by Laura Wylde
When he was truly angry or truly distracted, it came back out, but most of the time he sounded just like the rest of us.
“Yeah, I guess I am hungry. Are we going to the usual?”
Seth caught my eye, and I almost asked him what he wanted to eat as well, but I knew he wouldn’t give much of a committed answer. With his glasses covering his eyes, almost as a mask, and his fear of speaking out of turn, Seth was the one who always went along with whatever the rest of the group wanted. With me, he would share more, but that was because he knew how to fully trust me. I got all the sensitive information, such as the fact that poor old Seth was a virgin, too scared to connect with women, but the others knew nothing.
I kept hoping that something would come along to draw him out of his shell, but it hadn’t happened quite yet. I couldn’t push it; I just had to wait and see.
“So, there wasn’t any sign of the encroaching jaguarians in Santarem today,” Ramon continued as we headed towards the bar nearest to our town house. “That’s good news, huh?”
“It is, unless they’ve zoned in on Panthera,” I replied with a sigh. “I hope that hasn’t happened undetected. We need to keep our damn underground city from them, protected. Especially, with all the little ones running around these days. Those kids deserve to live.”
“Hmm, and they also don’t deserve to live under jaguarian rule,” Ramon agreed. “We’ve worked too long and hard on our own way of life for that.”
It was a bit of a buzz kill that the Jaguarians even had an interest in us when they hadn’t for such a long time. But unforeseen circumstances had bred their intrigue and now I wasn’t sure how we would get rid of them for good. Somehow, we’d have to work it out because we couldn’t be on the prowl forever. It did suit me because I often felt trapped in the underground city of Panthera, but that was my problem alone. The rest of the guys would want to return eventually.
“Woah.” As Tony swung the bar door open, he froze. His large frame meant the rest of us couldn’t look inside to see what had him silenced, but I immediately imagined the worst. I pictured the whole place torn apart by Jaguarians and death everywhere. I shoved him inside and glanced around as panic and anticipation tore through my system…
“Oh.” It wasn’t death and destruction at all. Instead, it was a stranger in our midst. A woman who definitely wasn’t from around here judging by the way that she stood out. Her purple streaked bright blonde hair, her eccentric clothes, her giant smile… “Who’s that?”
“Who knows?” Ramon shrugged. “And who cares, I’m starving, so let’s order.”
I followed the boys inside and we nodded to the bartender that we wanted our usual. Ever since we started staying in Santarem, we had become well known here. I guess that was in part because of the way that we looked, we definitely stood out for being different, but not in the same way as this strange woman, which made our time here simpler. But once all of that was done, I tuned the guys out, not focusing on their hushed whispers about our jaguar tracking today, instead watching the woman as she spoke. I wasn’t sure if it was just the fact that she was different, that she definitely didn’t belong here, or if there was something deeper that had me staring at her like she was a TV show that I’d become obsessed with, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away, however hard I tried.
“Ah, you went to Adriana’s museum.” Pedro, a regular in this bar, laughed. “Senhora do gato louco, we call her. The crazy cat lady. But she is wonderful, and her museum is fantastic.”
“Oh, I loved it!” Little Miss Purple declared with gusto in her sweet American accent. “I had the best time there; she was so kind to me. She showed me all kinds of things. I saw photographs—which were incredible, I want an image of a big cat like that—and paintings. She told me all the stories as well, which was wonderful.”
“They aren’t stories,” Pedro corrected her. “They are all real. Well, according to Adriana anyway, and a lot of other people. Many believe that the big cats are all shifters.”
“You have no idea how much I would love to believe that.” Her little giggle brought a smile to my face, which after my long day and lack of food was a miracle. “I call myself a felinologist because I study big cats. I absolutely love them. I’ve been all over the world studying them…”
Tony snorted with laughter and Ramon joined in. Even Seth smirked a little which caused the stranger to glance our way. Her eyes stopped on us for a moment and I felt her stare into my soul, almost as if she could see the real me and who I truly was. It was as if this self-titled felinologist knew that I was the panther shape shifter that she was looking for.
But then Pedro grabbed her attention once more and she stopped staring.
“I wonder if she knows,” Tony commented. “That we’re here… unless it’s the jaguars she wants. Not that I can see it. She smiles a lot and that lot are miserable as fuck.”
“So, you don’t believe in this mythological race then?” She asked Pedro. “Because it would be great, wouldn’t it? And maybe not too far of a stretch for our imagination. When you think about all the cultures who see cats as Gods, including a lot of people here.”
“That’s true, but people believe in all kinds of different things, don’t they?”
“You think we should tell her?” Tony hissed. “Put her out of her misery?”
“Are you stupid?” I snapped back, only quietly because our food was being brought over to our table. “Don’t be so ridiculous. You know that it’s fine to let people speculate about us, but we can’t allow humans to know that we exist.”
“But what about the ones who do?” Tony cocked an eyebrow at me. “We can’t exactly change that now, can we? It’s too late to steal information from their brain.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Just think about how much we could open her eyes. What we could show her.”
“Shut up and eat, Tony. Don’t be so ridiculous.”
