Page 21 of Magnum, Volume 1

“Is it okay to dive here?” I asked, standing at the edge, and he nodded. “Smart to ask. It’s about eight feet deep there, so you’re good as long as you don’t go straight down.”

I dove in and started swimming, and heard him dive in behind me. Soon, he was beside me, easily cutting through the dark water and matching my pace.

I headed for a small island I figured was about three hundred yards away, pushing hard with my arms to keep my speed up. I have to push hard with my arms, but my feet seem to kick themselves. Odd how that works.

I’d exhausted myself and was looking forward to sitting on the island and resting before driving myself hard on the way back, and was only maybe ten or twenty feet from the island when his arm came around my waist from behind and yanked me backward hard enough to knock the air out of me.

We were moving backward fast, away from the sanctuary of the island, when I saw the snake — thick, glistening body with its head up ready to strike. The scary too-white mouth opened in a silent hiss. I’d somehow managed to piss it off and hadn’t even known it.

How had Magnum seen it before it’d opened its mouth? It’s a black snake in dark water, and we were past twilight.

It moved toward us, and Magnum shifted us so he was between me and the snake, his arm still around my ribs while he moved us away from the island.

I’m actually okay with some snakes, but never the poisonous ones, and the idea this one was in the water with us was like an extra fright-night thing. I wanted to help get us away from him, but with my arms trapped beside my body, all I could do was kick my legs to help.

He didn’t relax his grip around me until we were a good forty yards from the snake. Or from where it’d been the last time I’d seen it, anyway. I had to assume it’d stopped chasing us, but I didn’t know that for sure.

Somehow, I figured Magnum would know, though. If he stopped, it meant we were in the clear.

So when he loosened the strong grip he had around my ribcage, I turned in his arms to thank him for saving me, but our gazes met and words left me. We were chest to chest, our faces inches apart with the dark water lapping between us, and all I could do was stare into his eyes while one of his hands stayed at my waist, fingers spread wide, holding me up without effort.

For a long moment, we just floated and kicked, bobbing in the water, staring at each other.

Then he let go and drifted back half a foot, just far enough that the contact broke.

“Thanks for the save,” I managed to get out.

“You were focused on the destination instead of your surroundings. If I had to guess, I’d say he was about to strike at his dinner, and we scared whatever it was off.”

“I was looking forward to chilling out on the island a little before pushing myself just as hard on the swim back,” I admitted.

“You good to swim back?” he asked. “We can rest if you aren’t.”

“We can go back slower. Nothing says it has to be a sprint.” I looked around again. “It’s a really nice night, but now I have the heebie-jeebies about snakes in the water.”

He chuckled. “Worse things than snakes in the water, but I’ll protect you. Lead the way so I can keep an eye on you again.”

I approached the dock slower when we arrived, my eyes scanning for snakes.

“There’s a turtle off to your right. Nothing else close that’s above water,” he said from behind me.

I forced myself to swim to the ladder and get out like nothing was bothering me, and then looked down to see one boob completely out of the suit. I kept my back to him and wrapped the towel around me, rolling it under my arms and over my boobs so it covered me from pits to thighs.

“How the hell did you see the snake before it opened its mouth?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows? Movement, probably. It caught my eye, and the shape of the head was obvious, so I got us the fuck away from it.”

It seemed plausible, but I didn’t believe him. There was no reason not to, but my inner reporter told me there was more. I couldn’t imagine what it might be, though. Why wouldn’t he be honest? It didn’t make sense.

And asking follow-up questions would be awkward, so I dropped it and told him, “I feel better despite the adrenaline dump. I’m gonna take a long shower and then hit the sack. Thanks for swimming with me.”

He grunted, sat back in the lounger he’d been in when I came down, and I figured that was all I was getting from him.

- - - ❖ - - -

Magnum

There was no way I could explain how my vision at twilight is so much better than a human’s. No way to explain my brain is specifically programmed to watch out for natural predators in that fucking environment.