Broken (28 page)

"What on earth happened to your leg?" Sarah
suddenly said.

I lifted my head and stared at it. Blood was running from
the wounds where the alligator had bitten me. "It's nothing," I said
because I really didn't think it was anything. Actually there was a part of me
that was happy to feel pain. I needed it. I deserved it for what I had done to
Aiyana
. It was my fault she was in that cage. I should have
brought her home that morning instead of being selfish and giving in to my
selfish needs. "It'll heal."

"I think we need to clean it first and put
bandages on it. Wait here."

Sarah walked toward the house. I glanced in her
direction. How lucky I was to have her, I thought. Never asked any questions,
always loyal and helpful.

"What would I ever do without you?" I asked
when she returned with a first aid kit.

"I ask myself that very question every day,
Doctor," she said and grabbed my leg.

I clenched my teeth when she cleaned the wound. It was
hurting really badly now.

"Now please try and be still, Doctor."

"I’m trying but it hurts!"

Sarah chuckled. "All kids say that."

Then she wrapped up my leg in a tight bandage stopping
the bleeding.

"There. That should do it. But you might want to
keep an eye on it. Can't have it becoming infected or anything."

I smiled. I couldn't tell her that it would heal
within a day and that an infection never would survive in my blood. "How
did you learn how to do that?" I asked and looked at my leg with
astonishment. "It looks really professional."

"Well I used to be professional. Former Army
nurse in Vietnam. Army Nurse Corps. I was only twenty-one when they sent me
there."

I got up and limped toward the house holding the
blanket around my waist. "I didn't know that," I said.

"Well you weren't the one who hired me."

I nodded. She grabbed my arm and helped me up the five
stairs leading to the screened porch at the back of the house. The pain was excruciating
now. Why was it that I always felt the pain more when I was in my human body?
Was the human body really that weak? It amazed me that we were still the
superior species on this planet.

Sarah helped me sit on the couch. Then she went
upstairs. I suddenly realized that I had left my other clothes in
Aiyana's
yard. Along with my gun. Michael had probably
found it by now I thought with fear. I needed to go back there as soon as
possible. I needed to make sure
Aiyana
was all right.

Sarah came down. "I have prepared the doctor a
bath. Smells like he needs it," she said. "I have put out clean
clothes next to the bath. Just make sure to keep the leg out so the bandage
doesn't get soaking wet."

I felt my breathing become heavier. A slight panic was
growing. I had no time for all this, I thought. I needed to get to her house.
Michael couldn't shoot me when I was human. Well he could, but he would end up
in jail. No one would blame him for killing a jaguar. A vicious ferocious beast
intruding on his property. Everybody would understand.

I widened my eyes. He could easily kill
Aiyana
when she was a jaguar. Was that why he had come back
at nighttime? No, it couldn't be.
 
People would ask questions when they realized his wife was missing. He
couldn't possibly get away with that. Besides none of us knew what would happen
to a were-jaguar once it was killed. Would it remain a jaguar or would it turn
back into a human? No his plan had to be to break her, to keep her down, to
humiliate her, make her fear him. He wasn't going to kill her, was he?

Hurting leg or not I hurried upstairs even if I had to
do it limping. It was feeling a little better already. I took a quick shower
and put on the clothes Sarah had found for me. Then I woke up William by
overwhelming him with kisses and hugs. My eyes even filled with tears at one
point and William looked at me with a slightly tilted head.
 

"What's the matter, Far? Why are you sad?"

"I am just so happy to see you. I have missed you
so much," I said.

He put his short arms around me and hugged me. "I
missed you too Far." He paused. "And I miss Mom. All the time. I
don't care if she is sick, Far. Can't you just tell her to come home? I promise
I won't bother her. Could you just tell her that?"

I hugged him tighter while my eyes filled again. Of
course he thought it was his fault that she had left us. "Next time I talk
to her I promise to let her know, buddy."

"Good."

"Now, how about some breakfast?"

The TV
was on in the kitchen when we came down. Sarah was watching something
noisy on the small television. On the counter stood William's milk but she
hadn't yet put out his breakfast. She stood motionless and stared at the screen
with her hand covering her mouth.

"Can't we turn it off that thing?" I asked
while trying to walk normally on my painful leg. "It seems to be on
constantly lately."

 
"
Shhh
," she said.

I looked at William. He too had been grabbed by what
was happening in the small box. The news was on.

"What happened?" I asked and went towards
the coffeemaker to pour myself a cup.

"Apparently someone has kept a real live jaguar
trapped in a house somewhere and last night it broke out the window and climbed
the roof. Someone heard the turmoil and called nine-one-one and the house was
soon surrounded. All the jaguar could do to escape was to climb to the roof.
Poor creature. Look at how frightened it is. These pictures are apparently from
last night when it all took place."

"Look Far. The jaguar is bleeding. It's been
hurt," William said with a sense of unfairness and injustice in his voice.

