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 by his presence.
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 into 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.
Balthazar 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.
Balthazar nodded. His eyes were darting nervously. He might not be clever, but he could sense when something was wrong.
“Where’s Edward?” I said.
Balthazar 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,” Balthazar 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 say good-bye, let alone bring him with us. 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 those of 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 Balthazar’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.