Soaked in Betrayal

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”

(William Blake)

Click!

Miles stirred and looked up as a guard tapped a little silver key across the bars. As much as he wished he’d been asleep, he hadn’t. He had another night of pacing in his cell until he became so weary that he collapsed onto the floor.

 He spent most of his time like that. Neither asleep nor awake, just drifting. Nothing to do, nothing to say.

The others didn’t have that struggle. They yelped and screamed whenever someone walked by. When there was nobody else but those in the cells, the room was filled with dead silence. Then they would explode into sound again without warning.

 It was ironic, in a sense, that he never slept. He was a cat, after all. Cats slept most of the time. All of the time, some certain snobby dogs who shall not be mentioned who were across the room might say.

Sofie, the one animal who was nice to him in the whole place, thought it was because of some trauma from his past. She was closer to the truth than she knew. The large golden retriever had arrived at the pound only a few weeks ago. 

Whoever had thought it would be a good idea to put cats and dogs in a tiny little shelter deserved a bap on the nose. 

A cat who couldn’t sleep was a pretty easy target for an animal with issues deep down. Sofie probably had plenty. He knew he had plenty. The kitten three cages from his left said she killed her entire family.

 He doubted that last one. 

Still possible.

His cage shook as the golden retriever under him pounded her back against the ceiling. Miles shot up, frazzled. 

“Sofie? Really?” Miles asked, curling into a ball and flopping his arms out of the cage.

Sofie’s nose popped through a metal square in the cage below, sniffing wildly. “Really what? I was trying to get you up and ready.”

Miles brushed his adventurous back hairs down. “Ready? Don’t tell me you’re trying to break out today—”

“Listen, you overgrown throw pillow, this pound is getting crowded. You’ve been here a while, so, you’ll probably be the first to go. That’s why we’re escaping tonight. It’s a two-animal plan.”

“I’m pretty sure this is a no-kill pound,” Miles replied, pointing at the sign outside. “Why exactly are you in such a hurry to leave this place? Two meals a day is pretty good.” 

Sofie huffed, shooting a stream of hot air out of her nose. “This,” she said, pointing to the bowl of kibble at her paws, “Isn’t living. I WANT TO EXPLORE! To adventure and almost die and live a full life. You get it, right?”

Miles looked out to the rows and rows of animals in their cages. Their food was always the same. The neighbors were always the same. His entire life was always the same. He liked it that way. Every single day he knew exactly what could happen. This place was great, just the way it was. Just the way it always was. The way it would always be. There is a difference between being lazy and being content.

“The outside world is scary,” Miles admitted. “Cars, trains, bears—” he paused abruptly, shuddering, “even rivers!”

“That's what makes life worth it! No adventure means no living!” Sofie answered. She thought for a second, then continued. “Rivers? That's your greatest fear?”

“Yeah, so?”

Snofie chuckled ”Cats.”

Of course, to an onlooker, that was all there was to it. He hated rivers because it was water and he was a cat. Simple. That’s all it was. 

“Well, if you get out of here, you need to get me out too,” Sofie said with a yawn. 

“Alright,” Miles replied, trying to keep paying attention despite the explosive ruckus outside.

The door almost swung off its hinges as a small boy burst through, squealing gleefully at all the animals. He ran along the cages, running his hand on the bars with little clinks.

“HELLO KITTY!” the child screamed at a Corgi not an inch from its face. In response, the little dog licked his nose. “HEHE That tickles!”

The animals in the pound went ballistic. Yipping and screaming and barking and yowling. It was made even worse by the large, open building that caused the sound to echo off the wall until the sound of thousands of cats and dogs barking vibrated the wall.

 Sofie frowned and curled up in a ball away from her cage, ignoring the kid and quickly falling asleep. 

Miles smiled at his friend. Everybody was different, he supposed.

The child ran through the lines of cages marveling at all the pretty animals.

“I wanna adopt you! And I wanna adopt you!” the child squealed. By the time his mom and sister had parked the car, walked through the nice wooden door, and entered, he had already committed to adopting eighty or so animals.

“Doyle!” his mother yelled, signaling for him to pay attention. “ONE pet, you got it?”

Doyle looked at his mother bewilderedly, as if getting eighty pets wasn’t a perfectly logical idea. “Please—”

“NO.”

Doyle’s older sister spun around, a little dazed by all the commotion.

“But I want all of them!” Doyle complained. “You’re just—” the child began, cutting his comment short after a motherly glance. “Oh, all right.”

“Well, warden, who do you suggest?” Doyle’s sister asked the closest employee.

“Well, that depends. Do you want a pet that sheds a lot?”

Doyle's mom shook her head.

“Do you want the kind of pet that’d sit on your lap without breaking it?”

Doyle’s sister nodded.

The employee pointed right at Miles. “In that case, he’s the best you can find.”

Doyle took one look at Miles and shrieked louder than all the dogs in the room combined. No sooner had Miles’s cage been opened than he had been scooped up by the lad. Miles snuggled up onto his shoulder and fell asleep.

Doyle’s mom grinned. “Perfect.”

