The night draped itself heavy and hot over Port of Spain, smelling of diesel fumes and the faint, sweet decay of tropical flowers. Zariah, a flicker of tight ocelot print against the gloom, vaulted the low stone wall separating the manicured lawn of Queen’s Royal College from the shadowed sprawl of the old band house. The structure was a corrugated iron skeleton, long abandoned by steelpan orchestras, now a quiet cancer near the majestic Victorian architecture.

Her bare feet, the soles tough and dark as cured leather from years of impact, settled soundlessly onto the damp earth. The ground here was littered with rusted bottle caps and coarse, sharp gravel. She moved low, hugging the shadow line where the streetlights failed to penetrate.

The intelligence from the Belmont parlor rats proved accurate. A low, guttural murmur spilled from the broken windows of the shack, punctuated by the rhythmic *clack-thump* of something heavy being shifted inside.
Two silhouettes moved within the single large room, They were moving crates. Illicit cargo, she guessed, judging by the furtive movements and the hour. They needed a distraction, a chaos agent.

She slipped around the corner and jumped herself through the window frame.
A massive hand clamped down over her mouth, smelling faintly of stale tobacco and machine oil. An arm, thick as a mahogany branch, locked across her chest, hauling her back against a body that felt like solid rock.

"Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in," a gravelly voice rumbled close to her ear.

TIGER KITTEN- Test of a trini teen heroine-02:http://memberslogin.hipcomix.com/gallery3/index.php/Mitru/Tiger-Kitten/TESTS-OF-A-TRINI-TEEN-HEROINE



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