My Enemy's Secret Cat

After I died, I came back as my worst enemy's cat.

He spoiled me rotten. Bought me a whole set of those pet talking buttons: paw one, and a little robotic voice says it out loud.

Hungry.

Litter box is full.

I want a treat.

He taught me so patiently. I hit them at random just to watch him lose his mind.

Then my death anniversary came, and he locked himself in a room and drank until he couldn't stand.

He cried over a photo of me. Kept saying he was sorry. Kept saying he missed me.

Then he said he loved me.

So I pressed a button.

"I love you too."

He went still. Turned his head slowly, like he didn't trust his own ears.

I set my paw down again, harder. And the little robotic voice rang out through the whole room, one word at a time.

"I. Love. You. Too."

Chapter 1

I was in love with Jonah for ten years.

Then my sister came home, the one who'd been missing since we were kids, and he took one look at her and forgot I existed.

What was so special about her? She was rough, unpolished, fresh off some back road. I'd spent ten years learning to be exactly what Jonah wanted. She walked in and had him in a single glance.

I couldn't stand it.

So I did something reckless.

I'd had too much to drink that night, and I made up my mind to do the stupidest, bravest thing of my life. I was going to corner Jonah alone and finally say it out loud. I slipped into his hotel room in the dark.

It went perfectly. Right up until the first light of morning hit the face on the pillow beside mine.

He looked seventy percent like Jonah. The other thirty percent was a small blood-red mole on the bridge of his nose, and the fact that he was very much not Jonah.

I screamed myself hoarse. He got one good look at me and went gray.

"What are you doing here? Where's Maren?"

So he'd been expecting someone too. We'd both crept in for someone else. We'd both climbed into the wrong bed.

Later I'd understand that in a proper drama, this was the part where the scheming villainess finally gets what's coming to her. A real showstopper of a scene.

Too bad neither of us was the main character.

As if the whole thing weren't soapy enough, that was the exact moment the door swung open.

Maren swept in on our parents' arms and squeezed out a few delicate tears. "Mom, Dad. I told you. Damon doesn't want me."

That was how I found out the man was Damon.

Jonah's older brother.

He and my sister had been promised to each other as kids. A contract between two old families. When she vanished, it quietly died. When she came home, Damon wanted nothing to do with her: word in their circle was he was too proud to marry some girl raised out in the sticks. They sniped at each other at every turn.

But I could see it. He was falling for Maren too. He just had the cold, rotten temper of a man written into the grovel-for-your-wife storyline.

And the payoff of that tired little plot?

My family ordered me to take Maren's place and honor the contract with his.

A blemish on the family, they admitted. But waste not, want not. Two birds, one stone.

Two birds, my ass.

Damon was the last man on earth I would ever want.

He wanted me even less.

I called him a scheming, cold-blooded snake. He called me a two-faced little viper.

Five years of marriage. Five years, one dinner table, two chairs, and nothing across it but the knives we kept throwing.

Every time I refused to give up and tried to catch Jonah's eye, Damon would fold his arms and drawl:

"Sloane, the worst thing about you isn't that you're vicious. It's that you're vicious and stupid."

And every time he stood there sulking, sour with jealousy over Maren, I'd lean in with my sweetest smile.

"Want a mirror? Your clown nose is really coming in."

Other people get love stories. We got a hate story, cover to cover.

Right up until the year my sister got herself kidnapped, the way every heroine in these ridiculous soap operas eventually does.

Chapter 2

Three in the morning, and Damon was out of bed and dressing without a second's hesitation.

I needled him, the way I always did. "Don't rush. Nobody's casting you as the hero."

He shot me a look and pulled on his shirt, his face like frost. "Do you have a conscience, Sloane? That's your sister out there."

Something in me flared. "Do you? You're the one who married me."

His hands went still.

I dragged my mouth into a smirk. "What do you want me to say, Damon? Here's to a long and happy life with Maren?"

Something moved behind his eyes. When he looked at me, he looked almost disappointed.

Maybe the dark was playing tricks on me. For once, I crossed a line I never let myself cross.

"Damon. If it were me out there tonight, would you worry like this?"

I never got my answer.

He slipped out the door and drove to the drop point, and only there did he realize he'd been played. A clumsy little bait-and-switch. Maren had been home the whole time, tucked into a mansion with Jonah, happy as anything and startled to see him.

He understood a beat too late. Red-eyed, he floored it the whole way home.

But some things you don't get to take back.

I'm Sloane. And I think I died.

Just not all the way.

I tested my voice.

"Mrrooow."

I won't pretend that didn't rattle me.

