106 The life of a cat- side chapter

I wasn't always the super thief I am today—in fact, I wasn't always a thief, nor did I always have superpowers.

Once upon a time, I was just a happily married, normal, everyday woman. That was until I had my first child. They always say that having your own child in your arms for the first time changes you.

They couldn't be more right! It is truly a magical experience. Though they didn't tell me that it would quite literally give me magic powers.

Well, it didn't really happen the first time I held my little treasure in my arms. Or maybe it did, and I just never noticed it until later.

But, one day, I just happened to stumble and fall, and just as I was about to hit the wall, I just… fell right through it.

At first, I was freaked out; I mean, who wouldn't be? But as I calmed down, I slowly began to experiment with the ability. It took a while to get the hang of it, but once I did, my life was changed.

At first, I just used the ability around the house or while at work. In secret, of course, I hadn't known about anyone else with abilities like this, and I didn't want to end up on some lab table somewhere.

 Even worse, I didn't want to risk little Kitty ending up like that, so I was sneaky about it. However, I also quickly figured out that I loved the feeling of risk.

Things slowly escalated from there. I grew more daring and took more risks. Finally, I took my first step towards becoming a criminal.

At first, it was small things, things people would miss, or even notice had gone missing. And from there, things just continued to grow. Soon enough, those things weren't enough, not exciting enough.

So, one day, I quit my job. I didn't tell my husband; I just told him I was transferred. At first, he was willing to dig up our roots and move with me to the big city. But I got him off the idea. He was a real sweetie, but I didn't think he would support me in what I was about to do.

 At first, I only stayed for three days at a time before returning home for another three days. Since I didn't have a job or an apartment, I told my husband that I needed to return home often. Plus, little Kitty couldn't be without her mommy too often.

Still, it wasn't cheap to do that, not to mention she needed to rent a hotel room so often and still bring back a paycheck. Thankfully, big New York City had plenty of rich people and other places with plenty of money for me to borrow.

So, as I started to improve, it became a lot easier. As I got better, I was also able to stay in New York for longer without needing to go back.

I even got myself a flat. It was not the biggest thing, but it was a place to rest my head and keep my stuff.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, though. Had a few rough moments in the beginning when I tried to sell the stuff I stole. Not only did I get ripped off at first, even got robbed a few times. And at one point, hadn't it been for my superpower, I would have been raped.

After that, I did learn my lesson: Hell's Kitchen had earned that name for a reason. So, I went somewhere else to sell my loot after that.

As I roamed around that first year or two, I learned a lot about the underworld. I learned so many things that I became a lot better at many things and worse at others.

It all started when I finally and suddenly got caught one day. Now that had been the biggest fright of my life, even worse than almost getting raped that once.

Thankfully, however, I wasn't caught by my mark, or the police, or anyone like that. No, instead, I was caught by another thief, a good one at that.

I expected that he might try to take me out or blackmail me or something. But no, he wanted to take me under his wing. Not wanting to risk my family back home, I told him a made-up name: Jessica.

He told me he had known about me for a while now. Apparently, he thought I was some outsider master thief coming here to make some money or leave my mark. However, apparently, I had eventually made too many mistakes, making him realize that I had to be some kind of newbie.

Well, he wasn't wrong; back then, I knew very little about being a thief. I mostly just got by, thanks to my ability.

He had apparently been trying to find me ever since, but I had been able to be a step ahead of him because of my ability and because I didn't act like someone who knew what they were doing.

Well, I was mostly just balling it, but I was glad that someone friendly found me rather than someone who would want to harm me.

Though knowing that he knew about my ability did scare me at first, after all I hadn't told anyone, not even Carmen, my own husband knew.

Yet, I couldn't deny that it was nice to have someone else who knew, someone I could talk to about it, someone who could give me more ideas for how to best use it.

He took me under his wing, teaching me the tools of the trade, so to speak. We spent many a night together, sneaking into buildings, stealing both valuable things and other stuff he was commissioned to steal.

He made sure I could sneak into everything, even without using my powers, and in turn, he snuck into my heart.

I was a married woman, a mother, yet I couldn't help myself; the bond we built up as we worked together was something different. I truly did become a different person; I wasn't Theresa Pryde anymore; I was Jessica.

I became the black cat. And I loved everything about my new life. Not that I gave up my old life; I still returned home to Kitty and Carmen, and I still became Theresa Pryde from time to time. And I valued those times.

Yet, as time went on, as we spent more time together, Cat and Black Cat stole anything they wanted, either for money or for fun, it was an amazing time.

And then suddenly, I was pregnant, and I knew it wasn't from my trips back to Carmen. No, it was Walter's.

