“You’re okay, cutie,” she tells me. “How about we get you a bigger and uhh...cleaner, non-cratey cage?”
My ears perk up at that. I never have a clean cage because Rick Dick never cleans it out for me. Which I hate, especially for nest building. I like to have shiny, clean things around me, not my own damn feces.
She carries me around, picking things up as she goes, and I realize that we’re in a pet store of some kind. All sorts of smells surround me, and my stomach gnaws with hunger. When she brings me back to the counter, she dumps a whole bunch of stuff and then goes to work opening everything and putting them in my brand-new cage.
The thing is enormous, and instead of plastic walls like my old one, it has metal wires, which means I’ll be able to climb. I’m so excited my tail starts wagging like I’m a damn dog.
The female fills it with fresh wood shavings, a new drip bottle full of clear water, and then an entire bowl of food. It’s nothing like the stale scraps that I usually get. This stuff looks downright gourmet. My nose twitches as I walk up to the outside of the cage, watching as she fills up the tiny bowl until it’s overflowing.
And then...she drops things inside.
Awesome, amazing things.
I start squeaking and running around in circles in excitement as she fills the cage with actual toys. Toys I can play with instead of just being bored out of my mind all the time.
I am gonna play the shit out of those things.
She puts in a tunnel, a climbing rope, chew toys, even a badass little cave! A cave! I can hide in there and hide other shit in there too. That thing is gonna be epic. And...is that a bed inside? Be still my small, erratic heart.
When the female picks me up and places me inside of the new cage, I squeak my thanks and start racing around in a flurry. This space is so big I can actually sprint in it!
I climb up the rungs of the wire walls and then do a backflip into the shavings. Well, it’s more like a belly flop, but who cares? This is awesome!
I land in nice new fluffy shavings, and my ears swivel and pull back like they’re spreading into a smile.
When I get my feet under me again, I focus on the tunnel, butt wiggling, and I race through that fucker like a champ!
Zoom!
I squeal in delight when I make it to the other end in what’s probably the fastest rat sprint time ever recorded in ever.
I’m so fast that I kick up the clean wood shavings as I race to the other end again, and then I jump, diving headfirst into the bowl of food. I spread my legs and tilt my head side to side like I’m making a damn snow angel, because basking in this deliciousness is just too much temptation for me to resist.
Then I just roll over in the chunky food and start stuffing it in my mouth, filling my cheeks to capacity like I’m trying to win a hot dog eating contest.
This. Is. Awesome.
2
Reese
There’s a lot of arguing when I wake up.
I’m not sure exactly when I got moved. One minute, I was stuffing my face and playing in my cage under the fluorescent lighting of the pet shop with the amazing smells, and the next, I was in this office with a bunch of people standing over me that I don’t recognize.
My stomach is ridiculously bloated since I might have gone a little overboard with the food. Okay, fine. I went full Templeton from Charlotte’s Web.
But honestly, that stuff was so good I couldn’t help myself. Rick Dick gives me food whenever he damn well pleases, which means I usually wait days and days until I finally get thrown a little scrap. I learned to hoard and hide pieces of food in my nest and nibble on them slowly. But not today. I was starving more than I’ve ever starved before, so I gorged myself.
Afterwards, I crawled into the little cave, and it was just so damn cozy that I must’ve fallen asleep. I forgot how comfortable brand-new wood shavings are. The springy stuff practically spooned me as I slept—speaking of, a shiny spoon would be so epic in my new cage.
But now, I’m hiding in the cave, my nose twitching like crazy as I take in all the new scents in the air. There are at least six people standing around, and all of them are strangers. My only comfort is that I can hear the nice female from earlier. My rat and I have decided she’s our new best friend. Apparently, my love can be bought in a retail store of pet goods. I’m fine with that.
The words being spoken sound like a jumble, so I have to force myself to try to listen, but it’s difficult. After being in my animal form for so long, I mostly rely on my sense of smell.
Rick always smelled angry. It was either that or excited. And excited was always way, way worse.
These people don’t smell excited. They smell…surprised. Sad, even. When someone’s voice rises an octave, I pick up on it. Yup, there’s the anger I’ve grown so accustomed to. But somehow, I know instinctively that they’re not angry at me.
I feel the metal latch on my cage pop open, and then a hand is presented in front of my cave, palm up.
Instead of the fingers coming in to snatch me up, the hand sits there patiently, like he’s waiting for me to make a move. “You want to come out?” a rumbling voice asks.
My eyes dart around in anxiousness as I try to decide what to do. He’s obviously trying to present a calm, friendly, and non-pushy impression. He wants me to trust him, but I don’t know him, and he still smells kind of angry. I don’t like angry. Angry always seems to singe my nose, and I’m over being burned. Hmm, what to do…
Well, when in doubt…
Decision made, I run out, bite him on the finger as hard as I can, and then dart my hairy ass back inside my cave.
There. I feel solid about that choice.
Instead of getting pissed off that I just bit the shit out of his finger, I hear a low, masculine laugh. Curious at this response, I peek my head out from the cave again and look up. And there’s no mistaking what he is.
Alpha.
That knowledge screams in my mind like an alarm going off. Everything about his scent screams power. And that’s exactly what terrifies me. And also—holy cheese shits, I just bit the friggen alpha!
The whole reason I’m stuck in my rat form is because of an alpha. Sid. Sid isn’t as strong as this male, but he’s strong enough that he’s kept me in shifted submission.
My ears pin back against my head in fear, because stranger or not, alphas friggen scare me. I’m shaking with it, and I know they can smell it on me. The hand immediately disappears from my cage and more voices murmur around me. I only catch snippets of what’s being said.
“Alpha…shock…unknown...”
The talking goes on for a few more minutes, but I’m shaking in my cave because I’m so freaked out. What if this new alpha is even worse than Sid? Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe Sid told Rick to give me to someone else to change up my punishment. That thought fills me with a heavy weight of dread.
My cage is suddenly picked up, and I have to dig my claws in so I don’t get tossed around as I’m carried out of the room into the cool night air. After just a few minutes of walking, I’m brought into another building, up a set of stairs, and then I’m set down on the floor.
The female with the nice eyes from the pet shop smiles calmly at me as she opens my cage door. I poke my head out to look at her, glad to find that there’s no one else in the room. I can see two beds on opposite walls and a television, so I know we must be in her bedroom. I smell another female’s scent in here, but she’s nowhere to be seen.