Like a kitten I used to know.

Five long hours later, after continuously fretting about what I had asked Sara to do, she finally returned with a young woman, a girl more like it. Couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old. Small in stature, petite, brown hair, and oh so cute. I sighed out of pure relief Sara had come back unharmed.

In those five hours I had a revelation. It was not after I had made my tirade to the group how we would handle things, I realized I had in fact done something similar in my life. Once I had a bad neighbor who had a young kitten. We lived in the same building, on the second floor. He didn’t treat his cat very well, as I discovered to my dismay. One night when he was partying with his friends, I heard a cat mewling loudly. I started to look for it. It was a kitten outside, just below the flat of my bad neighbor, black with a white patch at her throat. I took her in immediately. She was hurt, could barely walk from the fall, was hungry for food and **** for love and attention. After a few weeks the white patch disappeared, as sometimes happens with cats. Then I had an incident with that neighbor, bad enough to call the cops. They went to talk to the guy. They came back with his complaint I had stolen his cat.

“Which cat,” I asked? “I remember giving a cat with a white patch some food, that was his, true, but then placed her back where I found her. Then I found another cat, see, this one is all black. The guy lost his cat, and he thinks I stole her? Lies, all lies.”

The cops left and the neighbor never bothered me again. Which was exactly how I hoped things would end.

My idea of adopting a stolen kitten was not that far-fetched, I thought by myself. This might actually work. Only one thing left to do.

“Kylie?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Remember you found that sleeping pad for Kate? Could you find me something else?”

“What do you need?”

“Well for starters, a sleeping bag, an extra gun and extra equipment. And hair coloring products.”

“How in earth am I going to find that?”

“Be creative, must be some left in the city, I don’t know.”

“Right you are, dear leader... I see what you are planning with Jen... uh Kara. My pleasure.”

The next morning, after a quiet night with the girls where we just huddled closely together, she came with the things I asked for and lot more other stuff, Kara might need. I don’t know how she got her hands on the gun, but didn’t dare to ask. Perhaps she just stole it.

Jenna accepted her role well, learned how to listen without talking. She even developed a rudimentary sign language. She didn’t talk much anyways, still recovering from the treatment she got in her previous section. As long as they didn’t know Jenna was with my section, there would be no trouble at all. One day she was here, out of the blue, but even the rest of the platoon didn’t ask questions.

I never heard anything about someone suddenly missing. Desertions happened not that much those days, but they did still occur.

After a few days, Kara started to laugh again, having fun with the girls. I quite liked her: she was funny, playful and a hard worker. Training went well and she was a decent shooter. Once or twice I caught myself staring at her. She represented something I did right for once, I told Kylie after she caught me staring. She murmured something I couldn’t understand, but I had the impression she didn’t believe me. On the other hand I caught Kara staring at me several times, and I had a hunch she was getting fond of me, or **** for some love and attention, like my kitten I used to know. I just hoped she wouldn’t turn out into the cat I still had when I enlisted: grumpy, needy or asleep.