Page 50 of Run From Me

I got one paw disconnected from my shirt and started to work on the next. Just as his claws came out of my shirt, the other paw latched back on.

I tried to make my voice as sweet as possible even as I spoke through gritted teeth.

“O, I didn’t exactly like this shirt, but the skin under it doesn’t like the sharp points of your damn claws.”

At this point, I was out of breath and out of patience. I sounded like I’d just run the mile and failed, while I was pretty sure my chest was matching the claw marks on my arms.

“Cali? Have you ever bathed a cat?” Rylee asked, coming up next to me.

I looked down at O clinging to me for dear life.

“Why would you ask that? This is going so well.” I let my head hang in defeat.

“Right. Okay. Hold please,” Rylee said, and she pulled out her phone and walked a few steps away.

I looked at her and laughed.

“He isn’t letting me go. So, yeah. No problem. I’ll be right here.”

Rylee made herself at home even though she’d only been here all of twice that I could remember. My apartment was so shitty she never questioned why we met at hers so often, but she’d never once judged me. Rylee went about finding what she was looking for, but that gave my nemesis time to recover from my rejection.

I was out of my damn mind, but I could tell the instant Xander was behind me. I could feel the heat of him before his chest ever leaned against my back.

“Cali,” he said.

I ignored him.

“It’s okay, O. You’re going to feel so much better after this. I promise.” I smiled down and watched his eyes flick over my shoulder. “Are you eyeing the big bad man behind me? Don’t worry. He’ll forget about us as soon as he realizes I’m not useful anymore now that he has his precious information.”

The words hurt my heart to say, but not hearing from him, especially when I had the final piece he needed? Well, it was obvious. At least I’d gotten to act on my fantasies for one night.

FIFTEEN

xander

I openedmy mouth to speak, but Rylee had a knack of figuring out when to appear and make sure I couldn’t say my piece.

What did Cali mean when she said “I realized I didn’t need her”? I was here, wasn’t I?

“Okay. Well, I’ve only seen this done on TikTok, but it looked easy enough. I could only find this towel. You don’t need it do you?”

The towel Rylee held up was stained with what I’d guess was hair dye. That or Cali had murdered a clown.

I watched emotions play on Cali’s face like this was something valuable. I was about to offer to buy her a new one, but my hesitation was about leaving these two nut jobs. They needed to move forward with whatever harebrained idea Rylee had plotting in that head of hers, and I, well, I needed to make sure Cali came out alive. Or, rather, I needed to feel her close to me like some damn addict. I’d starved myself of her for two days and now I couldn’t seem to walk away.

“No. It’s fine. He needs a bath. But why are you…” Cali asked and then stopped. Rylee was pulling open drawer after drawer.

“Where are your scissors? Here they are,” Rylee said, and I watched her hold the scissors up to the towel.

“What are you doing?” Cali asked.

Rylee measured the towel by folding it in half.

“Well, I think if we stick his legs through some holes, we can make him into a cat purse. What do you think?”

The cat in question growled.

“I don’t think he likes that idea. Why don’t we just wrap him up in the towel so he can’t sink his claws in me?” Cali winced as she said the words.

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