Cross’s pulse surged. Stories about him were always the same—lethal, efficient, and psychotic. He didn’t hunt for paychecks. He hunted for fun.
“We split,” Cross said. “Loop back and catch him in the open.”
“No way. We do this together.”
Cross shook his head. “I’ll draw him. Just sixty seconds.” Before she could argue again, he slipped into the trees, low and silent. The world shrank to swamp and shadows. Then movement—slight, predatory. Cross spun.
The Weasel slinked into view like something born from the rot itself. Wiry. Grinning. Camouflage soaked to his ribs. Eyes like two black pits. “You’re a hard man to find,” he rasped.
Cross leveled his weapon. “You’ll wish you hadn’t.”
The Weasel just laughed. “Rodriguez wants you alive. I like to play with my food first.”
Cross fired, the sound loud and sharp in the otherwise still bayou. The Weasel ducked, rolled, and sprang forward, blade flashing in his hand. Cross dodged, swung back hard, catching the bastard across the jaw with the butt of his pistol. The Weasel reeled, then lunged again. They grappled, slipping in the mud, fists connecting with bone.
Then Drew appeared behind the Weasel—fast and furious—swinging a branch like a baseball bat. It cracked across the man’s ribs. He stumbled, wheezing.
But he was fast. Too fast. He spun, caught Drew by the throat, and slammed her against a cypress tree. Her boots kicked against the surface as her fingers scrabbled at his grip.
Rage exploded in Cross’s chest. He charged, roaring, and tackled the Weasel. They crashed into the black water, vanishing beneath the surface with a violent splash. Water closed over their heads. The swamp swallowed them whole.
CHAPTER 13
Drew was alone—gasping,soaked, and reaching into the black water for the man she swore she wouldn’t fall for again. But damn it, she had.
“Cross,” she whispered, throat raw, fingers scraping through the muck as she dropped to her knees on the spongy ground, half-submerged, the bayou rising around her like it wanted to swallow her whole. “Cross!”
Nothing but silence answered. The water rippled. Oily. Ominous. She shoved deeper, up to her elbows now, feeling blindly through lily stems and tangled roots, the acrid stench of swamp rot thick in her nose. Her knees sank into the soft earth, and panic clawed at her chest like fire ants under her skin. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t.
“Damn you,” she muttered, blinking back tears, “if you die on me, I will find your ghost and kill it again.” A splash to her left—too big to be a gator unless it was massive. She twisted, heart in her throat, and saw the silhouette burst from the water like something out of a nightmare—Cross and the Weasel, tangled together in a silent, primal fight, mud and blood mixing, one trying to choke the life from the other.
“Cross!” she screamed, lunging forward. But she couldn’t shoot. Not without risking him. The Weasel shoved Cross under again.
Drew didn’t think. She just moved. She launched herself forward, striking the Weasel with everything she had—elbows, fists, teeth if it came to that. She caught him off guard, just enough for Cross to twist free and suck in a desperate breath as he stumbled in the marsh.
The Weasel came back swinging, his grin as feral as ever, blood trailing from his lip like war paint. “You two are cute,” he hissed. “Like a damn swamp soap opera.”
“Eat shit,” Drew snarled, punching him square in the face. He stumbled but recovered too fast. He made a dive for her, but Cross yanked her out of the way and pulled the two of them up onto land. The Weasel surfaced and started toward them when there was a large splash off to the left.
Drew reached for her gun but realized she’d lost it somewhere in the struggle. She glanced at Cross, but he was staring just over the Weasel’s head. Drew followed his gaze.
A gator, huge and moving fast.
Cross grabbed Drew and yanked her behind him. “Run. Now.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Isn’t that cute?” the Weasel grinned. He pulled his gun up and took aim just as the gator reached him. The bullet went wide, and with a squeal of pain, the Weasel disappeared under the surface. He came back up fighting with the gator, water splashing in every direction. It was hard to tell where man or beast ended. Then they were gone again. Back under the surface. Another burst of air bubbles and then silence. It was as if the swamp had swallowed them both whole
“Come on, we’ve got to go,” Cross said as he turned Drew away from the water.”
She blinked. As awful as the Weasel was, that was just horrifying. She wanted to be sick. Man versus nature, and nature won. She gave herself a mental shake, forced down her emotions, and followed in Cross’s wake. She decided, then and there, she couldn’t get out of the swamp fast enough.
Cross took them up to a jog. “Stone didn’t sound good. They don’t have much time,” he reminded her. They crashed through the underbrush. Briars tore the skin on her arms, and something wet and slimy slapped across her face. Her lungs burned. Her body screamed. But all she could focus on was the shape of Cross ahead of her, soaked and furious and very much alive.
They broke through a thick patch of cattails and into a small rise of moss-covered ground. Cross stopped, eyes scanning, chest heaving.
“Up there.” He pointed to a ridge of tangled roots and vines. “There’s a cut through the brush, maybe half a mile. Leads to another waterway.”
