“Stop it!” The scream intensified the throbbing in Moni’s head. No pain concerned her anymore. She reached into the back of her pants and drew her pistol. She bashed Harrison in the temple with its handle. As he staggered into the wall, Moni slipped free and bolted for Tanya.
Before Tanya realized what had happened to her backup, Moni grabbed the DCF agent by the back of her collar. She heaved her away from the girl’s door. Tanya fell on her ass. Moni aimed her gun square in the middle of the woman’s shocked face. “Back off,” Moni said without a thought about what a serious line she had just crossed. Each raindrop splattering against the windows rattled the painfully swollen recesses of her brain. She ignored it, along with the consequences of seeing this through. She didn’t give a damn about anything besides keeping Mariella out of Sneed’s clutches.
“Girl, have you lost your damn mind?” Tanya bellowed as she scooted away from the gun. Moni’s aim followed her.
“Drop it, or else we’re gonna have a problem here,” Harrison said as he drew his gun on Moni. Blood trickled down his temple from where Moni had struck him. It must take an anvil to knock him out. “I know you love that girl, but you won’t be much use to her with a bullet in your skull.”
Moni thought about taking a dive, and turning the gun on Harrison. Then she asked herself what the hell she was doing; she had already flushed away her career, and bought herself jail time by turning a gun on an officer. She had never even shot at a criminal when she had plenty of reason. If she fired that gun, she’d never see the outside of a cell, or Mariella, again.
“I’m sorry.” Moni lowered her gun and wiped a tear from her eye. “This isn’t who I am.”
Her head pulsed from her relentless headache, which made her involuntarily jerk the gun up once more. Moni flicked its aim away from Tanya, but by then Harrison had barreled halfway across the room. He wouldn’t stop. He plowed into Moni, swatted the gun from her hand and pinned her against the wall.
“Get off me!” Moni barked in his chest. The top of her head couldn’t even reach his chin. Something about being restrained like a caged dog resurrected the fight inside her. She arched her back against the wall and shoved him with both hands. She couldn’t create an inch of space. He wouldn’t even let her give Mariella a hug goodbye.
“I’m not taking any more chances with you darlin’.” She felt the baritone in Harrison’s voice resonate from his chest as he spoke. “Nina learned the hard way that you can’t be trusted.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Moni said as she squirmed for breathing room and an eventual escape route. He pushed back so hard that her spine grinded into the wall until she couldn’t utter anything besides a grunt.
While Moni struggled futilely, Tanya gathered herself up and resumed her pursuit of the eight-year-old girl. Moni heard the floorboards in the hallway creek under the DCF agent’s platform boots as she stalked toward the bedroom. She opened the door. Tanya shrieked.
“What happened to her?”
Chapter 29
Moni and Harrison ran toward the sound of Tanya shouting from inside Mariella’s room. The girl’s empty bed had been soaked by rainwater. That wasn’t all that soiled it. A pool of muddy water had settled in her sheets. Black prints from reptilian scales stained the wall between the bed and the open window. Something had pried it open and ripped a hole in the screen big enough to snatch a little girl through.
As the driving rain pelted the carpet and wall, Moni shivered with the horrendous feeling of deja vu. The room of the last murdered witness had been covered with filthy animal prints. The mutilated body hadn’t been left behind this time. They had taken the victim outside, where she would get plunged into the canal and become the main course for the bacteria’s feast.
Moni thought of Mariella’s pale, bloodless face without a neck below it. Those brown eyes would never sparkle again. Her lips, once soft pink, would never curve into a smile. Just as it had done to her parents, it would cut out her little heart and slurp away the blood.
“Mariella!” Moni screamed as she stuck her head out the window. The only answer came from the rain bombarding her face. She peered down and saw chunks torn out of her lawn from the base of the window to the canal. Along the way, she spotted one of Mariella’s pink socks.
“I’m coming baby!” Moni hollered. She punched out the damaged screen, and hoisted herself through the window. Her braids lashed through the soaked grass as she rolled across her back and onto her feet. “Hold on! I’m not letting you go!”
She ignored the DCF agent’s protests as she hustled through tall waterlogged grass with her bare feet. When she reached the canal, she looked east toward the lagoon. The gray water rippled violently from a cascade of raindrops. Moni spotted a purple nightgown. She also saw what was underneath it-an armory of scales splitting the water before it. A rope fastened Mariella to the creature’s back as it whisked her down the canal. Thank God, the girl still had a head on her shoulders. The monster apparently intended on saving the bloody crescendo for its master.
Her hands felt empty after carrying a gun a minute ago, but she didn’t have time for going back and strapping up. Even if ten starving gators were in that canal, it wouldn’t have delayed her for a second. She leapt into the water. The creature immediately swung around and faced her. A lump shot up Moni’s throat when the gator bared its endless rows of teeth. She dove underwater and circled around it. Her hands combed through the mud and leaves along the bottom. She found a rock. Moni surfaced nose to snout with the gator. Its purple eyes illuminated the raindrops and reflected off the narrow stretch of water between her and the beast. The gator surged toward her with such might, that it could have toppled an oak tree. Moni swung the rock. It bashed the gator across its jaw. That allowed her to swim around the possessed reptile’s business end and latch onto Mariella.
The girl slowly turned her head and cast her eyes upon her last hope for survival. Mariella didn’t have a mark on her. She hadn’t resisted joining her parents in the lagoon. Maybe that’s what she wanted, Moni thought. While that’s a natural reaction for a child who has lost her parents, it made Moni feel so inadequate, like the inescapable bond she had established between her and Mariella meant nothing. No, of course it meant the world to that child, Moni thought. That bond couldn’t grow stronger unless she brought her home.
Moni grabbed the rope across Mariella’s chest. It felt slimy. The rope slipped off the girl and coiled around Moni’s wrist. Then the other side of the rope rose out of the water to reveal what had really bound her to the gator-a snake with fangs dripping poison, which had a purple glow like that of a black light. The snake lashed its diamond-shaped head at Moni’s trapped arm. She grabbed her extra large shirt with her other hand and stretched it out over the snake’s target. Its fangs ripped through the cloth, but found nothing behind it and its head bounced off. Moni doubted the same trick would work twice. So she took advantage of the snake’s momentary confusion and pinched its jaw shut between her thumb and forefinger. As she squeezed its scaly head, the snake let her some slack and Moni freed her wrist. She pulled Mariella loose and hoisted her over her shoulder. The girl’s trembling arms clung around Moni’s neck. Her feet started sinking into the submerged muck while the water chilled her bones. She struggled to endure the sting of the wound on her hand from the prior night’s accident, as she supported the weight of the girl. Ignoring every ache, Moni rejoiced in the most magical embrace of her life.
It wouldn’t count unless they both made it ashore alive.