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The metal creaked and shifted. The creature hissed again in pain, but didn’t stop pushing, so neither did Will.

Then the ground gave out somewhere. The excavator squeaked ominously, the arm swishing through the water as the machine's center of gravity shifted. It rolled back away from them, the collapsed pinch-point widening.

The creature shouted, a sharp, fluting sound. The machine kept tilting farther away from them, starting to collapse the other way. It made an awful, metal shearing noise, and Will felt water and debris beneath him coming up.

He realized too late that he was too close, way too close to the machine. It was tilting, and that would put the wheels under him, about to catch him in their trajectory as the machine collapsed.

His head swung back to the road, fear exploding in him. He needed to move, needed to–

Then a hand wrapped around his ankle, and yanked him under.

Chapter 3

Will had just taken a gasping breath of air, and he slapped a hand over his mouth to hold it as he went under. Cold water closed over his head as the hand dragged him down.

Panic flooded his chest. He was about to die, about to drown.

Oh fuck, oh fuck.

Will tried to kick out, but the grip on him was steely and immovable. Water tried to go up his nose, and Will fumbled to pinch it closed. Dark rushed by in every direction until he didn’t know which way was up anymore. The hammering of his heart filled his eardrums as the icy water prickled at him like splinters.

Will could hold his breath for a minute on a good day. This was not that. His lungs started to scream at him after seconds, and he thrashed again, kicking at nothing, desperate not to drown.

Death was waiting for him to open his mouth. To scream or gasp for air. Then the swampy sludge would slush down his throat, and that would be it.

He was going to die.

The need for air grew and grew, ballooning up inside him. It was almost physical, starting to lean against his self-control.

The dragging changed directions. Will was seconds away from giving into the agony in his chest.

Then his back hit something hard. Will rolled against it, the pain so shocking it bought him a few more seconds of fortitude. His hand reached back to blindly touch what he’d hit.

And he recognized it.

Asphalt.

Will turned, scrambling to pull himself up and onto the road, breaching the water’s surface as he did. He gasped for air, drinking it greedily as he wiped water out of his eyes.

He’d almost–almost–

His head whipped up, and he blinked blearily through the night, searching for the monster.

He didn’t have to look far. It was right there beside him, on the road, watching with those red eyes.

Will screamed and fell backward, splashing away from it, skinning his ankle and hands as he did so. It was going to kill him, drown him–

Except.

A realization broke through the fear. He was back on the road. Breathing air. The collapsing excavator hadn’t hit him.

The panic edged back a little.

So maybe that hadn’t been to kill him. Maybe–maybe it had been trying to help him?

Will stared at the creature, uncertain. Most of its body was bared to him now in the shallow waters of the road. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse to see it fully.

The creature was man-shaped. It had two arms and two legs, and a face of similar configuration as its own. Instead of smooth skin though, it had scales and ridges down the length of his body. The scales were nearly black on his arms and shoulders, lightening to a gray across the chest and belly. The hair he’d recognized before as pond weed was that, and long enough to cascade over the creature’s shoulders and stick in slimy looking swirls against its back.