But for some reason, the idea of bringing this strange woman into our world wasn’t the worst idea in the world. Not that I would actually act on it, but it was nice to think about it. Just because my cousins had brought human women into our world to carry on the population when the female panthers vanished, didn’t mean we all had to do it.
They were doing their bit to keep our race going and I was keeping us safe. It was the perfect arrangement. And anyway, the women that Jakar and Javier had with them didn’t stand out like this woman did. She wouldn’t be hidden, however much we wanted her to be. However much I needed to if the jaguars proved to be more dangerous than we anticipated. No, it wouldn’t work. Not that I was really considering it, of course, just as a hypothetical thing. But even in theory it wouldn’t work out, so I needed to push that idea to the back of my mind before I acted dumb.
“Jabari.” Tony poked me in the ribs. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Huh?” Shit, I shook my head hard. I needed to get my head back in the moment. “Sorry?”
“I said I think that one of us needs to go over there to talk to her. She’s being very loud now, chatting about the possibility of panther shape shifters, too animatedly. It’s getting dangerous.”
“No.” I shot that idea down far too rapidly. “No way. Just leave her alone.”
“But our cover could be blown…”
“We have been talked about for years and our cover hasn’t ever been blown.” All of a sudden, it struck me what this was really about. “Oh, for goodness sake, Tony. Have we not just had a discussion about you focusing better? You can’t be seriously thinking about hooking up with yet another tourist? Give it a rest for a night, will you? Our town house might be plush, but the walls are thin. We can all hear you going at it all night long. We need some rest at the moment, Tony. You know that life is busy right now, we can’t be sleepy because of your sex life…”
“Right, fine.” He pouted out his bottom lip childishly but held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “
I won’t pursue her, I just think that she’s hot, that’s all. I mean, don’t you?”
Ramon nodded sharply, shocking me. He usually felt the same way about Tony’s one night stands as I did, but there seemed to be something about Little Miss Purple that kept him clinging on. Seth didn’t say anything, of course, but the slight blush in his cheeks spoke volumes. He liked her too. It was just a good job that I had no interest. Hypothetically for a moment, maybe, but that was it. I had my head in the mission, my eyes on the prize, the panthers had much bigger things going on right now. We didn’t need to be worried about women.
“Look, just leave her to it. She’s come here on vacation,” I snapped. “She’s a little tipsy now and having a nice night gossiping with Pedro. She’s barely looked at us even once…”
“I beg to differ,” Ramon piped up. “She keeps looking at us. I’m sure that she knows.”
“Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter if she looks at us or not. She will be flying back home soon, off to America, and we won’t ever see her again. Whereas our mission…”
“I already said I wouldn’t do anything,” Tony cried out while slamming his cutlery down on the table. Yep, she was definitely looking now! “Can we just go already? I don’t want to sit here and listen to Jabari kicking my ass all night long. If we need sleep, then let’s do it.”
Seth immediately jumped up too, eager to keep the peace, which meant we were off then. Ramon stuffed the rest of his meal into his mouth, not caring what he looked like to everyone else in here, and he stood too. I guess I was leaving the rest of mine behind. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how I wanted to look at it, I had some Ramen noodles. I wouldn’t starve.
“Come on, then. Let’s go. I suppose it’s the only way we can keep Tony in check.”
Tony muttered something under his breath, probably not something too nice about me, but he followed willingly as we left. I could feel all eyes upon me, but I didn’t look at anyone. Mostly because I could feel the magnetic pull of one set of eyes in particular, and I didn’t want to see her.
Her presence had stirred something up in my pack. I hoped that it would only be a temporary thing that would pass soon enough, allowing us all to forget about Little Miss Purple, but instinct told me otherwise. I had a feeling that something was shifting under the surface forever…
“I’m not ever going back to Panthera,” Tony yelled as he crashed his butt onto the couch. “This house is amazing. There’s nothing like it. Plus, we have access to the city…”
“And the tourists.” I rolled my eyes, sarcastically again. “And no, I won’t let this go.”
“She isn’t here with me, is she? I’m not keeping you up all night, so what’s the issue?”
Urgh, he was driving me crazy. Was he trying to get a rise out of me? Why did he want us to fight among ourselves when there was a much bigger enemy out there that we really needed to worry about? And why could I feel myself rising to the bait?
“The issue is the same as before. Your lack of focus. Tomorrow, I want you all in when it comes to scouting the jungle. The jaguars are becoming more of a threat by the moment, we need to be sharp. Seth, I especially want you to be on top form because your sneak attack is everything…”
As quiet as Seth was in real life, he was the same when he became his animal form. He barely made a sound as he tip toed through the world, always giving us an advantage. Because of his slightly smaller stature and the way that he was constantly so quiet, made everyone underestimate him as well. But I never would. I knew what he could do.
Admittedly, I didn’t know what he had faced in the past. Something had damaged his vision long ago, but it didn’t stop him from kicking ass these days.
“And Ramon, as always you’ll need to be careful because you stand out the most.”
