Darkest Fear (36 page)

“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.

“I hear an engine,” I said, closing my eyes to pinpoint it. “Over there.” I pointed to the left.

“There was a field,” Aly said.

“They're cutting us off!” Matéo realized. “They went off-road and will cut us off! It'll take us much longer! Start the car!”

Aly did and we tore off, sending mud arcing behind us.

Our only hope was to reach the second campground office before they did. I prayed that someone would be there.

Then . . . “Oh, no.” Aly's eyes were wide.

The Jeep was heading right at us, cutting us off at a sharp angle. We could either try to stop and go backward, or try to go faster, which meant they would end up right in back of us again, shooting at us.

“Crap,” I breathed.

“Huh,” said Aly.

Matéo looked at her quickly. “What?”

“I wonder . . .”

The Jeep was almost on us. Then, with no warning, Aly yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. I cried out as our car went up on two wheels, threatening to roll over as we angled sharply through a turn. Then the wheels landed hard, rattling my teeth and bruising my spine, and we seemed to go airborne for long, odd seconds as Aly forced the Camry right over the ditch. We landed with a horrible, jarring shock on the other side, and once she gunned the gas again, we were back on the road in half a minute.

“I don't know what just happened,” Matéo muttered, rubbing the top of his head, which had hit the car roof.

I craned to look through the missing back windshield and saw the Jeep mimicking our move from the other side, trying to follow us exactly how Aly had done. “They're still on us!” I cried.

But Aly's maneuver didn't translate to a Jeep's shape or height. They went up on two wheels but couldn't right themselves, and instead of leveling out and jumping over the ditch, they plowed sideways and headfirst into the other side.

“Oh yeah!” I said. “That will slow them down!”

Aly grinned at me in the rearview mirror, and Matéo slapped me a high five from the front seat.

“You are a goddess—” he started to tell Aly, but his words were drowned out by a startlingly loud boom! I'd been watching the Jeep to see if they could pull themselves out of the ditch, so I saw it suddenly explode, a fireball fifteen feet wide poufing up from
the crumpled metal. In seconds the interior was aflame.

“Stop!” I said, smacking my hand on Aly's seat. But she'd already slowed the car, and now we all turned and watched the Jeep with our eyes wide.

“Oh, my gods,” I murmured. “Do we . . . do we go back? Maybe they survived?”

“We don't go back,” Matéo said solemnly. “They can't have survived that.”

Moments before, I'd been lit up with hatred and rage against the couple in the Jeep; only last night I'd wanted to kill them myself. Now, knowing they were dead, had probably died in the crash if not the explosion, made the heightened unreality fade, and they became two humans that I'd just seen die. It was awful.

Finally Aly started our car again, and we drove at a cautious speed until we rounded the next bend. I wanted to cry with relief as we saw the second campground office, and suddenly the road was paved and smooth. Gratefully we left the noisy, bumpy shell road. Best of all, there were lights on at the campground and cars parked out front.

Aly pulled up close to the office and parked. We knew what we must look like: our car shot up, both windshields broken, all of us bruised and bloody. We had to tell them about the Jeep; they would have to send EMS and a fire truck out there.

“What in the world can we say?” Aly said.

I couldn't even begin to come up with anything.

WE TOLD THE COPS JUST
about everything. Everything except for the jaguar parts. We were looking for our friends Suzanne and James when two crazy people kidnapped Matéo and Aly. There was a house in the woods, though we couldn't say exactly where. The people had chased us and shot at our car, and it had wrecked behind us and burst into flame. We didn't mention the jaguar we'd seen, running out into the night, blood darkening its side. I hoped it had survived and was safe somewhere.

The cops dispatched the fire department to find the Jeep, and they reported that the fire was out, the gas tank had exploded, and that two bodies had been found inside the car. When he heard that, Matéo frowned at the odd coincidence with his own parents' deaths. Though a lot of details checked out—the police found the house, the basement, everything—there were clearly holes in our story, like the obvious signs of a wild animal attack. Perhaps a bear, they speculated, judging from the front door and various claw marks.

We didn't see any bear, sir.

