Darkest Fear

  There are locks on the cages the man is wearing keys on his belt he is jingling as he hits the cages

  I want to cry but these eyes can’t I am so mad I can’t fix this I am alone

  The jaguars will die I am not strong enough

  I run back to the woods I pace I need to think

  I must do this those jaguars will die think Vivi think

  An idea forms it is part Vivi part Ha-Vivi I have to be both for this plan

  It might work it might save them

  It will either save them or I will die too with them

  I can’t see any other way I have to try this

  I have to be strong I have to be all of me together

  I jump on the porch I am soundless I hear loud voices inside

  My brain translates

  “We can’t move them! We’d have to drug them!” That is the woman she is mad “Then carry them up the stairs! How do you plan to do that, smart guy?”

  “The water’s rising fast!” That is the man he is mad at her he is mad at the jaguars he is mad “We could lose them now, before we’ve had a chance to use them. All of our work could be for nothing!”

  “There’s more where they came from. We need to get out of here now.  The river is flooding its banks!  This whole place could be under water in an hour! Get our stuff and let’s go!” That is the woman

  “Unless . . . unless we take their hearts now.”

  The man wants their hearts I feel dizzy I feel sick

  Did he take my parents’ hearts are these the ones

  This has to be the one who killed my parents

  I want to kill him

  Think Vivi stick to the plan

  I reach a paw up I press on the small button I hear a jarring buzz

  The voices are quiet I back away coiled to spring I feel sick can jaguars throw up

  Answer the door you murderers

  I hear footsteps my heart pounds my stomach is churning

  The man calls “Who is it?”

  It is your karma calling

  “Hello?”

  Come on come on . . .

  The lock clicks open I am waiting

  My tail lashes back and forth my lips curl away from my fangs I take a deep breath

  This is the plan wait wait

  The woman cries “No!” but the door opens it is only a crack it is enough

  I bellow a roar I spring I misjudge my spring I am so strong I hit the door too hard

  The door snaps off its top hinge I smell fear I smell people I hate them

  The woman is screaming I plow into the man he falls backward hard his head cracks against the floor he is surprised he goes limp his eyes roll back

  My jaws open I want to crush his skull he is a murderer he killed my parents

  I look up the woman is holding something

  It is a gun she is aiming at my head

  I see a flash I hear a sharp crack a white-hot pain stripes my cheek

  I am much faster my claws are made of steel

  I smack the gun from her I slice her arm deep she cries out

  She is glaring at me she isn’t scared she’s furious she should be scared

  Will she change into a jaguar

  My eyes narrow a loud roar tears out of my throat

  I step on the man’s chest he grunts

  “I don’t know who you think you are—”  The woman surprises me by talking

  I jump at her I ram her shoving my shoulder into her stomach

  I knock her against the wall she gasps I roar in her face

  She winces I raise a paw her blond hair flies her head snaps sideways she falls to her knees

  I roar again

  Now she is scared she gets to her feet she runs out of the house

  She is dripping blood she is holding her arm her blood smells like copper and salt

  I follow her into the rain the cold raindrops feel good

  Will she change now is she a haguara

  The woman scrabbles at the car door she climbs in

  I jump on the hood I have never been so mad I slash the canvas of the Jeep

  She shrieks and dodges me as I shred the roof

  I want to smile a jaguar smile

  I run back to the house the man is down he has not changed

  There is a door I start down the steps it smells like water mold metal old wood

  Then I remember I need Vivi I need Vivi

  Slowly I breathe I search for Vivi I remember Matéo rubbing my forehead

  I remember Mami kissing my forehead

  Then I feel I don’t know . . . a white flower

  A tiny one

  I focus on it it blooms it looks like me

  Vivi is there and I am Vivi and we are Vivi

  My bare skin was cold against the wooden floor, and I opened my eyes to find myself naked and human, the world oddly flat and precise. My cheek burned. I touched it and my fingers came away covered in blood. The bullet had grazed me but hadn’t made an actual hole.

