Free Savage (Daughters of the Jaguar) by Willow Rose Page A

those, but as I opened my mouth something else came out of it. Something completely unexpected.
    “You should keep the baby that is growing inside of you even though your boyfriend doesn’t want it. It will be your last chance to ever have a child,” I continued.
    What was going on? It was like it wasn’t me talking, but it was me. I just couldn’t control it. I had no idea how to stop it. I had to say those things. Why did I feel such an urge to say that? Why couldn’t I just shut up?
    She stared at me still with wide-open eyes. The photographer stopped taking pictures and stared at me, as well.
    “You think I am pregnant or something? Do I look pregnant to you?” she said and got up from her chair. She put her notepad in her bag with angry gestures.
    I shook my head. “No you don’t … on the contrary. You look great. I …” I was speechless. There was nothing I could say to explain this. What had gotten into me?
    “This is the strangest interview I have ever done,” she said and looked at the photographer. “I think we are done here.”
    I got up from the patio furniture immediately. “I am so sorry. I have no idea where that came from,” I said as they rushed out of the yard and back to their car. They drove away without so much as a polite goodbye.
    I was really losing it, I thought to myself standing abandoned in the yard. Maybe that was really it. I was just going crazy. Plain old-fashioned insane. Up until that night I had been the most stable young man, one who believed in nothing that he couldn’t see or touch or the scientists couldn’t prove, and now I was talking like this? And even insulting this woman? What had gotten into me? Was I just completely stark raving mad? I remember putting my hands to my head and running my fingers through my curly hair, wondering if the next thing would be me pulling my own hair out.
    "I have to get off these drugs," I mumbled to myself. "That has to be it. That is what is causing this. The drugs are what is driving me to this. These voices, these images. This is not me. This is not who I am." I decided to go back inside and call the doctor immediately to make an appointment and get me off the pills. I would rather have pain from my wounds than endure this. This had to be far worse than any pain I could feel.
    That was when I noticed that I wasn’t completely alone. In the garden next door was a little girl. The same girl I had seen standing outside the neighbor's house staring at me on the night I had arrived. On the night of the accident. The youngest of the three girls I had seen playing earlier. She was hosting an imaginary tea party sitting at her small table and wearing a big fancy green hat with a peacock feather in it. To the day I die I will swear that I saw the teapot floating in the air next to her while it was pouring imaginary tea into two floating cups. Unfortunately, I blinked a couple of times to make sure there wasn’t something wrong with my eyes, thinking they were deceiving me, and as I looked again the cups and the pot were sitting solidly on the table. The young girl had moved and now stood at the fence and was staring back at me. Not knowing what else to do, I lifted my left arm and waved at her. She smiled a smile almost as enchanting as her sister’s and waved back. Then she turned around and ran towards the house holding on to the hat with one hand so she wouldn’t drop it.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 10
     
     
     
     
    The hunt for the jaguar was still on in the Twelve Mile Swamps. Jim had joined a group of hunters that took turns searching for the beast at night, so he only had to go every third night. One Saturday he came to the house and talked to Heather. I was still in my bed even though it was almost evening, feeling confused over my life. I had been off the medication for several days by then and still nothing had changed. Only now I could actually feel the pain in my wounds and it was keeping me up at night, along with the