“The girl doesn’t belong with you,” the Lagoon Watcher said. A breath that stank like rotted squid wafted into Moni’s nose. “It’s inside her, but it’s not my fault. She’s a victim of the money-grubbing agri-processors and politicians that started this mess. Forces beyond nature are making it a hell of a lot worse. I’ll try my best to fix her. If you don’t leave her with me, you’ll lose the girl.”
“I ain’t leaving my baby with you, you pervert!” Moni hollered as she clawed her nails at his face. They nicked his flesh, but he caught her wrists. He bent them backwards. Her joints couldn’t take any more.
“My love for the lagoon is no perversion. There’s nothing wrong with caring about nature.”
“There is if you care about nature more than you do about human life.”
Moni stomped on his foot and squirmed out of his grip. She bounced off the wall, and raced for Mariella. The Lagoon Watcher’s gloved hands pinched her under her arms and hoisted her up. Moni’s head bonked off the underside of the floorboard. She saw stars that didn’t belong in such a dark place. When he let her go, Moni collapsed on the pavement. The Lagoon Watcher scooted around her with his sights on Mariella. Moni kicked him in the shin. He growled and hurled his body on top of hers, squishing her back against the unforgiving ground. Moni wrapped her legs around his body like she had learned in jiu-jitsu training, but her hands weren’t strong enough to control his fists. He blasted his knuckles into the side of her neck. Moni wrenched her neck in pain as its tendons contracted. The next blow hammered her on the jaw and even the slightest move of her mouth caused her agony. Even worse, a sticky liquid oozed from the Lagoon Watcher’s head onto Moni’s face. She couldn’t see it, but she remembered how the infected snakes had purple venom dripping from their fangs. Moni swatted the goo off her forehead. She rocked her head from side to side as she tried to avoid getting infected. A steady stream of it kept pouring down on her. She felt the Lagoon Watcher rear back and throw another punch. This time she caught his arm in both hands and clamped it down against her chest. Moni slinked one leg over the trapped arm and pressed her opposite leg atop the man’s head. She bent one leg, locked her ankle behind her knee and pulled down on his head with both hands. That brought the Lagoon Watcher right into her triangle choke. Her flexing thighs cut off the blood flow to his brain before he could utter a word. Like a novice, he pushed against her legs, which only increased the pressure on his neck. In less than a minute, his arms went limp and he passed out.
Moni would have loved nothing more than to keep the choke locked on until the Lagoon Watcher went brain dead, but she couldn’t let Mariella worry for a second longer. She tossed the man’s dead-weight body to the side, scooped up her flashlight and pistol and searched for the girl. She hadn’t left the corner the whole time. Since she couldn’t have seen anything, the girl couldn’t have known how close Moni had come to meeting her end. She would have heard her die. Moni thanked God the girl didn’t have to witness another parent killed.
“You can relax now, baby,” Moni said. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
As she plodded toward the frightened little girl, Moni remembered when she had found Mariella among the mangroves on that blood-soaked day. This time, the girl quivered with fear whereas before she appeared more nervous and shy. Moni hadn’t recognized pure terror in the girl’s eyes until that moment. Yet, with every step closer she took, the chains of dread strewn across Mariella’s face loosened. Finally, her arms reached out. Moni stepped into them. She embraced the girl with all her heart as they stood in the place that might have been a grave for both of them. Mariella tied herself around Moni’s neck like a sweater. She reluctantly untied the girl and rolled up her sleeves. Despite the blood on her clothes, Mariella didn’t have a scratch on her. She better keep it that way. They still had the Lagoon Watcher underneath there with them, but not for long.
Holding the flashlight together with Mariella, she found her pistol and scooped it up. She focused the beam on the man’s sun-beaten head as he lay face down. Moni pointed her pistol along the same line. She wrapped her finger around the trigger.
The bastard deserved it more than anyone, she thought. He had claimed so many lives with his deranged experiment on the lagoon. He had taken everything from Mariella, including her innocence and joy. This man had stalked her and kidnapped her. He had murdered people. The Lagoon Watcher would get the death penalty anyway, so she might as well expedite the process and insure that he doesn’t catch a lucky break in court.
She took a step closer and steadied her aim.
He’s unconscious. This man is no longer a threat. What the hell am I doing?
Moni had never shot a person. She had never felt comfortable making a split-second judgment of whether someone should live or die. The Lagoon Watcher could easily be arrested without any more violence. She would sleep a whole lot better, as would Mariella, if he had a bullet rip through his spinal column. Moni took a deep breath. Mariella squeezed her hand as if she were pleading for an ice cream cone.
“Anybody in here?” Sneed hollered from the opening in the wooden skirt. He nearly toppled over as he squatted down with his hefty gut dragging past his knees. His eyes went wide. “Holy crap! That’s him!” Sneed tried arching his back and ducking under the trailer, but his tank-like frame couldn’t handle anything close to a limbo. “Connors! Get over here and arrest that man.”
Moni sighed as her chance to end the Lagoon Watcher’s pathetic existence passed her by. When she traded her pistol for a pair of handcuffs, she realized that she could at least make the most out of her first big arrest.
“You can tell Connors to hold off,” Moni told Sneed. “I’ve got this one.”
She briefly turned the flashlight on Mariella and herself. Sneed looked like a toddler who couldn’t believe he had just shit his pants.
Moni had never been so relieved at the sight of blood all over her face when she looked in the mirror. It sure beat purple bacteria juice.
The blood wasn’t hers. When she wiped it off with a damp towel, she saw a black welt on her cheek, but no cuts. The Lagoon Watcher hadn’t infected her. He bled on her from the gash on his forehead. All of a sudden, Moni felt like bathing in bleach. Mariella would need a bath as well, because the man had bled all over her arms.
With Mariella safely in the SUV with a clean shirt, Moni marched up to the patrol car that held the Lagoon Watcher. The man had come to and immediately started babbling nonsense. The large bandage on his head didn’t make him look any saner.
When he saw Moni, he pressed both hands on the glass and started shouting. She couldn’t understand him through the thick window, but his lips formed the word “girl” several times.
“He said the little girl sliced open his forehead,” Sneed said as he moseyed up behind Moni. His eyes trained on the suspect. “And I’m sure she beheaded all those people too. What a deranged individual. You’re damn lucky you found him when you did.”
Calling her lucky didn’t substitute for congratulating her on formulating and executing a perfectly laid trap, but she’d take anything she could get.