His white hair and red eyes came with him into panther form. He was the only albino in Panthera and once the jaguars caught onto that fact, he was in real trouble. I had tried to leave him in Panthera to keep him safe, but he wouldn’t have it. Our pack couldn’t separate.
“I know.” He snorted with laughter. “I do see myself, you know. And don’t forget that you stand out as well. Those deep scars all over you aren’t just there when you’re a human.”
I let out a little growl and stomped towards the kitchen, needing to eat before I lost my damn mind. “Look, we all just need to sort ourselves out before tomorrow, okay? I don’t want any fuck ups and I’m sure that you don’t either. There is a lot depending on us at the moment.”
No one said anything, but I decided to take their silence as an agreement. Mostly because I was done with this conversation. It was over. We were just going around in circles, and round shapes had no end. Luckily, tomorrow was a new day.
Tara
His white hair caught my eyes first. The guy sat in the corner of the bar with hair so bright it was like a sheet of paper. It couldn’t be real, surely. I’d been all over and seen nothing quite like it before. I could hardly stop myself from looking at it… which, of course, drew me down to the rest of his face. Those sculpted high cheekbones of his, those perfectly curved lips… and then his red eyes. At first, I thought it was just the way that the light had caught him, but the more I looked at him, the more I realized that the redness was real. Perhaps it was contact lenses to make him look a certain way, but I didn’t think so.
He stood out, a bit like I did, and he looked incredible for it. So much so that I almost went over to talk to him. I would have done as well had it not been for the other three guys surrounding him.
The one next to him was the one I studied next. Yes, I kind of treated them in the same way that I did cats. I studied them like they were animals in the zoo. His auburn hair was beautiful, I wanted to run my hands through it, to see if it felt as soft as it looked. He was a little smaller than the others, but not small by any stretch of the imagination; his broad shoulders screamed out for a squeeze. Then there were his glasses. Or not so much his glasses, but the piercing blue eyes behind them. The color reminded me of the ocean, they were beautiful to look at.
The laugh of the guy with the long, brown ponytail and deep brown eyes caught my attention afterwards. It was hard to focus on Pedro’s stories about the panthers, however much I wanted to listen to him, as I watched the guy. He reminded me of men from Italy, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was where he came from. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear him talking so I didn’t have a chance to pick up on his accent. All I could do was enjoy his smile, his tinkling laughter, the way that he lit up a room with his jokes. He was the sort of person I would have loved to have a drink with. I bet he was a whole lot of fun. Of course, I couldn’t approach him either, because I felt a little intimidated and I wasn’t sure why. In all my years of traveling alone, I hadn’t ever felt that way before. It wasn’t because I was scared, more just in awe.
The final man sat at the corner of the table with a deep frown spread across his face, highlighting his big scars even more. He was larger than the rest, thicker too, but much harder for me to stare at. I had a feeling that he just knew I was looking at him, trying to figure him out, and he didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t want me to know anything about him…
Which probably explained why he was the one who featured so prominently in my dreams last night. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him. He intrigued me greatly.
“I might see them again tonight,” I whispered to myself as I finally swung my legs around and rose from the bed. As springy as the mattress was, it kept giving me great sleep. “Who the hell knows? Not that I will be able to talk to them, of course…”
I grabbed my towel and headed out of the room, making my way to the communal shower. It wasn’t the worst that I’d been in, that was for sure, but it wasn’t the best either. Still, it didn’t matter. After the strange non interactions with the four guys last night which only ended when they all stormed out in what seemed to be an argument, the long and involved conversation with Pedro, and my time
at the cat museum, all I wanted to do was get out there, in to the Brazilian jungle, to take some photographs. I wanted to continue the story in my head, to progress with my fantasy narrative about a panther shifter, which I would be able to do while I was out there, with the beasts. I still hadn’t decided if I was going to really write it down or not, but I was having fun along the way. Perhaps that old ass English teacher of mine knew me better than I did myself.
“Why didn’t the men speak to me?” I wondered as the water trickled over my head. “They wanted to… at least, the Italian definitely did, but he didn’t, and I want to know why.”
Perhaps it was my outspoken views. I had sunk a couple of beers so my view on the cat-based lore here was a loud topic of conversation. I might have inadvertently said a couple of things that would offend people who fully followed it. Maybe it was even my fault they all got annoyed and left. I couldn’t imagine me having that much of an impact, but perhaps I had.
“Don’t worry about it.” I rubbed the shampoo in my hair, the soap racing over my body. “They aren’t relevant. Today, I will get to head out to the jungle and tonight, I doubt that I will even see them. They might have been tourists as well, just passing through.”
God, this muttering aloud to myself was getting silly. I needed to stop it before someone started to suspect that it was a sign of me on my way to madness.
I spent the rest of the shower in complete silence to prove to myself that I could do it, but it didn’t feel natural. Many of my best ideas came while I was washing, and I needed to vocalize them. Screw it, it was time to give up the idea of being quiet.
I sang to myself as I got dressed. Not very well, I wasn’t the most musically talented person, but it was fun. Much better than the silence, anyway. Once I had my shorts and tee shirt on, a back pack of my belongings swinging on my back, and my best boots on, it was time for me to go.
