Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  I froze. I wasn’t used to violence. Especially coming from me. I thought I heard someone yell and clap but all I could do was stare.

  Jessa’s cold hand clamped down on my arm and I turned away from the wreckage. Could have been the adrenaline, the sudden rush of power, but I could have sworn that her eyes flashed lilac for a moment. “We need to go. Now.”

  I nodded and the four of us ran for the door, scurrying through the crowd who was still watching the woman being pulled up by her boo.

  It wasn’t until we were in the car that I thought about that other presence in the bar. What had it wanted? Had it had anything to do with the fight? And why did my hairs stand on end even now when I thought about it?

  The ringer on my cell phone sounded deep into the night. I fumbled around on the nightstand to find the dancing square.

  “Hello?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes as I rolled onto my back.

  “Violet? Are you asleep?” Chaz sounded almost confused.

  “It is two in the morning,” I sighed, pulling the blankets straight on my bed.

  “But you guys are usually out late.”

  “We had to end the night a little early,” I said before I remembered who I was talking to.

  “Why? What happened?” he asked with his detective edge.

  I sighed. Why had I opened my big mouth? “We had a little altercation at a bar tonight.”

  “What happened?” A slight note of panic lifted his voice into a higher octave.

  “Nothing. Some girl thought Jessa was eyeing her boo and she got a little angry.”

  “And,” he persisted.

  “And I pushed her down and we left.”

  “Was there anyone else there?”

  By the intonation of his voice, I knew exactly what he was referring to. I sat up in my bed and tried to focus, remembering the feeling I had that was so quickly forgotten with the whole running for our lives thing. “Yeah, actually. But it wasn’t her, wasn’t the girl who tried to start something.”

  “Did she take anything from her? Did she get anything from Jessa?”

  “Maybe a few hairs?” I tried to recall.

  “That may be enough,” he mumbled into the phone.

  “Why? What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly, too quickly.

  “Liar,” I exclaimed. “You can’t keep me out of the loop on things that involve Jessa.”

  I heard the sigh on the phone, the way his pulse raced a little when I yelled at him.

  “Magic is real, Violet. Spells can be cast using something as small as a piece of hair.”

  “But, this woman wasn’t anything special.”

  “Then, unless Jessa is one of us, it was probably just a cat fight. Get it?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ha, ha. Don’t give up your day job.”

  His words weren’t comforting enough and now I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon.

  “Why are you up at two in the morning?” I asked, not liking the creeping feeling down my back as I thought about this evening. I could still see the slight lilac flash in Jessa’s eyes and that gave me the willies almost as much as the essence in the bar.

  “I just got in.”

  “What were you doing?” I asked casually as I lay back down in bed.

  “Why?”

  “Hey, you’re not the only one in this relationship that gets to ask questions.”

  He chuckled softly over the phone. It made me smile.

  “I was watching a movie,” he finally confessed.

  “That’s nice. Life shouldn’t be all work and no play. As long as you weren’t following someone else.”

  The line was silent.

  “Were you following someone else? Because I might get jealous if you’re stalking two people at once,” I said playfully as I stood and went into the bathroom.

  “No. You’re the only one,” he said, keeping with the playful mode.

  I filled up a glass of water and looked at the mirror as I took a long gulp.

  “Good,” I said dumping the rest of the water out and going back into the bedroom. “Because I have a feeling the new me doesn’t share well.”

  “The new you?” he asked, as he ran some water himself. I could just see him ambling around his little messy house in one of his university T-shirts, maybe Duke this time, and his dusty jeans, leaning against his kitchen counter with a questionably clean mug of water.

  “The one who seems to be emerging through all this, the catty one,” I tried to explain.

  “I think the catty one was always there. You just didn’t let it show.”

  I laughed. “Maybe.”

  He was quiet for a moment. I thought I heard the rustle of sheets along the line. “I’d better get to bed. Long day tomorrow,” he said with a soft sigh following.

  I sat back on my bed and curled up underneath the covers. “Whatcha got planned?”

  “You know me. A little stalking, some lunch, hunt down a banshee at the library, some coffee, and then some more stalking.”

  I smiled as I lay back on my soft pillows. “I’m wearing off on you.”

  He laughed and I heard a door close on his side of the line. “Maybe you are,” he said softly, as if he was settling down for the night too.

  “Well, enjoy your day tomorrow.”

  “Talk to you later, Violet.”

  “Night, Chaz.”

  I closed my cell phone and laid it on my night stand, suddenly overcome with this warm sensation and as I fell asleep, I could have sworn I heard purring.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Of all the places in all the world, Chaz Garrett decided to go grocery shopping at my Kroger. Nearly fifteen miles from where he lived, he decided to pick up milk and eggs and bread? Right.

  I was staring at the canned vegetables, trying to make the most depressing decision, as if grocery shopping isn’t depressing enough on a Friday night: Do I give in and buy the single-serving size or do I buy the regular size and end up throwing over half of it out? An age-old dilemma.

  “Hello,” came softly over my shoulder.

  I turned quickly, too quickly, my heart racing in my throat. Chaz was standing right there, very close. So close, I could feel the warmth off his flannelled chest.

