Someone Who Isn't Me by Danuta Kot (romance novel chinese novels .TXT) 📕

where it was protected from the rain, was burning. What had he been trying to do? Set fire to the building? The plastic bag was stuffed full of something – rags, cloths, she couldn’t tell. Even in her panic, she could see that it presented no threat.

She was missing something. She knew she was. Something inside her was shouting urgently to do something, do something!

In the light from the flames, she saw her torch, which she’d dropped when she fell, lying on the ground. She picked it up and shook it, and it came on.

The rain had soaked right through to her skin now. She was shaking partly from the shock and partly from the cold. She had to get inside, get warm, clean herself up. Then she could decide what to do.

Using the wall as support, she stumbled across to the flames. Best put them out, though what had been the point of setting the fire in the first place? A small bottle of paraffin, the rain, a fire on the wet ground in the yard – why?

Snitch bitch. A warning? This is what we’ll do if…

And then she realised. She knew what she’d missed.

The kitten.

She was on her knees at once, pulling the burning rubbish out of the bag, ignoring the pain in her hands where the melting plastic stuck as she grabbed at it, burning fabric, rags soaked in fuel.

And wrapped up tightly in the middle was a small, furry bundle.

They’d been trying to burn the kitten.

She pushed the smouldering cloths away and shook the hot ashes off her hands. She had the kitten now but it was lying wrong, as if its legs were in the wrong place.

Oh shit, what had they done to it?

But its mouth opened and it made a faint call.

It was alive.

Becca staggered to her feet, keeping her hands steady. Holding the kitten in one hand, she shone the torch on it, forcing herself to look.

She felt a rush of relief as she saw what the problem was. It looked all wrong because it was tangled up with something – someone had tied it up – her fingers struggled to sort out the tangle – some kind of tape. But it was alive, and as far as she could tell, it wasn’t damaged by the fire. She needed to get it into the warm.

She tucked it under her coat and hurried back up the stairs, ignoring the pain in her hands, the dull ache from where her face had hit the wheelie bin, the sharp pain in her ribs where he had kicked her.

She dumped her coat and shoes on the floor outside the flat, then took the kitten in. The overhead light was just a fluorescent tube, but it gave her what she needed, a bright, white light. She put the kitten down on the rug and looked at it. It lay there quietly, not struggling any more, and that alarmed her.

Someone had wrapped sticky tape round its legs and its neck. The roll of tape was still there – whatever was going on, Becca’s arrival had stopped it.

She got her scissors out and, working carefully, slit the tape so it began to tear. The kitten squeaked a couple of times as she pulled the tape off. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry,’ Becca said.

It was probably good that it squeaked, right?

Its fur was soaked and bedraggled. For a horrible moment, she thought her attacker must have poured paraffin over it – how did you get paraffin out of a cat’s coat? – but there was no smell of the oil, just a frizzled patch where the burning rag had been lying against it. Becca picked up the scissors, and cut that chunk of fur off. The skin underneath seemed fine, pink and healthy, not burned.

She put the little animal on a folded towel in the armchair which was, Becca knew from experience, the warmest place in the flat, then she heated up some milk and soaked the cat biscuits in it until they dissolved. She offered the mush to the kitten, who licked it off her finger, then struggled to its feet to crouch over the dish Becca put in front of it.

She felt a flood of relief. It was eating. It was OK.

And it was making an odd sound. She listened anxiously. It was a strange, rusty sort of sound. Then she realised. It was purring. All the tension she’d been holding inside her relaxed.

She’d done it.

The kitten had survived. It was going to be OK.

And now for her. Just about every bit of her hurt and her hands were really sore. She could see where the ground had torn her leggings, and the skin was grazed, blood showing through the dirt. In the mirror, she could see a bruise forming high on her cheek where it had hit the bin. There was a cut on her lip and the side of her face was scraped.

But more than that, she felt dirty, soiled. She needed to get under the shower and let the water wash her and wash her until she felt clean.

Snitch bitch.

Someone had come here to warn her off. But whoever it was can’t have planned to attack her. There was no way he would have expected her to come down again, so late, into the rain and darkness. She felt a cold disgust as she realised someone must have been watching her, and for longer than today. They must have seen her with the kitten, and they’d planned to leave a warning on the doorstep for her to find tomorrow morning – the kitten, burned.

She didn’t want to think about it, but it wouldn’t leave her mind – the flames and how it had been trussed up so it couldn’t escape. There was a really sick person out there, someone who knew where she lived, someone who’d seen her talking to Curwen.

Snitch bitch.

Dead right she was. She’d let herself be scared into silence once in her life, but never