Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

wasn’t shooting guns. And she practiced in the forest, stealth and tracking, sometimes coming so close to a male jaguar, she could have reached out and touched him, but he never knew she was there. Audrey often punished her for that, but Solange didn’t care. It was all for this reason.
    This moment. Getting her mother back.

    Solange leapt from one branch to the next, and finally to the forest floor. The scent of the male jaguar was strong throughout the entire area. Her heart beat so fast. Her mother. Solange loved her fiercely and she had sworn, standing over her stepfather and brothers, that she would get her back. She’d snuck out so many times, disappearing into the interior of the rain forest for days, tracking the jaguar-men. They moved constantly, and she knew that once she’d picked up her mother’s scent, if she missed this opportunity, they would never recover her.

    Audrey had been torn between protecting the children and getting her sister back. In the end, Juliette and Solange had persuaded her, or perhaps it had been the knowledge that Solange would have gone by herself.
    Her childhood had ended there in the clearing with the bodies of her loved ones surrounding her. She never went to sleep without hearing the cries of the dead and dying, or the sound of her mother’s anguish as the jaguar-men tore her daughter out of her arms and dragged her into the house to torture her.

    She knew where the trail led now. The men moved prisoners often, but they used existing structures when they were on the move. Nearby was an old hut built into the trees, off the forest floor. It was rarely used, but the jaguars would know about it and they were most likely using it. Her jaguar was small still, moving through the forest along the game trails, slipping beneath large umbrella leaves as she unerringly moved close to the two trees supporting the structure.

    Somewhere behind her was her aunt Audrey, ready to protect them if Solange were right and her mother was held captive in that house. Her heart beat loud, too loud, as she left the safety of the foliage and took to the trees once more. She spotted a sentry in the branches high above the wooden shelter. A jaguar lay in the shadows of the canopy, sleepy, nearly dozing, only the tip of his tail occasionally twitching.

    Solange kept a wary eye on him as she crawled along the twisted limb. She was shaking with fear and anticipation. She had dreamt of this moment, prayed for it, spent the last four years preparing for it. Now that the moment was at hand, she could barely control herself. She needed every ounce of stealth she’d worked on to maintain the slow, inch-by-inch freeze-frame of her kind to keep from drawing the eye of the sentry. The closer she got to that tiny house, the more the scent of her mother filled her lungs.

    She dragged herself across the two feet of sparse cover to gain the porch. She was now out of the sentry’s sight. She pulled herself up and peered into the dirty window. A woman half sat, half sprawled on the floor, a collar around her neck, her hands tied behind her. Her face was swollen, one eye closed. A cut on her lip oozed blood and there were bruises on her face and neck and down her arms.

    Solange didn’t recognize her for a moment. She was thin, like a skeleton, her once glorious hair hanging in matted dreads. She raised her head slowly and opened her one good eye. They stared at one another, Solange afraid her heart would shatter. The fire was long gone from her mother, leaving a broken shell of a woman.

    Solange looked around the room. Her mother was alone. It was now or never. She slipped inside and rushed across the space. She used her teeth on the ropes binding her mother. Sabine Sangria shook her head, tears leaking from her eyes.

    “You shouldn’t have come, baby,” she whispered.

    Solange thrust her head against her mother, the only way she could convey her deep love. They had to hurry. There was no time to throw herself into her mother’s arms. They had to go before the others returned. She watched her mother struggle to her feet and limp slowly across the floor to the door. They both peered out. Solange started to push her way out of the room, but her mother dropped a restraining hand on her shoulder. Solange paused and looked up.

    “ Never let them take you alive, Solange. Do you understand me? They are worse than monsters, and you can’t let them get their hands on you.”

    Solange nodded. She’d seen