NaNoWriMo Excerpt 3

When I woke up the next morning, I was alone. I didn’t know how long I’d slept until I saw the fuzzy red diodes of Eli’s bedside clock. I couldn’t believe it was almost noon. As I was blinking my blurry self awake, the front door opened and I heard a familiar scrabbling of claws. Almost as if he could sense my presence, Chipper bolted through the apartment,  barking in strangled whines, until he found me in the bedroom, jumped on the bed and cuddled into my arms, whimpering. I held him, feeling his warm, quivering furry body and his heartbeat like a drum. “You poor, poor, boy,” I whispered into his velvet ear. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. Mommy’s got you now. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” This didn’t seem to calm him any, but it made me feel better. I looked up and saw the length of Eli, smiling gently down at me. He sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on my hip.

“You found him,” I said, then realized how idiotic a sentence that was. Of course Eli had found them. Otherwise, why would he be here?

“I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I made a few calls. One of the detectives had taken a shine to him, and had taken him home. He wasn’t too disappointed to let go of him, especially after he chewed up one of the detective’s shoes.”

“Thank you,” I said, half my face buried in Chippers soft fur.

He gave my hip a pat. “I’ll put on some coffee,” he said.

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With each sip (Eli liked his coffee strong. One of the things, among many, that we had in common.) I felt my memory returning. Some of the memories were disturbing. Others, merely embarrassing.

“Did I really tell one of the detectives to piss off?”

Smiling, Eli sat down across the kitchen table from me, and set down his mug. I watched the oily film on top swirl around in his mug. Also, like me, he took his coffee black. “Yeah, you did.”

I muttered a couple of obscenities under my breath. “I must’ve been out of my tree.”

“Well, I’d expect someone who found their father’s body might be a little bit upset, especially when the police started to interrogate them.”

“It was like they thought that I was a suspect. How could I possibly have killed my own father?”

Eli gently tipped his head to one side. “People have done worse.”