To Love a Stray

Chapter 7

My mind feels as if it is stuffed with cotton wool and my eyes open reluctantly as I struggle to work out where I am, everything starts to come back to me slowly and I have to grit my teeth to prevent an outburst of anger and fear. I move my head slightly to look around and the room swims dizzily, I close my eyes and wait impatiently for my dizziness to pass. When I am finally able to look around without feeling as if I am going to pass out or fall over I open my eyes to narrow slits and peer around the brightly lit room. Fear flutters in my stomach as I see bars on the window and the bars that make up the door. I hear someone walking close by and close my eyes feigning that I am still under the influence of the drug.

"Shouldn’t she be coming around soon?" Steven asks.

"Doc said she should be coming around about now." Sam sounds solemn and I want to scream at him for allowing this to happen to me.

"Should we go away and leave her be for a while?" Steven suggests.

"That’s what Doc advised. He reckons she’s going to be pissed off when she comes around and I think he’s right about that." I listen for regret in Sam’s voice but hear none. "Damn Edwin to hell and back! Grabbing her like that was stupid!"

"A sister for you and Mitchell huh? No wonder Mitchell has been over-protective of her. I was starting to wonder how friendly he’d gotten with her," Steven says quietly.

I am silent as I listen to them move away and wonder how long before they start to worry when I show no signs of coming out of the drug. If I can get one of them to open the door … I doze on and off for a while all the while recovering even more from the drug. The shadows tell me it is mid afternoon when I wake fully. The dark silhouettes of the bars grate on my inner cat and the need to be able to run in cat form and forget my worries for a while is starting to get nearly unbearable. My muscles are starting to get stiff from remaining in the same position when I hear someone approaching the room once again.

"Rosy? Rosy?" I recognise Sam’s voice even though it is thick and strained with worry, "Hell! She should be awake by now!"

"Go get Doc, I’ll see if I can do anything for her," Micah orders. I struggle to keep my breathing even as I hear Sam hurry off and keys jingle in the lock of the door. Micah definitely is not my choice to go up against but I have no choice if I want to escape.

"Rosy! Rosy wake up! Rosy come on! Time to wake up!"

You weren’t this worried when I was drugged and put in here were you? I think angrily.

"Rosy, come on baby, be all right sweetheart," His voice comes from much closer than I am expecting and I can’t help opening my eyes in surprise.

I recognise the moment he realises what I am up to but I am already hurling myself off the bed in mid shift. The pain is incredible as his arms touch me and I fall to the ground, now I know why not to touch someone who is shifting - it’s indescribable agony. I make it to my feet and charge Micah a second time aiming high on his chest and to one side, I sheath my claws at the last possible moment but the impact of the collision is still immense as I hit him in the upper right chest knocking him over backwards.

I hear him grunt in pain as I pick myself up and then I am running for the door. The room is part of the stone building and I bolt for the door, I am in full flight as I reach outside and lower myself towards the ground slightly as I race across the open ground. I hear shouts behind me but I am going too fast to understand what is being said, I halt near the tree line to look back towards the buildings and turn back towards the trees as I see Micah appear from the stone shed in cat form to head towards me along with three cats from the quarters where the others are in the process of shifting.