Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

But the worst part was the mosquitoes. Drawn to the scent of my blood, the insects buzzed around my head in a thick, suffocating cloud, their high-pitched whines echoing in my ears like a hundred tiny chain saws and making me grind my teeth together. I had to squint my eyes and hold my left hand up over my nose and mouth to keep from swallowing gobs of them. Ugh.

Every once in a while, I would see the golden glow of lights through the trees from one of the mansions that backed up against the marsh, but I didn’t dare try to find my way over to any of them. For all I knew, I’d been walking in circles this whole time and the lights I noticed belonged to Dekes’s mansion—or one of his buddies’. Even if they didn’t, I wasn’t going to take that kind of chance, especially when I looked like something the Swamp Thing would be afraid of.

There would be too many awkward questions to answer and too much risk of word getting back to Dekes that a wounded woman had stumbled out of the marsh. No, the best thing to do was to keep wading through the swamp. It had to end sometime, and then I’d get my bearings and figure out where I was and how to get back to the beach house.

I only hoped that Finn, Bria, and Owen had realized the danger they were in and had managed to get away from the mansion before Dekes had sent his giants to round them up. I couldn’t let myself think they hadn’t or I didn’t know how I’d be able to keep going. Especially now that I knew exactly what Dekes would do to Bria if he ever got his hands on her.

My stomach roiled again at the memory of the vampire sinking his teeth into me, but I swallowed down the bitter bile that rose up in my throat and kept walking. I stepped onto what looked like more solid ground, only to feel my feet slide out from under me in the hidden bog. I stumbled forward and fell to my hands and knees in the water, with even more mud and muck squishing between my fingers. I weakly thrashed around for a few seconds before managing to get to my feet. I raised up my head and peered into the darkness, wondering what was next, what other new obstacle I would have to face.

And that’s when I saw the gator.

I’d been so intent on putting one foot in front of the other that I hadn’t realized I’d come to the edge of a small pond hidden in the larger marsh. I was on one side of the pond, and the gator was on the other, with only a few feet of murky water separating us.

It was a big sucker, at least seven feet long, and its eyes glimmered like ghostly marbles in the moonlight. Its gnarled, bumpy body looked like a rotten log resting in the grass, but the distinctive curve of its long snout gave away the illusion. I couldn’t see its teeth, but I knew that they were there, resting inside those powerful, massive jaws. If I’d thought that being bitten by Dekes had been agonizing, it would be nothing compared to being attacked by a gator. The creature would latch onto me, drag me into the water, and drown me before gobbling up my bloody remains at its leisure.

The gator stared at me, and I glared right back at it. Sometime during the long night, the pain pounding through my body had turned to rage—rage at Dekes and what he’d done to me, what the vamp had done to Vanessa, Victoria, and who knew how many other women over the years, what he still might do to Bria and maybe even Callie if I didn’t stop him. The rage coated my heart much like my Ice magic had earlier tonight. The cold, dark emotion and even uglier, blacker thoughts of revenge were the only things that were keeping me upright at this point.

“Fuck off, sugar, or I’ll make a pair of shoes out of you,” I growled.

Yeah, I knew it was nothing but talk. All of my silverstone knives were back on Dekes’s mantel, and I didn’t see so much as a sturdy stick I could use to fend off the gator—much less stab it to death. Besides, it wasn’t like I had the strength to do that anyway. But Dekes had already sunk his teeth into me tonight, and I’d be damned if anything else would.

Maybe the gator had already eaten. Maybe it realized that I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Or maybe it recognized the dangerous predator in me just as I did in it, but the creature stared at me another second—and then it slipped into the water and swam off in the other direction.

Well, well, well. It looked like luck, that capricious bitch, wasn’t quite done with me yet. I didn’t know whether to smile or cry.

I kept walking, with only the soft, silvery glimmer of the moon and stars to light my way. Eventually, I stepped out from behind a tree—and walked right into a low rock wall.

Surprised, I staggered back, wondering what I was imagining now, but after a moment, I realized that the wall was as real as I was. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t a man-made wall but a natural stone formation. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, although I was too exhausted to figure out exactly what it was. I was too weak to try to climb over the rocks, so I put one hand on the rough wall and hurried along it as fast as I could. It didn’t take me long to reach the other side of the rocks and stumble forward, determined to keep on going no matter what.

But instead of more muck, my muddy, battered boots sank into a thin crust of sand. That was enough to rouse me out of the dazed, dreamlike state that I’d fallen into and make my heart quicken with excitement. Sand meant that I wasn’t too far away from the beach. Which beach and on what side of the island, I didn’t know, but at least the sand would make the walking easier. I kept going and realized that there was a darker shadow up ahead, pooling on the ground like black ink. I looked up, searching for the source of it.

The moonlight outlined the lighthouse perched on the rocks above my head.

I blinked again, and the rest of the landscape snapped into focus. Sandy beach, frothing water, a few seagulls and terns circling overhead in the night sky.

Somehow, I’d made it from Dekes’s estate through the marsh, across the island, and into the cove where Owen and I had made love yesterday. Now that I knew where the hell I was, all that was left to do was walk the short distance to the beach house. Finn, Bria, and Owen were sure to be waiting there for me by now. I didn’t want to think about what might have happened to them if they weren’t there, if they hadn’t been able to get away from Dekes’s men after all.

But there was only one way to find out and to let them know what had happened to me, so I drew in a breath and started the final leg of my journey.

It took me far longer than it should have to walk through the cove, trudge down to the shore, and reach the beach house, but eventually I stumbled up the steps onto the back patio. I leaned against the side of the house for a moment, resting; then I raised my hand and banged as loudly as I could on the sliding glass door.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but the world went fuzzy again. Suddenly, a face loomed up on the other side of the glass—a pale face framed by black hair.

I blinked, wondering if I was imagining things for the third time. “Sophia?” I mumbled. “What are you doing here?”

The dwarf’s black eyes widened at the sight of me, and she hurried away from the door.

“Wait,” I said in an even weaker voice, my legs already slipping out from under me. “Come back.”

I landed hard on my ass on the deck and flopped over onto my side, like a fish tossed into the bottom of a boat. The wood still felt warm from the day’s sun under my cold, aching cheek, and I felt myself relaxing. I was going to lie here just for a second, I promised myself. Just for a second and then I’d get back up and pound on the glass until somebody let me into the house.