Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,38

eyeroll and a twitch of his lips which I’m learning he does when he’s trying not to smile. “Because after the knife bullshit, I don’t trust you not to try shit, and I can’t have you trying to stab the help during business hours.”

I shrug. His reasonings aren’t off the mark. I would do the same if I were him. Although, he doesn’t have to know that I wouldn’t stab Thorne. Unless, of course, she tried to stab me first. In which case, game on.

Pike parks the truck in the middle of the road and gets out.

“What if someone wants to pass us?” I call after him.

He doesn’t turn around. “Nobody comes out here,” he replies.

Nobody comes out here.

Pike turns around and sees I’m not following. “You coming, or you gonna stay here and get eaten by the critters?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s better than going with you and getting fed to the critters,” I argue.

Pike strides over to me and lifts my chin with his fingers. I jerk it away. “If I wanted to kill you…”

I raise my eyebrows.

“If I wanted to kill you today, I have a thousand spots better than this to dump your little body, and besides, you’d already be dead before I dragged you all the way out here.”

If his words are meant to comfort me, they fail. “Why would I already be dead?” I ask, seeking a logical answer to his absurd statement.

Pike answers as if it’s obvious and he can’t believe he has to explain this to me. “No one wants to drive all the way out here to a place like this with a screamer in the trunk.” He turns and walks down a narrow path

I hesitate, looking around. The sun is almost set, and the bugs are chirping and buzzing all around me. A toad croaks. An owl hoots. A coyote…shit.

I jog to catch up to Pike who chuckles under his breath. I don’t want to admit it, but the situation is funny, if only because it’s also ridiculous. I’m voluntarily seeking safety from the critters and creatures with Pike, of all people, when running into a field of coyotes would probably be the safer choice. But even logical people have illogical moments, and obviously this is one of mine, and one of many when it comes to Pike.

“Who, exactly, are you meeting out in the middle of nowhere?” I ask, wondering what type of person would come out here of their own free will.

Well, besides Pike.

Pike pauses as we come to a small clearing with a shallow swamp-like pond in the middle surrounded by tall grass. “That’s who.” He points to a man standing on an airboat about twenty feet away.

Dirt covers the man’s sunken cheeks along with his overalls and what I assume used to be a white tank top underneath. He spots us and smiles, accentuating the wrinkles around his tanned and leathery lips and eyes. A smattering of long white whiskers hangs from a pointed chin. He covers his lips with his index finger indicating that we should be quiet then looks down with determination to something at the bow of the boat. He doesn’t look like a person in the middle of the swamp, but more like a part of it. Like a frog or tree. He’s just supposed to be here.

I strain my neck to see what it is that has the man so fixated, but I can’t see anything in front of the boat. “What’s he doing?”

“Just watch,” Pike whispers.

The man grabs what looks like a paint roller stick but without the roller part on the metal hook. After a few motionless minutes, he suddenly stabs it into a patch of tall grass. I startle at the sudden movement. He kneels and grabs something with his hand, his muscles tight with the exertion it takes to do whatever it is he’s doing. Dropping the paint stick, he reaches his now free hand to grab a burlap sack.

He rises up and begins to feed something into the bag. A very big and long slithering something.

“Is that a…snake?” I ask, noticing the shiny beige, brown, and yellow pattern on its skin.

“Python!” the man announces triumphantly. I guess we don’t have to be quiet anymore. His smile reveals a missing front tooth.

A python? I search my brain for any files on pythons, and the only bit of information I come up with is that they aren’t native to this area.

“That’s Gutter,” Pike explains.

He continues