Night Cat | Night Cat #1 (CURRENTLY EDITING)

Night Cat - Chapter 7

Where The Hell Was I?

“I blame you for this.”

Xander glanced up at me with a bemused look on his face. “Blame me for what?”

I gestured around us. The whole table was covered with books on the history of Crescent Falls and newspaper articles dating back almost fifty years ago. “For this.”

He digested this and after a few seconds grinned at me. “Aren’t you the one who suggested this?”

“No.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I said that something weird was going on here. You’re the one who suggested all this.” I replied, smacking him on the shoulder with a dusty, rolled up newspaper.

“Ow.” Xander was sprawled flat on the floor of his bedroom. He rolled over playfully and stretched. “Well, you were the one who wouldn’t shut up about it, Avery.”

 I got out of the chair and sat down on the floor with him. “Well, don’t you think it’s weird? I was 100% human before you showed up here—”

“I told you. It’s because I’m y—”

“You’re my trigger. Yeah, yeah, I know.” I interrupted him, annoyed that he hadn’t let me finish. “But that doesn’t explain how Crescent Falls suddenly became some sort of hub for werecats or whatever.”

Xander sighed. “For the hundredth time, Avery, Crescent Falls hasn’t become a werecat hub. And you so can’t blame me for the fact that we found another one. There’s no way I could have been his trigger.”

My sudden transformation into a werecat had been because of Xander; my trigger. When he moved into town, it had set-off something in me and caused the phase. That’s why I couldn’t remember where I’d been roaming about until late in the night those past few days. I was still transforming. When I found out that there was another one of us here in Crescent Falls, I’d accused Xander of being the one who brought it on. That’s when he let me in on another werecat fact. You could only trigger one person’s transformation. “If anyone’s to blame,” he continued, “It’s you.”

I stared at him. Was he really accusing me of being the bobcat’s trigger? “What’ that—”

He cut me off, again. “Anyway, I don’t think it’s your fault.” I cocked an eyebrow. “I think the bobcat’s been around for some time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, for one he wasn’t too surprised to see us.” He shrugged as he flipped through the pages of a newspaper. “And for another, he was trying really hard to hide his thoughts from me.”

“Hide his... wait a minute.” I sat up a little straighter “We can hear our thoughts when we’re in our cat form?”

Xander shook his head, his light brown spikes falling over his forehead. “Not exactly. When we meet other werecats, we can sense the difference.” He mentally groped for a better explanation. “There’s sort of a tell that helps us know if it’s a real cat, or a werecat like us.”

I nodded slowly as my brain processed this. “So basically, if I ever run into, say, a tiger out here, my gut would tell me if it was a werecat?” Xander nodded. “Cool.”

He rolled his eyes and I could tell he was about to make a joke when something in the newspaper he was reading made him stop. “Um, Avery?” He turned to face me, and I was surprised to see worry churning in his gray, gray eyes. “You might want to take a look at this.” Curious, I scooted closer to him, acutely aware of the fact that I could smell his perfume or aftershave, or whatever.

The scent enveloped me. Mentally scolding myself, I forced myself to focus on the article he was indicating.

                                     Hunter's Become The Hunted. Wild Beast On The Loose

When I read that headline, my breath caught. “Hunters now hunted by strange wild beast”? It couldn’t be... It just couldn’t. I quickly skimmed through the rest of the article. Apparently, a hunter and a couple of campers had been found dead in the woods and the police thought it was due to an animal attack.

“Crap. So there was a psycho killer-cat here before us?” I shook my head, unwilling to believe.

“Didn’t you see the date?”

“Huh?” I blinked.

“The date.” Xander replied. “On the newspaper.”

Oh. I shook my head. I hadn’t seen the date. “No. Why?”

He shoved the paper in my face, pointing at the date next to the headline. “Look.”

I did and I thought I was going to faint. I had assumed that the article Xander found was from an old newspaper. I mean, we were checking the history of Crescent Falls after all. But the incident hadn’t taken place years ago, like I thought. It had happened only three weeks ago.

“Holy crap.” I breathed, incapable of saying anything else.

“I know.”

“There’s a killer in Crescent Falls.”

“I know.”

I turned to Xander, looking him in the eyes. I knew I probably had a horrified look on my face. The look on his on seeing mine confirmed that. “Do you... Do you think it’s the one we say last night?”

I suddenly felt Xander give my hand a little squeeze. His skin felt warm against mine and I was comforted. “I don’t know Avery.” He replied, his voice so quiet, it was almost a whisper. “All I know is that Crescent Falls isn’t safe anymore.”