I pulled off the large piece of gauze and there it was in all its glory. A full four slashes down my shoulder could have been fingernails, or a knife, or any number of weapons I could dream up.
After peeling off the rest of the clothes, I stepped into the hot water and immediately my muscles relaxed. I fell easily into the routine of showering. Washing my hair and face and finding a cloth to wash my body, I scrubbed the parts of my back I could, relieving some of the itch. The smoke from the bar still clung to my hair and I had dirt still encrusted on my knees from the fall in the alley.
From where that thing jumped me. Even in the hot water, I shivered at the images behind my eyes. I shook my head and tried to focus on one thing at a time. Get out of this alive, Violet, and then we’ll talk about never putting out the trash again.
I dried off, wrapped the towel around me, and sat on the cold porcelain toilet for a moment. I figured I could play this two ways: (1) like a captive—be scared and terrified and not help myself at all or (2) be intelligent and witty, swallow my fear, and try to get some information out of this guy about why I was here and not in a hospital—and why wounds were now scabbed up on my back after only three days.
A tap on the door made me jump off the toilet seat.
“You okay?”
“Fine, just collecting my thoughts.”
“Figured out if I’m a bad guy yet?” he said from the other side.
“Nope,” I answered honestly.
“Cup of coffee?”
Coffee was my weakness, my kryptonite and the one thing that I could never turn down. Food, sex, and shelter were optional; coffee was not.
“Sure,” I pepped up. “Add cinnamon and I’d think you’re an angel.”
He chuckled as he moved away from the door. I rested my head in my hands and prayed I would be okay. And I don’t pray. Stopped praying about twelve years ago.
But something about him didn’t feel evil, didn’t make me quake in terror. Didn’t make me cry any more than I already had. And he had spent two months following us without incident. He was there when I needed help and seemed handy with the medical tape. Maybe he was just weird. Weird I could deal with. Cannibalistic, not so much.
Sufficiently dry, I put the clothes back on. I ran my fingers through my wet locks and hoped his two-in-one shampoo would be enough to tame my kinky hair. In that motion, I was surprised to find my back didn’t sting on the surface; it was more of a deeper hurt now, a muscle hurt. It still burned to the touch but the worn T-shirt felt good against the exposed scabs.
Shuffling out into the living room, careful to not step on anything in my bare feet, I immediately smelled coffee and cinnamon. It was much better than the french fry smell.
He handed me a chipped brown mug. “Have a seat,” he said. It was more of a command than an invitation.
I stepped over a pile of clothes and sat on the lumpy couch where he had been watching TV. The place wasn’t a fortress, just a living room. I didn’t see any guns or knives, just a few baseball bats and a hockey stick, but nothing of real violence. The really odd thing about the scene was that nothing hung on the walls, no pictures or posters or anything. No clues of who he was. Probably kept it that way so his victims couldn’t identify him later on. There was also a layer of dust an inch thick but I wasn’t exactly the right person to be judging dusting habits. I could grow potatoes on my mantle.
Garrett sat at the other end of the couch, between me and the door, and watched as I sipped my steamy mug of caffeine. The hot liquid soothed everything, every muscle, every neuron. It was sweet and had just the right amount of sugar and milk in it.
“You must have been watching me.”
“Like a hawk,” he said as he took a sip of his own.
I finally caught the glimpse of the clock on the top of the TV playing a muted infomercial.
“Do you normally have coffee at 3 a.m.?” I took another long sip.
“Actually yeah,” he said with a shrug.
“So when do I go home?” I asked bluntly, the warm cup in my hands restoring my witty edge.
“When I say,” he responded. He sipped his coffee. “You’re not like the others, Miss Jordan.”
“How many others have you kidnapped?”
“I didn’t kidnap you. I rescued you from a very large . . . thing,” he corrected.
“What was it? What did you shoot it with?”
Garrett’s eyes widened for a moment but snapped back to the unreadable face. “Didn’t think you were awake at that point.”
“I wasn’t. I was guessing,” I muttered into my coffee mug.
Garrett’s jaw clenched as he breathed loudly out through his nose, scolding himself.
“You said you were waiting to see if I was safe. Am I safe?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “With the way you’re healing, I can’t be sure.”
“Well, what do you think? Because I’ve had plenty of time to dream up thousands of theories with all the Cloak and Dagger stuff going on here.”
Garrett looked deep into his coffee, avoiding my eyes. “Do you really want to know what I think?”
“Of course I want to know. I’m smart enough to know the thing in the alley was too big to be a dog but you took it down pretty quick. I know even in my younger days, I didn’t heal this fast. I want to know why you brought me here and not a hospital.”
Garrett pursed his lips and leaned back on his couch. His T-shirt stretched over his chest as he put his arm on the back of the couch. There was a dark mark there, some kind of tattoo on the inner side of his left upper arm. It was a small design, something in a circle. I tried not to stare at it but couldn’t help myself.
He shifted position and kept his arm to his side from then on.
I curled my feet underneath me and waited, watching, as he decided what to tell me. I’d decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had healed me, fed me, and clothed me. And the addition of cinnamon was above the call of a normal kidnapper.