I dragged myself to a filthy puddle and finally got a look at what I'd become. White paws. Black splotchy face.

For half a second something red flickered at the edge of the reflection. A smear of it, there and gone before I could make sense of what I was seeing. Then it was just puddle water again.

Wasn't this the stray I fed outside my building every single day?

Cold sweat, if cats can sweat.

I had no idea how any of this had happened. But I knew one thing. If I didn't find food fast, I was going to die a second time. This cat hadn't eaten in seven days.

Probably because I'd been missing for seven days.

Seven days of an empty apartment. Everyone out searching for a body.

I was weighing whether to go beg next door when something clamped down on the scruff of my neck.

I swore several times in the space of one second.

Then Damon's face filled the whole world.

He held me up and frowned, studying me for a long moment.

"I know you," he said suddenly. "Sloane used to feed you."

My stream of furious meowing cut out.

I'll admit it threw me.

He remembered the cat I fed.

He ducked his head and, clumsy about it, tucked me against his chest. "She called you Meatball, didn't she. Stupid name."

By all rights I should have clawed him.

But maybe I imagined it.

When he said it, there was something underneath. Something like grief.

I gave him one charitable lick.

His long fingers scratched gently behind my ears, and at last he let out a slow breath.

"The house is so empty I can't stand to walk back into it," he said. "Stay with me. Would you?"

No.

Absolutely not. I'd put up with him long enough.

I yowled and sank my teeth into his wrist and flung myself out of his arms with everything I had.

I barely knew this new body yet. Didn't matter. Move, you useless legs. Run!

As long as he couldn't catch me, the rest of my nine lives were going to be glorious. Going to be

Going

Huh?

Meow?

Meow meow meow meow?

I slammed on the brakes, all four paws.

Why did it feel like the farther I got from Damon, the more my human mind blurred at the edges?

I took one careful step back.

Chapter 3

The stream of curses I had for Damon came flooding right back.

Wait. If I got too far from him, would I turn into an actual cat?

The footsteps behind me were closing in.

That face I loathed sharpened into focus, and I wanted to die all over again.

Better a cat than another second of tolerating him. A cat's life is the open road. The wild unknown.

I made up my mind, arched my back, and launched myself at the front gates with everything I had.

"A cat's destiny lies among the stars, the great wi"

Then the scruff of my neck lifted clean off the ground.

"Trying to run?"

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

Garbage Damon. This cat is going to end you one day. Mark my words.

I never knew Damon was such a cat person.

He spoiled me straight into the stratosphere.

He bought me the most obscene cat tree money could buy.

He fed me the priciest food on the market, every single meal.

He scooped my litter three times a day.

Boxes of toys kept arriving, some retired before the packaging even came off.

He took out a lifetime accident policy on me. A ludicrous one.

When Maren and Jonah came by, his budget-shredding devotion to cat care left them speechless.

Jonah opened his mouth to say something. Maren stopped him.

I heard her sigh, very softly. "Maybe he's just grieving."

I let out a meow. The idea was absurd.

Grieving? Damon? Over me?

Refusing to believe it, I rubbed up against Jonah's leg, angling for someone to take my side.

A cold laugh landed in my ear. "Her cat through and through. Takes after her, doesn't it."

I stopped mid-rub, sheepish.

Come on. You're jealous of a kitten now?

Wait. Hold on

He was jealous. Over me?

Next thing I knew, he'd scooped me up against his chest.

My vision went black.

Buddy. We can talk this out. Hands to yourself.

Your cat-holding technique is genuinely terrible.

My tail. My tail is under your arm.

I squirmed and yowled and came a whisker's width from clawing him. He didn't take the hint. He just clamped me in tighter.

Like he was afraid I'd bolt straight into Jonah's arms.

We stayed locked like that a while, one man and one cat, until Maren finally broke in with an awkward little laugh.

"So I saw someone online selling these pet talking buttons. Cats are supposed to be clever. Maybe Meatball could pick it up fast."

I let out a weak little meow.

Sister. My dear, sweet sister.

Whatever we were to each other before, from this moment on you are a saint. A goddess. The patron saint of cats.

Damon went quiet for a moment. Then he lifted me up to his face.

"Talk?"

I wagged my tail, hopeful.

He tilted his head. "Sounds fun. But it looks like the type to cuss me out behind my back."

Damon bought the talking buttons anyway.

For one reason only. His brother had said, light as air, "My border collie learned this ages ago."

Damon's jaw tightened. He ordered the deluxe max-tier, thousand-button mega set on the spot.

Enough to carpet the entire enormous room.

Hard to say whether he wanted to teach me to talk or enter me in a cat marathon.