I almost dropped my cup when I turned and looked at
the screen. On that small screen I saw
Aiyana
on the
roof of her house. She was bleeding from her face and back. She roared loudly,
but what most people heard as aggressive I recognized as deep pain. Then there
was a shot fired and something hit her. She fell to the ground. My heart
stopped. William jumped in his chair.

"It's only tranquilizer, William. It won't hurt
it. Just make it go to sleep," Sarah said. "It's the only way they
can transport it. Maybe we will go next weekend to see it at the zoo? It's been
a while since we were last there."

Next a reporter appeared live. I shushed Sarah and
turned up the volume. "What we know so far," the reporter said,
"is that they found the man, the owner hurt inside of the house. He had
apparently kept the beast in a small cage and somehow it must have escaped and
attacked him."

"But it didn't kill him?" The anchor asked.

"No. According to the police the man is badly
hurt but still alive. It didn't bite him officials said, it just lashed at him
and threw him around like a punching ball. He is in a critical condition now
and fighting for his life at The Flagler Hospital."

"Isn't that an unusual behavior for an animal
like this?"

"It sure is. He was a very lucky man. It could
have easily killed him with the vicious bite that it is so known for but for
some reason it chose not to. According to zoo officials the animal has been
starved for days and that is probably the reason for its sudden aggressive behavior
towards its owner. They also say the animal has been hurt, beaten regularly
with a stick of some sort and it will take days for it to heal. It has been
treated pretty badly, so the owner will face charges for mistreating and having
illegal animals in his home. But other than that I think he was pretty lucky
that it didn't just finish him off. It could easily have gone that way."

"How did the animal manage to escape? It was
locked in a cage I understand?"

"Yes. It had been locked in a small cage fit for
a dog but way too small for a big animal like this. Apparently the owner had
put heavy barbed wire around it to keep the jaguar trapped. But when the
officials came inside the house, they found the cage broken. There were holes
in it where the jaguar had bitten and torn it apart with its teeth."

"That sounds painful," the anchor stated.

"Yes. It had to bite through the barbed wire as
well. Left several severe bruises in its mouth as well as on the body, the zoo
officials told us earlier. It's pretty badly beaten up."

"You're standing at the Jacksonville Zoo right
now where the jaguar was taken last night. Has it shown itself to the
public?"

The reporter shook his head and pointed behind him.
"Unfortunately it hasn't. People from all over Florida has been storming
the zoo here in Jacksonville this morning wanting to get a glimpse of the rare
majestic animal but it has been hiding in its cave behind me from the public.
Officials say that it is probably scared and too weak from starvation to come
out. Since jaguars are night animals it will probably come out around
sunset."

"Too bad for all the visitors then," the
anchor said. "Have the officials said anything about what their plans are
for the creature?"

"They say they will wait and see how it responds
to humans. The starvation, the beating might have broken its trust in humans
and they don't know if it will be possible to restore its trust towards
us," the reporter replied.

"What if they can't?" The anchor asked.

I leaned forward and waited for the answer.

"Then it will be put down."

My heart stopped beating. That was literally how it
felt. Everything inside of me froze.

A discussion followed about owners and their pets and
how some had animals that were cute when young but later grew to be too much
for them and then some would release them in the Everglades. Pythons had become
a large problem because they had started breeding.

"What's the matter, Far? You look like you've
seen a ghost." William said.

"Oh my, Doctor. Are you alright?" Sarah
said. She took my cup of coffee out of my hand and put it on the table. Then
she helped me to sit in a chair. "Is it the leg?"

"What's wrong with his leg?" William asked.

"Your father hurt himself last night. Nothing
big. Nothing you should worry about," Sarah said. "Now eat your
breakfast."

She turned and looked at me. "And you need to
start breathing," she said. "Take a deep breath."

I did as I was told. My heart started pumping again. I
felt the color coming back in my cheeks. She had broken out somehow.
Aiyana
had chewed through the cage and the barbed wire. She
was beaten but no longer in his mercy. Now she was trapped again. I had to get
her out somehow. I had to plan her escape before they discovered what or who
she really was.
 

Chapter 34

The
news of the
mistreated jaguar who had taken fate into
her own hand and broken out from her captivity, travelled fast all around the
world and when I arrived in Jacksonville I could get nowhere near the entrance
to the zoo. Cars were parked on the sidewalks; people were walking everywhere
taking pictures, standing in line, swarming the main entrance.
 
I was caught in a line of cars. I sighed
deeply. I had no way of getting to
Aiyana
around this
many people. I should be lucky to even get near the cave.

I sighed deeply and drove past the zoo, away from the
people milling around, away from the long lines of cars waiting to find a
parking spot. I stopped at a gas station and filled it up. I felt desperate.
How was I going to get to her? She needed my help more than ever. I was the only
one who knew who she was and what she was during the day. She had to feel so
scared right now. Afraid that someone would see her, find her in that cave.
Scared that the other jaguars would attack her, scared about
Luyu
and where she was right now and who was taking care of
her.
Aiyana
had to feel so desolate, so alone.

I stared at some children with their mother walking
from the car to the store while the father put gas on the car. They were
pleading with her to buy them a toy.

"No," she kept saying. "Not
today."