007 The Best Gift

"What...?! Really?!" Kitty jumped and fell back because of the safety belt. She bumped into the seat but it didn't affect her excitement.

"This might just be the first time I ever witnessed a safety belt taking effect." Erebus mocked her, laughing.

"I... I mean, you don't have to do that. Not turning me in to the orphanage is good enough! I can work!" Kitty was too happy for her just "regained" freedom to notice his mocking.

"How old are you?" Erebus rose a brow as he giving her a "checking you out suspiciously" way.

"17!" Kitty pouted for his doubting tone on her ability to work.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I do trust that you CAN take care of yourself." Erebus laughed and held up his hand in a surrendering way, "Would you like to work at my bar? I could use a bartender."

"Really? That would be great!" Kitty exclaimed, happy that at least this way, she gets to see him often, until her crush on him was over, if ever.

"But I don't know how to make those fancy drinks though..." She hesitated, thinking it's best to admit that now than later.

"I'll teach you." Erebus assured her with a rob on her head. He was still immersed in the happy fact that he didn't have to wait too long before he can make a move on her.

"Hmm?" Erebus turned to look at her because of her sudden silence, and caught her staring at him with a flush on her face, enchanted.

Kitty shrank back to her seat when she realized him noticing her being distracted: "Nothing! Just happy that I got a job! What about your Patronus? Do they work there too?"

"Hephaistos, Metis and Menoetius do. Others have their own thing. We cannot be together all the time, it attracts attention." Erebus explained with patience.

"So what do you really do?" Kitty thought for a second and asked.

The scene outside was no longer interesting to her, even though she hadn't been spending too much time travelling before.

"Well, we have assignments from the King himself, AND we sometimes take commissions from outside people. We appear to them as an organization for some hard jobs that takes specific skill-sets."

"Like a bounty hunter?" Kitty tilted her head and asked after she thought for a while, trying to digest what Erebus just described.

"Exactly like that." Erebus nodded, laughing.

"Hmmm... is every one of your organization a werewolf?" Kitty hesitated for a while before she finally asked this question.

Erebus didn't reply right away.

He looked at her for a while as if in deep thoughts, and then held his arm out flat in front of her, hinting her to grab his arm.

Kitty held onto his arm and got pulled up when he suddenly rose his arm a bit, and then she heard him saying: "You will need to pick up some pounds if that's where you want to be."

She burst into laughter and fell back to her seat, staring out of the window with a relaxed smile.

Seeing her much happier than before, Erebus smiled and thought to himself:

"As if I would let you go even if you didn't want to be a part of my life, my little kitten."

They arrived in the city after a few hours.

Erebus timed their arrival around 4 in the afternoon because it was the coziest and prettiest hour of the autumn here in the city, hoping it might help calming Kitty against the impact of moving into a new place.

Kitty fell asleep already, and was rubbing her eyes when she felt a gentle stopping of the car. Though comfortable in there with him, the strange scene around her still woke her up pretty fast.

"It's okay." Erebus opened her side of the car from outside and held out his hand to her, "It can be a bit noisy around the rush hour, but right now it should be fine. I thought you might want to check out your room first."

"I get a room?!" Kitty jumped out of her seat at these words, and Erebus quickly put his hand between her head and the roof of the car to avoid the bump.

"Ouch!" Of course she bumped her head, but it wasn't too bad with his hand as a buffer. After realizing why the bump wasn’t too bad Kitty yelled: "I'm sorry!"

Kitty frowned at herself thinking it must have hurt for him. She took Erebus's hand in hers without thinking and robbed it as how her mom did when she got hurt somewhere.

Never had before was Erebus taken care of so gently. It took him quite some effort to not take her right into his arms and take a sweet kiss from her at that moment. But he resisted the urge, only because he didn't want to scare her. After all, they had only met for one day, and she had no idea of his feelings towards her, yet.

They say love can be a poison, and how right they are.