  An old plaid shirt hung on a knob by the basement steps and I grabbed it and put it on. I felt shaky and disoriented—after two days of being a jaguar I needed to get my human self back in balance. Staggering slightly, I went back to the unconscious man, trying to stay out of sight of the woman in the car. I snatched the key ring off the guy’s belt and then made my way back to the basement steps.

  After two steps I turned to see if there was any way to lock the door from down here, but there wasn’t. I took a moment to tie a bungee cord around the doorknob, looping it around a stair rail. It was the best I could do.

  Holding tightly to the wooden railing I went down the steps, appalled to see that the water was lapping the first three steps.

  The large cats were pacing, snarling, standing on their hind legs.

  “Matéo? Aly?” I cried. “Or . . . Suzanne? James?” Gingerly I stepped into the black water, grimacing at how cold it was. It came up past my knees, and I waded clumsily over to the cages, praying there was no loose electrical wire that would electrocute all of us.

  “Are you haguari?” I cried pointlessly, since they couldn’t answer. Fumbling with the key ring, I found keys that matched the padlocks. If these were real jaguars, then I was committing suicide. They wouldn’t know I was saving them; they would just be pissed, and would probably kill me. But I couldn’t let them die. I had to give them a fighting chance.

  “Please don’t attack me, please don’t attack me,” I muttered as I struggled to open the padlock. Finally I pulled the hasp free, and then the two big cats surged against the cage door, knocking it open and sending me sprawling in the frigid water.

  “Yiyiyiyi!” I shrieked and got to my feet as fast as I could, sopping wet.

  The jaguars were snarling, moving through the water. Overhead I suddenly heard loud footsteps and shouting voices. That way out was blocked.

  “Quick! The transom window!” I yelled, pointing at it. I stood on a wooden box and pounded the lock open, managing to swing the narrow window outward. “Only a human can get through it! Please, please be haguari!”

  To my relief, the jaguars began the bizarre contortions that preceded a change, a process I still found weird but no longer thought was horrific or repulsive.

  “Oh, my gods,” I breathed. “Matéo!” The smaller one was Aly. They stood trembling in the cold water, their human skin showing harsh scrapes and ugly bruises. “Go!” I yelled, pointing at the window. “Go, go, go!”

  Grabbing Aly around her waist, Matéo practically shoved her through the window. She scrambled through, not caring about new scrapes or splinters. Her feet disappeared, and then she leaned down, her face at the window.

  “Hurry!” she cried.

  “Vivi! You next!” Matéo said, holding out his hand. Someone was slamming against the door at the top of the stairs, and I knew the bungee cord wouldn’t last more than a few seconds.

  “What about this one?” I hurriedly started to unlock the padlock of the second c
age even as the jaguar snarled and tried to climb the cage bars. “Is he haguari?”

  “Yeah, I think! He was here when we got here! Come on,  let’s go!”

  I unsnapped the padlock just as I heard the basement door splinter and bang open. The other cat smashed through his cage door, hitting me with it, and then splashed through the water toward the stairs.

  “This way!” I yelled, even as Matéo grabbed my arm and dragged me to the window. “Change! Get out this way!” But the jaguar ignored me, not changing into a human, not coming to the window. Matéo shoved me through the narrow opening, and the last thing I saw was the cat bounding up the stairs just as the man and woman rushed down.

  Aly helped pull me through the window, and once I was outside with just human skin and a thin shirt, the rain was shockingly cold. I dropped to my knees, then went flat, reaching my arm down to help Matéo. I heard the other jaguar roar, heard the gun fire again, saw the flash and smelled the acrid scent of gunpowder and hot metal.

  “The other jaguar!” I yelled as Matéo gave a jump and pushed himself through the window.

  “Leave him!” Matéo shouted. “You let him out; that’s enough!” He grabbed my hand and Aly’s and pulled us both toward the woods. “Run!”

