“That doesn’t sound like something you catch in a back alley.”
He shook his head. “Born with it, just like my dad.”
“So this stalker union is a family gig. That must be nice.”
He took in a deep breath and his face hardened for a moment. His hands gripped tighter on his biceps as he studied his boots. It was regret and it didn’t look good on those model features.
My chest hurt to see those kinds of memories flash under his hazel eyes. There was no family, at least not anymore. I had to do something that relieved the pain on his face and the pain in my heart. Screw the mystical stuff. In my world, laughter is always the best medicine.
“Well, I’d rather be able to find people than have the urge to rip apart a bunny.”
The smallest curl of amusement played on his lips. “A bunny?”
“Full on rabbit action during lunch the other day,” I assured.
He chuckled. Job done, I pushed away from his car to face him.
“I have so many questions,” I said putting my hands on my hips.
“I gave you a book.”
Ah, the book. I shook my head. “It wasn’t exactly an Idiot’s Guide to becoming a shapeshifter. Had some pretty wild stories in it. But nothing about the how, the why?”
“At least you’re learning the language. And Iris, the shala, can explain our history better than I can.”
I looked down my quiet little street in my quiet little suburb and sighed. Here was the big step. “I have a conference call until three p.m. tomorrow. Maybe after that?”
Chaz looked up from his boots. He didn’t look overjoyed but something else was there, something deeper than just relief. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure that’s what made my skin prickle.
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
I licked my lips. I had been saving this story. It was my story. But this was the man who had saved my life. And after what I had just seen, he could use a happy story right now. “I went running the other day and I saved a little boy from getting hit by a car.”
“What?” he turned to face me, leaning against his car, looking even broader as his arm tightened across his chest.
“More accurately, I super-speeded across the street, picked the boy up, saving him from being hit by that sports car that’s been following me, and broke my ankle.”
Chaz’s chin dropped and his lips parted. He looked down at my ankle and then back up at me. “But . . .”
“Yeah, something like that.” I waited for the shock to subside as I looked at my house.
Chaz snorted and turned back to face the house. “Same car?”
I nodded. “I still couldn’t see the driver though.”
He took in a deep breath. “The plates aren’t registered to a Texas address.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t know who’s after you,” he said before he turned towards me sharply with a finger in my face. “And that means you need to get someplace safe and fast.”
It was my turn to furrow as I pushed his finger from my face. “Didn’t I just say I’d go see your shala or whatever? Don’t you think I know that something major is happening? I’m not an idiot, Mr. Garrett.”
He backed away a little and the furrow softened.
“I know something’s different now. I can feel it.” I put my hand over where I’d felt the flutter earlier and looked at the cement next to us. “It feels like something stirring.”
“It probably is.”
My eyes snapped to his eyes and I glared, hard.
“What?” he smiled. “I’m being serious. And Iris . . .”
“Yeah, I know ‘can guide me through all this.’ You’re like a broken record sometimes. I’ll call you after 5 tomorrow. You can take me to your leader, or whatever.”
Chaz nodded and got into his car. From the driver’s seat, he looked up at me one last time and drove off, leaving me wondering what in the world I had just done.
Chapter Eight
I sat down in the soft hay of Iris’s barn and couldn’t believe this might actually happen.
Chaz knelt down next to me and I tried to manage a smile, but when your heart is knocking around in your stomach like a shoe in the dryer, it’s hard even to fake a smile. He had followed me in from Dallas and sat through the big spiel Iris had given me. It was already nightfall by the time we’d gotten to her house and the moon was already out and proud by the time she finished her speech.
To be honest, I heard only about half of it. Between the pounding heart, the sweating palms, and Chaz’s bouncing knee gently brushing mine under her kitchen table, I couldn’t concentrate. All I remembered from the guru’s little pep talk was that this was going to happen and Chaz had been wrong about something.
Iris followed us into the little cage that was about the size of my bathroom and offered me the sleeping draft in a small brown coffee mug. She had explained, very matter-of-factly, that I was not the first who had spent the night in the cage. She knew what she was doing and I needed to just drink it and stop with the questions.
“Just drink it and you’ll sleep and not remember a thing,” she said as if she had said it a thousand times before. “Sometimes the first time hurts because you’re fighting it. You can’t fight if you’re asleep.”
I nodded and took the old mug from the woman. She was a walking oxymoron. On the outside, she was this small white-haired old lady with wrinkles and a bun, but when she opened her mouth, she was bossy and just a little sassy. Most of all, she was wise; she reeked with it. I knew the second we shook hands that if all this was real, this was where I needed to be. Oh yeah, did I mention that she said she was a lioness, as in African Safari Lioness?
She shuffled out of the cage in her camel-colored SAS shoes and walked around the outside of the enclosure, leaving Chaz and I in the little cage.
“What if I was right all along and you really are just two complete nut cases and are planning on sacrificing me to some moon god?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Just think of the material for all that writing you do,” he joked.
“Ha, jokes. Just what I need.”