. . .

Sofie yawned and awoke around midnight, judging from the flowing moonlight from the window. She was pleasantly surprised the child was gone. Sofie thumped her tail on Miles’s cage to wake him. She waited a few minutes for a response but didn’t get one.

“Miles?” Sofia barked, waking up a few other animals.

“SHHH!” Bard, a fat old pug growled. “Sleepy time now.”

Sofie snorted and glared at the dog.

“Bad day?” the dog politely asked, getting up.

“Where’s Miles?” Sofie yelled, fearing the worst. Had he been put down? Was he gone? Where—

The pug thought for a second, massaging his thick facial wrinkles where he claimed all his knowledge was stored. 

“Oh yeah! GREAT news! He got adopted!” Bard said as if it was the best thing in the world. 

Sofie just stared. “What?” Perhaps she heard him wrong. “Could you repeat that?”

Bard shrugged. “Miles got adopted by the crazy young lad. Remember?”

Sofie took a deep breath. Miles was still alive. It was fine. He must have already escaped the house and was coming back to get her out. It was fine. He would be there.

So, Sofie sat down and waited. Any minute he would come to get her. The first day passed with no sign of Miles. And the next. And the next. After a few months, she stopped counting altogether.

Sofie looked up at the metal gate keeping her imprisoned. 

The other animals mostly ignored her now, calling her a crazy old dog. She’d show them. She’d show them all. 

Sofie slammed into the gate for the thousandth time. The metal had slowly been bent away from the lock, now allowing her to access it from the other side. Sofie gripped the beam with her teeth and slid it left, back into the wall. With a soft clink, the door opened. The door finally opened.

Sofie stretched and stepped out. Her claws clicked against the granite floor.

A ghostly moonlit haze lit the room, giving everything an almost magical appearance. 

Sofie’s shoulders ached from the weeks of slamming into the gate, though it felt good to be using them. Sofie stumbled, bashing into a cage.

A rottweiler leapt to his feet, befuddled. “WhA?!---”

A tabby hissed at the rottweiler to keep his voice down, before being silenced by the other animals, who were silenced by the other animals, and so on and so on. Within minutes yelps screams and hoots exploded from the shelter. 

An outside guard walked toward the door.

Sofie growled, running past the animals. Straight through the wooden door as it opened. The confused guard turned to see what went past him. It was already too late. Sofie sprinted in the moonlight across the road, avoiding the iron beasts. Sofie hated cars.

Outside the pound was a massive sprawling forest, once stretching in every direction, but now confined to a little patch across the street. 

Sofie ran into that little patch.

She ran and ran until she ran out of the forest

Now, what could she do?

Sofie slowly turned around, scanning the area. 

Her paw touched an old discarded tennis ball, covered in so many layers of mud it was indistinguishable from the ground. It had been torn apart by an animal. She once lived in this forest. She had chased this tennis ball. Her family threw it here way back when. Then they drove away. That was a bad day. She had taken out many fits on the tennis ball. 

Sofie covered the rest of the ball up with dirt and walked toward the edge of the forest. There was a smell she remembered. 

In front of Sofie was a little park. Now that it was night, all the children had left. But that wasn’t the smell she was looking for. 

When she hopped up onto the bench, she smelled it; the smell she already began to miss, that of her best and only friend, Miles. 

Sofie stalked it through the houses for hours, ignoring the gradually escalating fatigue in her bones. It wasn’t long before Sofie arrived at a small little one-story house. The lawn was so overgrown the grass was seeding. There was a tiny, muddy, poor excuse for a river that hydrated the grounds nearby, all muddy from runoff. Even the car had dents in it. It was pitiful. 

Sofie collapsed onto the ground and fell asleep in the weeds.

. . .

“COME ON KITTY!” Doyle yelled, running out the door too fast and accidentally flinging a shoe off his foot into the yard. He might have been older, but he still had the heart of a five-year-old. The days never blended into one; each was unique and interesting. “Where’d my boot go?” 

Miles chased after the boot, diving headfirst into the field of grass surrounding his house. He dashed toward where he had seen it last. Instead of a boot, he found a golden retriever who had fallen asleep in the grass. He crashed straight into her.

Miles stepped back. The dog stumbled to her feet upon impact and looked down at him. To his surprise, she wasn’t angry, but rather overjoyed to see him.

“Miles!” she exclaimed, her tail wagging noticeably.

Miles stood there for a few seconds, a little embarrassed. “Yes, that is me. And you are?” her tail drooped a little.

“Sofie. From the pound?”

Miles looked at her, a faint memory was tickling the back of his head, but anything from the pound was hard to remember. It had been quite a while ago. 

“Your best friend?” she continued, her tail falling completely.

“Sorry, I’m not remembering anything.”

Sofie’s eyes teared up. 

“You said you were going to rescue me, remember?” She was fully crying now, her voice becoming garbled. 

Miels winced. He contemplated pretending to recall her presence, but he doubted lying would fix anything.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been too busy living with Doyle to rescue anyone from a pound,” Miles admitted.