Erebus was so drunk with the joy from his new found kitten that he didn't even notice his crew walking up to them from behind, and were now froze in amazement seeing Kitty taking his hand in hers, rubbing against her soft face.

"Hmmm... We'll just-- Ouch!" Menoetius opened his mouth, holding back a laugh with all his power, and Metis hit on his head hard, preventing him from making Kitty aware of her action being too intimate.

"I'll go pick up some groceries for dinner with Menoetius. Hephaistos is taking the night shift so he went home for a nap." Metis told Erebus before she dragged Menoetius towards the car they just got out of.

"But I-- " Metis covered Menoetius's mouth and made him swallowed his complaint that he also wanted a nap.

It was a six-floor building, and the first and second floors were separated from the rest as the bar.

"This one is right above the kitchen, on the corner of the second floor. It would be less noisy in the middle of the night. Well, comparing." Erebus took Kitty to a room on the left end of the second floor.

It was a small bedroom with its own bathroom, which was something Kitty had not been having for the past 3 years in her life.

Being on the corner of the floor, it had one extra window than the rooms in the middle of the hall. Its North and West sides both had windows, with the one on the North being larger.

"I'll help arranging your room if you want, and later we can go get you everything you need. As for now, I'll give you some time to settle down." Erebus stood by the door. He didn't go in there, afraid that that might make her feel intruded. Kitty stood in the middle of the room, still trying to take in the fact that this would be where she will be living for the next some period of time.

"I'm really grateful." Kitty turned to look at him, appreciating his respecting her by not stepping inside.

"It's no big deal. I hope you can enjoy your staying here." Erebus had a really sunny smile that Kitty just couldn't help but to get lost in.

"Okay!" She replied, looking away quickly before she stares at him again, feeling awkward because she knew she must have looked stupid, "So when do I start working?"

"You can start tonight if you want, but I would recommend a good night rest first." Erebus chuckled at her eagerness, but Kitty had been wanting to make a living long enough that she couldn't wait anymore.

This would be her first "job" job. She had been trying to make ends meet with anyway she could, but being a minor, searching garbage for food and stuff that could exchange for food had been her major income for a long time if she didn't want to be taken advantage of.

"It's okay! I'm not that tired after the nap in the car." Kitty quickly rejected his offer.

"Okay, okay." Erebus surrendered, laughing. He didn't insist because he didn't want to be separated from her even a little bit.

The first few days right after marking is the hardest because the urge for to be together and intimate and to hug and to kiss and to touch each other would be so strong that every SECOND separated feels like torture, especially when the other is not aware of the marking.

"I'll come back in an hour and we can go get some stuff you might need. And THEN, you can go work." Erebus throw her a key and shut the door for her.

Kitty nodded hard because she wanted to say thank you, but any words she could think of felt so light comparing to what Erebus just gave her.

A home!

A place that belongs only to her! A roof over her head and a life where she no longer needs to worry about food and money and her place to sleep being taken away!

A life that she had lost for so long that she couldn't ever remember its taste. If only they could be here too...

The three names slid through her heart: Sarah, Tony, Emma.

Living on the street for three whole years made her grew up fast. She turned into an adult over night before she could have said goodbye to the 13-year-old kid that was still in her sorrow-free childhood when she lost her parents.

She knew from Erebus's silence when she told him her siblings went missing that the chance of her getting them back was very close to zero. She couldn't bear to ask further, afraid the too heavy stillness that might come with the answer would crash her again.

She sit down on the floor by the bed and hugged her knees, suddenly felt guilty that she was enjoying all these nice things while they might have lost their lives.

But life has to go on. Life WILL go on, no matter you are ready or not.

Kitty knew that lesson too well. She had to learn how to stand up after being knocked into the ground when she lost her parents, and she WILL stand up again this time.

There was fire rising in her eyes, except this time it was not just the will to live, it was also, revenge.