Every night, so patiently, he cupped my paw in his hand and started the lesson.

"This one's hungry. This one's thirsty. This one means the litter needs scooping."

Pretty sure your skull's the only thing here that needs scooping out.

Chapter 4

Good thing I understood human speech. With a teaching method like his, a real cat wouldn't get it until it grew a soul a hundred years from now.

He patted my head. "Try."

Try, my furry behind.

I rolled my eyes and smacked out a string of gibberish with one paw.

He was disappointed in me the way you're disappointed in a hopeless student. Said I was dumb as a rock.

Deadpan, I extended a paw and mashed two buttons. "You." "Absolute"

He frowned.

I blinked up at him, innocent. "Meow."

That was when he pushed one of my old shirts under my nose.

"Come on. You knew her. Give it a sniff, tell me where she is."

Something in my chest went warm.

So he'd been looking for me this whole time.

I mean, I was a little curious where my body ended up too

But shouldn't you be asking a dog for this? What do you want with me? All I do is flex about cat food.

You've got that border collie next door doing full monologues. Go bother him.

I couldn't say a word of it, but he could probably read the filth in my eyes just fine.

He reached out to smooth my fur.

The second his hand moved, I puffed up twice as big.

For the first time, something in his eyes dimmed. A quiet, lonely thing crossed his face.

"You hate me that much."

He was looking right at me when he said it. But somehow it didn't feel like he was talking to me. Not the me I was now, anyway.

I sighed.

Fine. Fine. A magnanimous cat forgives. I'll indulge you, just this once.

I flopped onto my back and showed him my belly, cracking one eye to signal him. Come on. Come pet the soft belly floof.

He didn't move.

I pitched my voice sweet and wheedled at him, meow after meow.

His face went ashen. He pulled out his phone.

"Hello, Doctor. My cat flipped onto her back and won't stop making noises. Is she dying?"

I gave up batting my lashes at a blind man.

Couldn't run, couldn't hide. Might as well settle in.

Everyone got used to me fast. Started singing my praises, even.

Because Damon, after a brief slump, snapped right back to his old self. It was me, they said, my company, that pulled him out of it so fast.

I nearly hiccuped laughing.

These people knew better. He wasn't grieving. He simply didn't care about me.

Everyone knew our marriage had been a screaming, tangled mess, and he played the cold, unbothered widower to perfection. Aside from those first few seconds after he took me in, he never brought up Sloane again.

Sometimes someone would let my name slip and then scramble to apologize.

He wouldn't even lift his eyes. "It's fine."

And everyone would rush to smooth it over. "Good that you've moved on. Eyes forward."

He'd nod, poised and pleasant, every time. Couldn't be bothered to fake sad for even a second.

Honestly, it didn't sting as much as you'd think. Every hope, every delusion, every stubborn scrap of wanting, I'd already burned through back when I was still human.

Cat life was pretty cushy anyway. A few meows a day bought me top-shelf food and toys. When he was at work, I could even hop on his computer and get a few rounds of a game in.

In the end, the only news left about me was one phone call, every morning, from the estate manager.

Same call, same words, without fail.

"Sir. Still no sign of your wife."

He hung up every time without a flicker, like he couldn't stand to waste another second of the bill.

Chapter 5

Then one day the estate manager's unchanging call had a new line tacked onto the end.

"It's been a year, sir. Are we still looking?"

I was sprawled across his lap at the time, licking a paw. I rolled my eyes at the words.

A year. If they were going to find her, they'd have found her by now. He never wanted to look in the first place. This was Damon's cue to bow out gracefully, I figured.

But his voice came out tight. Knuckles white around the phone, he gave a single word.

"Keep looking."

I sighed. Right. Hasn't gotten his fill of playing the devoted little widower yet.

His cold fingers rubbed my head. "Be good. I'm off to work."

That absent little rub was when my eye caught something on his hand.

"Meow."

Helpfully, I reached out and poked him with a paw.

His hand slowed too.

Two pairs of eyes went to the ring finger of his left hand.

A hair.

A single strand of it. Long, wine-red, curled at the ends from an old perm.

Sloane's hair.

He got drunk once and, out of nowhere, told me my hair was pretty. Black and straight, the way it fell loose down my back. I glowed for exactly one second, then turned and saw Maren, with the same soft, elegant length.

So the next day I dyed it a wine-red wave. Put on my most scandalous red dress, too, and planted myself in the living room with my hands on my hips, waiting for him to come home.

"Well? How do I look."

He stared at me, throat working for three whole seconds.

"Like some kind of she-devil."

I never changed my hair color again.

A full year after I died, that strand of hair had wound itself around his finger