Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  I didn’t even have to close an eye to focus. God bless hunter’s vision.

  I widened my stance, just like he had done, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.

  The power of the shot jerked my arms back and the fire rung in my ears even with the mufflers on. But there was a hole in the target. Right lower quadrant. In the circle. Crap. Maybe I was a prodigy.

  I heard a rumble from behind.

  Suddenly, his heat was at my back. Goose bumps blazed a trail across my skin, and the panther stirred a little. I gulped. Damn him for smelling so freakin’ wonderful even over the sting of powder in my nose.

  The little stall left us a mere foot of personal space. I held my breath as he reached out as if to stroke my cheek. With a cocky grin he leaned in, and flicked the switch directly behind me, sending the target sailing out to twenty feet.

  “You really shouldn’t creep up on a girl with a gun,” I said to him, my voice muffled by the monkey ears.

  He looked down at me and smiled with one side of his mouth. I watched his perfect lips as he spoke. “I like to live dangerously.”

  Moving back to the shelf, he crossed his arms and watched as I turned back towards the alley.

  I mumbled curses under my breath as I squared up to shoot the hell out of this target. Let’s see if you really can resolve sexual tension with gunfire.

  Five rounds into this set, he crept up behind me again, but I didn’t jump, just pulled the headphones down. All amped up and nowhere to go, I could feel his heat before he slid his arm down mine.

  “See how your shots are to the right? Your finger isn’t on the trigger properly, so when you fire, it’s pulling right.”

  He wrapped his hand around mine on the hot metal of the gun and pulled my finger out a little from the trigger guard, so the pad of my finger was on the trigger better.

  “There you go. Try that,” he whispered into my ear.

  He had to know that his breath sent shivers down my neck and tingled all the way down my back. Damn him.

  “Are you sure you want to be that close?”

  He drew his hand back down my arm and stepped away slowly. I pulled the monkey ears back on and let that poor little paper target pay for his sins.

  Ten shots later, the heat had barely begun to fade from my skin as the slide locked back empty.

  “My turn.”

  I released the clip from the gun and left it on the ledge for him.

  “Show me how it’s done, sensei.”

  I moved back to where he had been standing and watched his wide shoulders as he snapped in a fresh magazine into the 45. He rocked his feet into a comfortable shoulder width apart and let seven rounds loose, all perfectly in the center circle.

  “Let’s see how you do with some distraction.” I called out.

  He looked over his shoulder with his little furrow back between his brows. “Violet. I’ve got a gun. Now’s not the time to play.”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m not going to move an inch.”

  He turned and focused back on the mutilated circle.

  I took in a deep breath and felt my furry center. With a small push, I bathed him in my magnolia scent.

  The first shot went wild, hitting the target of the lane over from us, sending it dancing wildly.

  I smiled. That’ll teach ya.

  Chaz looked over his shoulder with a raised eye brow. “You want to play that way?”

  “Yes please.”

  “Fine.”

  He took in another deep breath. And steadied his arms. Chaz squeezed off the rest of the magazine. Perfect. He ejected it and turned around with a look of satisfaction. “Are we done?”

  “Not even close.”

  Pulling off his ear plugs, he walked back to the shelf with all his supplies and picked up another full clip. “Feel about ten times better than you did this morning, don’t ya?”

  I did. I hadn’t thought about Jessa since we hit the door. But as I looked up at him, I honestly didn’t know if it was the mutilation of the fluorescent targets that was making me feel better or if it was his relaxed frame as he showed me part of his world.

  “Let me fire off a few more rounds and we’ll see.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  My sensei at the dojo leaned over, his hands on his knees, as he took in large breaths.

  “Didn’t think you could knock the wind out of a wind elemental?” I joked as I walked to the edge of the room to get my bottle of water.

  “Neither did I,” he said as he straightened slowly. “You are a very quick learner, Miss Jordan.”

  “Thank you.” I took a long swig of water. Outside of shooting guns, kicking ass Bruce Lee style also helped with the inner turmoil. We’d been at it all morning, locked up in his back room with the door shut so his regular students couldn’t see him throw me into mirrors and me jump kick off the walls. On the outside, I was a ninja master. On the inside, I still felt like a pile of melted cheese and dirty socks all mixed into together with a sprinkling of confusion and extreme guilt. But at this moment, I was too exhausted to care.

  “Too quick, I think.”

  I frowned and turned towards him. “Iris said something like that.”

  Sensai shook his head. “I’ve never had a better student. Your ability to harness your cat is incredible.”

  “You’ll still teach me though, right? I need my biweekly ass kicking so my confidence doesn’t get too high. Except for next week. I’m going out of town.”

  “Are you finally leaving his forsaken town?”

  “Not quite. I’m leaving tomorrow for LA for work. But I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t know why.” He rubbed his hand over his bare head and the dark mark on his arm stared at me. He’d said it tainted him to the point that he could never be part of the Cause, but all I saw before was a strong man who cared for his students and could create a hurricane in the dojo but not harm a hair on my head.

  “Tell me about Haverty.”

  The old man grumbled a “no.”

  “I’ve got no one else to tell me where it comes from, the fear, the way things work.”

