Glass. Shards bit into her palm, a perfect, layered circle. The flashlight. She must have put her hand in the broken glass. Marlowe, bleary-eyed and almost blinded by the rain, lifted her left hand. Untouched. Glass splintered in the center of her right hand, still buried in the creature.
It smiled. Venom dripped from its mouth. Cunt-teeth bit into Marlowe’s palm like splaying over hot coals. The boat groaned under them, decayed boards dipping beneath the surface.
Lake water soaked over Marlowe’s ass, chasing her high and nipping at her taut stomach, delving into the heavy ache of her chest, and strangled the last guttural sound from her throat.
Water swallowed up Marlowe’s cry as they plunged into the lake.
Hateful Adoration
Claws scuttled along Marlowe’s skin and pondweed slithered across her face, her shoulders.
She thrashed, ears popping, silt filling her nose as the monster dragged her along the lakebed. Branches snapped at her legs and she clawed at the submerged trees with her free hand, catching nothing but splinters wedged deep under split nails.
The creature’s fins sliced at her stomach as their tail churned the water to boiling around Marlowe, froth and sand and—
Marlowe snatched blindly as branches raked across her chest. Her shoulder jolted and twisted in its socket andshe jerked to a stop, hand ripping free from the creature’s cunt-teeth with a flash of pain. She shoved away from the sunken tree, kicking furiously toward the surface, escaping the panic threatening to strangle her.
Muscles screamed as she forced them to work and broke through algae mats, clawing slick ropes away from her face. Red-edged fins sliced through the rain circles on the surface and slipped under.
Marlowe filled her lungs and ducked below as lightning cracked open the sky, illuminating murky water in flashes of white and putrid green. Spiny fins. Leopard frog spots. A tooth-edged jaw hinging the length of their chest. Their eyes rolled white in the blinding flare of a second lightning strike.
Cartilage bent and snapped back as Marlowe clumsily thrust the heel of her palm into the seam of its jaw, fighting the suffocating urge to inhale and scream as fins shredded a line up her arm. Vibrations pounded through the water as the thing coiled, spinning for the next strike.
Rapt, desperate,hatefuladoration swept through Marlowe. She’d admired beautiful, deadly things before. But always from a distance.
At least she wouldn’t die on a shitty little boat.
Marlowe exhaled in a brutal squeeze of her lungs, slipping under its massive form. Her eyes burned as sheforced them open and struck out at it. Fingers dug into the feather-soft brush of its gills and Marlowe hooked it, bracing bare feet on the lake bottom. Something crunched and writhed under her toes.
Marlowe ripped at her snapping tendrils, fighting her way atop her spined back, knobs of bone shuddering underfoot. Pushing off the monster’s back, she lunged to the surface and choked on a damp breath, hoping the dark slash through sheets of rain was the shoreline.
It had to be shoreline. They were close enough she might have a shot.
Marlowe hadn’t swum since cabin 13. When the lock had busted right off the door from the outside and Marlowe had escaped through the stinking, pine-rot floodwaters, she hadn’t had a choice but to swim.
Survival drove her now as it did back then, necessity puppeting her limbs. Body pulsing hot, legs burning, she pushed herself to the shallows, taking deep gulps of rain-flecked air with each stroke.
The lake roiled behind her, driving closer.
Anothercracksplit open the sky and drowned out Marlowe’s ragged grunt as she stumbled into the waterlilies.
Rot overcame sickly perfume. Marlowe pitched forward, crawling, fighting through the bulbous, slimyroots. Drifts of fish bones splintered into her bare knees and pierced her knuckles.
Fleshy hands wrapped around her ankles and yanked her back. Marlowe snarled and twisted and the creature loomed above her, tendrils snapping at her face and viscous fluid leaking from their gills. They leaned in, jaw slack and cracking open, needle teeth bared.
Marlowe’s heart thudded against her ribs. She went boneless. Rain beat down and lightning arced above them, flashing through the translucent hinges of the creature’s jaw. Its teeth were the same pale color as its jaw. Pike teeth, like the fish this lake was named after.
“Pike.” Marlowe’s voice rattled through her raw throat, between swollen, mud-smeared lips. She was calm, coaxing. A voice Heather would use on her.Hadused on her.
Mud sucked at her hands as Marlowe carefully pulled them free and painted slow patterns of sludge and blood up the creature's side.
Golden eyes narrowed. Her jaw hung, waiting.
Marlowe never stopped the smooth trail of her fingers along her side. “Marlowe,” she murmured. Heather talked. Heather never shut up. It worked for her.
“The camp is closed. By the time they open up again, you’ll be out of fish and you only got one swan left. I can help,” she whispered. “Let me go.”
The creature—Pike—cocked her head. She leaned in, nose slits flaring. Her jaw cracked shut. Webbing stretched between each knobby joint as she spread her right hand between them.
