Burning Wild (Leopard People 2)

1

EARLIEST MEMORY

HIS environment was warm and cozy. He wasn't alone. He could hear the other inside him, whispering soft little growls and encouragement. The need for freedom, the promise of a life that had been lived one cycle already and had been incredible. And then the squeezing came, hard shoves, the walls of his cocoon closing around him, twisting in waves to push him out, to expel him from the warmth of his home into cold air and bright lights. At once scents assailed him. He couldn't sort out all the different smells, but the other could. Blood. People. Hospital. The other remembered the smells even when he didn't.

He felt hands on him, shaking him, poking, a sharp prick. He pried open his eyes and looked around this new environment.

"My God, Ryan, he looks like a skinned rat. He's so ugly. He's skinny and useless to us." The voice was resentful, filled with loathing.

He understood the words, or maybe the other did, but he knew the woman was talking about him. He looked like a rat. And rat wasn't good, not if that voice meant anything.

"Shh, Cathy," another voice cautioned. "Someone will hear."

"We can't take it home with us."

"We can't leave it here," the deeper voice said.

"On the way home, I'm finding a Dumpster," the higher-pitched voice hissed. "I'm not getting stuck with that ugly thing."

"Don't be ridiculous, Cathy," Ryan said. "We can't take a chance that we'll be caught. We'll take him home and hire someone to look after him. You'll never have to see him."

"This is your fault. Daddy warned me not to marry you. He said your genes weren't strong enough to produce one of the special ones. I didn't want to get pregnant and have that thing growing in my body, but you insisted I had to carry it. Now you deal with it."

"Fine. I'm naming him Jake, after your grandfather." There was malice in Ryan's voice. "Your father never did think I was good enough, and he won't like having my whelp named after his father instead of him."

"Name it any damn thing you want, just keep it away from me."

The hatred and loathing in the cold voice gave the infant--newly named Jake Bannaconni--chills, but he refused to cry.

TWO YEARS

THE sharp pointed shoe caught Jake in the stomach and he doubled over. He should have been faster. He had the reflexes. The other warned him, but he had wanted to be held, had gone looking for her. She was his mother, after all. The mothers on the television and out in the play yard held their sons, but she kicked him hard, her voice screaming for Agnes.

"Get this horrid brat out of my sight. Ugly little rat." Cathy yanked him up by one arm, held him dangling in the air and beat him with her stiletto heel, smashing the shoe into him over and over, his face, his belly, his groin, his thighs, anywhere she could land a blow on his squirming body. Rage and hatred fused together on her cold face.

Deep inside, he felt something wild unfurl, and his fingers curled under, as did his toes. The other hissed to him, cautioned him: Take it. Let her hit you. Hide what you are. She wants what you are. Hide. Hide. He breathed away the fire building in his belly and the itch running under his skin.

Mommies weren't like this on television or in the movies. There was no cuddling. There were no hugs and kisses. Slaps and kicks were all he would get from his mother. He watched her on television sometimes, at the parties and fundraisers. She looked so different, smiling for the cameras, clinging to Ryan's arm, stroking his face as if she loved him so much. But behind closed doors there was cruelty and hatred and deceit from both of them. Over time, they taught him to separate fantasy from reality.

FIVE YEARS

"WE absolutely can't keep a governess, or whatever you call that woman, who beats the crap out of our kid. She put out cigarettes on him," Ryan complained. "There are burn marks on his hands. Sooner or later one of the tutors will see and report it."

Jake stayed quiet, very still. He'd perfected the art of sliding silently into a room without their knowledge and listening to the conversation. Most of what they said was still over his head--discussions about business and taking over companies--but he understood the basic truth that lay at the foundation of every meeting. Money was important. Power was important. They had it and he needed it. Agnes wasn't putting cigarettes out on him. Cathy was. Her lovers did sometimes, just to please her. She could make them do anything she wanted no matter how cruel or humiliating. He knew them by sight, by scent, and someday he would ruin them. Money. Power. That was what they had and he needed.

"Nobody cares, Ryan," Cathy said, annoyed with the conversation.

"Someone is going to see those burns and a reporter will get hold of it. We'll be front-page news." Ryan swung around, pointing a finger at her, his voice hardening. "I let you do what you want within reason, Cathy, but you aren't going to ruin us with your senseless little games."

