Part 3
David set his screwdriver on the workbench rather than risk dropping it. Across the corridor, Pepper was batting a felt ball beneath a cabinet. Snow waited for it to roll out and touched it only after she did. Mara followed his gaze.
“It’s only a meet-and-greet,” she said. “No one’s taking her today.”
He nodded because both statements were true, and neither addressed what he feared. The rescue had spent weeks trying to make Snow less dependent.
Pepper had spent those same weeks becoming the safest thing in his world.
Mara prepared the visitation room at the front of the building, a bright space with washable chairs, a cat tree, and a glass door so staff could supervise without hovering. David checked the sweep beneath the door and tightened a loose screw on the latch. He told himself he was doing maintenance. When the family arrived, he carried his tools back to the cat wing.
The girl was solemn until Pepper walked into the room. Then she sat cross-legged without being asked and dragged a wand toy in small circles. Pepper stalked the ribbon, pounced, and leaned into the child’s careful hand. The parents asked sensible questions about diet, litter habits, scratching, and the crooked tail. Through the glass, Mara watched Pepper return to the girl each time the toy stopped.
The mother explained that her daughter had been asking for a kitten, but they had decided an adult cat whose temperament was already known would be fairer to everyone. The father showed Mara photographs of the screened porch they had prepared. When the girl offered Pepper her closed fist instead of grabbing again, Pepper bumped it with her forehead. This was not a careless family hunting for a pretty animal. They had come ready to listen.
Ruth had carried Pepper to the room. Snow stood where she had left him, facing the corridor, waiting. Five minutes passed. A kennel cart rolled over a seam in the concrete, and the vibration traveled under his feet. He turned toward the place Pepper should have been. Her ears were not there.
New dogs had arrived from a rural impound that morning. A metal gate struck its stop in the adjacent wing; barking swelled behind the fire door. Snow felt the repeated tremors without any clue to their distance or cause. He searched the bench, the condo roof, and the narrow space beside David’s chair. Then he ran.
David saw the white blur break toward the lobby. “Close the outside door,” he called, and followed. Snow reached the visitation room before him. Pepper was three feet away on the other side of the glass, rolling onto her back while the child rubbed her chest.
Snow rose against the door. His front claws scraped downward, failed to catch, and scraped again. His mouth opened on a rough cry he could not hear. Pepper stopped playing and came to the glass. She stood on her hind legs opposite him, one paw beating the barrier, her crooked tail snapping from side to side. The girl lifted the wand once, but Pepper ignored it and cried toward Snow. Startled, the child let the toy fall.
Snow struck harder, unable to understand why he could see the cat and not reach her.
David crouched several feet behind him and extended one hand along the floor. Snow did not look back. The glass shuddered in its frame. A red half-moon appeared beneath one front paw, then another, as the pads split against the aluminum sill.
The father moved in front of his daughter, not to protect her from Snow so much as to block the sight of blood. “Is that the cat she stays with?” he asked. Mara was already reaching for the inner door. She had no simple answer. Pepper socialized with everyone; until that moment, staff had described her attachment to Snow as useful companionship, not a bond that could make separation physically dangerous.
“Mara, get them away from the door,” David said.
The mother gathered the girl while Mara moved Pepper toward the far wall. To Snow, it looked like she was being taken again. He threw himself against the glass.
David stripped off his canvas work jacket and dropped it over him. The bundled cat fought with startling force, twisting and striking blindly, but David kept the cloth around the claws and lifted him against his chest. Three weeks of patience disappeared from Snow’s face.
He looked through David as if they had never shared a corridor.
“I’ve got you,” David said, the useless words escaping anyway. He carried Snow to the treatment room while Ruth followed with towels and saline. Blood had marked the jacket in small bright stamps.
The veterinarian found abrasions and two torn nails, painful but not deep enough for stitches. Snow needed his paws cleaned, styptic powder on one nail, and a soft recovery mat. They gave him a prescribed dose of pain medication and returned him to the covered condo once he was steady. Pepper paced outside the treatment-room door until Ruth let her back into the cat wing.
Ruth recorded the injury, checked the pads again after an hour, and replaced his gritty litter with shredded paper so nothing would lodge in the wounds. Snow allowed none of it willingly. They worked behind a towel and stopped whenever his breathing became too fast. David held the edge of the cover but did not touch him. The nose that had investigated his hand two days earlier remained hidden.
Snow did not go to her. He wedged himself behind the litter box and tucked his injured feet under his body. Pepper sat at the wire front, chirping and reaching one black paw between the bars. His eyes stayed on the rear wall.
Mara came in near closing. “They’re a good family,” she told Ruth and David. “They want Pepper. They asked us to hold her until Saturday so they can set up a quiet room and buy the supplies.”
The family had not signed an adoption contract or taken legal possession; their approved application gave them a short hold while staff completed the placement review. Before leaving, the mother had asked whether Snow would be all right. Mara had said the clinic would care for him, which was true. The girl had asked whether Pepper was sad. Mara had not answered as quickly.
David looked down at the drying blood on his jacket. The family had done nothing wrong. Pepper had chosen the child as freely as she chose most warm people, and one damaged cat could not be used to frighten decent adopters into taking an animal they had not sought.
At the condo, Pepper pressed her flank against the door. Snow had begun licking one paw with slow, mechanical strokes. When she shifted, he lifted his head, but he would not meet her eyes.
“Saturday,” David repeated.
Mara mistook the word for agreement. “They’ll be here at nine.”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