“Don’t steal my covers, Spence,” Waylon said, drowsy and slurred as Fletcher broke through the brush.
Where she promptly froze in her tracks.
Waylon wasn’t alone. He’d rolled over onto his back, and squatting on his belly was a…rat monkey?
The creature was mostly eyeballs and fur. It had toppled over their bag of fruit, feasted efficiently but thoroughly, judging by the bite marks in the strawberries, and now crouched on Waylon’s torso, a hunk of tangerine in its paws. Claws? Rat monkey fingers.
“Waylon, I need you to not freak out,” Fletcher said, sounding admittedly freaked-out.
A drop of juice dribbled onto Waylon’s cheek, and he swiped it away. Eyelids heavy, still stirring, then snapping open at once.
He screamed at eardrum-bursting decibels, louder than Fletcher when held at gunpoint. At first, he tried to stand, but his legs got trapped in the sleeping bag, and he toppled over. The furry invader took the opportunity to cram a chunk of fruit in its cheeks before tearing off another from their wine cellar spoils.
Whatwasthat thing? Fletcher scrambled through her mental backlog ofNat Geo, trying to find any recollection of a creature like this.
The blob of fur skittered up Waylon’s pants, his shirt, and onto his shoulder. More primate than rodent, actually. Long tail, saucer-wide eyes, a ball of brown-gray fluff…
“I think it’s a bush baby,” she said.
Waylon scowled as he tried—and failed—to shrug off the creature now eating citrus on his head. “Don’t call me baby when I’m being attacked.”
Fletcher flushed. “Notyou. The tiny monkey. It’s called a bush baby.”
“I don’t care what it’s called—ow, ow,ow!” The bush baby dug its little critter hands into Waylon’s scalp, holding on for dear life. “Get rid of it.”
As she stepped closer, the bush baby crouched, half its body beneath Waylon’s curls and its tail dripping down the back of his neck. With little warning, a warbling screech erupted from the animal. Its head twisted and kept twisting until its eyes were where its chin was supposed to be.
“Oh my god, and it’s possessed,” she whispered, trying to clamp down on her own panic. There was enough radiating off Waylon for the both of them.
What Waylon should have done was remain perfectly still and let Fletcher reach up on her tiptoes and remove the unwanted mammal.
What Waylon actually did was hop around like he was actively being overtaken by a violent, if affable, poltergeist who died in a heavy metal mosh pit. Head banging wasn’t enough to fling the primate away from him. The bush baby stayed put, alternating between ear-piercing howls and unfazed chewing.
Fletcher needed holy water. Stat.
“Calm down, you’re going to alert the whole island.”
Waylon ceased thrashing only long enough to glare. “Me? Try taking that up with the car alarm on my head.”
Fletcher caught Waylon by the cheeks, palms pressed to each side of his face. “Listen to me. I need you to bend your knees.”
He did.
His eyes were replaced by two orange orbs, reflecting the first drops of pale sunrise.
“Hi, there,” Fletcher said to the bush baby.
“Oo-oo-oo,” the bush baby responded.
“Is that so?”
“Stop trying to befriend the damn thing and get it off me, Spence,” Waylon growled.
Right. Fletcher scooped the bush baby up with fingers wrapping around its middle and tried not to think about how most primates were omnivores, which meant that as much as he was enjoying his contraband fruit salad, he probably wouldn’t mind a piece of Fletcher Steak.
Before it could try to eat her or give her rabies or both, she lobbed it toward the acacia trunk. The primate leaped toward the branches with a full belly and a hell of a story to tell its weird monkey friends.
Arms spread wide, Waylon crashed into Fletcher with renewed force. With her face smooshed up against his chest, she could feel theriotous rhythm of his heart. Gone was the lingering scent of the manor’s cedarwood-and-amber soap. Instead, he was earth and salt and the charcoal deodorant she saw him swipe on after their river water baptism.