  Still I hesitated—and then I heard the woman scream, a third gunshot, the man shouting, and the horrible snarling roar of a cat in pain. Matéo pulled on my arm. Aly had let go and had reached the woods already.

  As I watched, the other jaguar leaped out of the front door. Even in the night, in the rain, I saw the large, dark red stain marring his beautiful golden coat. He raced toward the woods in the opposite direction, not looking at us. Then Matéo yanked my arm, and I turned and ran as fast as I could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BLACK FOREST WELCOMES ME welcomes us

  Without speaking we immediately become jaguars

  We run fast and noiselessly through the inky slippery darkness

  Matéo and Aly hadn’t come this way

  Leading the way I easily find the trees marked with my scent

  I don’t falter I lead them out of the woods

  I am a girl jaguar scout

  It took me a whole day to find the house but we run and run

  We jump over creeks surging over their banks they are flooding

  The ground is running with water the rain is coming down like sheets

  The air is solid water we run through it we are sodden our fur sticks flat to our skin

  We are cold we stop to drink from puddles from leaves dripping with rain

  There is the edge of the woods there is the car the sun is not up yet

  We wait in the shadows by the edge of the woods for minutes

  Nothing to hear no alarming smells nothing moving

  In the woods we change back I go first I am scared I won’t be able to

  But again I find Vivi she is waiting for me I go to her and we become one

  We become her we are Vivi and we are right here

  It was becoming easier and easier to change form, as everyone had promised me it would. It was no longer at all scary, though it was still odd. Weariness swept over me as I lay on the ground naked, wet, and cold. As a human, a new appreciation for everything that had happened filled my mind with shock and amazement, so I hardly even cared that I was naked, that Matéo and Aly were naked. As people, we felt our bruises and scrapes more; my cheek stung fiercely as if it had just happened. We practically crawled to the car. I slumped against the dirty tire as Matéo popped the trunk and threw some dry clothes at me. Putting on dry clothes when you’re wet is hard, but I did what I could and then climbed into the backseat. A few moments later the front doors open and Matéo and Aly practically fall in.

  “Jesus,” Matéo said, sounding as wiped out as I felt.

  “I’ll drive,” said Aly, also sounding wiped out but a little more awake.

  “Thank gods,” Matéo said, getting into the passenger seat. “Just get us the hell out of here.” Rain began to fall harder. It was starting to feel like we should expect an ark to come along at any moment.

  “Start up quickly and pop the gas,” Matéo advised, “in case we’ve gotten mired down in the mud.”

  Aly nodded, looking drained and upset but still somehow together. She started the car, popped the gas pedal firmly, and we leaped ahead a couple of feet. Then she quickly put it into reverse, backed it up, and turned to head down the narrow shell road.

  “Nicely done,” Matéo said, reaching out a hand to touch her cheek. “That’s why I want to marry you.”

  Aly managed a slight grin, then winced and touched a bruise on her face.

  “Who were those people?” I asked after a few minutes.

  “I don’t kn—” Matéo began, but Aly interrupted him, saying, “What’s that?”

  Leaning forward, I saw a dark shape on the road in front of us.

  “Some car,” Matéo said. “Without its lights on. Campers, I guess.”

  “This is a narrow road. Someone’s going to end up in a ditch,” I said, and then watched in amazement as my life turned into a James Bond movie: “Oh my gods, that’s the Jeep from last night! The top is all shredded! I did that!”

  “Are you sure?” Aly cried, and then the car’s bright headlights blazed on, almost blinding us. The man from last night leaned out the Jeep’s open window with a shotgun.

  “Crap!” Aly said. “What should I do?!”

  “Should we change?” I cried. “Should we abandon the car? How do they even know our car?”

  “They saw us!” Matéo said tensely.

  The Jeep was racing straight toward us. On one side we had the thick woods; on the other side we had a four-foot ditch. They had a Jeep; we had a Camry.

  There was a loud blast and simultaneous flash, and our windshield shattered, safety glass blowing inward as we all winced and ducked.