“You were attacked by a werewolf.”
Laughter echoed in my head and I immediately knew number three of my scenarios was right: He was gorgeous but insane. I was about to be dinner. Only Violet Jordan could get herself into a situation like this. I smiled and was about to say something witty to that effect but the darkness in his eyes made my smile fade.
“I didn’t get a good look but I shot it with silver. Works for most things if I’m wrong.”
The penny taste of fear filled me. I gripped my coffee tighter as I worked through this in my brain. He was insane; it was the only thought that ran through my head. I mean sure, I wrote about this stuff on TV but it was SCIFI, hence, the FI part of it.
“Now, I’m waiting to see if you’ve been infected. It takes in some people but not in others.”
“Why?”
“Depends on the person’s blood.”
“What about the blood?”
“Depends on if there is magic in it already.”
Wasn’t that some mythology he’d cooked up? But wasn’t I healing too fast for it not to have infected me? The wounds were through muscle; wouldn’t that be deep enough to infect someone with a mystical disease? God, I sounded like I was at work. Of course, I did do most of my work sitting on a couch with a cup of coffee. But not at three in the morning and not across the cushion from a mad man—or any other man for that matter. Maybe I was the one going crazy.
He must have read my thoughts, which at this point, I wasn’t discounting. “I’m not sure if your healing is because you’re a Perfect or if it’s the disease.”
The P word caught my attention more than the notion of lycanthropy or being filleted alive. “What exactly is perfect to you?”
Garrett just smiled that soap star smile. “It means you are perfect in every way.”
My hysteric laughter echoed off the bare, wood-paneled walls. “You obviously didn’t see me in high school with the zits and the braces and the frizzy, frizzy hair.”
He wa
ited to continue until after my fit of panicked giggles had subsided. “It means you were created for a specific purpose. There has been a prophecy. That’s why I was sent to watch over you.”
“But you asked out Jessa, you were following . . .” And then it hit me. I was always with Jessa when she spotted him and how else would he know how I took my coffee. “You were following me.”
There was that look again, that dark look where he dropped his chin slightly and looked through his long lashes. It made me stop breathing and my skin grow hot. But maybe it was the coffee still steaming in my hands.
His voice was soothing as I dropped my gaze into the shaking liquid. “You’re wandering through life. You live alone and nowhere for very long. No family, few close friends. Something is missing and you can’t figure out.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” I protested. “I live alone because I want to live alone. I’ve got no family because they died in a car accident. I just moved here because I broke up with my boyfriend and I don’t have millions of friends because I work seventy hours a week. Not because I was created. And nothing’s missing. I’ve got my job, my house. And there is not an ounce of magic in my blood.”
My overzealous rebuttal didn’t stop his explanation. “Your potential is lying dormant until the time is right. It’s all part of being fated for a specific purpose. Just like I have a specific purpose.”
My jaw had clenched into a tight knot, but I managed out, “And what would that be?”
“To find people.”
“And shoot things with guns?”
He shrugged. “Happens. Mostly it means I’m on the sidelines watching.”
His sentence, though simple, was all too familiar. The life on the sidelines. Watching other peoples’ adventures. Watching other people get the promotions and the happy endings. Watching as you’re stuck in a holding pattern.
I took a moment to sip on my coffee and think. God, what’s so wrong with me that I can’t attract a normal stalker who wants to just have his way with me and leave me in little pieces for the city to pick up. I get a self-help guru with prophesies.
Why wasn’t I running? Why wasn’t I taking the hot coffee in my hands and throwing it in his face? Because the truth of it hummed through me. Vibrated along my skin and warmed me like a blanket. He spoke in familiar words of familiar worlds that I’d been surrounded with my whole life.
“So, if I choose to believe that I’m a . . . “ I couldn’t even say the word. It was too absurd. “Was getting attacked in the back alley part of the fated destiny or whatever?”
He looked down at his coffee and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
“Well if you were sent to watch over me, what were you watching for?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me much.”
“Well who sent you?”
“Can’t tell you yet.”
“What the hell? Give me something. This is my life we are talking about here.”
Frustrated, I stood and he matched my position with a speed that blurred his form. It was just like the movies, like when vampires sped across the room to capture their victims. I froze in place as he stepped closer to me. My heart pounded, rattling my ribcage, as he looked down at me.
“I will never hurt you,” he said softly, tenderly almost as he reached out to take the hot coffee from my hand. “I was just sent to keep you safe.”
“Bang up job, Garrett. If I’m infected, won’t you kill me like you killed that thing in the alley?”
He paused. It was a chilly pause that cooled the air in the room, cooled my fevered skin.
“If we get you help, no,” he said in a low voice, looking away from me, taking a step back.
He didn’t have to say the other part of the answer. If I didn’t get help, he might not have a choice. I forced myself to swallow even though my mouth was bone dry.
“So there’s help?” I squeaked.
He gave me a small smile and a nod. “There’s a woman in Waxahachie, another shifter, who’s already volunteered to help.”
