Free Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) by Pamela Beason Page A

of vegetation glue themselves to our faces and appendages as we push through the wet growth. After about a half hour of this soggy exploration, I nearly fall on top of a striped snake. It throws its body into coils in the middle of the trail and threatens us with a loud hiss. I have no idea if it’s venomous, but it looks pissed. I jump back, almost knocking Sebastian off the dike. Thankfully, the snake quickly decides that we’re not worth risking its fangs on, and it slithers off down the bank and vanishes into the swamp.
    This alerts me to the possibility of serpents in the water, so I scan both sides of the dike as best I can while moving. And then I see another snake. This one is just emerging from the water’s edge, and judging by the size of its spade-shaped head, I don’t want to see the rest of its giant python body. I point at it so Sebastian will take note as we race past. A few yards further on, I hear something big crash through the brush off to the side. This gives me heart palpitations, but when the crashing is followed by splashing noises, I know that the tiger-buffalo-python is moving away from us.
    Then the causeway or dike or whatever it used to be ends.
    “Damn it!” Sebastian curses as he slicks his hair back out of his eyes. His muddy hands leave brown-red stripes on the sides of his face. He looks worried.
    The rain isn’t letting up. Huge drops dance across the surface of the murky water between us and the shore.
    “It doesn’t look so far,” I say. “Maybe a hundred yards? You can swim, right, Callendro?”
    He looks at me and snorts with derision. “I think I proved that yesterday.”
    Then we stare at the water again, and I know we’re both wondering two things. One, how many snakes might be hidden in that brown soup. Two, how deep is it? With these conditions, there’s no way to tell.
    “At least there’s no current,” my partner says.
    I bend over to untie my running shoes.
    After stashing shoes and socks in my pack, I slide down the muddy bank into the muck. At first, there’s only a few inches of water, but then, as we lurch toward the shore, the swamp deepens to over a foot. It’s slow going because we have to pull our feet out of the slimy bog with each step. It might have been faster after all to run around this area. A leech attaches its ugly black slimy self to the back of my right knee. Two of them glom onto Sebastian’s calves as he wades through the water ahead of me. Ick.
    What looks at first like a vine zig-zags through the water ahead of us. I gulp, but fortunately the snake is small and in a hurry. A multi-legged something crawls up the back of my neck. I’m afraid to brush it off because I can’t see if it has fangs or a stinger.
    Tropical paradise, my ass. Give me the bug- and venomous-snake-free Pacific Northwest any day.
    The water deepens to two feet. Then, it’s nearly up to our waists and my feet still sink into muck with every step, but we are nearing the shore. Sebastian’s feet must find firmer ground, because suddenly he surges ahead, moving quickly up the bank.
    I try to crabwalk in the direction he took, and that’s when I see the nostrils.
    The eyes.
    The ridges of its back and the long curve of its tail.
    There are crocodiles ?
    I was so busy keeping a watch for pythons that I forgot to look for anything else.
    I scream and flounder toward shore, pushing my hands and feet through the watery muck. My toes and fingers can’t get purchase fast enough to thrust me to safety. The croc is only a few yards behind me. At any second I’m going to feel those steel trap jaws snap shut on my leg or torso. I’ve always thought of myself as a calm sort of person, but right now I can’t stop screaming.
    My left foot lands on packed sand, and as I struggle to drag my right out of the mud, a huge splash of brown water smacks me in the face, blinding me. Sebastian is suddenly beside me, yanking on my arm. Then he’s behind me, shoving, one hand against my