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feet before us, and though we’ve dragged Andrew’s body far enough away from being a tasty morsel ripe for the picking, I don’t know that it will matter.
    I stare at the water, and when I clench my hand again on Andrew’s body, I feel Thomas’s hand slide over mine.
    “What the hell is that?” Thomas asks.
    Beneath the polo shirt, my heart is crashing against my ribs, trying to escape while the rest of me sits crouched over my mark. The one who is supposed to be dead. The one who is supposed to have satiated my silent partner.
    I swallow hard, and the soft sound of snow packing the earth is dwarfed by a low grunt and burst of water, like a whale clearing its throat.
    “That… would be Bruce,” I say in a soft breath, more to myself than Thomas.
    I’ve never been near a bomb going off, but I have to assume this is similar. With the terrifying speed of a torpedo, Bruce leaps from the water. Where once was a snow-speckled beach, now sits a thirty foot crocodile, and he’s eyeing the three of us with such hatred that my body begins to burn on the cold night.
    Don’t ask me how a crocodile can survive in cold waters. I have no fucking clue. All I do know is that the other inhabitants of the waters off Saint Roch keep Bruce around as a pet. And they must know something about crocodile care that the rest of us aren’t privy to.
    A guttural growl emanates from Bruce as he lumbers, watching us.
    “The… hell?” Thomas says next to me.
    “Don’t run,” I whisper. I don’t know if that really will pose a danger, but I know it won’t help. And my knife will be little more than an inconvenience during Bruce’s next bowel movement. I already know we’re screwed. Andrew mutters beneath us, and Thomas slips a hand over his mouth.
    In the distance, the wail of ambulance sirens is getting louder, and Bruce tilts his head at the noise. He lifts off the ground and shakes his great body, the snowflakes falling on his back seeming to cause him discomfort as his hot breath―fetid even at this distance―makes clouds of smog in the air around him.
    Behind us is the picket fence that we’ll never get the meat sack that was once Andrew Donahue over. I glance at Thomas and wonder if he’d be willing to leave his brother behind.
    What do you care? Stab him and let Bruce finish the job.
    I shake my head at the thought. This entire night went from stunning to complete clusterfuck in no time. When I meet Thomas’s eyes, I can see he’s doing the math, too. He bites his lip and looks down at his brother as Bruce growls again, no longer distracted by the growing sirens.
    He lumbers like the killer in any teen slasher movie. No matter how fast you run, and no matter how skimpy your clothing, he’ll catch you. You’ll be nothing more than a notch on his dinner table. Thomas grabs Andrew’s arm.
    “Help me,” he says quietly.
    My eyes can’t decide if they should focus on the giant crocodile advancing on us, or my quarry, who should be traveling through the first problem’s digestive system right now.
    “Layla, please…”
    I grab on to Andrew’s free arm, and together Thomas and I drag him toward the picket fence. Behind us, Bruce grunts and I hear him kicking up sand. We reach the fence, and Thomas gives it a stiff kick, hoping that it might tumble at his non-Herculean strength. The boards stop just shy of laughing at his attempts when we see the bright red lights of the ambulance tearing up the driveway of the country club.
    “Shit!” Thomas kicks the fence again. Again. He tries to lift his brother up and over, but the dead weight―not dead enough for me―is not giving.
    Bruce roars behind us, two tons of pissed off crocodile moving even closer, and I can feel the warm, putrid breath of the beast as I look back to see his open jaws. See the flakes of snow melting just before they can land in his open mouth. He’s not aiming at Thomas. Not even aiming at the crippled meal he was robbed of. No.
    He’s only feet