Reese (Pack of Misfits #2) - Raven Kennedy Page 0,1

on for a while, so I decide I might as well sift through the shavings again. Who knows, maybe something was dislodged while it was jostled around and there will be hidden treasure.

But right as I’m searching my way through, I feel the shavings above me get moved away, and then a hand closes around my body.

I freak the hell out and try to get away, panic consuming me. I don’t have a good track record with hands. Every time Rick Dick picks me up, the bastard always fucks with me or hurts me. Him holding me by tail and dunking me in a bucket of water is his favorite hobby.

I try to bite the hand holding me, thrashing my body left and right to squirm away, but it’s no use. I’m lifted up and out of my crate, and I steel myself, trying to prepare for the torment that’s about to happen.

I look up, my eyes burning at the bright lighting. But the person holding me...it’s not him. It’s not the strange human either, because he just walked out.

I sniff the hand, confirming that this is definitely someone new.

That’s never happened before.

“Hey there,” the voice coos. A female voice. And she sounds...nice. That’s never happened before either. “Cute little mouse.”

My tail twitches in agitation. I am not a cute, puny little mouse. I’m a pack rat, dammit. A fierce, crafty, much more superior, downright majestic pack rat. I mean, have you ever seen a mouse’s nest? It’s pathetic. I can build much better ones. And my tail is, like, way longer.

The woman lifts me up in front of her, and I see a pretty face, blue eyes, and multicolored hair. She checks me over, but then her body goes tense. Her eyes widen as she leans in closer to smell me. “Shit,” she curses. “You’re not just a mouse, are you? Can you shift?” she asks me, worry pulling at the edges of her lips.

At her question, I instantly stop fighting her, but my whole body tenses up.

Cheese and mice, she knows!

She knows that I’m a shifter. Which means she’s probably a shifter. But she hadn’t known that until she scented me, which means...she doesn’t know Rick Dick. How is that possible?

I sense her anxiety heighten, and she sets me down on a clear, smooth surface. I lift my feet, not liking the texture, and my claws click against the glass. I look around warily, my ears tucked back and my tail jerking around wildly, still searching for a trap. Figuratively and literally. Rick Dick thinks it’s funny to put rat traps around his apartment.

But this place is completely foreign to me, rat trap free, and doesn’t smell like him, which makes my anxiety levels spike even more. What game is Rick Dick playing now? What new ways has he thought of to punish me?

I hear the female moving around, and then she starts talking, though no one else is in the room. She’s holding something black against her ear.

Oh, a cell phone. She’s talking on a cell phone.

Damn, how long has it been since I did that? Months? Years? I don’t know. I went through some major scrolling withdrawals when I was first forced into my shifted form. Having myself as my own form of entertainment really sucks sometimes. I can be a real whiny bitch.

She talks on the phone for a while, and then she gently picks me up again. I don’t try to bite her this time, but I do keep my eyes peeled. I know Rick will come back any second, and I want to be hidden away in my nest when that happens.

“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