Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3) (8 page)

If he opens his mouth and gets any piece of me between those massive hinged jaws with five thousand tons of biting torque, I’m severely fucked! If he gets a good grip on me, he’ll go into his death-roll, dragging me under the water while spinning over and over, disorienting me until I either bleed out or drown. Son of bitch can also hold his breath for two hours if he’d like, so either way, if he gets me under the water, I don’t have a fucking chance of surviving.

Farrington reaching the boat is the last thing I see before the alligator flips over and takes us both under.

             
Chapter Six
             

Rachel

Any normal man being dragged to his death would be screaming and crying out for help. Any normal man wouldn’t have attempted to fend off an alligator.

My assailant—or rescuer, or whoever he is—isn’t a normal man.

I spy a couple of oars resting in the bottom of the old, battered boat. I grab one and thrust it in the water, ready to row away . . .

And hesitate.

Is he really who he says he is?

Is it all a ploy? Some tactic to keep me in line? The knife guy was just another interim tactic to terrorize me. He never really cut me. So is this part of the brainwashing? Will it turn into something like Stockholm syndrome?

He jumped in front of a freaking alligator to save me and told me to get to the boat and get out of here!

Do I help him?

Shit, shit, shit!

I paddle urgently over to the place where the two went down and brandish the heavy oar over my shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to strike.

It must have dragged him into deeper waters, because I can’t see any sign of either of them. I turn my head frantically in every direction, hoping to catch a glimpse, but there is no movement in the water, no thrashing, no air bubbles . . .

No air bubbles.

My heart falls into my stomach. How long has he been under? How long did it take me to get over here? Two minutes? Three minutes?

Damn it, show yourself!
I will him to come back up . . .
alive
.

The longer my eyes glide over the surface of the water, the more I realize the man is dead.

Why?
Why would he do that? Why would he die for
me?

Miguel’s dogs’ noisy approach cutting through the silence of the late night hour ignites my adrenaline—I have to run!

I know I have to run.
I want to run!
But I hold myself—force myself—to keep still and rock solid.

Wait just a few more seconds.

Still nothing.

I lower my eyes, distraught and despairing, waiting for his headless or armless body to come floating to the surface like they do in movies.

HOLY FUCK!
The two bust up the through the sheet of nearly black water so close they slam into the side of the weathered wooden rowboat I’m standing in.

The blow throws me back, and I fall hard to my ass in the bottom of the old boat. The entire thing rocks, and I’m terrified it’s going to capsize in their wake.

I scramble up to my knees and peer over the edge. The two of them are embroiled in a death match.

Water sprays as the gator thrashes and throws the weight of his body against the man, who gets knocked to the gator’s side. It opens its massive mouth, and a primordial, growling hiss that sends chills coursing over my flesh rolls through its lungs—a warning and a promise.

The man swims backward, as if to give the gator space. Space and room to swim away, maybe?

It doesn’t work—the gator cuts through the water with a snakelike slither—Jesus, it’s fast! His mammoth jaws open wide as he charges.

The guy cocks his fist back, surges his body to the left and drives the punch to the side of the gator’s eye.

It pulls away from him and twists its tail ferociously, shoving the guy backwards. That’s when I reach out and jab the creature in the back with the end of the oar.

The guy looks up from the gator for just a second, an expression of shocked disbelief painted on his face.

I hit the gator again before it slides away from me and back towards the guy.

Was that for nothing!?
I was trying to help him, and all I did was succeed in making the thing madder!

That’s when the guy smiles over at me.
Literally!!
Like he’s not fighting a thirteen foot alligator in deep muddy water. It’s almost like . . .
he’s flirting!

THEN HE WINKS!
As he slips back down under the mud, he lets the water swallow him whole.

My heart is palpitating as the animal slides over the spot where the man was and should be.

I can’t breathe. He’s going to die.
He’s going to die!
Why the
FUCK
was he smiling and winking before he went to go die!?

Panicked, I row closer. Maybe if I can get right on top of it, I can hit it harder. Or maybe it’ll take a bite of this decrepit hundred-year-old rowboat then eat me.

But I have to try.

They both spring up at the same time, but this time the guy has his right hand in the crease at the bottom of the alligator’s jaw. He holds it up and away from him as his left hand reaches over and clamps over the top of the gator’s snout to actually hold its mouth closed! If that isn’t enough, he leaps onto the thing’s back and deftly wraps the black bandana that had been on his neck around the alligator’s muzzle, then just holds the head back and floats there calmly—like it’s a fucking magic trick.

“You okay now?” he says to the creature. “I’m going to let you go now, nice and easy, but you’ve got to stop being an asshole.”

I feel my jaw drop and eyes widen at the scene in front of me.
 

He pushes the creature, which looks like a freaking dinosaur, gently out of his way before swimming over to me and carefully climbing over the side onto the boat.

“Are you alright?” he asks me. Like he was worried about
me
while tackling a man-eating reptile.

Why would he even care?

“Farrington?” he presses when I don’t respond the first time.

“Why
did you push me out of the way?
Why? Why
would you put yourself at death’s door to keep me alive?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asks, all serious. Then, before I can answer, he smiles cockily and asks, “Why did you come back to help me?”

