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.
“And the doctor? We should warn him at least.”
“Hasn’t returned,” Balthasar said.
Montgomery threw me a questioning glance. “He left? Why?”
I took a deep breath. We’d planned every aspect of our escape, but we’d never talked about what would happen to Father. I never intended to bring him with us, let alone say good-bye. I’d assumed Montgomery felt the same. But looking at his face now, I realized he was still caught up in their bond. Montgomery still thought of him like a father, even after everything.
“He went to the village to try to find you.”
Silence fell for a beat. I knew what he was thinking. The beasts had found my father somewhere in the jungle and sliced his heart out like the others. We might never see him again. For the first time, it felt real. We might leave with no good-byes, just a boat drifting out to sea, never to return.
I started to speak, but Montgomery dug his fingers into my arm and dragged me out of Balthasar’s earshot. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll hitch the wagon. Get Edward and collect the water and supplies. As fast as you can.”
A scream came from the jungle, sharp and piercing.
They were coming.
The gate hung open. Balthasar stumbled toward it, reaching for the wooden beam. Montgomery raced to help. They shoved their weight against the door, scrambling to seal it.
“Hurry,” Montgomery called over his shoulder.
Panic beat in time with my heart. My feet felt suspended in molasses. I couldn’t move fast enough. The beasts would move like lightning, though. They’d come over the roof tiles or break down the gate.
I stumbled to my room and threw my things into the old carpetbag. A bedsheet would give us shade from the relentless sun. Mother’s jewelry and the silver comb and hairbrush would fetch a price. The wooden box that held my treatment. My thoughts clutched at all the scattered things I couldn’t take. Wilted lavender Alice had left on my dresser. Mother’s beautiful gowns. The copy of Longman’s Anatomical Reference I’d saved from our library on Belgrave Square. Now I never wanted to see it again.
I dragged the carpetbag outside and hurried along the portico to Edward’s room. A cloud covered the moon, plunging the courtyard into shadows. My eyes played tricks on me. I thought I saw shapes climbing through the windows, over the roof. But when I shook my head, nothing was there.
Puck joined Balthasar at the front gate. They pressed their ears to the wooden boards, looking puzzled. They didn’t know the beasts were just outside, planning an attack. I wondered if they’d fight back. Puck glanced at me. His scaly mouth peeled into a grim smile.
Puck might be wild enough to join in the frenzy. But not Balthasar. Balthasar would ball himself up and let the beasts tear at him. He saw me watching, and his face brightened. Again, I felt a twist of guilt at my lie. But I hadn’t a choice. If he regressed like the others, turned violent in the crowded London streets . . .