Page 129 of Not Your Ordinary Shifter

Ever been tackled by a five-hundred-pound alligator?

Ten out of ten donotrecommend.

And for the second time in my life, I have definitely pissed my pants.

The weird part is, I’ve been knocked back, and I can hear Luis and his brothers yelling, but… the gator is just like, floppedon top of me. Pinning me down. Definitely crushing my bad leg a little, and absolutely making it hard to breathe, but he’s just… flopped on me?

When I make a small wheezing sound, the gator growls a little and backs down my body. The retreat allows my lungs to expand properly and I gulp in air.

The capybara chitters from his spot a little bit away, and the alligator seems to respond with grunts and various sounds of his own. I know that I sound like an absolutely crazy person, but I swear that all four humans go completely silent as we listen to the capy and gator carry on a full conversation.

Finally, they seem to come to some sort of agreement, as the gator backs down my body, but keeps one leg wrapped firmly around my own. Slowly—and with shaky limbs, but an already empty bladder—I sit up. Staring almost face to face with a huge set of just a little under a hundred sharp teeth.

Well, this is definitely not how I saw my day going.

We all continue to sit in silence for a bit longer before I finally make the call.

“Alright, Luis. I think he is going to let you take his friend, as long as I stay right here. Is that right, big boy?” Why yes. I am talking to an alligator. Can he understand me? I have no fucking clue, but just sitting here isn’t getting any of us anywhere. The alligator turns his head slightly to focus on me with one eye and growls a little.

Without breaking eye contact, I nod slightly to Luis, who motions his brothers to stay back. I don’t see the rifle anywhere, but he must have handed it off to one of them. We already know it can’t break my new friend’s hide, so we are just flying by the seat of our pants here.

I hear Luis whisper something in Spanish before the capybara lets out a little whimper. The alligator growls loudly and moves up my body, forcing me to lay back down, but hedoesn’t come up to my abdomen, so at least I can still breathe. Thankfully I see Luis out of the corner of my eye. He’s struggling under the weight of the capy, and when he reaches his brother’s side—Carlos maybe?—his brother reaches out and shares the weight.

They don’t leave though as Luis looks down at me with a pained expression. “Senorita Adler, I cannot leave you like this, but I am not sure what to do.”

Yeah, me either bud. Me either.

“Umm… what if you leave your brother here to watch things—hopefully not my gruesome death—and you get our furry friend some help? Just don’t be too long, ok?”

Luis grinds his teeth but nods and they quickly shuffle out of sight. The other brother—which I am going to just assume is Juan—carefully lowers himself to the ground about fifty feet away from me. Not sure how much good he’ll be able to do from that distance, but in all honesty, I’m not sure moving any closer would help at all.

The alligator moves back down my body a little and sort of hugs my leg. Well, this is fun. This is exactly what I said I wanted to do today.

How the fuck did I end up in such a weird scenario?

Chapter

Three

Fun fact…

When you fall and hit your head, there is a very good chance you have ended up with a concussion. Add in a weight that is physically preventing you from getting up and…

Concussion doesn’t even cross my mind as I slowly drift to sleep. The weight from the gator holding me down has my mind shifting back to a fall day at my old middle school.

“Now guys, I don’t want you to feel like this assignment is…” A scream straight out of one of the horror movies I am totally not supposed to be watching, stops my English teacher mid-sentence. For a moment, we all sit in silence, curious as to what is happening.

Thirteen seconds.

That’s all the time it takes for us to hear the next set of gunshots and for pure chaos to erupt inside the classroom. There is only one door in and out, so they start opening windows and sneaking out. While the school is on a single floor, there is still a small drop-off on this side of the building, making a landing outside the windows a dangerous choice.

A shot rings out closer and my heartbeat skyrockets.

Fuck it. I’ll take a leg injury over a gunshot wound.

Turning towards the windows, I prepare to make my way from the front-row seat I usually occupy to the closest window with two students waiting their turn to exit. Glancing down the row, I notice that most of the windows have two or three students still working their way out the windows. Why did I never notice the window-to-student ratio was so far off from one another before?

Another bang from the gun, this time I lose the loose hold I have on my bladder and piss runs down my legs. The fabric of my jeans wicks the wetness only seconds before sounds explode behind me.

---