Leopard's Scar (A Leopard Novel)

1

Meiling Chang stared in horror at the dead bodies in the open grave, dumped as if they were so much garbage. Five women. One was her cousin, her last relative on earth. She'd been too late tracking her. By how long? By the look of her, Libby had endured far too much before her life had been ended.

Meiling crouched at the edge of the mass grave, ignoring the black swarms of flies, beetles and maggots that fed in abundance on the bodies. Ants teemed over them. Overhead, large birds circled, some already sitting in the trees, beady eyes staring at the bodies, all too ready to pick them clean. The jungle was prepared to take care of business.

She wanted to scream in outrage until her vocal cords were shredded. Inside, where no one would ever hear or know, that was exactly what she did. She remained silent and small, huddled there in the shadows where it would take extraordinary vision for anyone to see her.

Her fists clenched helplessly on her thighs. She didn't move them, even when she wanted to pound them. Feel pain. Make it real. Drive the pain deep and brand it forever in her bones the way it was in her heart and soul. She didn't dare move. She was surrounded by the enemy. There were thirty of them and one of her.

She was so silly. Stupid. Just say it. She was a misfit. She didn't belong. Not anywhere. She had heard it from birth, and this proved it. She should be in that grave, not Libby, not her beautiful cousin. Libby was a golden swan. Tall and elegant. She moved like a summer breeze. Her hair was a golden waterfall of sleek silk. She could talk to anyone and charm them instantly. How could her life end by being thrown into a pit in the middle of the jungle? It made no sense. None of this made any sense. Why hadn't Libby listened to her just one time?

Grief stabbed at her. Along with it came the deep-down need for vengeance. She burned with terrible emotion. No matter how hard she tried to push it away, grief stabbed at her like ice picks, demanding retaliation. She had one pistol. She wasn't certain the damn thing actually worked. Thirty against one. She didn't even have thirty bullets.

She couldn't just go away and leave the other women in those dirty little huts she'd discovered, not now that she knew what was happening to them. But what could she do? She waited, trying not to breathe in the smell of rotting flesh and decay until the men patrolling around the third hut went away. When they did, she eased back into the foliage. Giant green leaves resembling elephant ears covered her body. She crawled through the thick stems, wincing as the prickly stalks stuck in her skin.

The huts were a good distance from one another. The youngest girls were kept in filthy conditions in a makeshift, nearly see-through hovel that appeared to have been hastily thrown up at the last minute to shelter them. It was mostly made up of leftover boards from the other two cabins built for the young women. One held four women. They appeared to be in their early twenties. The second cabin, the one Libby had most likely occupied, held five women or girls in it. All were chained to beds and appeared to be drugged. They were anywhere from twenty to sixteen years old.

The huts were each about a mile apart, most likely so the women knew nothing about the others. They were always kept isolated, drugged and chained. There was no hope of escape from their dreadful situation. Most of them accepted their fate. A few, like Libby, fought it and eventually died or were killed by the men who had taken them. They were a ragged lot, and no one knew where they were. The moment someone came looking, either they were moved, or they were killed and buried in a mass grave no one would find. Either way, those making their money off them would never be caught or punished.

Meiling had seen it happen so many times. In her land, in her neighboring land, the power had always shifted to the corrupt males, those willing to commit violence in order to get their way. She moved to a vantage point above the first hut, where the twenty-year-old women were kept. If she could somehow manage to free them first and enlist their aid, she might have a chance to free the youngest ones in the third hut before tackling the teens.

She wiped the beads of sweat from her face. The sweat was trickling down her throat into the valley between her breasts, which was quite a feat since she was extremely slender. She wanted to laugh, but she knew that was hysteria and she refused to give in to it. The heat, the insects and losing Libby had created a kind of surreal effect she was trying to stave off.

It took her a good half hour to work up th...