  “Go off-road!” Matéo yelled as another blast slammed into our hood, digging ugly holes into the metal.

  “How? Where?” Aly shouted.

  The Jeep was closing in fast. We would definitely lose in a head-on collision. They were close enough now that I could see the woman’s face, furious and pale, as she clenched their steering wheel. One of her arms was sloppily bandaged and was leaking blood. I had slashed her pretty hard.

  “Crap,” I muttered, feeling my fight-or-flight catch fire. The muscle at the back of my neck started to ache. They were less than twenty feet away when Aly suddenly yanked the steering wheel and we veered sharply toward the woods.

  “What are you doing?” Matéo yelled as we crashed into a stripling, mowing it down. It whipped against our antenna and broke it off. A moment later the Jeep roared past us, and the man tried to find a clear shot through their open back. I heard their brakes squeal as the right side of our car crunched loudly into tree after tree, the horrible sound of scraping metal screaming into our ears.

  Another loud blast exploded our back windshield, sending bits of glass into the back of my head and neck. Swearing, I dropped down toward the floor as Aly struggled with the steering wheel. Matéo reached over and helped her, and they managed to shove it to the left. Through our nonexistent back windshield I saw that the Jeep had stopped and was trying to turn around, slamming into reverse, grinding the gears.

  We smashed through some underbrush and jumped back onto the road, and then Aly floored it, spitting crushed shells behind us. Rain and cold air blew in through our broken windshields. Matéo looked behind us as he tried to brush broken glass off the dashboard.

  “What are they doing?” he asked.

  “I think . . . I think they might be stuck!” I said, watching the Jeep. “They went backward too far, into the ditch.”

  “Are you sure?” Aly asked.

  “If they are, it’s just for a moment,” I said, feeling the back of my head. My hand came away red with blood. “They must have four-wheel drive.”

  This road had been twisty, turny, and narrow when we’d come
down it just two days ago. Now it was twisty, turny, narrow, rutted, and flooded out in places where creeks had jumped their banks. I wished we had a pickup truck, or something better for a back-road shoot-out than a Camry.

  “Uh . . .” said Aly. Ahead of us was a twelve-foot stretch of standing water. Maybe it was only an inch deep; maybe the road had entirely washed away and if we drove through it we’d end up stuck and a sitting target.

  “They’re coming!” I said, seeing that the Jeep had crawled out of the ditch and was barreling toward us again.

  “Take a chance,” Matéo said grimly.

  We all held our breaths as Aly braced herself and hit the gas. Amazingly, the water was only a few inches deep, and we shot across, sending up a two-foot-high wake with our wheels. On the other side Aly peeled out, spewing water in back of us.

  The Jeep didn’t even slow down at the puddle. We prayed that we’d see a park ranger around the next bend, but there weren’t any. The next ten minutes were unbelievably harrowing: The Jeep would gain on us, the man would shoot, and then we’d come up on a turn that our small car could handle at higher speeds. We’d gain a couple of seconds; then the Jeep would start to catch up again.

  When we saw the small park office in the distance, I wanted to cry in relief.

  But it was closed, windows dark, no cars parked out front. Aly slowed down, but when it was clear no one was there, she sped up again and raced out of the parking lot. The Jeep was right behind us, the man leaning out the side, aiming his shotgun.

  Bam! Bullets ripped into the back of our car, and something hot glanced off my head.

  “Ow!” I said.

  “Are you shot?” Matéo yelled, peering over the seat at me.

  “Stay down! I’m okay!”

  “The road’s just too wet and muddy!” Aly muttered. “I can’t go too fast or we’ll lose control.”

  “When does it become the paved road?” I asked from my place on the floor.

  “I think right before we get to the second office.”

  “Hey,” said Matéo. “Where are they?”

  Springing up, I peered out the back window. There was no one behind us, no sign of the Jeep.

  “Stop for a second so we can listen!” I said.

  Aly slowed to a halt and turned off the engine as we scanned around us in every direction. “There weren’t any turnoff roads,” she said.