It was then that I finally became aware that I was more than just a bad wife—I was the worst. I had run off to have my own fun, leaving not just my husband behind but also my daughter.

That night, as I sat in the small, dimly lit apartment that had become my hideaway in New York, the weight of my decisions pressed down on me. The joy of the heists, the thrill of escaping through walls, the rush of evading capture—it had changed my life and led me down paths I would have expected possible.

Should I give that up? Return home to Carmen and Kitty? Or should I do the right thing and tell him the truth, even though it would hurt him, and be with Walter?

I still remember that night so very clearly. I wanted and needed some fresh air, so I went outside. Standing on a rooftop, I looked up at the moon. It was almost perfectly split that night, half dark and half light.

While I stood there, under the moonlight, watching it, I made my decision: I would be like the moon.

I would continue what I was doing. Walter hadn't asked questions, so he wouldn't start now. Carmen was sweet. I didn't want to hurt him, but neither could I just give up the life she lived now.

No, instead of stressing over it, I would just fully embrace it. I would truly let myself be free to do as I wanted and be who I wanted; nothing could stop me, not physical walls nor silly moral barriers set up by lesser men.

After that night, everything just felt clearer, lighter, like a weight I didn't know I carried was gone. With my decision to be free made, I was truly free to just be me, even if I was someone with two different names, two lovers, two lives.

Walter took the news of my pregnancy far better than I could have hoped for. He just swept me off my feet and took me back to his place to celebrate.

After that, we went out to get baby stuff. It was far too early to do that, but he was just so excited, so I went along with it.

Given that we were both master thieves, we didn't bother buying the stuff; rather, we went around and stole everything, though only for people who didn't need theirs anymore.

After that, I also ended up moving in with him, and we moved into something bigger, somewhere more homely.

She didn't tell me about Carmen, and he didn't ask either. Which meant I only had to deal with him, which wasn't as hard as I might have thought, after all, I had money.

I came to him, feeling rightfully nervous, which only helped to sell the lie. I told him I had been given an offer, one I had almost been forced into accepting by my so-called boss, to be the surrogate mother, so the child between him and his wife.

He wasn't happy about it, shocked and angry and confused. I just told him I knew it wasn't right, that I should have talked with him first, but that I did it for little kitty, that I would ensure that she would never need anything.

The sum of one million dollars was more than enough to make him understand why I hadn't waited to discuss it with him before I agreed.

He had asked when it would happen, and I told him that it already had, that I was already confirmed to be pregnant.

I just told him that they wanted it done as soon as I agreed, before being allowed to go back to him, so I didn't try to cheat them by having another child with him.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if I should be angry at how easily he believed me or if I should find it adorable. I enjoyed three weeks back with him then, spending the time playing with kitty and reconnecting a bit with Carmen.

It was a good time, but soon enough Walter was done with the moving, and it was time to move into our new home. So I bid farewell to Kitty and my husband, and returned back to be with my lover.

Time passed like it always did. I spent most of my time in New York, living with Walter or going down to be with Kitty and Carmen. As I became more pregnant, I started going out with Cat less often.

It was something that couldn't be avoided; it was simply too risky to go out and do much thieving with a big belly slowing me down.

As I got closer and closer to my due date, Walter became more caring; he had always been kind, but much like with Carmen and myself, having a child really does change one.

A few weeks before I was supposed to give birth, Walter did something I had never expected. He came home after a night out as the Cat, something he rarely did those days. Then he pulled out the most beautiful black diamond ring I had ever seen. And asked me to marry him.

I was shocked, I mean, I was already married. Yet, even as I suspected he knew that, he probably also knew that I wasn't. Jessica wasn't married; she was the lover of Walter and about to give birth to his child.

And so Jessica Hardy the black cat, became the wife of Walter Hardy, the Cat, and we were soon after the proud parents of little Felicia Hardy.

There were a few problems along the way, given that so such a person as Jessica Hardy legally existed. But thankfully it was nothing some money couldn't fix.

After those close calls in Hell's Kitchen, I went to find a new fence, and I did. in Harlem, of all places. It had a real bad reputation from the outside, but it was under the control of a big gang, which answered to the Ricci family.

I never knew much about the Ricci family until I started this life, but I quickly learned that if you had problems, you didn't call the police, you went to the Ricci family. They were the law and order around these parts.

Walter had also helped me get better deals with them and introduced me to more of them, and it was also them who was able to easily set up a new identity for me.

Everything was good, life was great. I had two amazing daughters and two men who loved me. An epic superpower and everything I could possibly want.

Yet just as what drew me to find Walter, to become the black cat, I still desired excitement. Which I got from being a thief.

