Twisted Tuesday: From cat to human, but always with the soul of a beast

 

“Unc, what’s going on, shouldn’t we wrap it, or tape it or something?” Randy asked, wishing Josh would wake up because at least then he’d know that everything was going to be alright.

“Remember what I told you about the Miracinonyx genes and the healing factor?” Gary said, his voice the only calm, level one in the room. Rochelle was singing to Jonnah, but even that was wobbly, raspy and a bit off key like she was fighting back her own tears in order to manage the song.

“You…something about it being why your body would eventually cure itself of the Graves Disease,” Randy managed.

“And why you didn’t lose your arm,” Gary reminded him. “The higher the percentage of Miracinonyx genes a person posses, the more resilient they are and that doesn’t just translate to combating diseases. He posses genes from both sides of his family, the moment the wound was flushed clean, it would have begun to repair itself which is why there is just a thin trickle of pink coming through this gauze. We need to keep it in place until the wound is nearly sealed, then flush it one more time to wash any fibers from the gauze away. He’ll have a scar, but there shouldn’t be anything lasting he’ll need to contend with.”

“Jesus, Unc, he’s got enough scars on that arm to deal with.”

“Which was exactly what I suspected,” Gary said. “Something happened to his cat for the cars to be twisted and gnarled up like that, and look at the placement, really look…”

Randy did, now that he wasn’t panicking, then glanced down at his own arm to see that they were in almost the exact same location, just above the bend in the elbow, only several of Josh’s transversed it and wrapped around the sides.

“He’s your mate, kid,” Gary said as Rochelle was finally able to sit with Jonnah and rock him.

“The Miracinonyx gene, that’s what allow you all to shapeshift, isn’t it?” Rochelle asked. “Does that mean that Jonnah will be able to turn into a cat someday?”

“With as strong as the gene in their family runs, I’d say it’s highly likely,” Gary replied. “But now I’m curious to know who told you about what we are. Was it Kerry?”

She shook her head no before glancing from where Jonnah looked to be finally falling asleep, to where Josh lay on the floor. “No, it was Jamie.”

“My Jamie?” Gary asked.

Where his uncle had once been calm, cool, and completely unflappable, now he looked positively floored.

“Yes sir,” Rochelle said.

“Why would he do that?” Gary asked.

“I’m not sure I fully understand it all myself,” Rochelle admitted. “We were both drinking and he was upset about some stuff at the club, you know, he’d just started bouncing there and he was mad that things had gotten so lax with the rules that people thought getting up onstage and trying to dance with one of us was part of the cover charge. He said something about how felines were finicky especially about someone touching what was theirs. He kept talking about the need to remove all the scents that didn’t belong so they could replace it with their own again. I thought we were just talking about housecats, until he told me about this gene that made it so cats could change into people, and I think I asked if he meant to say so people could turn into cats, but then he told me this story about the cats of the forest and how they evolved to be able to take on people shapes to blend in, but were always, always felines at heart no matter what form they were in. I couldn’t get that story out of my head. I wanted to ask him more about it. Was even going to ask if he wanted to get something to eat after work the next time I danced, only…he didn’t show up to work the following Wednesday.”

“He’d gotten arrested,” Gary summarized with a long, heavy sigh.

“Yeah.”

When Gary scrubbed his hands over his face, then started chuckling, Randy began to wonder if the whole day was finally catching up to him and he was starting to crack.

“Looks like there is more than one conversation that needs to happen once this one is up and, on his feet, again,” Gary stated. “I foresee even more changes around here, only something tells me that they might just be for the better.”

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