Diaries of an Urban Panther by Amanda Arista

mine under her kitchen table, I couldn’t concentrate. All I remembered from the guru’s little pep talk was that this was going to happen and Chaz had been wrong about something.
    Iris followed us into the little cage that was about the size of my bathroom and offered me the sleeping draft in a small brown coffee mug. She had explained, very matter-of-factly, that I was not the first who had spent the night in the cage. She knew what she was doing and I needed to just drink it and stop with the questions.
    “Just drink it and you’ll sleep and not remember a thing,” she said as if she had said it a thousand times before. “Sometimes the first time hurts because you’re fighting it. You can’t fight if you’re asleep.”
    I nodded and took the old mug from the woman. She was a walking oxymoron. On the outside, she was this small white-haired old lady with wrinkles and a bun, but when she opened her mouth, she was bossy and just a little sassy. Most of all, she was wise; she reeked with it. I knew the second we shook hands that if all this was real, this was where I needed to be. Oh yeah, did I mention that she said she was a lioness, as in African Safari Lioness?
    She shuffled out of the cage in her camel-colored SAS shoes and walked around the outside of the enclosure, leaving Chaz and I in the little cage.
    “What if I was right all along and you really are just two complete nut cases and are planning on sacrificing me to some moon god?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
    “Just think of the material for all that writing you do,” he joked.
    “Ha, jokes. Just what I need.”
    Chaz rested his hands on his thighs. “Got another one for you.”
    “What?”
    “When people ask you what you did for Halloween, you can say you went complete wild.”
    I laughed hard once. “Take you the entire trip to think that one up?”
    He smiled up at me and watched steadily. It made my stomach flip over on itself.
    “Are you going to stay?” I asked in a high, tight voice, suddenly nervous.
    He nodded. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
    I looked down at the liquid in the little cup. It looked like milky tea.
    “Bottoms up?” I said with a nervous smile.
    Chaz watched as I drank the whole thing. When I was finished, he took the cup and set it aside by the entrance.
    Fire ran down into my stomach and then warm little tendrils curled through my whole body. Like tequila, but chalky.
    “Wow, stuff’s quick.” I lay down in the soft hay, my head already fuzzy and my body so warm I wouldn’t need a blanket to sleep.
    Chaz lay down next to me, mirroring my position. He reached out and brushed a curl from my eyes and tweaked my chin.
    “Will you still be my stalker if it turns out I’m, like, a warthog or something?” I asked.
    He chuckled and squeezed my hand that now seemed so far away from my body as my eyelids grew heavier.
    “Yeah. I’ll even build you a trough.”
    “Funny,” I whispered.
    It became hard not to close my eyes. I took one last look at Chaz and closed my eyes, still seeing his face behind my lids, the glint of his golden hair in the fading light.
    “Hey,” I whispered as I snuggled into the warm hay.
    “What?” I heard him ask from far away.
    “Do you think they have a Starbucks in Waxahachie?”
    I fell asleep to his laugher as it danced around my brain and into my wild dreams.
    O nce, the lioness who ruled the pride had three daughters. They were always together and promised to rule the pride together one day. They planned to marry brothers and live in one big den together until their daughters took the pride from them. They were stronger and faster than the other cubs. They were fierce in the hunt. They helped their mother protect the pride that would one day be theirs.
    Until one day, a hyena cub wandered wounded into the pack. The youngest of the sisters wanted to care for him until he was healed but their mother said “no,” he wasn’t one of their kind and he needed to go to his