Saving Kitty | OLD | ✔

Seven | Whoever She Is

"And this is the part where you find out who you are,
And these are your friends, those who've been there from the start."

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The days passed and blurred into one long one. The routine was the same: 'training' with Caleb early in the morning, meeting with alphas and doing the tour during the day and then helping her mother out. Leila had come back, so Kitty rarely saw her brother. Not that she was complaining; she was still brooding over the comment he'd made. To make it worse, he'd begged Kitty not to tell Leila. She was completely shell-shocked. Not that she would have told Leila but the fact he needed to ask her suggested that he knew it was wrong but couldn't face the consequences. Out of spite, she'd almost gone running to Leila to tell her but she stopped herself. It wouldn't have accomplished anything, and it most likely would have made everything worse.

"What's wrong, Kitty? You're not usually this quiet?" James asked her. She trudged forward, just shrugging. Instead of sneaking off, she'd submitted to her father and asked for his permission to go to Eden's. He'd agreed and told her that James would escort her there and back. James had looked at her with pity in his eyes when he'd met Kitty. She had no doubt that he'd heard what had happened. Rumours spread like wild fire through the pack.

"Just thinking." She eventually mumbled, not liking the awkward silence between them. She wished it had been Reggie escorting her. Since he'd been caught by Gabriel's pack, she hadn't seen him and from what she'd heard from Jordan, it seemed like he was avoiding her. Her father had punished Reggie not only for being caught by Gabriel but because he should have sniffed Kitty out. Kitty hadn't asked what the punishment was, she didn't want to know. What she did want, though, was to apologise to Reggie. He'd always been kind to her, always made sure she was okay and now he was in pain because of her. Because she'd been stupid enough to sneak out, thinking everything would be okay.

"So what are you and Eden doing tonight?" While James' question could have been sincere, Kitty's cynicism kicked in, as it should have done days ago. James was asking for her father and for his own safety. He'd never admit it, but she knew he would.

"You don't have to worry, James, we won't do anything that'll cause trouble." She told him, a ghost of a smile on her face. "We're just watching films, that's it. A girly night in."

"Oh." The awkward silence returned, settling down knowing it would be staying. Kitty had nothing of interest to say to James. After finding out what had happened to Reggie, she thought it best to distance herself from some of the guards. The few who were nice to her... she wasn't going to risk their safety. The majority of her father's men had looked at her with disdain after finding out what she'd done. One or two had gone down (without her father knowing) to the training arena and watched as Caleb tossed her around like she was a stick. Someone else might have screamed at them, rebelled against Caleb and her father but not Kitty. She was too weak. She stood there, took the pain, took the humiliation and buried it in her chest.

Eden had often asked if she would run away. The thought had entered Kitty's mind several times, but never had she attempted it. There'd been so many opportunities but each time she found a reason to stay. Through her dark time all those years ago, she'd even contemplated a more... final solution but the little voice of guilt in her head had told her that she deserved what she got. It was, after all, her fault that people surrounding her got hurt. She was too much of an emotional wreck to control herself. She was too weak to stand against the person who mattered the most.

Reaching the little house on the corner of the street, which had taken a twenty minute walk from Kitty's grand home, she thanked James and told him she'd be all right. He'd looked at her oddly, and she knew the thoughts that were flickering through his mind. All of them about her, all of them about what she would do.