Cathy stabbed her cigarette into the tray. "Really?" Both eyebrows shot up. A crafty expression crossed her face and Jake's stomach tightened. "We might get some great publicity, Ryan, if we can work it right. Our little boy beaten and abused by a trusted member of our household. Tears in front of the camera, me leaning on you. We photograph so well together. A close-up of our child in the hospital looking frail. We could run with that for a long time. I could host a charity event for battered children. It would open more possibilities and get us some great press."

"Agnes will be prosecuted and put in jail. She knows quite a bit about us."

"Don't be stupid. If we do this, Agnes has to disappear."

"Cathy, you can't be serious."

Cathy rolled her eyes. "You're such a sniveling coward, Ryan. Do you think I'm going to let her talk to the police? Or to the press? Hardly."

Ryan turned his head slowly, something feral and predatory in his eyes. Cathy stiffened and lowered her eyes. "We have a very good arrangement, my dear, but perhaps you need another lesson in respecting your husband."

Jake felt his heart hammering loudly. He had never considered his father to be dangerous, but that look, that small movement, just a flexing of muscles, showed that beneath the seeming apathy, Ryan was every bit as cruel as Cathy, or even more so. He'd given himself away.

Cathy pushed a hand through her hair. "No, no, of course not, honey. I'm sorry."

She was genuinely afraid. Jake, hidden as he was, could scent her fear permeating the room.

The tension drained from Ryan and he forced a smile, but his eyes were flat and cold. "How are you going to keep the kid from talking?"

Cathy visibly relaxed, and, even in the shadows, Jake felt the impact of evil. "He won't talk. I can guarantee that. I have to plan this very carefully. We need a few warning signs, some things we can have on record that we discussed with the doctors, expressed our concerns, but no one can substantiate." She rubbed her hands together. "This is good, Ryan. Maybe that skinny little rat will be worth something to us after all."

Instinctively Jake knew he was in for trouble. He had already made up his mind to survive, to beat them at their own game. He could be stronger. He'd seen how to do it. He had to be smarter and faster and more ruthless than any of them. He couldn't stop them yet, but he could endure, and that too would strengthen him.

He opened his hand and looked at the burns there. He had let her and her friend put out their cigarettes on him. He had been fast enough to get away, but he hadn't been stupid about it, and he needed to remember this one moment, to mark the occasion so he would know he could be s

marter, use his brains to defeat them. Down in his room, when he was certain he was alone, he took out a knife and slowly drew it over his thigh, making the first of many marks to prove to himself, to remind himself, that he had deliberately taken their punishment, that he had allowed it.

SIX YEARS

JAKE watched helplessly as Cathy and Ryan killed Agnes. They took tremendous pleasure in it. And they hurt her for a long time before they killed her. He was tied up and forced to watch as they systematically beat to death the woman who had raised him. Agnes had been cruel at times and apathetic at others, but at least she'd taken care of him. He knew what was coming next, because Cathy had told him what would happen to him. She'd smiled as she told him.

When they were through beating him, Jake spent the next two weeks in the hospital, and he never once denied the allegations brought against his former nanny. She'd disappeared after viciously beating their son, Cathy and Ryan claimed.

The police tried to question him, but he was broken, his bones and, even for a time, his spirit. He could only lie in bed, helpless, pain shaking him, cruelty destroying him, remaining absolutely silent, knowing they would kill him if he said anything. He wasn't strong enough yet. He had to push harder. He had to dig deeper. He had so much to learn and, lying in bed while his ribs and arms healed, he had lots of time to formulate a plan.

The reporters came and went. The doctors and nurses felt sorry for Cathy as she quietly and beautifully wept for the cameras and her audience, clinging to her handsome, adoring husband. She played out her role, lavishing attention on the unresponsive boy, her money and her celebrity affording her prime-time coverage. She sought out every possible advantage, leading charities and organizations as long as she could headline and get the television time. Everyone believed her, not because of the evidence of Jake's body, but because of the money and her acting skills. Jake had to admit she was mesmerizing. She could get almost anyone to do what she wanted. He needed those skills now that he knew what he was dealing with.