“Who else?” he asked. “The C-suite? Deepti and Jackie and Melv and Bertram.”
“No, Bertram’s dead.”
Waylon’s voice pitched up. “Is he?”
“I…”Shit.“I saw his tie floating down the river this morning. Bloody.”
“And you hate blood.”
“Does anyone reallyloveblood?”
His hand left her leg only long enough to scratch at his jawline. “Phlebotomists. Vampires. Cult leaders.”
“Yes, I’m of the belief that blood objectively belongs inside the body.” Fletcher ruffled Waylon’s curls. Surprisingly soft. Did he use a leave-in conditioner? She wouldn’t put it past him. “So, that leaves eight. Give or take a pride of lions, a well-fed bush baby, and whatever otherJumanjihorrors the island wants to throw at us.”
Buried in the brush, something growled.
“Like,” she added with a gulp, “whatever that was.”
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
Trees dotted the grassland, giraffes grazing at a few of them. Squawking birds flitted from branch to branch, migrating closer to the jungle’s shelter as the clouds crept in. Other than that, the savanna had quieted.
“There!” She pointed.
Something a few yards out zigged through the grasses, then zagged, then zigged again—she just couldn’t see what. Whatever it was hulked toward them, crouched low. The noise ramped up, stuck between a rattle and a deep-bellied roar. Louder this time. Closer.
“Get me down. Get me down.Getmedown.” She smacked Waylon’s hands. “Now.Now.”
“What was it?” he asked as he lowered her.
No sooner than her feet hit the dirt did Fletcher power forward. Stalks razed down her arms, her legs, leaving her skin red and raw. “It sounds like a lion had a baby with a super venomous snake.”
Waylon stayed close on her heels, a hand on the small of her back propelling her forward. “That’s biologically improbable.”
Fletcher sighed. “Okay, Steve Irwin. What do you think it is?”
The grass growled again, and he pressed closer to her. “Maybe a lion or a snake, but not both.”
She had her mouth open to argue that after everything they’d witnessed this week, a lion-snake hybrid hardly seemed outrageous. There was a whole rebuttal on the tip of her tongue about how his dad could have very well hired private zoological geneticists to create the first mammal-reptilian crossover species. A useless vanity project for the sake of playing god. The Tesla Cybertruck of predators. A slion.
But then, Waylon gripped her shoulder, jerking her to a halt. He roped her against his chest, arms looped around her shoulders.
“Using me as a human shield is a new low, Cartwright,” Fletcher whispered.
He exhaled. Almost a laugh. His breath brushed against her ear, still minty from their riverside freshening-up this morning. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
A hiss raised goose bumps up Fletcher’s skin. She didn’t imagine the way Waylon’s fingers flexed, the way he shifted her into him, the way their hearts pounded in sync. There was nowhere else to run. When the grass parted, they’d meet the slion’s fanged maw, and it would sink its teeth into—
An ostrich barked at them.
A beaky thing the size of a lesser dinosaur with black beads for eyes broke through the brush. It made that sound—the slion sound. She’d hardly call herself an ostrich connoisseur, but she knew the universal noise for pissed off. The ostrich poked its head over the grass, peeked behind it, and then ducked back down.
When it charged, Fletcher gasped. It wasn’t running toward them. It was runningawayfromsomething else.
The something in question shouted, “Come back, birdbrain. I’m trying to ride you!”
Fletcher and Waylon turned to each other and, in unison, said, “Deepti.”
