Chapter Six

Sophia’s silence brings me back to reality. She’s been mewling and screeching for as long as I’ve been running, but now she’s quiet.

I know very little about kittens. That’s especially true if you put me against a mother or some cat who has helped to raise many, many litters, but I know some things. Silent kittens aren’t good. They mean trouble, or sickness, or some other negative thing.

Dropping off the wall, I feel the earth beneath my paws. Not concrete, or the tough carpet which we found beneath the heaps of rubbish in Joseph’s house. No, it is soft and springy.

I look left and right, but we’re alone. There are many scents on the air, but none of them trouble me. They’re all weak, or passing, or long-gone.

I deposit Sophia on the floor, and she stares up at me with a wild expression in her eyes. It makes me take a step back. Never before have I seen this kitten, grown into a half-adult now, look so fierce.

“We left everyone,” she hisses, “all the tribe.”