Lil sat, angrily ripping bites off a mouse. A mottled orange and golden tom raced into her den.

   "What do you have for me, Sparks?" she growled, then stood up.

   Sparks lay his ears flat and sank to the ground limply. "New threat," he mumbled nervously. "A ro-- "

   At this point, Lil had interrupted him by slashing her claws across the top of his head.

   "Louder, fuzz-brain," she hissed. "I can barely hear you."

   Sparks wiped a little blood off his head with a paw. "New threat," he said over Lil's mutters of how "mumbling is fuzz-brained" and "Sparks mumbles every time, it's infuriating". "A rogue, a black one, a murderer."

   Lil glared at Sparks dubiously with cold blue eyes. He shifted, and she felt some satisfaction. He's nervous, she thought. Good. "And how do you know that this rogue is a murderer?" Lil asked, in her high, yet gravelly voice.

   "Me an' Reed were scavenging, in an alleyway. Suddenly this big black rogue comes, jus' when we'd found those salty sticks you like. He-- he k-- killed Ree-- Reed an'-- an'-- an' ate all the salty sticks, and l-- lef'. The only reason I wasn' killed is I was in a dumpster with one of those black pelts on top of me, an' the rogue d-- didn't notice me, only him."

   Lil stared him down. "You don't even know what gender this killer is?"

   Sparks backed against the wall, his eyes full of tears. "Well, Reed's my brother, an'-- an' I was in a dumpster at the time. Even if it hadn' been my brother killed, I wouldn' 'ave been able to smell that piece of murderin' fox-'earted crowfood."

   At this point, Sparks' sorrow turned to fury at his brother's killer. Lil smiled as the tom's claws scored the pavement, even though his eyes were still swimming in tears.

   "No one murders any of my cats, except for me. I only kill the weakest, most pathetic excuses for kits. You, for one, Sparks, know what's coming to him."
Sparks nodded, and Lil was pulled into a flashback.

   She stared at the kit, a ginger she-kit with no tail and only one ear playing with her brothers, a mottled ginger and a brownish ginger. "Storm, she's weak.
   "Yes, Lil," answered the she-cat on her left. "But I wish she didn't have to be."
   "You're her mother, of course you don't!" Lil spat. "But yes. That tail might help in a fight. I mean, that lack of tail."
   The little she-cat grabbed the brownish red brother's tail and pulled, but was surprised by the other brother as he came up on her deaf side.
   "Sparks, careful with your sister. Poppy, don't hurt Reed either," Storm called to them.
   "'Kay, mama!" called Sparks and Poppy in unison.
   "But see that, he was able to come up on her earless side and take her by surprise. We can't have that." Lil shredded what was left of the grass at her paws. Her blue eyes narrowed. "She'll have to go."

   Lil blinked and came back to the present. "Sparks, out of my den," she ordered. When he hesitated, as if to say something, she glared at him. "Now!"

   Sparks scudded from the den quickly, but Adder came in almost immediately. A large mottled brown tom with poisonously green eyes, Adder was a trusted lieutenant.

   Lil huffed. "What is it now?"

   Adder sank to the ground before the smaller she-cat. "Tawny has had her kits."

   "Just now?"

   "Last night."

   "Last night?!" Lil spat. "Why didn't you tell me then?!"

   Adder kept his head bowed. "I did not think, sire, that it was prudent to wake you."

   Lil laid her fur flat. "Don't let it happen again. This is your only warning, Adder."

   "Yes, sire. It will not happen again; I understand."

   Lil turned around. "You may go," she growled over her shoulder.

   She had to see those kits.