  “It is no surprise that Prima Iris cannot speak of it.”

  I gulped. “Prima Iris?”

  “Well, yes. But that is her story to tell, not mine.”

  “So tell me yours.”

  Sensei shook his head as he too went for bottle of water after our exhaustive exercise. “I was young and weak. Haverty promised power and protection and when Haverty overtook Iris . . .”

  “He overthrew her?”

  “With our help, I am forever ashamed to say. She did not have his power and he didn’t have the morals to prevent him from using his. It was like a golden age for a while, until we saw the real him. Until he started marking all of us with the Order.”

  He walked over to me and saw it again. I had to stop myself from reaching out to run my fingers over the paper thin–looking skin. “It’s not a tattoo.”

  “He burned the mark into us and with it, took our power to bind us to him, which made him stronger still.”

  My stomach began to churn with the story and my eyes filled with tears. “Please stop.”

  “There is no crying at the dojo.”

  I laughed and sniffed.

  “The Garretts stayed. All other Cause fled or were killed, but they stayed. I do not know why. Seth Garrett freed me, helped me get rid of the mark, took a chuck of my soul with it, but the mark was gone. He left us soon after that.”

  A tear trickled down my check and he swiftly reached up with his rough thumb and brushed it away.

  I sniffed again as he carefully held my chin.

  “Know Violet Jordan that you, your power, is nothing like his. I see you take it to a good place, where his is blood and ash. You are breath of fresh air.”

  I smiled as he dropped his hand.

  “And I think you’re ready for a flying arm bar now.”

  The word what barely escaped my lips as he yank
ed my arm toward him. His body weight dropped as he climbed up my torso with his feet. With the awkward weight, I tumbled forward as his legs wrapped around my arm and his legs seemed to throw me down so hard on the mat all the air in my lungs leapt out.

  Twisted up in his short legs, my arm hyperextended painfully and I tapped out, still gasping for air.

  He released me quickly and left me trying to recapture my breath. “Crap” was the first thing I managed out.

  Sensei was on his feet in an instant.

  It took me a few more instances before I was up on my feet, doubled over, panting. I shook out the pain in my arm that was quickly fading.

  I smiled up at him, the beast within me playful and challenged. “You gotta teach me that.”

  The flight to LA was the best I’d had. There was no motion sickness, no fear of looking out the windows. My ears didn’t even plug up. I felt great. At least on the outside.

  A guy in a chauffer’s hat with a little white sign reading “Ms. Jordan” picked me up at the airport and drove me to straight to the secret meeting location. Drew was constantly paranoid another production company was going to steal his writers. Always made for an interesting trip; it was always small rooms in the highest hotels or the back rooms of some restaurant. This time, it was a conference room in a for-lease office building. As I scrolled through the script I had opened on my laptop, trying to get in as much work as possible, my cell phone rang.

  “Yes?” I answered, distracted by the notes in my lap. Drew wanted us to be prepared, especially me. And frankly, my brain had been on other supernatural things rather than on the despair and desperation of Jada and Smith in Everville.

  “Where are you?” Chaz snarled. “You’re not at your house or the coffee shop.”

  I froze and my cheeks flushed like a child caught in a lie or with her hand in a cookie jar. I hadn’t told him that I was leaving. I’d had this on my calendar since, well, before the night in the alley.

  “I’m not in town.”

  “Where the hell are you?” he yelled.

  I flinched and my skin chilled. “I’m in LA for a writer’s meeting.”

  “LA? Violet!” he exclaimed so loudly I had to jerk the phone from my ear. My driver looked back in the rearview mirror and I forced a smile, giving him the okay sign

  Chaz didn’t say anything but I could hear the way his heart sped up.

  “I’m going to be fine. I’ll stay in my hotel room and I’m going to be back in Dallas on Thursday morning,” I said as the car pulled up to the building.

  I was getting nervous. I wasn’t sure if he was going to yell at me or just sigh again. I didn’t know if I could take any more of either. So I asked him.

  “Are you going to yell at me some more or what? ’Cuz I’m just about to go into an all-day meeting and Drew is going to take my phone.”

  I could have sworn that I could hear his teeth grinding.

  “Watch yourself. See you on Thursday,” he said before he snapped his phone closed.

  With all the other things floating around in my head, the script, the flight home, the possibility Jessa might never talk to me again, being attacked at any moment by a panther hungry for more power, I had completely forgotten that I would be face to face with Kyle.

  Ah Kyle, beautiful, handsome, way too good to be true Kyle.

  Every woman, I’ve come to find out after several bottles of red wine, has a Kyle: the charmer who made them feel they were the only woman in the world. The He’s in question are usually a first in something: first college love, first working world love, first lover. For me, he was the first to notice I had the makings of a real writer. Behind the frizzy hair, thick glasses, and the stacks of scripts Drew had me collating and stapling, Kyle saw potential. In the beginning, he made me feel like I was the most beautiful, the funniest, the smartest woman in the world. I was happy. Really happy.

  I wised up real quick when I found him in my bed with another woman, making her feel just as special.

  Three years and a sleep number bed down the drain.

