Trent moved slowly, the shell shifting under his boots, circling wide toward the steps.
She could do the not-coming-down thing. That wouldn't be hard. The not-making-a-sound part was going to be a problem. She pressed her face into Sterling's neck. The gator's body had torqued. Its head swung toward the stairs, mouth opened wider, if that was possible, and the hiss grew louder.
"I know, I know." Trent came up the steps behind it carrying a pole, long with a cable loop running down its length. "Look at you, big fella. Look at the trouble you got into." He didn't rush. He talked the entire time, this low, unbroken, sing-song stream, half of it to the gator and half of it to nobody. "Easy. You're all turned around, aren't you? You just want to get back to the water, and somebody put you up here on this nice lady's porch. That wasn't your idea. I know it wasn't."
She wanted to ask him how he knew someone put the gator up here. But now wasn't the time. And the bigger question was why. It was always the why. She also wanted to ask him if he was crazy for doing this alone. Any other situation, she'd be on the deck, helping out. Or telling Sterling to give the man a hand. This was out of her league.
She watched in awe as Trent worked the pole out over the animal. The gator wanted to track him but couldn't quite manage it, that bad leg slowing its pivot. Trent floated the loop down toward the snout and missed.
He didn't flinch. He didn't cuss. He didn't even break a sweat. All he did was draw it back and float it again.
"Sterling," Trent said barely above a whisper. "When he goes, he's gonna go for the steps. That's his out. I need the two of you off that end of the rail. Slow. Toward me, then past me to the wall. Now's good."
Her body went rigid.
"You want me to go toward the danger? Are you crazy?" During missions, running toward the problem was a way of life. It was what she'd been trained to do. There was nothing in the FBI handbook about facing down a killer gator.
Sterling's hand closed over hers, and he peeled it off his arm. "With me. Nice and slow."
"We're all gonna die." But she made herself do what didn't feel instinctual at all, because she trusted Sterling. And Trent, crazy as that man was.
Keeping her eyes on the alligator, her feet found the boards. Sterling's body stayed between her and the gator—always the protector. She appreciated that about him.
They edged along the rail in a half-crouch while Trent held the animal's attention with the pole and his voice. Saying things like,I see you. It's okay. I know. It sucks to be injured and away from your people. I'm gonna take you to Mallor's Landing. I'm gonna feed you. Nurse you. Dolly's gonna protect you. It's gonna be alright.
The man had lost his mind. But Dove once told her that he went outside every morning and talked to the gators.
Juniper sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Eight feet. Six. She could smell it now under the rot—the… bait. Someone had lured that poor animal up here with that reptile musk, swamp and meat that was always lingering around Mallor's Landing.
They cleared Trent. The second they did, the gator moved.
It came off the boards, rapidly lunging toward the open steps. Trent dropped the loop and it slipped over the animal’s snout. He hauled back on the pole, and the cable snapped tight behind the animal's jaws and the whole porch splintered into a deafening chaos of thrashing scales and tearing wood. The gator rolled. It was the most violent thing she'd ever seen a living body do—it spun on its own axis, again and again, trying to wrench thecable out of his hands. Its tail whipped around in a flat hard arc that smacked into a porch chair and sent it cartwheeling off into the dark.
She wrapped her arms around Sterling's waist and buried her head into his chest, but she couldn't stop watching. She was a deer in headlights—still and staring.
Sterling rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "It's okay. It's over. Ish."
"What does ish mean?" She glanced up.
"Tail!" Trent had his weight back on the pole, boots skidding, riding it. "Need help with the tail."
"I think that means you," she whispered.
"Fuck," Sterling mumbled. "I swore I'd never do this."
Headlights swung across them. Another truck.
"Oh, thank God," Sterling said.
The truck jerked to a stop, and the driver's side door opened. "On it." Cullen was up the steps and across the porch at a dead run. He didn't hesitate, didn't slow, just read the whole thing in a stride and threw himself onto the back third of the animal, both arms wrapping the base of the tail, pinning it down with his chest and his whole weight. The gator bucked under him. He rode it, swore and held.
"Secure him." Trent walked the pole down, hand over hand, shortening it, forcing the snared head toward the floor. He rested a booted foot onto the back of the skull, just behind the eyes, and pressed it flat to the boards. Crouching, he pinned that enormous head under one leg.
"He’s crazy." She blinked. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She'd watched this shit on television before. She'd heard wild stories of things Trent, even Cullen, had done over the years, but she thought they’d been exaggerating.
Well, they hadn’t. And she had an up-close view.
"I need tape," Trent said. "Sterling, it's in my back pocket. Can you grab it for me, but don't get too close to his head. I'm strong, but he's stronger."
