Hunters of Chaos (16 page)

As if she could read my mind, Ms. Benitez reached out and touched my cheek, quieting my thoughts. “Ana, this is your destiny. Anubis is not as strong as the four of you are together. Can't you feel how strong you are? He was afraid of you.”

Huh,
I thought.
She's right.
I
had
felt strong in my jaguar body. Stronger than I'd ever felt before. As for Anubis, he was supposedly the big bad god, but he's the one who had run away from us. I recalled the nervous glint in his eyes when he spied us behind the destroyed bench, and I smiled. “Maybe we
can
beat him.”

“Yes,” Ms. Benitez said with a nod that seemed to take effort. “But don't underestimate him. Now that the Chaos Spirits have been released, he will use them to wreak havoc and dole out death and destruction.”

Her voice was getting weaker. She pulled me closer to her and whispered, “Have faith in your powers.” Then her eyes drifted closed and she went limp.

Doli shot to her feet. “Look! There's Jason!” she said, pointing to the walking path just beyond the gate, which led to the museum.
What is he doing here?
I wondered. I thought he hadn't wanted to be anywhere near the museum tonight. Had his mother made him come after all?

Doli started jumping up and down and waving her arms. “Jason!” she called. “Here! Over here! We need you!”

Jason turned to us and jogged over to the gate. “Hey, guys,” he said. “What's going—” When he saw the rest of us, dirty and out of breath, and Ms. Benitez lying unconscious on the ground, he abruptly stopped talking and his eyes widened. “I'll go call for help!”

I had no trouble believing that Chaos Spirits were on the loose, because the next several minutes were definitely chaotic. Jason had called the paramedics, but before they got there, the crowd of people who'd been at the exhibit started streaming out of the campus, heading home. When some of them stopped to ask if everything was all right, we assured them that help was on the way, but the Navajo woman I'd met earlier, whose name was Aponi, stayed with us until the ambulance arrived, cradling Ms. Benitez in her arms and praying softly over her in Navajo. After what felt like hours but was really only minutes, the ambulance arrived, flashing its red and white lights. The EMTs checked Ms. Benitez's vitals then lifted her onto a gurney and into the ambulance, the sirens wailing as they sped to a nearby hospital. Firemen swarmed the museum to assess the damage to the building. And more EMTs examined the four of us at the scene.

Doli didn't have a scratch on her, so the EMTs let her go quickly. She went over to Aponi to thank her for sticking around and helping. I wasn't quite so lucky. My foot was bleeding—I guess from where the glass had torn into my paw when I jumped through the window. But the wound wasn't deep. Wanting more than anything to go home, I tried telling the EMTs that it was nothing, just a minor scrape. But they insisted on checking me over and bandaging me up.

“You think they can put a bandage on my brain?” Shani said quietly after the EMTs finished with us and moved on to Lin. “That's pretty much the only way I'll ever get over the fact that half an hour ago I turned into a real-life Simba. Or wait . . . Nala was the girl in
The Lion King,
right? Yeah, I was Nala!”

“Shhh . . . ,” I said. “Lower your voice. He'll hear you.” I nodded toward the EMT who was taking Lin's pulse. He told her repeatedly to stay still, but she kept staring at her hands, turning them back and forth, and saying, “Do I look a little . . . orange to you?”

Shani shook her head. “Who cares if he hears me? It's not like he would believe me anyway. I'm not sure
I
believe me. And I
saw
all of us turn into cats I've only ever seen on Animal Planet.”

I knew I should have been a basket case too. I should have told the EMTs to cart me off to the nearest loony bin. That was clearly how Lin and Shani were feeling. But I felt strangely calm. I may not have understood what had happened to us, but after my conversation with Ms. Benitez, everything was starting to make a weird kind of sense.

It was no coincidence that Aunt Teppy had given me a jaguar necklace and Doli's parents had given her one with a puma on it. It wasn't dumb luck that I'd been placed in the same dorm as Doli, Shani, and Lin. The dreams I'd had since before I even got to Temple about the four of us as cats in the jungle . . . maybe Ixchel had caused those, to prepare me for what was to come. The truth was, we'd been changing ever since that first night in the museum basement. It was only after we touched the glowing orb that my senses started working overtime. That was also the night I took a swipe at Nicole—the way an angry cat would. For all I knew, Ms. Benitez was behind all of us ending up at Temple in the first place—so that we would all be here when we were needed.

I'd wasted so much time in the beginning wondering if I belonged at Temple Academy. Now that I knew about the mission, I felt that I not only fit in here, but I was destined to be here.

“How can you be so chill?” Shani asked, pushing her tattooed hand through her hair. “Aren't you freaked at all?”

I smiled evenly, glancing at Doli, then at Lin, and back to Shani. “I am,” I said. “Totally. But at least we're in this together. And I have it on good authority that together we're not to be messed with.”

The panic in her eyes faded, and a rebellious smile that matched her pierced ears and blue hair spread over her face. “Yeah, all right. When you put it that way . . .”

Just then Jason came running up.

“Jason!” Lin said, noticing him first. “You came back.” For the first time that day, Lin's face lit up. She quickly smoothed her hair down with her hand. “Where did you run off to?”

“Sorry,” he said to all of us, scooting around the EMT who was cleaning a small cut on Lin's leg. “After I called for the ambulance, I had to go to the museum with my mom to help lock up once the police left. It's a total wreck inside! What happened in there, anyway?”

Lin flashed a look at us then turned back to Jason. “It's a long story. I hurt my arm, but I think I'll recover. It's so sweet of you to check on me, though.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem,” Jason interrupted, shifting on his feet kind of uncomfortably. “I'm glad you're okay.” He chucked her on her arm the way you would a teammate.

