Page 134 of Death is Familiar

“And I thought we would be playing hide and go seek, and now I’m scared because what if there are swamp monsters in here with us?” The creature got close enough for me to identify. It wasn’t an alligator. It was an alligator snapping turtle. “And what if they drag us to our deaths. Make us drown?”

“We’d know if there was a monster in here with us.” Well, I did because I was looking at the water, at the turtle, knowing it had a bite capable of detaching fingers, and Three was ignoring all of it as she continued to face the sky. “It’s day time, so the monsters are sleeping.”

A snapping turtle was fine. It was. We were going to be okay. Lawrence had once told me that snapping turtles were generally docile in water. If given the chance, they chose to flee and⁠—

The turtle was following us. That didn’t seem docile to me.

“Not all monsters, sleep during the day.” Though she was speaking, Three’s eyes had closed. Not sure if that was better or worse. “Sometimes the swamp plants come to life and strangle people so they can eat them. And that always happens during the day.”

There were plenty of real things to be afraid of, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Not when the snapping turtle was closing in, and we were still up to our wastes in muck.

“Well, we are almost out, but I’m afraid I’m going to need you to pick up the pace.” We were ten steps out from the bank, and roughly five away from being knee deep.

Unfortunately, the snapping turtle was only two feet away.

“Come on, Three. A little faster.”

The turtle closed in, it’s neck straining.

That’s when I saw it. The turtle wasn’t attacking. It was reaching. For a pouch that was tied with a bow of string around Three’s thigh. A pouch that must’ve been hidden beneath the hospital gown, until it’d grown waterlogged and soggy, and slid down her leg.

If I was right, she’d been carrying literal bait around her thigh.

I grabbed for the long end of the bow and yanked, loosing the string and letting the bag fall to the water, as we kept shuffling to get away.

The snapping turtle stopped its pursuit, nudging the pouch with its snout.

I kept my attentions on the turtle as I pushed, a now very wide-eyed, Three onto the muddy bramble-covered bank, then scrambled up after her.

Both of us were on our hands and knees panting, when I asked, “What the hell is that?”

“A… turtle?”

I gave her a death glare. “Don’t play dense, you know what I’m talking about.”

“…My snack pouch.”

“What. Snack. Pouch?” I’d never seen her ‘snack pouch’. And she’d never mentioned it. Not once.

The turtle snapped again at the floating fabric bag, dragging it beneath the surface. But not before leaving some of the contents behind. A perfect circle.

A dog treat.

No, no, no, Three, she wouldn’t have done this to me. To us. She wouldn’t.

Barking sounding in the distance, I fought the plummeting in my stomach.

“I thought you said they didn’t have dogs!” I whisper-yelled. A very real fear was alive and well, beneath my skin, far different from the fear of the swamp.

“I didn’t know,” she responded, louder than I would have liked.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her bottom lip quivered.

I was staring down a choice. Leaving Three behind, with the chance she’d continue to live a lifetime of captivity—if that had even been true in the first place—or taking her with me. A woman who had very clearly lied, and wore dog treats around her thigh to ensure we’d get caught by Solomon’s Seal.

But a new and altogether unfamiliar, soft part of me, urged me to give her a chance. It was foolish.