled in accomplishment and dropped from her bed, dashing ahead as the woman dragged herself up with a jaw-breaking yawn.
Silvestro grimaced as a sudden wave dropped from within her as the shift from vertical to horizontal emptied her internals of their welled up blood. She shook her head and came to the kitchen, preparing the complaining cat's plate as it paced impatiently, talking at her to hurry up.
"Yelling at me isn't going to make this any faster, Ruggine," she huffed, shovelling the dry food into the only bowl that he agreed to eat from; refusing every other one in the apartment.
His answer to her words was to amp up the volume, his rusted vocals gargling out demands as he watched her hand with rapt attention.
"Here, little devil."
In a moment Ruggine pressed his face near flat against the bottom of the bowl, submerging himself in the food in his gluttonous manner, making Silvestro snort and roll her eyes fondly.
"You're such a fucking weird cat."
The creature grumbled at her from within his plate and pulled back after a moment, licking his chops and squinting in contentment.
Silvestro huffed and began gathering her own breakfast, shoving the sugariest cereal she had into a bowl and saturating it with milk. She hummed and ate happily, ignoring how her stomach began to panic as lactose began to fill it, it's one weakness and enemy.
"Yum."
The woman hummed and tottered over to her bust-up, old couch and dropped down on it, kicking at the radio until her toes knocked the switch and the morning report sparked to life, the jovial voice of a presenter reading out the latest in celebrity news. With her spoon in her mouth, the ex-militant grumbled as a weight came to her stomach, Ruggine digging his paws into her gut as he began to make himself comfortable.
"Why do you like to see me suffer, you bastard?" She groaned, and the feline curled up, purring like an old engine. Silvestro pursed her lips down at the creature before reaching out and carefully scratching at his cheek. His purrs piqued into rumbles as he closed yellow eyes. "Why can't you always be this cute?"
"The subject was not designed to be cute," Verde scoffed, popping up from behind the couch and making the woman choke on her cereal. "It was designed to be inconspicuous, but possess abilities that would assist in combat and stealth."
"You're back again?!"
"Of course, I must continue my observations. Having a human around which it readily interacts with is a significant development, I will admit," he answered easily, eyeing Ruggine as Ruggine rubbed his jaw against her hand, trying to provoke her into action again. "Social stats are increasing, I see."
"He's a cat," Silvestro stated, trying to express her disbelief with the man who only had eyes for the stray.
"Correction, he is a hybrid of a Eurasian Lynx and a Somali cat."
"That's still a cat!"
"Yes, but your expression of the word made it out to seem more simplistic than it actually is."
The ex-militant frowned and glared at Verde, before sighing and deflating into the couch, Ruggine's eyes opening slightly as he was prodded with a pen. Silvestro continued to eat her breakfast with an expression of miff, still a bit high-strung from the presence of the man in her apartment, but she slowly unwound as he spared no attention for her, snapping pictures and scrawling heart rates and purring frequencies.
"You really don't have a weird motive here, do you?" She breathed out, taking her hand away when Ruggine gnawed on her fingertips.
"I already confirmed this. Why would I study you? You are only tangentially significant and allow me to access the subject you call 'Ruggine'. Such an investigation would be mind-numbingly dull," he responded, looking between his notepad and his focus. "And I suppose most would call it 'rude' - or 'creepy' was it? Something like that; but most importantly, it would be a waste of resources."
The woman stared at him for a moment before letting her attention drift to the ceiling, their Sunday rolling on.
"Also, I ate some of your food, you're running out of eggs," he continued, placing an envelope of money on her side table.
"You ate it, you buy more. I'm not getting up until Monday."
000
It was Sunday afternoon and Silvestro was ready to kill Verde as she trudged her way to the Aurelio's, a short shopping list in hand of milk and other necessities. There also was an aggressive back and forth of scratching out persistent requests for some kind of 'instant ramen' that Silvestro knew she wouldn't find in her little corner store grocer.
The ex-militant grumbled and touched her stomach as a cramp stabbed her in the very soul, followed by the discomforting sensation of liquid flowing out. Gross. She hoped that this task would be a quick one, in and out, and that's it-
Silvestro turned the corner and screeched to a halt as a yellow-banded fedora took up her vision, the brim of it nearly brushing her nose at the sudden proximity. She paused and didn't even try to cover the expression of pain and disagreement as she looked down and saw the smug smile of the unnamed man who followed her around these days.
"Bella," he purred in greeting, not bothering to back away, leaning forward if anything.