Lin stopped smiling abruptly, but Jason didn't seem to notice. He hurried over to the bench and took a seat beside me. He pulled me into a quick hug and then leaned back, resting his hands on my shoulders. “I was so worried about you,” he said. He looked down at my foot, noticing the small bandage. “Are you all right?”

I glanced at Lin and saw something I'd never seen on her face before: disappointment. She may not have been bleeding, but she was definitely hurt. And there was no bandage for the way she must have felt when Jason lifted a hand to tuck my hair behind my ear.

“Get off me. I'm fine,” she snapped at the EMT, who had been checking her other leg for cuts. She slapped his hand away and announced, “I'm going back to my room,” then stomped off toward the dorm without saying good-bye to any of us.

I felt a bunch of mingled emotions as I watched her leave. We'd just been through so much together. We shared a destiny—and a pretty huge secret that only four of us knew about. Maybe we weren't best friends, but we were something more than that now. She was my fellow Wildcat, and I hated seeing her look so heartbroken.

But at the same time, when I looked into Jason's beautiful eyes, I couldn't help feeling over-the-moon happy that he seemed to like me. I really liked him too, so why should I feel bad about that?

“Argh,” Shani groaned, standing up. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd better go check on her. Make sure she doesn't kick any puppies on her way home. See you back at the dorm, Ana?”

I nodded. “I'll be right behind you.”

“Take your time,” she said, winking before she walked off after Lin.

T
HAT NIGHT WHEN I'D GOTTEN
back to the room, I'd wanted to go over every detail of the night with the only people I
could
talk to about it: my new roommates. But Shani and Doli had both been so exhausted that they'd just wanted to go to sleep. I relented and climbed into my sleeping bag on the floor, wondering how I'd ever sleep again with so much going on in my head. But apparently fighting off rogue demon gods and shape-shifting into a giant cat really takes it out of you. Nodding off was easier than I'd thought it would be.

The next morning I asked if we should invite Lin to the dining hall with us for breakfast, but Shani shook her head. “I think we ought to give her a little time to herself. She was kind of upset last night—and not about the monster stuff.” She gave me a pointed look.

“Right,” I said with a sigh.
Jason.
“I'll go talk to her later and make sure she's okay.”

We got dressed and headed to the dining hall for a breakfast of eggs Florentine and
crespelle
, which were Italian-style crepes. I pushed the food around on my plate, too preoccupied with everything that had happened the night before to eat. I couldn't stop worrying about what the fallout would be. How would the school possibly explain the damage to the museum, and what had happened to Ms. Benitez? The four of us had somehow gotten away from the scene without being asked any questions, but I figured they must be coming. And I had no idea what we'd say. I had a feeling that,
We turned into wildcats and fought off the Egyptian god of death,
would land us in permanent detention, if not the nearest asylum.

Jason texted me while we were at breakfast. According to his mom, our teacher was still unconscious in the hospital, but that's all she would say. “I wish we knew how Ms. Benitez was doing,” I said, after giving my friends the news.

“Me too,” said Doli. “She looked pretty messed up last night. But she'll be fine . . . right?”

“I hope so,” said Shani. “Otherwise, we all might end up in the slammer.”

I jerked my head back. “What do you mean? Why would we get in trouble for what happened to her?”

Shani leaned toward me and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Think about it. A teacher is hurt on campus and the four of us were the only ones nearby. We were also the last students in the building when the museum was wrecked. The only other witness to what really happened is unconscious and might not recover. Put all that together, and it looks pretty bad for us.”

I pushed my plate of food away, my appetite completely ruined.

“Oh, God, you're right,” Doli said, frowning. “It's not like we can tell people what really happened.”

“To be honest though,” I murmured, glancing around to make sure no one was listening, “I'm dying to tell someone! Aren't you? Turning into a jaguar was scary, but incredible. I remember when I learned how to ride a bike—I went around telling everybody. Now I find out I can do something infinitely cooler, and I can't tell a soul?”

Shani shot me a skeptical look. “Who would you tell?” she asked.

Jason,
I thought immediately. But I knew that was impossible.
Or my aunt Teppy and my uncle Mec.
I actually really wished I could talk to them about what was going on. . . . If only they would respond to my e-mails or Skype invitations.

“I don't know,” I said out loud, forcing a piece of
crespelle
into my mouth.

“Anyway,” Doli said in a sharp voice, “you can't. Not unless you want to be shipped off to a funny farm, that is. Navajo folklore is full of stories about shape-shifters, but I'm not even sure the people on the reservation would believe me. Besides, we don't really know enough about our powers yet. I felt amazing as a puma. But I also felt . . . out of control.”

“Me too,” Shani said. “Until we can figure out what the deal is, I vote we keep a lid on it.”

I was disappointed, but I knew what they said made sense. “All right, fine. I'll keep my mouth shut,” I said. “What should we do if someone asks us how we ended up outside with Ms. Benitez, though?”

Shani grunted. “The only thing we can do: claim that we have total amnesia and don't remember a thing. Deny, deny, deny.”

It was as good a plan as any. But I hoped it wouldn't come to that.

During my next two classes all anyone could talk about was the damage to the museum and the fact that Dr. Logan had gone missing. “He didn't even show up to the exhibition,” Jessica complained. “What's up with that?”

I felt like any second she would turn to me and ask, “And where were
you
?” But she never did.

All day I waited for the other shoe to drop. As morning turned into afternoon and nothing happened, I almost started to feel like it had been silly of me to be so on edge. There was no other shoe. But then during biology class, a voice sounded over the loudspeaker, summoning me to the principal's office.