Diaries of an Urban Panther (2 page)

Chapter One

T
wo weeks earlier.

That Friday in the middle of October was like all the other Fridays since I’d moved to Dallas: a swanky uptown bar with dark corners, expensive drinks, and less clothing than a beach cabana. Jessa had called the usual suspects together for a small celebration after landing a new client. Jessa, Carrie, Adrianna, and I were curled around a table at the back of the dance floor when goose bumps ran across my skin. Usually this is nothing; my hands have the ambient temperature of the polar icecaps and probably the number one reason I drink coffee like it’s going out of style.

Straightening up to see around the bar, I caught a glimpse at the man who had lurked in our shadow for the last two months. A prickle ran down my spine as our eyes met.

“Stalker boy’s here again,” I said as I sipped my drink, looking over at Jessa.

“Who’s Stalker boy?” asked Carrie, short blonde who had never had to worry about calories or paying for a drink,

Jessa rolled her eyes and flicked her gaze over her shoulder towards the man. She set her hands flat on the table, fingers spread wide. That was her drama pose. After two years of friendship, I was intimately familiar with the drama pose. In fact, everyone at our table stopped talking and leaned in, knowing it was time for a story.

“Like a dog with a bone,” she started over the DJ’s music. As she leaned forward, her black curtain of hair slipped down around her heart-shaped face. “So this guy came up to me in the bar and we get to talking and I don’t think anything of it until he shows up at the same place I go to the next night and the next night. One conversation and it’s like the guy is everywhere I go now.”

Carrie frowned. “Why didn’t you called the cops?”

Jessa smiled. “Because the boy is hot.”

I shook my head but smiled as the other girls laughed. Classic Jessa. All about the looks, less about the details. Personally, I’d spent two months collecting the details. Stalker boy wasn’t overly tall, blending into the twenty-something crowd with his black jacket and dark jeans, but an edge haunted his soap star looks. Even here in the smoky club with the dancing strobe lights, he was different from the other men who stared at our table.

Looking back at me steadily, he took a swig of his beer. The intensity of his gaze sent another bout of chills down my spine and the thought crossed my mind that maybe Jessa
should
have called the cops. Maybe this guy was trouble.

Jessa nudged my arm. I looked at her and followed her pointing finger to another man at the bar. He was skinny but hid it well with a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbow. “What’s his story?”

I smiled at my best friend and sunk into the familiar storytelling game we played almost every Friday night. “He’s a child prodigy, went to college at fourteen, and now teaches psychology as the youngest tenured professor in the university’s history.”

“And why aren’t you asking for his number?”

“Chronically antisocial. He finds human companionship tedious and is waiting for the day he can clone himself to have a decent conversation.”

Jessa laughed and playfully slapped my arm. “You are too hard on people Violet.”

A
fter two more hours of gabbing, dancing, and fending men off Jessa, I managed to herd the girls into a taxi and drop all of them off without any missing shoes, lost purses, or the maiming of clingy guys who didn’t know “you leave with who you came with.”

Applauding myself for remembering cash for the taxi, I paid the driver and trekked to the red front door of my little two-story townhouse. I was nearly to the door when a noise from the alleyway echoed between the two buildings.

“Not again. Stupid dogs.”

Now normally, I’d have let my trash bags fend for themselves. But I had a few drinks in me and had managed to block a Dallas Cowboys linebacker from taking Jessa home, so I was feeling braver than usual. I was going to teach those stupid mutts a lesson: My trash is not a free buffet.

The broken safety light in the alley left me tiptoeing through darkness. Luckily, I knew my way around: four steps and a gutter; three and a dip to the left in the sidewalk.

Now, I write for a low-budget horror movie company whose creations are found only on the highest numbered cable channels. Even in cult circles, Cloak and Dagger Productions is well known for taking the imaginative leap a little too far. But nothing, even in my line of work, could have prepared me for what I saw, actually
saw
, as I stepped into the alley of garage doors.

A dark, solid shadow loomed over the pale fur of Happy, my neighbor’s golden lab. The dog lay limp under the crouching form. By the snap of tendons and slow smacky chomping that echoed around in my ears, it was leisurely eating man’s best friend.

I cupped my hand over my mouth from the stomach-churning sight. Part of me had known it was Happy eating my garbage. But this? I would never wish this on anything.