"Stringbean," she responded with a solid nod and took a large stride back before stepping around him. "Good seeing you."
She had meant that to be a dismissal.
"And it's wonderful to see you too, Ms Russ," the man continued, falling into step beside her, hands clasped behind his back. "Where are you off to on this fine evening?"
"Errands," she grunted out, feeling her stomach clench. "Menial errands."
"Oh, then allow me to join you on your errands, bella! Perhaps my presence will brighten up the event."
God damn it, she should have just kicked Verde out and made him do the shopping.
"No, you don't have to," she sighed, trying not to grind her teeth. "I'm just doing grocery shopping."
"Oh, does that bring back memories," Gustavo-Andrei-Maxwell-Yvette-whatever hummed wistfully, gazing into the sky. "You remember, right, bella? How we ran into each other in the park one Autumn evening?"
"And I nearly got shanked, yes I remember," she grumbled
Silvestro paused and stood straighter in an instant, the skin on the back of her neck prickling and urging her to turn around carefully. She took a hissed breath in and grounded her feet before she glanced over her shoulder.
"Hello, Ma'am!" a young woman laughed, her cheeks flushed the same red as her curly hair as she walked up beside her, a bit embarrassed at getting caught staring. "I'm so sorry for...you know. That was a bit rude."
"No, it's..." Silvestro grit her teeth, she wanted to say 'yes, it was' but she didn't want to come off as prickly. "I understand."
There were too many people around her right now, and she was in no mood to handle them at the moment.
Her hollow shoulder throbbed inside her light coat. And then the man who had yet to be solidly named prowled from around her side to smile thinly at this new woman.
In an instant, Silvestro saw the woman's eyes snap between the two of them, taking in their faces before her smile became wider. She looked tempted to take another step forward into their space and completely bypass any sort of polite distancing.
Silvestro's feet were planted firmly on the ground and the cobblestone under her boots grated under her weight, her body gearing up for something, despite being in a quiet shopping strip in her little town.
"You must excuse us, miss," the stringbean cooed and Silvestro snapped back at the tone of his voice, seeing the woman across from them nearly glazed-eyed. "We are in a bit of a rush this evening. It was lovely meeting you, but we must be off."
"Oh, of course, I-"
She looked like she wanted to say more, but Silvestro barely gave her a chance and the little man beside her followed in stride, a hand hovering by her elbow like he was escorting her.
There was a long pause as they walked, Silvestro taking a moment to loosen her muscles - and notice that her company had migrated to her left side now. He had hovered by her hollow shoulder whilst talking to the woman, but now drifted back.
It was thoughtful; she supposed. But it irked her that he decided she needed protecting like she hadn't marched through pouring rain and sweltering sun. Like she hadn't gotten her arm blown off-
"Bella," the man began and Silvestro took a deep breath to calm herself down, "Does this happen often?"
Silvestro blinked and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye in question.
"Skies-" he paused and cleared his throat, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes to hide his thoughts. "People approaching you out of the blue. Persistently."
Aurelio's appeared from over the little hill of the pathway and as the two made their way, Silvestro couldn't help but ponder the man's question. Had many people been approaching her lately?
"...Yes," she uttered finally, her brow furrowing as she wondered if she was overthinking or if there truly had been an increase of encounters. "There have been more people approaching since- well, since I was laid off."
"I see," the nameless man murmured, "People like that woman? And the man from a couple of days ago?"
"Not always but they do...Ah, this is going to sound dumb but there's no way I can describe it," she sighed, "They all have the same feeling to them."
"No, bella, I completely understand what you mean," her company assured, before he tilted his head to peer up at her, no longer obscuring his eyes with his hat. "Tell me, are you feeling well at all today? You seem a bit..."
"Yeah, sorry," she sighed, a hand coming to her brow to massage a growing headache. "I'm a bit fucked today. Not in a great mood 'cause of it."
The man made a soft noise before he carefully uttered, "Would you rather I leave you be today, my lady?"
Silvestro paused, and the man stilled beside her, patiently waiting for the verdict. She frowned and shifted her weight, casting her gaze between the suited man and the middle distance in front of them. The woman bit her lip as she pondered on his presence beside her, then imagined him gone.
"Nah, I'd rather you stay," she murmured, a hand coming to scratch a scab on her cheek, before adding with a laugh, "If only to chase off anyone who pesters me today."
The man slowly took this information in before he cocked his head in a manner that obscured his eyes from her vision. His lips, however, pulled into an obvious smile, and his right cheek caved in a dimple.
"It'd be my pleasure, bella."