Then one of them reached for his waistband.
"Gun." Trent grabbed Dove's arm and yanked her sideways as the night exploded.
The shot cracked past them, close enough that Trent felt the air displacement against his cheek. They hit the ground together, rolling behind a fallen palmetto as a second shot punched into the wood above their heads.
"You okay?" Trent's voice was tight.
"Peachy." Dove was already repositioning, finding a gap in their cover. "You?"
"Ask me later."
A third shot tore through the fronds, inches from Dove's shoulder. She ducked back, cursing.
"They're moving," Trent said. He could hear them—crashing through underbrush, making for the water. "We stay here and they're gone."
"We move—we lose cover.”
“I don’t think I can just let them walk.”
Dove met his eyes in the darkness. "Together," she said. "On three."
"Two's faster."
"One."
They broke cover.
Trent went left, Dove went right, splitting the target zone. Another shot cracked through the night.
The gators were going wild now.
All around the moat, the water churned with their movement—tails slapping, bodies rolling, territorial bellows shaking the air like thunder. The sound was enormous, prehistoric, the kind of noise that reached into your hindbrain and screamed predator.
One of the men stumbled at the water's edge, his flashlight beam swinging wildly. The light caught movement—a gator hauling itself up onto the bank, jaws already open in warning.
Not Dolly. Smaller. Seven feet, maybe eight.
Bonnie.
Trent's heart seized.
Bonnie was young. Curious. She'd wandered into the natural habitat when she’d been barely the size of his arm. The young alligator, unlike many of the others, rarely left the moat. She and Dolly were more domesticated than the others. She didn't have the wariness of wild gators, didn't understand that humans were dangerous. She probably thought the intruders were Trent, coming to feed her.
The man saw the gator coming and panicked. His gun came up, not aimed at Trent or Dove anymore, but at the animal surging toward him with her mouth open wide.
"Don’t,” Trent shouted.
The first shot was deafening. The second one sounded like thunder. The third one hit the air as if it were coming for Trent’s heart. The fourth and fifth ones barely registered.
Bonnie's head snapped back. Her body twisted, a horrible convulsive movement, and then she went still. She slid backward into the water, leaving a dark smear on the mud where she'd been.
For a moment, Trent couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but stare at Bonnie. At the ripples spreading across the black water as she floated across the water, motionless.
"Trent,” Dove's voice was sharp, urgent. “Move.”
A bullet whined past his ear and buried itself in a cypress trunk with a wet thunk. He dove behind a mangrove root on instinct alone, his body operating without input from his brain, which was still stuck on the image of Bonnie's head snapping back.
Dove was beside him now, her hand on his arm, her voice low and fierce. "Stay with me. We can't help her now."
