Page 104 of Healed
The professor screamed and raised his arms in a futile effort to stave off the gator coming right toward him just as Lucien’s jaws clamped down on his upper body, immediately breaking both the professor’s arms and several ribs as he increased the pressure of his bite and allowed the momentum of his body flying through the air to take both him and the professor down the bank of Bayou St. John and into the murky water. The professor screamed the entire way until the splash of the water silenced him and the white ridges of the churning water where Lucien’s beast’s body went into a death spin below the surface were the only evidence that something had gone into the water.
Charlie’s eyes were wide and shocked as he stood looking down into the water.
A female began screaming somewhere behind him.
Charlie turned to find the professor’s wife, disheveled but fully functional after her ordeal, rushing unsteadily toward the edge of the bayou. “No!!!! No!!!” she screamed again and again.
Bane and Havoc had already made it halfway across the footbridge and looked back in time to see everything happen, but were too far to stop the woman.
Charlie didn’t think, he acted on instinct. He was the only one close enough to stop her. He rushed the few feet to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her to make her stop. “Stop it! Stop it or you’re next!” he shouted at her.
“I saw it! I saw that man turn into an alligator, then he ate my husband! He ate him! I saw it, so did you! I know you saw it! He’ll eat us both!” she said, pulling away from him in an effort to get away.
Havoc came rushing back across the bridge. “Yo! C!”
Charlie, who’d started to run after her, hesitated and looked back at Havoc.
“Anybody hears her will think she’s nuts. She’ll end up locked away somewhere. Either way, she’s not a threat and I’m pretty sure she’s horrified for life.”
Havoc motioned for Charlie to follow him.
Together they ran across the footbridge and went straight to Havoc’s truck where Bane was already waiting.
Charlie fished the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Havoc. “I’m waiting for Lucien.”
“Get in the damn truck,” Havoc ordered.
Charlie shook his head again. “I’m waiting,” he said, before he went back to the water’s edge, albeit the opposite side of the bayou.
“Move the truck down that way,” Bane said, pointing away from the area of Bayou St. John where the footbridge crossed. “I’m gonna go talk to Charlie.”
Havoc did what Bane asked, and started the truck in preparation of moving it down the bayou from where everything had taken place.
Bane started toward Charlie, but then saw something the others might not have noticed yet. He turned so he’d be seen in the headlights of Havoc’s truck and pointed before continuing toward Charlie.
There, coming toward them in the darkness of the night, and keeping to the water’s edge down below the visible banks of the bayou, was a naked, soaking wet, Lucien.
Havoc whipped the truck around and pulled up onto the grassy bank of the bayou.
Lucien ran up the bank and jumped in the truck.
Havoc drove the distance to where Bane and Charlie were, and both got in.
“Nothing like an eventful evening on the bayou,” Lucien said, wringing his hair out.
“What did you do with the body?” Bane asked.
“Stuffed it in a gator hole. Don’t let nobody tell you there’s no gators in Bayou St. John, I just pissed one of them off,” he said with a lighthearted laugh. “If they find him, it’ll look just like the gators got him.”
“What about your clothes and all?” Charlie asked.
“Regular everyday clothes you can buy anywhere. I’m not in a computer anywhere, and if they try to check the DNA they’ll find Gator mixed in and think they got another victim. I ain’t worried,” Lucien said.
Charlie sat in the back seat and made every effort to keep himself under control. He’d witnessed a lot tonight, carried out by males related to the woman he loved. And the more he considered it, the more he realized the everyday person would wish they had the options these people did. They didn’t wait for some useless law to finally take effect and do nothing more than be a slight inconvenience years down the line. They protected their own. And he was okay with that. If somebody hurt Carson, he’d gladly go to jail for life and never give it a second thought.
“Hey, your boy wasn’t leaving you,” Havoc said, his gaze flashing in the rear view mirror when he looked at Lucien.
“Oh, yeah?” Lucien asked with a smile.