As I tried to stealthily back away from the gruesome sight, I bumped my garbage cans, sending them clattering loudly behind me, spilling my white bags all over the driveway. Crap.

I could make out only yellow eyes in the inky blackness as they snapped towards me. Double Crap.

Frozen in the eerie stare, I didn’t move again until the shadow growled. The low, earthy sound echoed off the long corridor of metal garage doors.

Alone, in the darkness with a monster, I panicked. I had keys in one hand and a small purse with a credit card, cherry lip gloss, and loose powder in the other. None of that was going to do any good unless the black figure felt a little shiny.

The shadow began to move, its dark legs slowly stepping over Happy’s golden fur. Its long body stalked towards me. I used the only weapon I could think of: my shoe. It was big enough to knock out anything.

My patent heel bounced off the black mass and clattered on the cracked driveway. The creature growled again unaffected by the barrage, keeping me in its sights.

One shoe off and three drinks to the wind, I darted back down the shadowy sidewalk between the buildings as fast as my tired size tens would carry me. Even with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I couldn’t push my legs fast enough.

Fire ripped through my body as the thing leapt and sharp, steely hooks pierced into the muscle of my shoulder and tore down my back.

Falling forward with its weight, I hit the sidewalk hard. My hands caught my fall, saving my face from the concrete, but losing a layer of skin in the process. My glasses flew off my face, landing just far enough away to be lost in the darkness.

The shadow ripped deeper into my shoulder. It shredded my shirt, snapped my bra straps, and tore through the tender flesh.

I must have cried out because, suddenly, help arrived in the form of black boots. The thing on top of me growled or screamed; I wasn’t sure. The pain seeped into my ears making them useless, as spots filled my blurry vision.

There was a hollow click and I saw another sequence from the movies: the world fading to black. I could only hope that along with those big black boots came a white hat.

Chapter Two

“I
n the beginning, it was gray. Among those who wandered among the world, Guardians protected us. Not that there was anything to protect us from. We minded our own business, married our loves, had children, and lived peacefully.

“And then there were these new creatures called humans who lived among those who wandered among the world. They were small and frail and couldn’t weave water, or see into trees, or change shapes. But they were passionate and artistic and curious. They were kind and cruel and humorous and sullen all in little mortal packages.

“As the humans evolved, so did those who wandered. Once gray, there were then light ones and dark ones, those who protected humanity and those who believed they were above it.

“A war raged in the dark silence around the fragile humans. Both sides had their soldiers. Once watching over us like angels, the Guardians now protected wanderers and humans from their darker counterparts, the Grifters. Guardians had speed and strength and inner fortitude to save those who needed to be saved. And hearts like lions and . . .”

“Mom, they didn’t really have lion hearts, did they?”

Mom smoothed out my hair and whispered. “Some do, kitten. Just like lions.”

I
wasn’t dead, but with the way my body hurt, I wished I was. Everything throbbed, including a telltale headache from too many drinks. I cracked my crusty eyes open and the first thing I saw was red-brown plaid sheets.

This was not my bed.

I didn’t do plaid. And this was the manliest plaid I had ever had the misfortune of waking up on.

I lay on my stomach in an orange-lit room that didn’t smell particularly clean. It had that musky male smell one can never quite get out of fabrics, no matter how much you Febreeze it.

A small lamp on a crooked nightstand next to the headboard lit the room softly. What I could see without my glasses matched what I could smell. Miscellaneous stuff was strewn around the guest room: baseball bats, old shoes, coats waiting for a winter that might never come, a kidnapped girl. You know, the usual for spare rooms.

When I pushed up off the mattress, my muscles felt like rippling lava down my back, a fire so hot it left white spots in my vision. My left side went numb and gave way beneath my weight, dropping me back to the springy mattress.

But the fear beating wild and willful in my chest completely overcame the pain in my back. I rolled over to my right side, only to discover I didn’t have a shirt on. My hand flew to my waist and I was relieved to find underwear, if you could call these satin strings Jessa had given me from Victoria’s Secret underwear. Why she cared about panty lines, I’ll never know.

What I remembered was like a bad ’80s movie montage. I remembered the club. I remembered Stalker boy and a linebacker. I remembered something dark in the alley. Then someone, or something, else there. Then there were spots and dreams of Bruce Campbell singing “Memories.”