  I straightened my shirt and flipped my hair behind my shoulder as I stared at the door to the meeting room. It was a new shirt and I had taken the time that morning as I waited in the airport to straighten my hair with a Chi flat iron Jessa had gotten me for my last birthday. Just using it had made my eyes watery. Part of my heart still ached and the other part was still furious. They were not stupid movies.

  I could do this. I could face down Kyle. Bitter banter was my specialty and I was feeling a little more catty lately. I strode into the conference room with a big smile and three-inch heels.

  Sera gave me a huge hug and quickly ushered me into the saved chair next to her.

  “You look fantastic,” she whispered.

  “Thanks. Like the blonde.”

  Sera tousled her newly platinum-blonde curls. “Felt a little Marilyn last week.”

  Drew began to hand out the secret agenda he had no doubt been at Kinko’s copying at two this morning with sunglasses and a low-slung hat.

  I looked down the table at the familiar faces. Sometimes I thought this was what home felt like until I saw Kyle at the end of the table next to Drew, always the suck-up.

  I just flashed him a quick smile and a wink and looked down at my notes. This might actually be fun.

  We took our first coffee break at 10 a.m. Drew had Starbucks delivered by his poor assistant, the only fresh face in the room, if you could call the dark circles under her eyes and the messy ponytail a fresh face. That had been me five years ago. Working my tail off to get Drew to notice that I was a writer, and a good writer. He gave me my first job out of college and solidified my caffeine addiction.

  Sera left my side for the first time all morning and I was joined almost immediately by a distinct warm body and a distinctive scent more pungent than ever before.

  “Hey there, Lettie.”

  A chill ran down my spine and the cool rivets of residual anger trickled out from there. “Do not call me Lettie,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Kyle fixed his coffee; still black with three sugars. He liked things extra sweet. I remembered he always had a fetish for candy, always had his pockets full of jelly beans and M&M’s. By the smell of it, today was jelly beans.

  “How ya been?” he asked, leaning casually against the catering table, stirring his coffee as he watched me meticulously fix mine with two creamers and two sugars.

  “Great. You?” I asked turning to face him.

  He looked old. There were distinct lines forming on his forehead, ones that I hadn’t put there. His dark roots were growing in under his beach-blonde hair. He was tanner than me, but so was everyone in the room. And he smelled different. I remembered Downy. This incarnation was more Old Spice and mildewed sock. He was just older, less glossy that the me in love remembered and dare I say stressed. Six months ago, I would have run from the coffee table just to avoid him. Today, I told him he looked like crap.

  “You look like crap.”

  His usually smiling visage rippled for a moment. Something was wrong. In the past year, his life had always been perfect, or at least Sera’s reports made them seem so. That in turn usually made my life even worse. I couldn’t have asked for his downfall at a better time. This was going to be fun.

  “Just a lot of work, you know.” He looked down in his coffee.

  “I do. I work here too.”

  He snorted and raised his eyes and an eyebrow. “You work from home.”

  “I headed four scripts this year from home and the online blog and seventeen magazine articles. Last count you were only at two and nothing else. So what’s so stressful? Flavor of the week not working out so well?”

  Another ripple and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Oh joy! I wasn’t being petty. This is poetic justice; this is just desserts. This is also the same dance we’ve been doing since the breakup only this time, I was going to lead.

  “Did she find out that you couldn’t get
her onto the newest reality show?”

  He lowered his chin and glowered. I had struck a nerve and it rang sweetly in my ears.

  “That was low.”

  “I know.”

  “Lettie,” he started something in that same sweet tone I associated with falling into my sleep number bed. “At least I’m getting some.”

  “And how exactly would you know that I’m not?”

  “Come on, Lettie, you were never the type to sleep around.”

  “You did enough of that for the both of us.”

  “Lettie,” he chided, his tone condescending and bile-inducing.

  “Listen mister,” I hissed. “You gave up the right to that information and tone when you decided to take ‘Blondie’ into our bed. I figure I’ve got another two years of unabashedly deserved hatred to work through. So you just need to grow a pair and live with the fact you were too stupid to see what you had.”

  I spun around quickly and headed out of the room. Once out of view, I flattened against the cool wall outside the conference room and took in sharp deep breaths. Blood pounded through my ears and my head spun a little in my victory. Holy crap. I really just did that. I really finally said that to Kyle.

  God, it felt good. Where the hell did I get the balls to say that? Write it, sure, but to actually say it.

  Wow, I felt like I deserved a cape, or a shot of tequila. Or both.

  Sera joined me soon after, when the roaring in my ears had gone down but my head was still a little giddy.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. Just a little disaster a la Kyle.”

  Sera put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he’d pounce so soon.”

  I smiled at her words. “I’m fine, but he might need a Band-Aid.”

  A smile swept across Sera’s fuchsia lips. “Go you.”

  Go me.

  I wanted to call Jessa. I wanted to tell her how ruthless I had been and she would love it and applaud me from across the country. But I couldn’t. Because I had told her she never really cared about me.

  I needed to tell Jessa everything. As I thought about all the writers and producers in the room, I knew they weren’t my family. I may have spent the past five years working with them, having dinners at their house, buying presents for their kids, but they weren’t my family.