Darkest Fear (37 page)

I felt quite differently now. Not a 100 percent embracing of the lifestyle, but I'd come to feel acceptance where I had felt revulsion. I saw truth where before had been confusion and pain. When I was a jaguar and I caught sight of myself in a stream, I thought I was beautiful, and I thought I looked like me.

“What if that couple had other haguari caged somewhere else?” Aly asked, looking at Matéo. “With the people dead, no one will know to go rescue them.”

“We can't help what we don't know,” said Matéo. “We just have to do the best we can. But I don't think those people were killing haguari just because they hated us,” said Matéo. “They were
collecting hearts—like as trophies, or for some other crazy reason.”

My brain was racing. “We've got to figure out if there was a bigger plan. We've got to stop it somehow. Worse—what if that couple was working for someone else?”

“They didn't seem all that organized,” Matéo went on. “But what if they were like middlemen?”

They might not have even been the ones who killed my parents. There could be others who were doing the same thing as that couple.

I slammed my hands on the steering wheel. “Goddamn it!” Angry tears rolled down my cheeks. I snuffled and brushed my sleeve across my nose. “Goddamn it.”

“We're almost home,” said Matéo. “Here in New Orleans we can be real detectives. We're going to find out what the hell is going on, and how we can stop the whole thing.”

“We can't stop till we know,” said Aly.

The rain had drizzled itself out, and the clouds were rapidly clearing from the dark sky. I felt like we'd been gone a week. I was sad that we hadn't found Suzanne and James. They might be dead. I thought about everything Matéo and Aly had said, and realized that my life had acquired a purpose when I wasn't looking.

I wasn't moving back to Sugar Beach. I wasn't going to Seattle. I was going to stay here in New Orleans, and I was going to devote myself to figuring out who was killing my kind. And I was going to stop them.

“Hey,
prima
?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for risking your life to save ours.” Matéo smiled at me and brushed his hand against my hair.

“You're welcome,” I said, and felt better.

Turning onto Esplanade Avenue felt like coming home, coming back to safety and acceptance. All I wanted to do was cry in the shower for a while, put a Band-Aid on my cheek, and collapse in my bed for a long, long time.

“What's that?” Aly said, pointing. I'd been so focused on aiming Matéo's car between the brick pillars of the driveway that I hadn't even noticed the large, wet lump on our kitchen steps.

“Is it a person?” I asked, just as the headlights shone on dark hair. As I parked the car, the person sat up, rubbing her hands over her face.

“It's almost four in the morning,” Matéo said. “And it's been raining. Who is that? What's she doing?”

When I looked closer, my mouth dropped open; then I jumped out of the car and ran to the steps. The girl looked at me without smiling, and in the dim light from the kitchen I took in how much weight she had lost, how unhappy she looked, and the fact that she had a huge duffel bag on the steps beside her.

“Babe,” I said, holding out my arms to hug her.

“What happened to your face?” Jennifer asked, getting up stiffly, and then I was holding her, feeling her dampness and thinness. She rested her head on my shoulder. “Columbia sucked,” she said, her voice muffled. “I've run away.”

A
LSO BY
C
ATE
T
IERNAN

T
HE
S
WEEP SERIES

T
HE
B
ALEFIRE SERIES

T
HE
I
MMORTAL
B
ELOVED TRILOGY

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse edition January 2014

Text copyright © 2014 by Gabrielle Charbonnet

Cover photograph copyright © 2014 by Michael Frost

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Cover designed by Jessica Handelman

Interior designed by Bob Steimle

The text of this book was set in Bembo Std.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tiernan, Cate.

Darkest fear / Cate Tiernan. — First Simon Pulse edition.

p. cm. — (Birthright)

Summary: “After the death of her parents, Vivi reunites with her long-lost family and learns more about her heritage as a haguara—a person who can shapeshift into a jaguar.”— Provided by publisher.

[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Shapeshifting—Fiction. 3. Jaguar—Fiction. 4. Families—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.T437Darm 2014

[Fic]—dc23

2013025046

ISBN 978-1-4424-8246-3 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8245-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4424-8247-0 (eBook)