Chaz rested his hands on his thighs. “Got another one for you.”
“What?”
“When people ask you what you did for Halloween, you can say you went complete wild.”
I laughed hard once. “Take you the entire trip to think that one up?”
He smiled up at me and watched steadily. It made my stomach flip over on itself.
“Are you going to stay?” I asked in a high, tight voice, suddenly nervous.
He nodded. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I looked down at the liquid in the little cup. It looked like milky tea.
“Bottoms up?” I said with a nervous smile.
Chaz watched as I drank the whole thing. When I was finished, he took the cup and set it aside by the entrance.
Fire ran down into my stomach and then warm little tendrils curled through my whole body. Like tequila, but chalky.
“Wow, stuff’s quick.” I lay down in the soft hay, my head already fuzzy and my body so warm I wouldn’t need a blanket to sleep.
Chaz lay down next to me, mirroring my position. He reached out and brushed a curl from my eyes and tweaked my chin.
“Will you still be my stalker if it turns out I’m, like, a warthog or something?” I asked.
He chuckled and squeezed my hand that now seemed so far away from my body as my eyelids grew heavier.
“Yeah. I’ll even build you a trough.”
“Funny,” I whispered.
It became hard not to close my eyes. I took one last look at Chaz and closed my eyes, still seeing his face behind my lids, the glint of his golden hair in the fading light.
“Hey,” I whispered as I snuggled into the warm hay.
“What?” I heard him ask from far away.
“Do you think they have a Starbucks in W
axahachie?”
I fell asleep to his laugher as it danced around my brain and into my wild dreams.
Once, the lioness who ruled the pride had three daughters. They were always together and promised to rule the pride together one day. They planned to marry brothers and live in one big den together until their daughters took the pride from them. They were stronger and faster than the other cubs. They were fierce in the hunt. They helped their mother protect the pride that would one day be theirs.
Until one day, a hyena cub wandered wounded into the pack. The youngest of the sisters wanted to care for him until he was healed but their mother said “no,” he wasn’t one of their kind and he needed to go to his own pack. There was only so much food. The lioness turned her back on the outsider and ordered that no one help him: He was no good.
But the youngest took pity on the little cub and hid him in a cave. She brought him food and straw to sleep on. It took a while, but eventually the hyena healed.
Her two older sisters found out about the hyena cub. They scolded her and threatened to tell their mother, but the youngest sister cried and cried and told her older sisters that he didn’t have a family to go to and that they could be his family.
At the tears of their younger sister, the two older sisters gave in and promised to keep her secret. The hyena cub grew strong and fast and was good company for the youngest lioness.
One night, the sisters could not find their little sibling. They looked in the fields and in the den and in the cave where the hyena slept. Nothing.
Then, a scream echoed through the fields and they knew it was their little sister. They ran as fast as the wind to get to her.
She was in the bottom of a pit, dug deeper than they could jump. As they were looking down into the pit, both were pushed in from behind. As the older sisters tumbled down, they heard a terrible laugh echo through the fields.
The three sisters looked up to see the hyena cub surrounded by others of his pack.
They growled up at the dogs who only laughed harder. With a yelp to the sky, the hyena pack took off in the direction of the lion’s territory.
“What happened to them?”
“What do you think happened to them?” my mother said, as she brushed hair from my sleepy eyes.
I pursed my lips and thought for a moment. “They would jump on each other’s back to get out and then rip down trees with their claws to help the other one out and they would go and beat up that stupid hyena for lying to them.”
My mother leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “I wish that were true, little one.”
I looked around when I woke up, half-blinded by the morning sun streaming through a high widow. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I could see fingers and then toes and my ghastly pale skin that looked ill in the golden light. I was really naked, not even an embarrassing thong left this time.
As I pushed myself up, every muscle in my body screamed awake but the pain was gone in an instant, leaving a slight vibrating soreness in its wake. My head spun and I smacked my lips.
“Chaz left to preserve whatever modesty the two of you have,” Iris said as I heard the clanking of the lock on the enclosure. She tossed a robe into the hay and turned her head.
I shook the rest of the fog from my head and slid the pink terry around me. “What happened to my clothes?”
“Destroyed,” she pointed with her crooked hand.
I followed the finger and found the pile of jeans and T-shirt strewn throughout the hay, torn to shreds. “Wow, looks like I had fun last night.”
“Not really,” the old woman said. “Chaz stayed here as long as he could manage. Got a little picture of it on his phone thing.”
There was a twinge in my stomach as I thought about him seeing me like that, whatever that turned out to be. No matter what he said, he had to look at me differently now.
We both had proof now. I wasn’t just a quirky writer anymore. I wasn’t just little Violet Jordan. The thought hit me in the lower stomach like a cheap punch. I leaned over, hands on knees and took in a deep breath. Crap. This is real.
“Why you dawdling?” Iris asked from the entrance to the cage.
