Savage King: New Worlds - Milly Taiden Page 0,29

get out.”

That they’d learned long ago being rowdy kids. Dried mud became disgustingly gross in the bathtub. With Daph’s help, she got her shirt off, then they stepped a few feet off the bank to scrub it in a pool of calm water. When they finished and the water was wrung out, the once clear water was opaque brown. She held her top up and was amazed.

“Holy shit,” Daphne said, “it looks brand new where the mud was. The rest of it almost looks dingy.” She looked down. “What kind of bleaching mud is that?”

“No kidding.” Wren slipped the T-shirt over her head then felt something sticky wrap around her calf. Next she knew, she was face down in the middle of the racing current.

Twisting, she was able to get her head above the water for a breath. Whatever was pulling her was going faster than the rush of water. She tried to jerk out of the hold, but that did nothing except make the creature squeeze tighter.

Her head bobbing under, she was able to get a glimpse of what had grabbed her. The first thought was a crocodile, but her leg wasn’t being chewed, and crocs rolled and drowned their food. No, what wrapped around her leg was black and looked like a squid tentacle. Needing air, she fought to come up, thrashing her arms and one leg. A gulp of air and she was back under.

Remaining calm was hard, but she had to figure a way out of this. A character in one of her stories had fallen overboard on a rafting trip with her family. The girl saved herself by grabbing onto a tree stuck halfway out. Could she be so lucky? Not if her head stayed under water.

Her body thrashed, trying to twist so she faced up. Her head bobbed into the sunlight, she sucked in another breath and fought to stay above. Water splashing in her face blurred her vision, making it impossible to see. How long had she been in the creek? It felt like hours. Was this how she was going to die? Drowned by a squid in a fucking stream in the Amazon? Hell, even she couldn’t have dreamed up this kind of demise. Her stories had happy endings.

A dark blur along the bankside ahead caught her attention. Maybe it was something she could grab onto. With no time to prepare, she shoved off the creek bed with her free leg and reached her arms out. Her body scraped along sharp points—branches—until her hands tangled in a dense clump of leaves.

She clenched her hands as tightly as she could and held on. Her head rising, she saw she was snagged in a tree that had fallen. Her hands slipped as the creature pulled on her. She screamed as she tried to keep her leg from being pulled off. Something was going to give quickly.

A flash of movement along the bank upstream caught her attention. She couldn’t tell what was coming, but something was moving fast her way. Her overdramatic mind said it was death, coming to snatch her soul from its earthly confines. That was from back when she wrote dark fantasy just out of college.

Blinking her eyes free of water, she was able to see partially. A four-legged animal raced down the side of the creek, the sun sucked into its dark covering. She blinked again and the animal had reached her. It leaped an incredible distance away, soaring over her head.

Was she dreaming? Dead? She swore that was the beast that had saved her this morning from the man-eating flower. But how was that possible unless it had been following them?

The tiger looking thing landed on top of something in the middle of the creek, raking its claws on something below the waterline. She heard a high-pitched screech and tried to look further over her shoulder . Water splashed along with lots of blue slime. Several black appendages whipped out of the water. Each time a tentacle wrapped around a furred leg, long white teeth severed the slimy arm.

From a distance, she heard her name. Upstream, Lilah and Daphne were running to her. The pressure on her leg released, and she pulled herself closer to shore. Hands grabbed her arms and yanked her away from the water. The girls hugged her to them as they watched the battle in the creek.

Black chunks came out of the water in the tiger’s mouth, spit to the side. The piercing squelching slowly died.