Using my right arm, the only thing willing to respond, I pushed up on the bed to sit and immediately knew I shouldn’t have. The movement reignited the muscles in my shoulder into magma and my left hand, limp on my lap, twinged with pins and needles. Either I had nerve damage or my carpal tunnel was seriously acting up again.

My whole body tensed as I waited for the pain to ebb away and the starbursts behind my eyelids to fade. It took all my energy not to fall back to the bed in defeat.

Slowly, I strained to look over my shoulder. White gauze and surgical tape wound all the way up the side of my neck. Wherever I was, whoever had brought me here, had gone to great lengths to try to heal me. But why?

A commotion at the door drew my attention and I heard a chair pull away on a wooden floor. As a lock clicked and the antique handle turned, I pulled the plaid sheet over my bare chest just as the stranger walked in.

“Good to see you up,” the man said as he stepped into the orange light of the lamp.

“Why am I locked in here?” I questioned quickly, pulling the sheet around me tightly, and tucking an edge into the top so it covered everything. My modesty intact even in crisis.

The man moved further into the room, his broad shoulders blocking most of a dancing light from a TV. It wasn’t until he was standing over my near-sighted self I recognized who exactly held me captive.

“Stalker boy?” I asked and then wished I hadn’t. I clamped my hand over my mouth like I had just cussed in front of my grandmother. This man had kidnapped me in a dark alley and tucked me away in a guest room. Maybe I should be on my company behavior for a while.

The man half-smiled as he sat down across from me on an old kitchen chair missing half the back spokes. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and I gulped as he came back into my field of vision. He was better looking this close, especially without my clothes on. That chiseled jaw was beyond soap star and straight to silver screen leading man.

As he looked me up and down with his chocolate brown eyes, fear slipped into something darker that forced my hand down to my legs to make sure I was covered. My heart pounded loudly in my ears and my stomach turned over on itself with tension.

“Guess I deserve that nickname.”

I licked my suddenly very dry lips. I shook my head and squeezed the wad of plaid sheets wound tightly in my slightly quaking fist.

“Were you the boots in the alley?” managing to form words with my cotton ball tongue.

He nodded. “What do you remember?”

The memories flashed back again quicker, the montage faster, and with it, the pain came back as well. I tried not to arch my back but it burned, like every time I thought about it, the wounds were fresh again. I bit my lower lip and gripped the edge of the mattress, riding the wave of pain that was also quicker than the first.

I took in a slow breath and let it out when the pain faded. “I was in the alley behind my house and something attacked me.”

“Get a good look at it?”

“Not really.”

“Were you attacked before or after you lost your shoe?”

The embarrassment flushed in my cheeks as I vividly remembered my failed attempt at protecting myself. Humiliation drove the fear away for a brief moment.

“Why do I feel like I’m being grilled, Mr. . . .” I searched for his name through my dense haze of a memory. I couldn’t think of Jessa ever telling me his real name, if she even knew herself. That sounded like Jessa.

“Garrett, Charles Garrett,” he said, watching me with a small furrow between his brow.

The gauze and tape began to itch like wool and I wanted to rake my nails across it. The irritation sharpened my senses and my tongue, even focused my eyes so the room was clearer.

“Well Mr. Garrett, is this an interrogation? Because if it is, I’d like my one phone call and at least a sweater.”

Garrett looked down at his clasped hands then back up at me. “You’re funny, Miss Jordan,” he said with the twinkle in his eye.

“You’ve seen me in my birthday suit; I think you can call me Violet.”

He smiled and I could feel the burning all over again. It was the injuries. Or the panic of being locked in with a man I only knew through stories and sideways glances. But he had rescued me or at least bandaged me up. He’d given me a decent name, not H-bomb or Axe. And he wasn’t sporting a machete or a mask. So I pushed my luck.

“How long have I been here?” I asked as I tentatively stretched my back, testing the muscles, the skin, and my own strength. The pain was fierce but it felt like I needed to rub up against the corner of a brick wall. It itched like something healing.

“Two days.”

“Two days! And you didn’t take me to a hospital?” I shrieked, only to bring the pounding in my head to a roaring blur. I held my temples. If this was a two-day-old hangover, I was giving up on vodka entirely.

He seemed to wait until the rumble in my head subsided. “I didn’t want to explain anything to them.”

“Explain what? I got attacked by a dog or something.”

He clenched his jaw and watched me through his long dark lashes.

