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

back and another on my butt, propelling me toward the shore. As my trapped foot comes free, I run right out of his hands. But when I turn, I see he has fallen onto his hands and knees, and the croc is closing in. Sebastian claws his way to his feet and lunges ahead, throwing his body toward the shore. I meet him halfway, wrapping my arms around him to pull him up. We fall up the bank, Sebastian on top of me, both of us scrabbling like crazed crabs in the mud. Over Sebastian’s shoulder, I see the croc lunge after us like a reptilian missile, its razor-toothed jaws wide open.

Chapter 6
    A branch flies over us and lands with a flurry of leaves in the crocodile’s open mouth. The croc’s jaws snap shut with a terrifying crunch. The prehistoric monster slides backward and begins to roll in the water, a tornado of teeth clamped around that branch, whipping it around and around.
    “It will take her a few minutes to determine that she has not killed a prey,” Marco Senai informs us in his melodic African accent.
    Then he grins, his teeth startling white against his blue-black skin. A drip of rain water falls from the tip of his nose. “I know crocodiles.”
    Breathless and slimed with mud, Sebastian and I stare at him.
    Now that the screaming has stopped, a loud whop-whop-whop overhead draws our attention skyward. But the helicopter is moving away, and we all look back at the roiling water. I wonder what the secret squirrels would have done if Sebastian was in the monster’s jaws instead of that branch.
    “Marco!” His Italian partner, Suzana Mistri, waves from the edge of the jungle about fifty yards away.
    Sebastian and I are still stunned by the course of events. We watch in silence as Senai and Mistri vanish into the forest.
    The team that was in third place this morning has just leap-frogged us, which means that Cole and Rossi are probably ahead of us, too.
    Right now I’m so grateful to be alive that I can’t summon my usual anxiety about not being in the lead. Keeping a wary eye on the swamp water, Sebastian and I move back from the shore to a grassy strip and spend a good five minutes de-leeching each other and cleaning the mud from our feet before we put on our running shoes again.
    “I thought I was a goner.” I slide my wet socks in between my toes to clean out the reddish glop there. “Then I thought you were a goner.”
    He shakes his head in disbelief. “I almost got eaten by a crocodile.”
    “I didn’t know there were crocodiles.”
    “Only a handful. They were mentioned in the briefing.”
    “Huh. I must have slept through that part.” I feel like an idiot. “Why did you jump back in?”
    Who throws himself in front of a crocodile? It seems much too heroic a gesture for someone who barely knows me. Sebastian didn’t even have a weapon of any kind.
    My partner wrings out his own sock, dribbling reddish water onto the grass beside us. “I can’t cross the finish line without you.”
    Can it really be as simple as that? In this race, you do have to save your partner to save your chance of winning. I guess I didn’t realize Sebastian Callendro was that much of a competitor.
    I actually wish it would rain harder to get more of the mud off. There’s no way I’m going back to the water to wash now.
    Soon we’re running again, now back on the route we saved to our wrist units. It’s probably the same trail that all the other teams are using. I wonder how many are in front of us.
    When we arrive in camp, Marco Senai and Suzana Mistri are already clean, coiffed, and chowing down in front of the cameras. The screen displayed outside at the checkpoint shows Marco holding forth with some wild tale about running with lions. Every story sounds charming when he tells it. Dream Team Cole and Rossi emerge from the medical tent as Sebastian and I check in. It’s disheartening to know we have so much time to make up tomorrow.
    A newsquacker sticks a microphone in front of my partner’s sweaty face. “How