I was also damn good; I mean, with Walter's training and my powers, I was unstoppable. Not that I didn't follow some rules.

Shoot for the stars, not the moon or the sun. That was Walter's most important rule. If we didn't hit those, we could take anything else.

For years, I never broke that one rule; I never took the risk. Yet, the last time Walter left town for some work, left me to take care of Felicia. I broke it.

I mean, when the news that the vampire, Alexander Ricci, had been killed, the entire underworld trembled. It was like a nuke had gone off. Everyone panicked, even myself and Walter stayed home for a few weeks.

We, as most people in the underworld, were afraid that his empire would crumble, and chaos would erupt as everyone fought over what was left.

Yet, it seemed that he hadn't ruled the underworld for decades without building up something solid; sure, small gangs rose up, and a bit of chaos here and there. But over all things remained pretty calm all around.

But something that calmed me was my desire, my curiosity, to see into Ricci's life and find out what shiny trinkets The Overkill had hidden away in his house.

He was one of the only two people we didn't target. The most important rule was not to target the sun or the moon, and I broke it.

I was confident it would be fine, sure there was that new sister girl that apparently took over, but as far as I knew, no woman would want to live in their dead brother's room.

The security around the place was insane. It felt like I was trying to break into the most secure military base in the world.

How the fuck they had something like this in the fucking middle of the biggest city in the world I had no idea.

Thankfully, all buildings had to be on the ground in the end, and the ground was nothing to me. Sure, it took a lot of time and effort to learn how to walk around inside the ground like that, but I had spent that time.

I had spent three careful days looking at the place to find where I believed the room I was looking for was, which thankfully wasn't in the middle of the large mansion but facing outwards to get sunlight.

When I snuck inside, I expected many things, the one thing I didn't expect was that as soon as I started snooping around, a hidden elevator opened, and out came the supposedly dead Alexander Ricci himself!

He looked just as shocked to see me as I was him, which I guess isn't strange given how heavily defened his home was. Though how the fuck was he alive!

The video of his death, of his head being blown open was everywhere! He couldn't possibly have survived that, except he somehow did.

It really was no wonder his empire did crumble not with him still there to keep it all together. I didn't find any gems or gold. Not that anything could compare to the value of the news of him still being alive.

Though I'm not quite sure I dare sell that information.

Never in my life have I met another person with superpowers, yet he seemed to have plenty of them. First that ability to just make things appear. And his so-called divine retribution. Damn that kicked really did hurt, and he just stumbled half a step back while I was sent flying across the room.

So yeah, I legged it out of there as soon as I could, which wasn't a moment too soon, given his ability to just make a gun appear like that. Thankfully he wanted to play with me, and loaded it manually.

After learning about my ability, he wouldn't be making that mistake again.

No, now I just happened to have the probably most powerful man in the world after me because I know his secret. Would I be safe anywhere? Would my daughters? Walter? Carmen? Would anyone be safe from Overkill?

I didn't dare show my face anywhere; I didn't dare call anyone or contact anyone. Afraid that Ricci might think I told them the secret. The most I did was go to one of the hideouts me and Walter used and left him a note.

"I'm sorry, I did it, I aimed for the moon, and I got burned by the sun."

That was the closest I dared to get to any of them. I watched them from a distance, just to check, and to my horror and somewhat to my relief, I spotted some suspicious people looking at my family.

I knew then that I had made the right choice in staying away from them. I knew that Ricci had figured out who I was, and was now watching my family, waiting for me to appear.

On one side, both my girls were used to their mommy being gone for a while at a time, so they wouldn't notice anything right away.

No, Walter and Carmen would notice first. What I really feared was Carmen starting to look for me and finding out about the lies I had lived.

I would have to cover my trace better, ensure that he wouldn't find my lies; it would be difficult, even more so since I had to do it all while hiding from the most powerful crime lord and likely person overall in the whole world.

Throughout all of this, I couldn't help but feel somewhat excited about it all. Knowing that someone like Ricci was after me was a lot more exciting than just breaking into a bank.

Which is why I almost got caught a few times so far. A few close calls when I watched over my little girls from afar.

It has been a rough time. Like most mid-level criminals in the world, I have so far been using a Ricci family network to get things done. Now, without that, I have had to try entirely new things, which has been both difficult and exciting.

So as I stood here under the moon again tonight, staring up at the bright full moon. I couldn't help but grin as I felt the wind in my hair.

"Just you wait, tiger; I'm going to get my worth out of playing with you." I whispered and then suddenly started dropping, sinking into the building itself as a tranquilizer zoomed over where I just stood.

The game was on.