I waited until the pain ebbed and watched that furrowed brow carefully. There was something different about him and I hoped I didn’t know what it was.

“You don’t think it was a dog, do you?” I finally asked, leading myself down the path I didn’t want to follow.

“You’re quick, Miss Jordan.”

As the puzzle pieces fell into place, I shook my head. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wasn’t going to be the victim of some crazy who watched too much bad cable TV. Bad cable TV that I wrote, and this was not in the dailies.

“No, Mr. Garrett. This is not one of my stupid scripts.”

Outraged, I stood. The wounds covering my back screamed back to life. A claw of pain encircled my abdomen and squeezed, putting spots in my vision and weakening my knees. It drove the breath out of me and drove more fear in as I fell.

Garrett’s strong arm curled around my waist in the blink of an eye. He rested my unresponsive body back on the bed and covered my shoulders with a thin blanket. He sat softly on the side of my bed and looked down at my paralyzed figure. My body twitched like electrified putty and all I could do was look up at him.

“As much as you might protest, Miss Jordan,” he said with a hard edge to his smooth voice, “I’m going to keep you here until we know for sure.”

He jumped up, jostling me roughly, and left, putting the chair back in its place.

I just tried to breathe, forcing air in and out, breathe through the burning at my back, the vice still around my chest. As the tear slid down my cheek, I knew he was wrong. I wasn’t the buxom blonde who gets attacked in the woods by the beast the movie was named after. I was the sidekick, the one who survived. I was a Velma, the one who proved smart girls were cool, too.

It just wasn’t fair. I had everything finally on track. My jobs were finally paying off. Jessa and I had carved out a few good friends and a decent social life. I’d found that cute little townhouse for a steal.

Six months down the drain because little Violet Jordan thought she could play tough guy and teach someone a lesson.

M
aybe I cried myself to sleep. Maybe my brain wore itself out thinking of every horrible thing he could be doing on the other side of that old door. But sleep came, dreamless and fitful.

My eyes flew open when Garrett skulked into the room with a plate of food and a pile of clothing. “I thought you’d be hungry, with the healing and everything.”

I sniffed but didn’t bother to move, lying diagonally across the bed exactly where he had put me hours before. Face down on the flattened pillow, I didn’t care if I looked like a pouting five year old, with sniffling nose and red eyes. Almost didn’t care what he did to me. Figured this was par for the course for the life of Violet Jordan.

“Can I take a look at your back?” he asked softly, hovering over me.

“Have a blast,” I muttered staring at his knees then up to the food in his hand.

His shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch, something most people would have missed but when you’ve watched from the sidelines your whole life, you catch the little things. I had hurt his feelings. And for an evil predator, or whatever he was, I couldn’t imagine why. It caught my curiosity, which pushed my fears aside for a moment.

Setting the plate down on the nightstand and put the clothes on the broken chair, he moved slowly to the bed. I wanted to flinch, to pull away, but what was I going to do? Run three feet and fall down again? Run the risk of exposing everything he may have been gentlemen enough not to peek at already?

“You’re extra timid.”

“Figure I’d let you heal me before I made my escape.”

Garrett chuckled as he touched my bare shoulder. The skin burned where his skin brushed mine and I couldn’t figure out if it was the injury or if his hands were that hot.

He carefully peeled away the cloth tape and bandages and put them on the bed between us. The gauze was saturated with rusty brown, barely any white fibers. There was a lot of blood, my blood, absorbed into the bandages.

“Well those are . . . healing nicely.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your . . . injuries are looking good,” he repeated with a forced optimism.

“And what does that mean?” I said leaning up, moving without as much pain as before.

So he laid it out straight for me. He took a deep breath and said, “For being mortally wounded, you’re doing fine. Stay there. I’m gonna get some new bandages.”

He left the door open, and I could have escaped. A perfectly unprotected window hid just behind the headboard, but my curiosity got the better of me. Instead of going for the escape route now I had more than just a stitch of clothing, I reached back with my hand and felt around for injuries that floored me a day earlier.

I ran my fingers over something that felt like a scab but was hotter than a match head. Changing positions, I reached over my left shoulder where the bandages had come up higher. I could feel more there, like elephant skin, only searing. Three days and it was already scabbed over. That terrified me. Waking up in the strange bed of a strange man—I thought I was handling that fine. But finally feeling the healed marks on my back, having proof that something had actually happened terrified me all over again.