  “You’re following me to the grocery store now?” I said, pulling a small can of peas off the shelf. “Is no place sacred?”

  He thumbed over his shoulder to a cart that was a third filled with a random amalgamation of bags of chips, frozen dinners for one, twelve packs of soda. It too closely resembled my own. “I need to eat, too,” he shrugged. “Nice shields by the way, took me a few minutes to get a fix on you.”

  “Is that how yours works? Finding a person’s energy trail.”

  “Sometimes. With you, it is even easier than that.”

  “Why? Because I’m so boringly predictable?”

  Chaz laughed. “You are anything but boring, Violet.”

  “Well, just be careful. This could be considered an outing,” I warned, pushing my cart slowly down the aisles. “Don’t want to be accused of mixing business with pleasure.”

  Chaz followed, throwing things, seeming haphazardly into his cart as we wove through the store.

  “Is that bad?” he finally asked in the middle of the pasta section. “This being an outing?”

  I let the question hang there as I we passed through boxed dinners, and I didn’t answer until we were in front of the meat section. “No.”

  “Oh, this should be interesting,” he muttered from behind me.

  I shot him a dirty look as I perused the meat section. Made me a little hungry, actually. I had become somewhat of a connoisseur, researching all the cuts and the different types of high protein sources. I picked up two steaks, a package of frozen chicken breasts, and boneless pork chops. I’m not a cook, but frankly, steaks were on the simple side of the culinary world. Cook. Flip. Repeat.

  “Gee whiz,” he said as he looked down at my collection.


  “Whatever keeps her happy,” I shrugged and I pushed on to the household goods with him following.

  “What else keeps her happy?” he asked with a low, intimate tone.

  I was just about to not justify his question with a response when I ran into Devin. As in ran into him with my cart. I hit him full on in the side of the leg as I was distracted by Chaz’s devious smile.

  “Holy . . .” Devin cried out before he saw who it was.

  I froze, suddenly aware that I had my two very separate lives crashing together in the household goods aisle.

  “Violet,” Devin greeted with a pain-filled smile. He slightly limped around my cart and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. “How are you?”

  “Great. You? Besides the leg?” I hoped beyond all hope he wouldn’t notice the man behind me. But then again, my life couldn’t be that simple.

  Devin did notice the man behind me with a full head to toe once-over, and a raised eyebrow back at me. “And who’s this?” he asked softly to me.

  I took in a deep breath. Nothing was going to happen here. We were in public. There would be no fireworks, explosions, or depth charges if my friend met my, uh, other friend.

  “Devin, this is Chaz. Chaz, this is my friend Devin.”

  The two men shook hands and I was pretty sure the world was not collapsing. But it was still early at this point. There was always calm before the storm.

  I distractedly grabbed a box of dish-washing detergent off the shelf behind me to hide behind until the flames died from my face.

  “So, what have you been up to lately?” I asked, casually tossing the soap into my basket and turning back to Devin.

  “Nothing much, taking a painting class at nights. Trying not to think about . . . anything particular,” he said.

  I reached out and squeezed his arm in consolement. Boy problems. Didn’t we all have them.

  “And you? How do you like the Jeet Kun Do classes?” Devin asked, trying to keep focused on me, but sneaking looks at Chaz who was reading the back of a Swiffer Dusting wands, like he’d use them.

  “I love it. I’m sore half the time, but it really is better than therapy.”

  “Wonderful,” he said with a wide smile. “I always thought that you might like a physical sport. I bet it gives you a lot to write about.”

  Devin crossed his arms and leaned against my cart, still trying to hide his study of Chaz.

  “It does. I’ve worked in quite a bit actually.”

  Devin smiled up at Chaz and then back at me. “I’ll let you two continue shopping. Pleasure to finally meet you,” he nodded to Chaz, then headed off to the dairy section.

  I stood there and watched him walk off, practically skipping. I was so going to hear about this later. I could write the conversation now.

  “Nice guy,” was all Chaz said before he pushed forward to the shampoo section.

  I was stunned. “Nothing?” I asked as I scurried behind him. “I was expecting a lecture. The value of a solitary life, the dangers I could put my friends in . . .”

  Chaz stopped. “There is one thing,” he said turning to me, that dark golden glint in his eyes. The unhappy glint.

  “What?” I asked softly, stopping besides him, still preparing for the “you need to be more careful” rant.

  “Why did you tell him about the Jeet Kun Do, but not me? I had to follow you to the dojo.”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Why hadn’t I told Chaz? “Devin asked.”

  Chaz had to think, review. “Oh,” he said his shoulders dropping.

  “It’s what friends do. They ask questions about the other person’s life, even the mundane stuff.”

  “I ask you about stuff,” Chaz protested.

  “Your questions are more geared towards whether or not I feel like pouncing on anything that day.”

  Chaz tried to maintain his straight face. But I was too good. The furrow melted between his brows and he cracked a smile.

  “Friends care about the silly stuff and know what you do for a living and . . .”

  “And they don’t throw you against walls?” he finished.

  I sighed and just arched an eye brow at him. “It was one time.”