I followed Iris out of the cage, picking off pieces of straw poking me in uncomfortable places, and then out into the morning. The sun felt miraculous. Energy danced across my exposed skin and I felt like I had never been in sunlight before. The crisp air brought the scent of the fields around her property to me and the faint scent of cows. That was not as miraculous as the feeling of the sun and definitely not what I wanted to smell first thing in the morning.
“It comes after the first change. You’ll begin to notice more benefits of the shift,” Iris narrated.
“Like what?” I stretched my neck and shoulders as we walked to the house and I tried to calm the hay-head that I was bound to have.
“Your senses will sharpen, your reflexes will quicken, lots of things.”
I followed her into the house, holding the screen door. I could already tell Iris was not going to just burst forth with the details. This was going to be great. Like pulling teeth to get any real information.
Chaz sat at the kitchen table spinning a cup of coffee on the checkered tablecloth. His OU T-shirt had seen better days as it stretched across his hunched shoulders. He jumped up when we entered the room.
“How are you feeling?” he questioned, looking past Iris and directly at me.
“Like I slept on hay.”
“I’ve got something for you.”
He moved quickly to the microwave and clicked the “on” button. I looked over and saw the telltale white cup twirling around on the glass plate.
“Is that Starbucks?” I asked astounded.
He nodded and when the buzzer went off, he grabbed the cup and handed it over to me, not bothering with a real mug because he knew I didn’t care.
I sipped the hot liquid greedily. It was perfect. A cinnamon dulce latte with two sugars and a sprinkle of cocoa. All the fuzziness from the chalky tequila was gone with the caffeinated warmth between my hands. I sat down at the little kitchen table, relaxed and centered.
“Okay, I’ve got my coffee. You can break the bad news to me.”
Iris looked up at Chaz and then back at me. There was a silence between them that chilled me, like I hadn’t just been in sunshine, like I wasn’t holding hot coffee.
“What? Do I have a snout, fangs, what?”
Chaz pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. He reached across the table, taking my hand from around my coffee. I sat up straighter in my chair. My skin sizzled as his warm hands curled around my fingers; his soft hands squeezed mine. To be honest, the last person who did that was just about to tell me my parents died.
“Chaz?” My mouth went a little dry and my heart began to race.
There was a fear in his eyes that I hadn’t seen there before. He licked his lips. “Panther.”
I flinched in surprise. “Are you serious?” was my first reaction.
“Pretty serious.”
“Why the face?”
Chaz was silent as he caressed my knuckles and he looked at me as if lost. I turned to Iris, needing answers, not looks of pity. I hated looks of pity.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, more power in my voice than I intended
Iris spoke slowly; it wasn’t just the southern drawl. “So you know that the gift is passed on through a bite. There are only three families in the states that could pass on panther. Kye’s line, Lura’s line, and Haverty’s. As far as I know, Kye has not bred any children and Lura’s pard is in the northwest. But Haverty, we can’t be sure of.”
“So the thing that attacked me was from Haverty’s line. What’s wrong with that?” I asked, fighting to understand the hesitation hanging in the air.
Iris looked to Chaz to actually say it, and sighed when he said nothing. “Haverty is evil, like the damn lap cat to the leader of the Order,” Iris said as she crossed her arms tightly over her light blue plaid housedre
ss. “He cares about power and little else. Him and his son run Dallas and they have killed everyone to question their authority here.”
I had read about the power struggle in the book Chaz had given me. The Order are the bad guys and the Cause are the good guys. The Order wanted to take over the world and subjugate humans and the Cause wanted everyone to live peacefully together. Seemed pretty black and white. “And?”
Iris snorted. “And when he finds out that you have been changed, he’ll come after you and force you to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Him as your Primo or Death.”
I gulped.
“And if he accepts you as an heir, well . . .” Iris trailed off, her eyes fading off into the distance.
Chaz finally entered the conversation, “The power corrupts and everyone in his line goes evil.”
I pulled my hand away from his and put it back around the hot coffee in my hand, fighting off a clammy chill. It was the tone more than anything that scared me. Like a doctor telling you about terminal cancer. Like your aunt sitting you down to tell you that your parents wouldn’t be coming home. Ever.
I looked down at the caramel-colored liquid, and then back up at Chaz. The heat had traveled up my arms and into my cheeks. “So you’re telling me I die or I go evil? That wasn’t the gallant effort I was expecting from a white hat.”
I stood up and strode out of the kitchen, fighting tears. I wasn’t a tearful person; ask Jessa, who still couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t bawling at the end of Steel Magnolias. Maybe I was evil.
I stormed up the stairs and went to my room. I began dressing and ran a brush through my hair, having to intermittently wipe moisture from my cheeks. I had gotten one shoe on before Chaz burst into my room.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going home.”
“No.”
“Are you going to kidnap me again?”
Chaz widened his stance to more fully block my door and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t leave.”
“Why not? Apparently I’m going to go evil anyway, so why don’t we make this an epic showdown on the streets of downtown Dallas? Something to brag about to your white hat frat brothers? Or would you rather just take me out back and pull an Old Yeller?”
Diaries of an Urban Panther Page 7
