Free Feral Pride by Cynthia Leitich Smith Page B

populace,” said Graham Barnard of MCC Enterprises, the parent company.
    The patch and vaccine will first be made available on a voluntary basis at pharmacies, medical clinics, hospitals, and private medical and veterinary doctor’s offices.

I LOWER THE WOOD BLINDS in the sunroom and turn to drink in the sight of Kayla.
    Yowza. It’s a hair past 11 P.M. , and we’re leaving soon with Aimee and the Wild Card for his big whoop-de-do secret meeting with the Armadillo king at Sanguini’s. Since we’re trying to stay low profile, the restaurant is a perfect rendezvous place. An ideal opportunity for disguise.
    Exhibit the lady in front of me. Enhanced lashes, cat’s-eye eyeliner, and a fake silver spiderweb tattoo that spans her face and another that disappears beneath her gold satin bustier. (I love the word
bustier.
) The skirt is a black ballet tutu, revealing long, long, long legs and high, high, high heels. I could do without the hair dye, though it does what it’s supposed to.
    The whole look is designed to draw attention from her exquisite face, to keep anyone from recognizing her as the Cat girl of Pine Ridge.
    “What do you think of the color?” Kayla reaches to touch her hair. “People are going to notice a black girl with blond hair, but Freddy swears it’s a great distraction. He says no one will recognize me.”
    I’d recognize her — by sight and scent — but I’m not most people. She looks sexy in a more obvious way. My fingertips play hopscotch between the threads of her tattoo. “I love it.”
    I’ve kissed and been kissed by hundreds of girls, mostly human girls. Kayla is molten lava. She slides her hand in the back pocket of my jeans. I’m still betting virgin, but I pray she’s not committed to it as a lifestyle choice. We’re alone on the first floor. There’s a daybed behind us under the arched windows.
    Freddy can always fix her makeup. Navigating past the rattan coffee table is tricky. The corner hits right at the back of my knee, jostling my balance, and I break the kiss. “Kayla . . .”
    Her hand comes up, flat against my stomach, holding me there. “What am I doing?”
    Is this a trick question? “What’s wrong?”
    “It’s not you,” she says, and that strikes me as a terrible way to begin. “This isn’t the time.” Kayla sinks into a morris chair with embroidered star-pattern cushions and starts unbuckling her shoes. “Freddy got me a pair of lace-up boots, too. I’ll run upstairs and —”
    “Whoa.” I settle on the daybed, rest my hands on my knees. “What are you thinking?”
    She’s checking me out. “You look striking. Grown-up.”
    Striking? I’ll say. Freddy brought me a black leather-trim Western-style shirt, black jeans, and designer snakeskin cowboy boots. (Take that, Seth!) I haven’t put on the steampunk eye goggles yet, but my handcrafted steel cross belt buckle is both Goth fashion statement and precautionary. Kayla’s gaze lingers there, and it makes me flush.
    “Sorry.” She shields her eyes. “It’s partly Ben. I don’t want it to be, but it is.”
    She misses him. That’s only natural. “Listen, kitten, I can wait for —”
    “What about Aimee?” Kayla asks. “I know she’s with Clyde, and I understand that you and she are close friends. I’m not worried about that. But before you two met, she had a boyfriend — Travis — who died. Now, you’re into me, and I had a boyfriend who died, too.”
    “So, you’re saying . . .” I’m tempted to inform her that, from what I understand, Travis and Aimee never hit official couple status, but that’s beside the point. “
What
are you saying? I have some perverse thing for girls who’ve dated dead guys? Because that’s a coinci —”
    “No, I’m saying
people die.
Lula died. Your friend Teghan died. Your friends Kieren and Joshua are lucky to be alive. Yoshi, you’ve been shot at twice in two days. You could die, too.”
    Hearing Teghan’s name stings. The old me, the