  Chaz continued down the aisle a bit further as I searched out shampoo.

  “So what is this?” he sprang on me as I was picking up a bottle of my orchid and coconut milk shampoo.

  “What?” I asked out of shock, more than misinterpretation.

  He pushed his cart so that it was next to mine facing the opposite direction. Cart spooning. “If we’re not friends, then what are we?”

  I slowly put the shampoo in the cart, sure that I was going to drop it on the ground along with my metaphoric jaw.

  “Well, um . . .” I grasped at things. Wasn’t it usually guys who were okay with not defining things? I think at this point I knew Chaz was not a normal guy, but this cemented it. “I thought I was an assignment of some sort.”

  That was not the right answer. I read it in his whole body. Not only did his jaw tense up but his whole body turned rock solid and his knuckles grew white as he gripping the blue cart handle.

  “It’s a working relationship. You watch my back and I work your nerves,” I said with a weak smile.

  He relaxed a little.

  “You lead me down the straight and narrow and I drive you completely insane. We’re like Will and Grace, really.”

  “You think I’m gay?” he asked, trying to keep up.

  “No. But you’re the good one and I’m the mess.”

  He lowered his chin and shook his head. “You’re not a mess.”

  I whispered. “You haven’t seen my house.”

  Chaz just looked at me, like he wanted to say something. He had a look in his eye like he had at Iris’s house that morning before breakfast. Like there was something just on the tip of his tongue that couldn’t quite struggle free. His eyes turned a slightly warmer brown as he looked at me.

  “I know what you do, but I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your favorite color. I don’t know if you played sports in high school. I don’t know about your family,” I explained. “I know that you are a guardian. And I know without you, I would have been a meal in my driveway or evil incarnate. But that isn’t everything.”

  He finally looked away and I could feel myself breathe again. Didn’t even know that I had been holding my breath.

  It was time to tell him. It was time for me to let someone in a little closer. Why not Stalker boy? Why not in the middle of the hair care products? Seemed par for the course these days. “I’m a big girl, Chaz. But I need to learn to take care of myself all over again. New questions to ask myself, new moral lines to draw. It’s been me for so long with no regards to anyone and now I’ve got this prophecy that puts other people in danger and a crazy man possibly after me. I won’t let myself rely on you guys.”

  He shook his head. “It’s what I’m here for, what I was sent for.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t like having you around.”

  “Why? Can’t talk to your friends about the new you?”

  I nodded. It was true. He was the only person who wouldn’t think I was certifiable, not that we did that much talking, but he knew and he still stayed around. “But hello. Kettle black. I’m not the only one shopping on a Friday night all alone. How many other guys do you know who carry shotguns full of silver in the back of their trucks?”

  “This is Texas. Everyone has a shotgun.”

  I laughed. “Right, still getting used to that.”

  I watched his warm brown eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. With the confession of words I’d had building up for a while, I was impressively in one piece. The world wasn’t ending yet, and maybe I wanted to add a handsome guy to my speed dial list. Jessa’s number had been there all by itself for a very long time.

  “What’s your favorite color?” he asked as he turned his cart around and we began shopping again.

  “Green. Yours?”
/>
  “Black.”

  “Figures.”

  Curled up in my office chair cradling a cup of coffee, I stared at the blank Word document staring back at me. Three weeks ago, I’d logged into the database to grab a freelance article and, now, I had to turn it in this week or not get paid.

  Despite what Jessa thought, I did get out, but it was more in an undercover reporter kind of way. If this article was about the best places to get sushi, I’d go the restaurant, eat a plate, read the menu, and have the entire article done by the time it took to scarf down a California roll.

  But this was about dogs. And I hate dogs. Need I replay the scene?

  So the Internet was the only way I was going to finish this article. Maybe the Internet had an answer. This article was the only way I was going to make the mortgage this month and still have a little to eat off of. And unfortunately, eating had become less underrated than it had been two months ago.

  As I was looking through maps of White Rock Lake, I knew I needed to research something else. Sure I had a prophecy, but it didn’t pay the bills

  When an advertisement for Ansestry.com popped up on my screen, I looked at the ceiling. “Seriously? That was subtle.”

  Maybe they with a capital T had manipulated my search for martial arts training.

  If the Internet could bring me enough information about dog parks to make me sound like an expert on canine exercise, maybe, just maybe, it could bring me a little more info about my family. Not that there was anything special about the Jordans that I could remember.

  The genealogy websites were flooded with Jordans. It’s not the most unique name ever. As I scrolled through the lists of people who came up in my search, I did find my great grandmother. In 1910, Violette Jordan was registered at Ellis Island with the vast crowds who came over from France. My mother had told me stories of her in her big house in France, running across the fields. Always made me wonder why she had moved halfway across the world to live in a Chicago walk-up. Maybe I had more in common with her than I thought.

  I didn’t make it a habit of lugging around stuff when I moved, but there was a silver picture frame from my mother’s side of the family. I brought it to school once for show and tell. It was an heirloom. And now, heirlooms were deadly. Might be good to pinpoint exactly where the only things on the planet that could kill me were.