Page 74 of Kingmakers, Year Three

I don’t think of Cat as a pet that is disposable or beneath me. I think of her as an exotic, unearthly creature that I’ve captured and tamed. Far more valuable than an ordinary human.

She was so frightened by me at first.

I remember the day she saw me crying in the school bathrooms.

I had never felt rage like that. I honestly could have killed her.

Looking back on it now, I realize it wasn’t anger that drove me . . . it was shame.

“Dean?” Cat says quietly. Her head shifts slightly on my chest as she looks up at me.

“Yes?” I say.

“Why do you always want everything to be so clean and organized?”

“I like it that way. I hate mess. When something doesn’t smell good I can’t stop noticing—it nags at me, it distracts me, it drives me insane.”

“Do I smell good?” Cat asks.

“You smell better than anyone,” I tell her honestly.

“Really?” she says, pleased.

“It’s one of my favorite things about you. It’s like catnip, I can’t get enough.”

I can tell she’s smiling, even though I can only see the edge of her face illuminated by the candlelight.

That’s all I had planned to say, but relaxed and in a strangely candid mood, I find myself continuing:

“My father’s house in Moscow . . . it’s filthy. Nobody can come inside except me, and I hate being there. He didn’t use to be that way, but it’s gotten worse and worse. I can’t stand it. I’ve always been . . . ashamed of it.”

“Oh,” Cat says.

That one syllable carries so much sympathy and sadness that it pains me. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me.

“Anyway,” I say gruffly. “My house will never be like that.”

“I’d like to have a studio . . .” Cat says dreamily. “A big, open room full of sunshine, with lots of plants hanging down, greenery everywhere. That’s where I would paint.”

“You still want to be an artist?” I ask her.

Cat hesitates. “Well . . . I don’t know. But I’ll always want to draw.”

“That sketch you made of the girl by the well . . . it was beautiful. Not just beautiful . . . it made me feel things. It was the sketch that made me sure of what you’d done.”

We haven’t spoken of Rocco in several weeks.

I don’t bring it up because I know Cat feels guilty, even though she shouldn’t. It was necessary. I would have eliminated someone far more innocent than Rocco, if my sister were in danger. If I had a sister, I mean.

“Sometimes sketching is the only thing that makes me feel better about something,” Cat says softly. “That’s how I used to deal with my dad being an asshole. Well,” she laughs, “it used to be the only thing that made me feel better.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“This has been strangely cathartic, too,” Cat says, sitting up on her elbow to look at me.

“You like it?” I say.

“I think you know that I do.”

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