Cold Kiss

opened my eyes and Danny was there.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    IT’S NO PLAGE TO STOP, BUT AS GABRIEL RAKES a hand through his hair again, my phone rings. It’s Robin, so I can’t ignore it.
    “What?” I sound wrecked, even to my own ears.
    “I can’t find him and I looked everywhere! Are you coming home now? Wren?”
    I can’t make any sense of it, but then I picture Danny’s face and my heart drops into my stomach without warning, a sickening whoosh . “Find who, Robin?”
    “Mr. Purrfect! He’s not anywhere in the house, and he won’t come when I call, and you know he—”
    “Robin.” I sit back as my heart starts to beat again.
    Of course she doesn’t mean Danny. She doesn’t even know about Danny; she wouldn’t be looking for him. I’m totally losing it. “Calm down.”
    “Wren, he’s old. ” She’s panicking, which she almost never does, and she sounds about five years younger, the little Robin I remember, terrified in the middle of the night after a bad dream. “And he gets confused lately, and what if he’s stuck somewhere or—”
    “Hey, seriously, calm down. I’m coming home right now, okay? I’ll be right there.”
    Gabriel is glaring at me when I flip the phone closed, and I shrug. “I have to go, it’s my sister.”
    “We have to talk about this,” he says, and folds his arms over his chest.
    “Not right now we don’t.” I stand up and grab my backpack, hefting it over my shoulder.
    I know I’m taking the easy way out, the perfect excuse to run away from the expression on Gabriel’s face and the judgment in his eyes, but I don’t care. It may be a relief not to have to lie about what I can do, what I have done, but I hadn’t thought about how much disapproval would hurt. “Look, I get that you’re worried or whatever—”
    “Worried?” His laugh is a bark, short and sharp. “Are you kidding? You have your dead boyfriend living in your neighbor’s garage!”
    Power floods through me in a hot, aching rush, and across the room the lightbulb explodes beneath the lamp shade. “Back. Off.”
    I have to give him credit—he doesn’t even flinch. But when he opens his mouth, I cut him off.
    “I get it, okay? I really, really get it, believe me, and I’ve been living with this since July, instead of the last half hour. So just … back off already. I’m a big girl and I will deal with this. But first I have to find my sister’s senile cat.”
    It’s such a ridiculous thing to say, Gabriel snorts a laugh, and I can’t help smiling. It breaks the tension in the room, soothes the angry hum of electricity in my blood.
    When I head for the door, though, Gabriel grabs my hand. He turns it palm up and scrawls his phone number there with a blue ballpoint.
    “Whenever you want,” he says, and steps back.
    And despite my big words, it’s a relief to know he cares that much. But I’m pretty sure calling him might be a matter of need.
    I drop my backpack by the front door and shrug off my jacket when I get home. “Robin?”
    “In here.” She appears in the door to the kitchen, tears dried in silver tracks on her cheeks. Mr. Purrfect’s favorite catnip mouse is clutched in one hand. She looks, well, like her beloved cat is missing, and my heart squeezes in sympathy even if I wish Mom hadn’t let her give the beast such a completely lame name.
    “Hey, come here.” I open my arms and she walks straight into them, laying her head on my shoulder. The wet warmth of tears and snot is a little gross, but I stroke her hair anyway. “We’ll find him, Binny. I promise.”
    I haven’t called her that in years, and it makes her sniffle and heave a big, shuddering breath. “I know it’s stupid. I know it. But he’s getting old, Wren, and the Tates have that big, nasty dog—”
    “Shhhh.” I hold her closer and swallow a sigh. It’s been a long time since the biggest crisis in my life was as simple as a cat who went out for an unsupervised walk, and I’m exhausted after Gabriel’s interrogation. But Mom’s at work, which leaves me to handle Robin, and the damn cat. Who hates me, not that that should matter.
    I really hope it also doesn’t matter that he followed me outside last night, since I can’t remember seeing him again after that.
    I let go of her when she seems a little calmer, and glance into the kitchen. Mr. Purrfect’s bag of kibble looks like it exploded, clown-car-style—mounds of tiny fish-shaped pellets have spilled out of a bag half its