Page 51 of Wicked Hungry

He shrugs. “A little pain, but feels good, too. Makes me hungry.”

“Is it the pills?”

He shrugs. “Maybe las vitaminas, they help. But you know what? Jaguar has always been in my family. It is in my blood. Like the wolf in you. The hunger. Remember when you started eating meat? How you got so hungry?”

“Yeah,” I say. “And now that I think about it, I used to always get hungrier, like once a month.”

“Not ‘like once a month,’” Enrique says. “Exactly once on month...on the nights of the full moon.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.”

“There is no greater hunger than the hunger of the wolf.”

“What did you want to show me?” I ask.

“Something my great grandmother gave me, when I was very little,” he says, pointing to his closet. I follow him the

re. The smell is really strong in the room and I want to pump up my chest and tighten my fists and howl.

“You don’t like the cat smell. Wolf not like jaguar, maybe.”

“You’re my friend, Enrique.” But yeah, I don’t like the smell. “What’s in the closet?” I ask.

He pulls out a black ebony statue of a panther. No, it’s a jaguar. I think.

“My abuelita gave this to me. She says the jaguar will protect me. She says if my family is in danger the jaguar will glow at night. Now, at night, the jaguar glows. It even glows during the day.”

“I don’t see it glowing,” I say.

Enrique pulls the curtains and turns off the light. A faint glow fills the room. Who would have thought something so black could glow so brightly? And its eyes aren’t black, but golden; they twinkle in the dim light.

“What does all this mean?”

Enrique shrugs. “Something is happening. This is just a warning. I need to ask my great grandmother, like I said.”

“Is it a weapon?” I ask. “The jaguar?”

“I’m not sure. I think it helps keep me safe, keep the house safe.”

“Safe from what?” I ask.

He shrugs. “From wolves like you? I don’t know, but I think there’s more out there.”

“Like Karen?”

“I don’t know about Karen. You know her better than me.”

That’s certainly true. But that doesn’t mean I understand her, does it?

“Now,” Enrique says, “we go to this Natural Magic. I have directions from the computer.”

“From the computer? I thought we were walking.”

“Yes, but it’s like a mile away. We can run, or walk, does not matter to me.”

Outside the air is cold. We walk together, side by side. Enrique has taken the figurine along. The wind blows around us; it’s getting colder, and, if possible, even cloudier. I pull my windbreaker tighter around my shoulders. Something about this wind doesn’t seem right. To be honest, nothing feels right. Maybe Enrique feels the same, because his fingers touch my shoulder, warning me just as someone walks around the corner.

It’s a big guy with his hair spiked up and dyed black, a spiky dog collar around his neck, and a bunch of piercings—his nose, his lip, his ear. In one hand he holds a paper bag. In the other is a leash, a big metal chain that ends at one full-sized pit bull held by a choke chain. He jerks the chain and stops.