“Oh.” She spoke as if something finally made sense. “So you didn’t forget me; you were just too distracted by the child?”

“Uh…sure?” She was half right, at least.

Sofie looked at Doyle, who was now climbing on a tree, gleefully swinging from branch to branch. But Miles noticed something else in the distance. Storm clouds had appeared in the sky. His whiskers twitched at the slightest of slight vibrations from the distant thunder.

“So I’ll just get rid of that kid and I can have my life back—” Sofie began, walking toward Doyle, teeth bared.

“Wait—no—that's not what—” Miles interrupted, sliding in between her and his child.

“You said you were distracted by the kid. So if I get rid of the kid you won’t get distracted by him,” she continued, as if that was perfectly logical, striding toward Doyle.

“I won’t let you hurt him,” Miles hissed, arching his back and trying to seem intimidating. If he had to attack, he might, though he doubted his odds.

“What are you going to do? Fight me?” Sofie growled, her eyes still soaked.

“I don’t want to,” Miles stated, “but if I must,” he continued choking out the last few words, “I shall.”

“Have it your way,” she said bluntly, rain from the sky now mixing with her tears. She lunged at him. 

Miles ducked and swatted at her, clipping her shoulder. Sofie snapped at him, forcefully pushing him further and further back as he tried to counter her blows. Frankly, the battle was one-sided. Sofie crouched, now ignoring Miles altogether and aiming directly at Doyle.

Rain began coming thickly, drenching the area in gallons upon gallons of water.

“Miles? We should go inside now!” Doyle said, climbing on top of a branch and looking around the yard for his cat. “Miles?! Where are you?!” He yelled, his view obstructed by the rain and grass.

“I’m getting my friend back, one way, or another,” Sofie whispered, tensing like spring.

Miles didn’t know what he did in retrospect, he just pounced, tackling Sofie and knocking her into the little muddy river, hopefully stalling her long enough so he would have time to get Doyle inside safely. Only, the little muddy river was neither at the moment. It had swelled unimaginably with the rain, 

Sofie was gone in the blink of an eye, swallowed by nature’s wrath.

Miles gulped, a memory he had tried to forget his entire life now plowing through his mind into his thoughts and encompassing everything.

A little kitten stared into raging flood waters, wailing for his family. 

His mom and seven siblings were gone, just like that. He had slept during the storm instead of going hunting with his family. He never slept again.

The kitten was soaked from head to toe, so thoroughly drenched that he could barely stand. He was so sick that the first part of the pound he entered was the emergency room. From a crowded family to an orphan, within a day. 

Miles tore from the memory, trying to keep it stuffed deep down. He looked into the water, now filled with debris from neighboring lawns. As much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, without immediate help, that dog wouldn’t make it.

“MILES?!” Doyle screamed over the storm, hopping off the tree and searching through the grass. If Doyle found him, he’d wrap him up in a blanket and take him inside. He would be safe. 

Miles stared into the river.

Why should he help her anyway? He would just get killed too. Besides, he didn’t even know her, despite what she seemed to believe. Miles sighed, walking toward Doyle.

He had no choice.

Miles found dry ground and used that as a platform to gain as much momentum as he could. He had been helpless then, but not now. 

Doyle saw his cat fly into the river. Then he was gone.

SLOOSH!

MIles dived in headfirst, narrowly avoiding a jutting roof tile and an overturned lawn chair. Miles through the murky river, sliding along. A taste began to approach him through the water. Coppery. Blood. 

Miles drifted through the water, colliding with a little garbage can. Sofie had been jammed inside by the current. Miles tugged and pulled at her without success.

Sofie blacked out, the last few bubbles of air escaping from her mouth. His vision blurred too, and he sank. Down to the river’s bottom. Never to be seen again. 

There was a splash and a grunt.

Doyle lifted the can onto his shoulder with one hand and carried his cat in the other. He was covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe, yet he still smiled. 

“It’s not time for a bath yet, silly.” 

Miles beamed weakly, licking his buddies' scratches.

Doyle turned the garbage can over, letting the dog roll out. Sofie coughed out a tub’s worth of water. When finished, she looked up at the child who saved her life. She had been going to kill him. What kind of a monster was she?

“BIG KITTY!” Doyle squealed, picking her up.

The front door slammed open and Doyle’s mom stormed out, enraged. 

“DOYLE JAMES! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!” she screamed, gesturing toward the cuts and scrapes. “ I TOLD YOU TO STAY INSIDE!”

In response, Doyle held up the golden retriever. “Can we keep her?”

Doyle’s mom looked at her son for a tense moment. He was soaked and injured, but he had saved a dog. She finally let out a warm smile. “Alright. But by golly, you better give her a proper bath or so help ME—”

Miles turned to the dog, pleasantly confused to find that she was smiling at Doyle. Miles wasn’t a physician, but he knew that lass needed some mental help. And a friend. “I think we started on the wrong foot. Hello, I’m Miles.”

Sofie beamed at him, inexpressibly relieved. “I’m Sofie. It’s nice to meet you.”

Maybe things could be okay after all.