Page 15 of Last Destination

Tension radiated off his body. It was weird to see the most unflappable man in our group as a real, scared human. I was instantly moved to soothe him, to comfort him in whatever way I could. I shifted my hand from his molded bicep, across his shoulder blade and down his back, coming to rest at the small crevice before it hit the seam of his shorts.

“It’s okay, man.” The words came out softer than I’d intended, but carried over the water like a light breeze. “You almost died. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near this place, either.” I huffed an uncomfortable laugh, feeling as vulnerable as the time he’d watched cum shoot out of my dick.

The normally smooth lines of perfect skin contorted into a pained grimace, one hazel eye still transfixed on the water at his feet.

Fuck. Wrong thing to say, Ambrose. Great comforting.

Nikki was tactile, needing human contact. My words weren’t doing much good, but maybe I could…

I trailed my fingers from his back to his side until they rested next to his left hand dangling against his thigh. I wove our fingers together in a loose grip. His were longer than mine, like he was destined at birth to play the piano, and our hands didn’t quite fit like I’d fit into Marley’s, but he didn’t shrink away or drop the contact.

I’d never held a man’s hand before. I’d never tried to soothe one, either. Stroking my thumb over his knuckles, I gave them a light squeeze, pleased when he squeezed back.

Marley stopped swimming and stood. The water came to just the top of her chest.

“Nikki,” she called, her voice steady and sweet. “I’m here, Ambrose is here, okay? You don’t need to come any further if you don’t want to.”

She took another step toward us, a giant ripple pushing outward from her body in an odd wave, revealing a soaking wet set of hardened nipples through her white T-shirt. If that wasn’t an incentive to get closer to her, I didn’t know what was.

She held out a hand, beckoning him forward. “Would you like to get clean while you’re already in the water? Scrub some sand over your body, get the salt and sweat off. You’ll feel better.”

Squeezing his palm a second time, I agreed. “Want me to wash your hair?” I quipped, reminding him of the first time he’d put his hands on me, when he’d massaged my scalp and I’d had a hard-on the rest of the night thinking about it. The right side of his lip quirked up, and I knew I had him.

Without words, he nodded his head up and down a few times as if preparing himself for death, then took a step forward. He drew a noisy breath in through his nose and held it before blowing it out through his mouth and taking another step.

Yoga breaths. Good call, Nik.

His shoulders relaxed another foot forward into the water, and his body loosened from a stiff stick to an amiable stroll, but the grip on my fingers stayed tight.

Tugging him forward, I stopped when the water hit the middle of my thighs. “See? Not so ba—”

Marley’s piercing scream stopped my heart. Dropping Nikki’s hand, I whipped around to see her writhing in the water, eyes wide with pure terror. A thick, green and black rope wrapped itself around her body from below.

Bile rushed up the back of my throat as an anaconda — a fucking anaconda — slithered around her chest, its narrow head rearing back to strike. White-hot fear struck through my heart as if charged lightning had hit me directly in the chest.

“Dodge your head now!” I shouted, my tone higher than a fucking schoolgirl as I launched into the water toward her.

Anacondas didn’t bite with venom, they asphyxiated. But that wouldn’t stop it from holding her in its jaws to keep her still long enough to smother before it tried to swallow her whole.

Nikki abandoned his fear and hurled forward, Marley’s threatened safety enough to dampen all hesitation. She shifted her head just fast enough to avoid the unhinged jaw of the snake, which took a chunk of her hair in the back of its throat instead, but that wouldn’t stop it from trying again.

I lunged for her, reaching forward to clamp its mouth shut from behind. Thankfully, we were shallow enough for my feet to get some purchase on the sandy river bottom. I used the leverage to propel just far enough to close my fingers around its neck, sliding them up its wriggling, scaly head to clamp its maw together. Marley whimpered beside me, her face pale and slack, as the writhing form as thick as two rulers continued to bind her into a tube.

“Jamie, get the fuck over here now, or I will kill you myself.” I called out behind me. It took all of my dwindling strength to keep the snake from making Marley a snack. Its neck muscles were so powerful it almost bucked me off with each snap of its head.

This one was huge — far larger than the one I visited at the San Diego Zoo. It had to be a female.

Not the time, Ambrose. Who the fuck cared about the snake's gender? If we didn’t get it off her, Marley would die. A thick sheen of sweat coated her lips, and soulless black overtook the green in her eyes as her pupils grew to saucers.

She was going to pass out. Anacondas didn’t crush bones. Instead, they were natural WWE wrestlers, constricting blood flow and making their prey unconscious. Within two seconds of the thought, Marley went limp. Icy panic clawed at my throat and slapped me across the face. I didn’t have a knife. I didn’t have a gun. We needed to unravel it. We couldn’t do that by its head, so we’d have to…

“It’s tail,” I gasped, biohazardous water filling my mouth when the flailing head threatened to take me under. “We need to unravel its tail.”

My gaze dropped to the now murky water below, but the long, shadowy outline of a snake three times the length of me was still visible, undulating beneath the surface as it continued its climb. How the fuck were the two of us going to unwrap a five-hundred-pound snake?

The vague, muffled sound of a scuffle behind me caused me to shift toward the shore. Madman raced into the water, holding an unwilling Jamie by his neck. In seconds that felt like hours, they were at our side, and I kicked into action as soon as Madman was at my shoulder.

“Hold its head. Her life depends on it.” I quickly but carefully released my grip when Madman’s huge palms replaced mine. “Nikki, we need to pull her tail from below.”