We formally registered Suzanne and James as missing, and the police said they would search the area with dogs, starting at daylight. When the police were done with us, it was almost nine o'clock at night. Aly called Coco and let her know we were safe. She was so relieved, but upset we hadn't found Suzanne and James.

“Are you going to stay and help search?” I heard her ask Aly.

“I don't think so,” Aly said slowly. “The only way we can help is as haguari, and that's out, since the place will be swarming with dogs and search teams. This has shown me that we need more than the three of us. The cops can mobilize a big effort. Maybe we should have gone to them in the first place.”

“We had no idea if they'd just gotten lost,” I pointed out. “Now it's definitely more clear that they're missing.”

“Okay,” said Coco. “I'm glad it's in the hands of the police now. I'm sure they'll find them soon.”

“I hope so,” said Aly. “I can't stand leaving without them, without any answers.” She was silent for a few moments, as if weighing other options. Finally she shook her head. “We covered a lot of ground—I never caught the faintest scent. I don't think we can do much else. If the cops don't turn up anything in the next week, then maybe we need to call everyone we know and really do a massive search.”

“Okay. I'm in. Now, how are you getting home?” Coco asked. “Do you need someone to come get you?”

It was easier to get a rental car.

It was a long drive back. Sometime after midnight we stopped for food. I was hollowed out with hunger and fell on my burger like a wolf. In midbite I remembered the deer, my first and only kill, and how satisfying and delicious it had seemed. Now the thought was incredibly gross, and though I tried, I couldn't develop even the slightest hint of wanting to eat raw deer.

After we ate, I drove the last three hours while Matéo slept in the backseat and Aly slept in the front passenger seat. As I was heading up the on-ramp of I-10 that would take us home, she stirred and sat up, her hair all clumped on one side.

“Hey,” I said. “You holding together?”

She nodded, looking exhausted and pale. “Just barely.” She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “You came for us.”

“Of course. You're my family.” I didn't mention how terrified I had been, how badly I'd wanted to run away and pretend I didn't know what was happening. It was amazing that I had overcome those fears and forced myself to step up.

“You changed back and forth quickly,” she said. “So it seems easier now?”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road. “A bit. No, it's definitely easier. And I was super relieved that I could change back. But I still have to think about it and focus on it.”

“It will get easier.” She stared out her window at the night, no doubt remembering what yesterday's night had been like.

Matéo groaned and I saw him in the rearview mirror, sitting up and brushing his dark red hair out of his face. “Hey, is that
Veterans Avenue? We're almost home!” For a moment he looked happy; then his smile faded. “We didn't find Suzanne or James. But those cages had obviously held other cats before—other haguari.” His face was grim.

“We found names scratched in the cement floor,” Aly told me softly.

“Oh, gods. Did you know any of them?” I asked.

She shook her head. “But that couple—they must have been the people killing haguari, taking their hearts.” She sounded close to tears.

“I heard the man say something like that,” I told them, and repeated the couple's argument.

“They were probably the people who killed my parents,” Matéo said. “And yours.”

Gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white, I nodded. “That occurred to me. I wanted to just kill them. But are we a hundred percent certain? There was that weird death up in New York—was that them? We need to know more. I wish we could have trapped them somehow, made them talk.”

“Me too. At the time I wanted to get as far away from them as possible,” Aly said. “Now we'll never be able to talk to them.”

I remembered the Jeep's interior, glowing with flame, and nodded soberly.

“There's got to be a bigger picture here,” said Matéo.

“A bigger picture like what?” I asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

“That couple was collecting haguari for their hearts. That other jaguar wasn't a member of our family, you know?” said Matéo. “He was just some haguari. It looks like what we talked about—it's not just about my parents, not just about your parents; it's not about our family. It's about haguari. That couple is collecting our race. They are killing members of our race. And I think it's on a much bigger scale than we realized.”

“Why? Why would they do that?”

“Maybe they hate us,” Aly said. “Maybe they think we're monsters and freaks and want us all dead.”

Her words were a slap in the face. Six months ago I had felt the same way. I had spent years of my life hating what I was, thinking I was a horrible aberration. I'd been furious with my parents for making me what I was. I'd wanted to punish them, to get as far away from them as possible.