“Help how?” The vision of some creepy blood cleansing rite in the middle of a field under a full moon jumped into my head. I need to stop watching my own movies.
“She was the prima of the Pride here in Dallas but moved away to be a Shala to anyone who needs it.”
I shook my head. “There were too many new words in the sentence to make it intelligible.”
He chuckled. “You’ve got an interesting way of putting things, Miss Jordan.”
“It’s a gift.”
Chapter Three
Garrett put his car in park across the street from my house. It was an older model Bronco, something made before both of us were born. The back was full of various and sundry things covered with a canvas tarp that rattled as we drove and the leather on the seats was cracked. It didn’t even have a tape player in it, just one of those radios with the sliding, light up dial. But he looked like he belonged in it somehow. And it was more than just the dark jeans and flannel shirt he was wearing.
He turned in the seat to face me but I stared at my house, like it was a foreign country. “I’ll check in everyday.”
I nodded like a child, looking down at my hands folded on top of what was left of my shirt and skirt from the attack, dried blood stiffening the satin. I’d decided after he made me scrambled eggs that morning that he wasn’t going to kill me. He wasn’t necessarily giving me the whole story, but he wasn’t going to kill me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave his car, though, and walk into my house. It looked so different from across the street. Or maybe it was me who was different.
“Here,” he said softly as he handed me something. “Just in case.”
I slowly took the piece of paper from his hand. On it was a phone number scrawled in black ink.
“Stalkers have business cards? Is there a union too?” I smiled weakly.
Garrett chuckled. “Jokes. You must be feeling better.”
I looked at the paper in my hand and flipped it over. Nothing special, just a piece of cardstock with his number on it. It was fitting somehow. No frills.
“What happens next?”
“I’ll keep looking, keep asking to try to find answers. You just need to keep an eye out. Call me if something goes wrong.”
“What hasn’t gone wrong already?” I finally looked up at him. Backlit by the morning sun, he looked like he should be shooting a GAP commercial and not walking me through a traumatic aftermath. The golden highlights in his hair danced with the sunlight and his eyes were more of a hazel this morning than the dark chocolate from last night.
With a deep breath, I opened the door and stepped out into the morning. The heavy metal door slammed shut with its own weight, shattering the silence of my perfect street. Tentatively, I scanned the street to see if anyone was anywhere. Nope, just me. I took in a deep breath amazed that there was no pain and took my first step to cross the street.
“Hey,” I heard as I stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of my house.
I turned around and had to shield my eyes from the rising sun.
“It can be done,” he said as he stood by the driver’s side, looking over the hood of his car. “Lots of people do it.”
I didn’t have a witty comeback, so I kinda waved and walked up the sidewalk to my house. It felt like the walk of shame back in college, like everyone was watching me as I turned my key in the door, like everyone knew what happened to the poor single girl in 2G.
After my shower, which was clean and filled with my scented soaps, I was able to see my back. As of 8:30 on Tuesday morning, the four wounds that caused nerve damage and severe blood loss were nothing more than four dark shadows across my left shoulder. The bite marks and other small scrapes on my hands and knees were nothing more than a bad memory and writing fodder.
I dressed in a pair of comfortable lounge pants with a white tank top and sipped coffee out of my favorite mug, a ceramic turtle mug I had gotte
n at some aquarium with swimming Ridgley’s on it. Something about the blues and greens usually calmed me. But not today.
As I stared at the perky curtains in my kitchen, my brain was filled with thousands of questions, racing around so fast I felt dizzy. What just happened? Was he telling the truth? Am I meant for something more? Have I been lying dormant? Am I destined to attract insane men for the rest of my life or is it just a phase?
I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit here. Idol hands and everything.
So I did the one thing I knew I did well, something that would take my mind off all this supernatural stuff. I went upstairs to my office, flipped on my computer, and started returning messages.
“Yes, Sera. I know I missed the conference call on Monday but I really was just deathly ill,” I tried to explain without too many details as I paced around my office on my cordless. “But if you’d check your e-mail, you’d see I’ve already sent the changes you guys needed.”
The woman on the other end of the phone was quiet for a moment as I heard clicking and typing.
“Oh, these are good,” she said, enthralled with the edits made that morning. My brain kicked into overtime to not think about what had happened to me and focused on what happened to Jada and Smith in Everville.
“That’s why you pay me the measly bucks,” I joked as I plopped down in my oversized desk chair and put my feet up on the little space of desk not cluttered with scripts and contracts and half-written ’zine articles and all the other projects I had taken on just to have an office to sit in.
“We wouldn’t have this problem if you would move back to LA, Violet.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose under my backup pair of glasses. I hadn’t had the guts to go around the back yet to try to find my usual pair. Frankly, I was thinking I might never put my trash out again. “We’ve been through this a thousand times, Sera. I don’t want to live in LA. Have no desire to be within ten feet of him. And things are working fine with me here in Dallas.”
“But Dallas is so . . . Midwest. I don’t understand how you can stand all the cows and spurs.”
Diaries of an Urban Panther Page 3