The odds of that occurring grew longer when a second snake poked its head out from between the scales on the gator’s back. Within seconds, it extended three feet long. It didn’t hiss, but it made its intensions plenty clear when it flashed its fangs at Moni. She released the first snake, and treaded backwards through the clumpy water. Turning her shoulder, Moni kept Mariella as far away from the mutant as possible. She hadn’t gone far enough.
The gator thrashed around. It opened its gaping mouth, revealing a purple tongue. It smacked her with a stench straight from an exposed maggoty grave. With their purple forked tongues flicking from their mouths, the twin snakes gyrated hypnotically on the gator’s back. They weren’t merely on the gator. They were a seamless melding of several animals into one. The mutant stalked toward Moni until her back pressed up against the steep embankment of the canal. Rainwater poured down the slope and over her back; her spine tingled as three pairs of purple eyes shined above mouths that craved a taste of the iron in her blood. Most of all, they thirsted for Mariella.
Moni’s ears rung. Blood splattered across her face. The gator reared its head high and splashed it down as it writhed from the bullet lodged into its back. Harrison fired the next one into the beast’s neck. It dove underwater for shelter.
Before Moni could thank him, Mariella flew right off her back. Tanya carried her under one arm as if she were a loaf of bread. Brushing off Harrison’s extended hand, Moni dug her fingers into the grass at the canal’s edge and vaulted out of the water.
“Where do you think you’re going with her?” Moni shouted at Tanya as she ran the woman down. Even after the exhausting scuffle in the canal, Moni easily overtook the hyperventilating DCF agent and seized her fatty arm. Her nails stabbed Tanya’s loose flesh like the prongs of a fork into a leg of lamb.
“Let go!” Tanya yelled. She clutched the girl against the small mountains of her bosom. “You’re a horrible parent. I’m not letting you get her killed.”
“Get her killed? I’m the only reason she’s alive! Who else is gonna save her from monsters like that? You think that’s the only time I’ve held one off?”
“You did a fine job saving the girl-for the moment. But I bailed out both of you,” Harrison said as he paced across the backyard of Moni’s neighbor. Holding his gun at ready, he had it in a more suitable position to turn on Moni rather than toward the canal. “Now I’ve got to save you from doing something stupid. Let the girl go. I promise, I’ll protect her.”
Moni didn’t doubt that Harrison possessed more physical strength and a more reliable trigger finger for confronting the freaks that hunted Mariella. She didn’t doubt his sincerity either, but she couldn’t see Harrison risking his life like Moni had with her blind leap into the canal. After all, he had followed right along with Sneed’s plan of sacrificing Mariella’s mental health without any guarantee it would halt the killings.
“You don’t understand how special this child is,” Moni said as she stared at Mariella’s longing eyes. If Tanya separated them, she wouldn’t survive another attack, which would come before long. Moni faced Harrison. “Until you really know her and love her, you can’t protect her. Are you ready to die for this child?”
Jutting out his jaw and biting his bottom lip, Harrison didn’t answer. That supplied Moni with the response she expected. Mariella reached out for her. Moni took her hands, but Tanya wouldn’t release the girl.
“You don’t have custody of her anymore,” Tanya said as she clasped her hands around Mariella’s waist. “She’s property of the state and I’ve de… Agh!”
Tanya fell on her belly in the grass. A snake had its fangs hooked into her ankle. It dragged her toward the canal like it was the pulley on a tow truck. Tanya’s hands slipped from Mariella’s waist to her knees and down her calves. Moni could reach out and catch Tanya’s hands, but that would mean releasing Mariella-the monster’s real target. She couldn’t risk losing her again. Tanya ripped off Mariella’s remaining sock as she lost her grip and slid down the wet grass into the canal. Harrison dove for her hands like a wide receiver stretching for a ball. He caught one of them.
“It bit me!” Tanya cried as her neck bent awkwardly against the edge of the canal. “It burns! Jesus, it burns!”
Harrison posted his legs wide and pulled Tanya up by the hand. Then the rest of the snake’s melded body surfaced. The gator chomped down on the woman’s extended arm. The bone splintered with a crunch. Tanya howled in agony one final time as Harrison released the mangled arm before the gator could drag him under with her.
He scooted across the grass away from the water with his limbs flailing, as if the hulking man was a boiling lobster. Harrison had witnessed shootings and fatal car wrecks, but Moni had never seen his eyes grow so wide or his skin go so pale. The huge hands, which only seconds ago held another living person, trembled uncontrollably.
With Mariella balanced on one hip, Moni grabbed Harrison underneath the arm. She couldn’t lift him, but getting the momentum started brought him on his feet.
“It still hasn’t gotten who it’s after,” Moni told him. Mariella pressed her nose against the back of her neck. She would never let them extinguish those sweet breaths from her flute-like windpipe. “We gotta go.”
“I’ll cover you,” said Harrison, who had a glassy glaze over his eyes as if he couldn’t quite fathom the situation.
Nevertheless, he trained his gun on the canal while Moni whisked Mariella between the houses to her driveway. She immediately saw the huge flaw in her plan. Harrison had parked his patrol car behind Moni’s Ford Taurus. She had no more than three inches to maneuver.
“If only these were bumper cars,” Moni told the girl as she squeezed between the cars and heaved open her trunk. She hoisted out a shotgun and loaded it. Moni opened the back door and nearly tossed Mariella in. But the girl stuck on her like a tight pair of jeans. If she left Mariella alone in the car, someone or something could come for her.
“Remember how you rode that horse?” she asked. Mariella nodded. “Well, saddle up on me.”
Mariella strapped onto the officer’s back as she charged into her backyard. Aiming the shotgun with both hands, Moni vowed that she wouldn’t hesitate again. The pop of a gunshot sent such jolts up her feet that she nearly slipped. She couldn’t see where it had come from through the torrential downpour. Halting for a moment, Moni heard screaming from her neighbor’s house. She peered through the window and spied old Mrs. McCray in her hair rollers with her wrinkly face aghast. The woman started punching numbers into her cell phone. It didn’t take Moni any guesses to figure out who she called.
The last thing I need is a swarm of blue on my home. I know it’s coming, but not when Mariella’s here. They still have their orders from Sneed.
Sprinting across the drenched grass undaunted despite the second gunshot and a massive splash in the water, she found Harrison backed up against the side of her wooden deck, which hung about three feet above him. He trained his gun on a spot on the canal that had been trampled by gator tracks.
“The damn thing won’t stay down,” he said. He eyed her shotgun as if she didn’t merit wielding such a weapon while he got a pea-shooter. “That’ll sure pack a wallop. Let’s both aim for the brain-all three of ‘em.”
“I need your keys.” Moni pointed at the keychain dangling from his belt. “You blocked me in.”
“And you’re counting on me staying here and becoming gator chow while you escape with the girl that Sneed ordered me after?” Harrison sounded much more alert than a minute ago. Firing a few rounds into a reptile and then seeing it spring back alive tends to generate some adrenaline. “I won’t be your human shield like Nina was.”
So much for him covering their escape, Moni thought. With a scowl on her dark eyelashes and lips, Mariella flung her hand out for a slap on Harrison’s shoulder. Moni pulled the girl away before she made contact. That didn’t surprise her and she couldn’t blame her. A man who had sworn to protect the innocent had just broken his promise.