I don’t know what to say.

Waiting impatiently, he prods, “Well?”

“I don’t know . . . and, oh my God . . . you
were
flirting with me!”

The smile broadens across his face and he wears it proudly. “Hell yes, ma’am, it was a badass moment.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “So that’s what you do, go around defying death and rescuing women in distress.”

“Someone’s got to do it.”

I size him up. He’s a really big man—all muscle and might. He stands close to six feet two inches, anyway. His dark brown hair is cut military-style, and his green eyes seem to hold more laughter than violence. He has boyish good looks with a rugged man’s charm, and there’s a hint of tattoo showing on his neck where the bandana had been.

I need to change the subject. “Will the alligator die?”

“Why would he die?”

“You tied his mouth shut.” I still don’t know how he managed that feat.

“I tied it in a slipknot. He’ll get it undone soon enough.” He reaches down and grabs the oar before taking a seat. “Sit, we still have to get the hell out of Dodge.”

He starts to row and I peer off behind us. The light of the moon is brighter and lower than when we were first running. And with the turns, bends and land islands (for lack of the correct term), I can’t see any flashlight beams cutting through the shadows. But I can still hear the dogs. Their barks echo across the swamp.

I turn back decisively to try and figure out my . . . companion.

His powerful arms row the shoddy boat swiftly. On the downstroke, I notice streams of blood pressing out and escaping the cuffs of his shirt.

“You’re bleeding!” I exclaim.

“Yeah, Godzilla got a pretty good mouthful.”

“Oh my God, you were bit?” I freak. “We need to look at it!”

His features pinch in a look that says,
don’t be ridiculous.
“Why would we need to do that?”

The blood follows the direction of the woodgrain on the oar.

“I think you’re bleeding more than you want to admit.”

“I’ve bled worse, trust me,” he quips as if all of this is nothing. “Don’t look at me like that—I’d look at it just for you, but we don’t have time yet. Later,” he promises, and that’s the end of that.

“So, you really are a bounty hunter?”

“Tried and true.”

“Tell me your name again.”

“Ryder. Ryder Axton,” he reiterates. “And you are Rachel Farrington.”

“What were you doing there? In the house.”

“I was taking in Eduardo Miguel, who’s a fugitive wanted in connection with the murder of Drew Jameson and the disappearance of federal witness Rachel Farrington.”

“How did you know I was in there? Could you see me?”

“No, ma’am.” He goes serious. “I heard chains.”

“Oh.” I drop my head and automatically massage my wrists where the cuff had held me.

“My original plan was to capture Miguel. But rescuing you became my mission instead.”

“You know they’ll want to kill you now,” I warn.

“Let them come, I don’t give a fuck,” he states happily. “I love a good fight.”

I’d like to laugh at his light humor, but I can’t even crack a grin. The thought of them catching us makes me shudder.

“Did they hurt you? Did they . . .?” There’s caution in his question, like maybe he wants to know but doesn’t want the answer all at the same time.

I suck in a deep breath. “No. I’m actually—physically—okay. I thought I was going to get a lot worse. They hardly talked to me at all. The only one who really did was a man named Pedro—I think he had a mental disability. They used him to feed me and fetch my waste. He obviously didn’t like what they were doing with me.”

“Keeping you hostage, you mean?”

“That’s what I thought at first. I was . . . surprised they weren’t beating me or . . . raping me.” I switch my position on the boat seat uncomfortably. “They spoke in Spanish mainly and figured I didn’t. I never let them in on the fact that I understood
everything
they said.”

“That was smart of you. What did they say?”

“They were keeping me unharmed so they could ship me off to a . . .”—I crush my eyes closed at the idea of their horrible plan—“buyer. One of my guards hit me, but another one stopped him. Said someone in Mexico City was going to pay big money for me. They said something about the money helping Eduardo Miguel pay back a debt and make nice with some other leader.”

“That would be Cruz. El Carnicero.”

“Yes, that was the name they used,” I confirm. “Maybe Drew stole drugs from Eduardo Miguel, who owed them, or the money for them, to El Carnicero. I saw him—Eduardo Miguel—shoot Drew. Just . . . point blank. It’s the worst thing anyone could ever watch.”

He stays silent for a moment before continuing. “I’m sorry you’ve gone through this.”

I nod a little. “I didn’t really even know Drew. We had English Lit together, that was it. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was just going to a party on campus, but I was late so I took a shortcut down the alley.”

“You were alone?”

“Stupid, I know.”

“Yeah, that was stupid. Don’t ever do that again.”

I scowl at him, but he’s right, so the insult fades quickly.

“When you were freeing me, I thought you were one of Eduardo Miguel’s men getting me ready to go to the buyer.”

“That would make sense,” he says. “It was understandable for you to fight me.”

“When I heard the commotion upstairs, I figured the police were there to rescue me and that you were taking me to hide me. But it was a mess. I couldn’t figure anything out. I never saw any of their faces either, since they kept me blindfolded the entire time.”

“But you recognized my voice.”

“I did.”

“When did you start to trust me?”

“Who says I trust you?”

He tilts his head in my direction.