I peered in the glass window, but it was dark inside. I unlatched the door before I lost my nerve. The door gave an inch, but stopped, either locked or stuck. I pushed my weight against the door, then harder, and harder again, until it suddenly gave. I fell into Jaguar’s cabin.
Shaken, I stumbled to my feet. It seemed as vacant and abandoned as before, though the flower was gone from the mantel. I brushed aside dead leaves with my boot and found shattered pieces of the glass vase. I ran back to the window to make sure Duke was still there, needing the reassurance.
He grazed calmly in the fading light in the front yard. I let out a deep breath and rested my forehead against the cool windowpane. I wasn’t sure if I felt an urge to laugh or to cry.
Duke suddenly jerked his head up. Loose grass fell from his mouth. He seemed to stare straight at me, ears twitching, though I knew it was too dark to see into the cabin. An uneasy feeling stirred in my belly. I felt trapped. An overwhelming urge to get out of the cabin pulled at my gut. Maybe it was the pieces of deer inside me, the animal instinct, sensing a predator was near.
I flung open the door.
Montgomery stood in the doorway, his shirt torn, his hair loose.
“Juliet?” he started, but I grabbed his shirt in my fists. I touched his face, his chest, his hair, to make sure he was real.
“You’re here,” I said. “You’re alive.”
“What are you doing here?”
I buried my face in his chest. My breaths came ragged. He was alive. We were going to get off the island, all of us, in one piece. I started shaking. He wrapped an arm around my back.
“Try to calm down,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right. Here, sit down.” He led me to the dingy bed. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “It’s dangerous. I told you never to return to the jungle.”
“I had to find you. Where’s Jaguar? Are you all right? What happened on the beach?”
He pushed his hair back. There was a fresh cut on his arm, but it no longer bled. He started to answer, but I jumped up.
A figure filled the doorway.
“Jaguar,” I said. I slid my hand into my pocket. Found the shape of the shears.
He paused in the doorway, his slitted cat eyes shifting between us. He walked upright, but only barely. His clothes were gone. Fine golden hair covered his body like a thick mane. He’d regressed, but not as much as the others. I pulled the shears out of my pocket, but Montgomery pushed them back in.
“We can trust him.”
Trust him? Jaguar slipped in but hovered around the outer edges of the room. He moved more gracefully than ever, as though he might drop to four legs at any moment and slink closer. His long claws clicked on the wooden floorboards. He could slice our throats in a single swipe, and I was supposed to trust him?
His golden eyes met mine. I felt a twist inside me, fear and incredulity mixed in one.
“He’s lost the ability to talk, but not his reason. He’s not like the others.” Montgomery sat down in the desk chair. “He conspired with the water beasts to flip our boat. He dragged me here.”
My head whipped to Jaguar. “You? We nearly drowned!”
“It was me they wanted. They weren’t trying to kill me. They wanted to warn me. They didn’t know if you and Edward could be trusted.”
I watched Jaguar from the corner of my eye. He squatted in the corner, half hidden in shadow, so still not even his whiskers moved.
“Warn you of what?” I asked, breathless.
Montgomery ran a hand through his hair, his eyes shifting to Jaguar. “The beasts are going to attack the compound. They’re after the doctor, but they’ll kill anyone they find.”
The hair on my arms rose, making my skin tingle. “When?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight? Edward’s there!” I jumped up, pacing. “We’ve got to leave the island. Now.” But Montgomery stayed seated. He rubbed his jaw. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
“What is it?” I asked.
A low growl came from the corner. Jaguar came out of the shadow, slinking toward the fireplace. I took a step back, but Montgomery didn’t seem concerned.
The heel of his boot tapped nervously against the rotten floorboards. Then he stood abruptly. “It’s nothing. You’re right, we need to leave.”
He left the cabin and jumped down from the porch to untie Duke’s lead. I hurried after him, but suddenly Jaguar’s rough paw was on my arm, holding me back. A scream rose to my lips, but died just as quickly. It took one look in his eyes to know he wasn’t going to hurt me.
“What do you want?” I whispered, feeling the weight of being alone with him.
He nosed my hand palm up. I swallowed, remembering the rough feel of his tongue on my skin.
He slid out a long, black claw. He traced the tip over my forearm, lightly at first, and then slightly harder. Just enough to scratch but not draw blood. My breath caught. The pain was tolerable. What he was doing was not.
Writing.
He etched three careful scratches into my flesh. Three straight lines in a row. A crude circle around them.
“Three?” I said. Three toes? Three claw marks across the victims?
But he just growled deep in his throat and slunk back into the shadows.
Forty-two
NIGHT HAD FALLEN, AND we rode home in the moonlight. Montgomery dug his heels into Duke, pushing the horse to tear at the soft ground as I wrapped my arms around Montgomery’s waist and buried my face in his shoulders. Leaves whistled by, no more than an afterthought. But not fast enough. My worries hovered before us, just out of reach. I wanted to claw at the air to make us go faster. Every passing moment was a moment the beasts might attack. And Edward waited for us at the compound, unaware of the coming storm.
Moonlight glinted off mica flecks in the compound’s rock walls as we arrived. Montgomery slid off Duke and helped me down from the steaming horse. We hurried to the compound and pounded on the gate.
Balthasar let us in. I stumbled through, still reeling from the breakneck ride. His face broke into a grin when he saw Montgomery. The smile faded at the hollow looks on our faces.
“Is everyone safe?” Montgomery said, breathless.
Balthasar nodded. His eyes were darting nervously. He might not be clever, but he could sense when something was wrong.
“Where’s Edward?” I said.
Balthasar pointed a thick finger at the storage building. “In his room.”
Relief showered me like moonlight. I started through the mud, but my feet stopped when I heard Montgomery speak.