Animal Instincts

Chapter 13

Tessa's POV

After getting home and taking a shower, I decided to just relax. I hopped on my plush red couch and scrolled through stuff on my cell phone. The TV was on, but I wasn't really watching it. I found myself scrolling through my contacts and I suddenly stopped scrolling when I saw Gertrude's contact picture. She's my sister.

She looked so happy and safe. She took a selfie in that picture and sent it to me about a year ago. She was like a mini version of me. She's only twelve, but she's growing up fast.

Her fur is as white as snow, eyes as blue as the ocean, and had black tipped ears and tail. She picked up her traits more so from my father. He had white fur with smokey gray eyes like me and my mother had silver gray fur with blue eyes. It was a perfect mix.

Smiling to myself, I hover my thumb over her phone number. Wait, I can't. It's 12 and she's probably asleep. But, at the same time I haven't talked to her in almost a year. Mr. Licks would always have me doing missions back to back and I've never had time to come home to see Gertrude.

It sucks, and by the time I get home, it's already too late to call her. I sighed, slouching against the arm of the couch, causing a pillow to flip onto my stomach. Well, it's worth a shot.

I pressed the green phone icon and watched my phone dial the number. I had the phone on speaker, patiently and hopefully wishing she would answer.

The phone rang for which seemed like forever. Then finally I heard a voice.

"Hey, this is Gertrude. Sorry, I can't answer my phone right now. Please leave a brief message after the beep and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can. Bye!" the voicemail replied.

I sighed, listening to the robotic lady say, "At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished recording, you may hang up or press 1 for more options."

I managed to gather some words to say just before the time sounded.

"Hey, Gertie," I started, trying to sound happy and calm. I always called her Gertie for short. "It's Tessa. I was just calling to make sure you were okay. Call me, text me, do whatever. I'm always here if you need something. I love you. Bye."

I felt my heart swell. I really miss her. Speaking of my sister, I wonder what she's up to. Since she's so young, She can't train to become a fugitive recovery agent until she's 16. That's when I started. I started the same year we were separated from our family. Probably forever. We don't know if anyone had survived. I'm 23 now. So it's been seven long years without hearing a word from anyone.

I tried to tear from my thoughts and got up off the couch to call it a night. In my bedroom, I hooked up my cell phone to it's charger and sat it on the nightstand. Once I was all curled up in bed, I laid on my back, eyes having a staring contest with the ceiling fan. I watched as it spun quickly in a blur, blowing cold air onto my face.

There was never a day I didn't think about Gertrude. She's all I have left. That I know of at least. She considers Mr. Licks our father, but he's not as good as our birth father. I mean, we didn't even have a foster mother. Any girl Mr. Licks brings around is just a one night stand. Nobody real. I try to get Gertrude not to like him, but she refuses. She looks up to him for almost everything now and I don't like it. I'm her sister. Her only sister. Her only living family member.

She needs to look up to me.

I let out an aggravated groan, covering myself under the covers to go to sleep.

After about 10 minutes I dozed off.

Then, out of nowhere, I was rudely awakened when my phone rang.  Hoping it was Gertrude, I scrambled from under the covers over to my nightstand, snatching my phone off the charger and answered.