The next few days for Austin passed much in the same manner as before. He stayed in the pit, shivering and sodden, dozing in and out. The men up above followed their established pattern of waking, working in the swamp forest, then returning at dusk, where they would prepare an evening meal and then retire to their tents.

Glenn rarely seemed to be around the camp, though Austin wasn’t certain where the crocodile shifter went when he was gone. Even when he was in the area, Glenn’s purpose in life seemed to be coughing his lungs out and barking orders. The false politeness with which he’d spoken to Austin didn’t appear when he addressed his men, not even in a mocking way. His words were hissing and brutal, laced with obscenities the likes of which Austin had never heard before.

But, the days weren’t exactly the same.

Before, his captors had dragged him up out of the pit at least once per day, often several times. They beat him, tried to knock answers out of him, and then they dropped him back down into this muddy hole.

Now it was like they had forgotten he existed. No one mentioned him. No one questioned whether they should try him again. No one opened the flaps of the tent covered him to toss down pitiful scraps of food. No one tried to piss on him, or taunt him from above.

He was being isolated deliberately and he knew it. The previous tactics had failed, so Glenn was trying this one now.

The other difference was that Austin was getting sick. He could feel it, a weakness in his bones, a soreness in his joints. His nose kept running; he had smeared filthy mud across his face from wiping at it. His throat tickled, and in the past few hours he had started coughing a little.

Shifters didn’t commonly get sick, but this was no common situation. His body had withstood as much as it could and now it could do no more.

When he dozed, he awoke groggy, struggling to remember where he was and what was going on. He could only really guess at how much time had passed since he had that bread and the pan full of bacon grease, though it must have been long enough because the residue in the pan was starting to acquire a ripe sour smell. It was worse than the odor of the mud, the lingering rotten smell of decomposing vegetation; he had almost become accustomed to that by now.

I have to keep holding on.

Austin repeated that to himself constantly, reminding himself of his own conviction. He could get out of this and he would. Somehow, some way, he would do it.

His plan was to run into the swamp. If he went out across the marsh, he would never be able to get away. The water would bog him down and he would be visible the entire time.

It was true that these men worked in the swamp, day in and day out. They undoubtedly knew the lay of the land in this immediate area. It seemed unlikely that they would go for pleasure walks in the swamp, however. The risk of getting lost or bitten by some venomous animal was to high. And plus, why would they want to waste the energy they needed to be able to cut down the trees?

If he could get deep into the swamp, he would be able to lose them. He was sure of it and dammit, he was going to get the chance to find out.

The only person who might throw a wrench into that plan was Glenn.

Austin had no information on crocodiles. He didn’t know much about their senses, or how fast they could go. Glenn might be able to track him.

If it came down to that, Austin would fight him.

Shivering, listening to the silence on the edge of the marsh, Austin felt that pesky tickle at the back of his throat again. He turned his head and coughed, noticing grimly how much worse it felt to do so.

When he was done, he settled back in against himself again. He could no longer feel his arms at all, as they were still tied behind him. His hopes that being submerged in water and mud would weaken his bonds had been dashed many hours ago. Getting soaked only made the ropes feel heavier.

Austin closed his eyes. He reached out with his mind, searching for some sign of Lucas. He kept hoping for the connection between them to be reestablished, though he was almost certain he was too far away.

He felt something.

His breath choked in his lungs. His heart fluttered. Sitting up a little straighter, he reached out for the sensation with his mind, groping blindly in the dark. He could feel a shape, a form he knew well. Slender and precious, searching for him as well.

Their thoughts brushed together and Austin caught a brief flash of Lucas in his mind. Lucas as a man, curly-headed and blue-eyed. Lucas as a wolf, pelt like toffee swirled with cream.

It was like they had touched noses. Like they pressed their sides together while passing by. He felt Lucas' concern, his determination. His presence grew stronger and stronger in miniscule increments, coming closer by the second.

Austin opened his eyes, breaking the connection. He let his head fall back against the wall, not caring about the mud which seeped down the back of his neck. Tears slid down his face, carving clear tracks on his soiled skin.

For all that he fucked up before this, doing everything completely wrong, Lucas was coming to get him anyway. Lucas loved him and he was doing as wolves did for the ones they cherished most.

If you find me, I’ll make everything right. We’ll confess properly, once and for all. I promise.

He didn’t know if Lucas could hear him, but he thought so. If there was anyone who could do that, it would be Lucas.

Did alphas think they were at the top of the chain? Austin knew how misguided that was, now. An alpha was nothing without an omega at his side, guiding him, refusing to let his misguided dominance get in the way.

How Lucas could find him was a mystery and he wasn’t going to question it. It was going to happen, so he had best be prepared for it.

He had to last until Lucas got here, from wherever he was.

A voice rang out across the marsh, slicing through the ambient silence. Austin tilted his head, focusing. More voices. Not just one man. Many men. All the workers, or at least most of them, were emerging from the swamp. Their boots thudded dully on soft earth, clogged with mud. Odd rattles and scraping sounds suggested they carried the tools of their trade with them, dragging them across the ground.

Something was wrong.

Austin looked up and confirmed that sunlight still poured strongly through the miniscule gap between the top of the pit and the bottom of the tent. The men shouldn’t have been back for hours yet. They never stopped early, and they didn’t bring their tools with them.

Could they be abandoning this spot after someone found out about them?

Is Lucas coming? Did he bring help?

There seemed to be no rush, though. These men didn’t sound as if they were hurrying to pack up and move on to a new location. In fact, from all the dragging, Austin thought they seemed pretty unenthused about whatever was about to happen.

Glenn’s voice, thick with the urge to cough. “Gentlemen, gather around. You are about to witness something very important. A story to tell your children about.”

A low murmur of responses, lost underneath a series of heaving, uncontrollable coughs. Glenn breathed raggedly when it was over, sucking in huge gulps of air and letting it burst out of him again. The entire process took well over two minutes, during which Austin couldn’t decide whether he felt awkward, or whether he pitied the poor dying bastard. He was in a lot of pain.

Then again, so was Austin.

Once Glenn managed to breathe normally again, he walked over to the door of the tent which had been placed over Austin’s pit. His steps were slightly uneven, making his walk very distinctive. One foot moved normally, while the other scraped over the surface of the mud.

The zipper holding the tent flaps shut was undone, and the flaps were tossed apart with dramatic grandness. Sunlight poured in around Glenn’s stooped silhouette.

“I imagine you’ve been a little uncomfortable down there,” Glenn said.

Austin narrowed his eyes, trying to penetrate through the sunlight so he could get a better look at his captor’s face. “Fuck you,” he replied.

He couldn’t see Glenn’s face no matter how hard he tried, but apparently the man didn’t like being told that. He whipped around and barked, “Get him up here!”

While Glenn was coughing, two men came over with a length of rope. One of them was Fat Fuck, while the other was a person Austin didn’t recognize.

The rope was tossed down to him, as per usual. There was only one problem.

“Can’t grab it,” Austin said. “Hands are still tied. Remember?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something, won’t we?”

Austin’s blood pumped through his veins a little faster than before. “You’re going to send someone down here?”

All sorts of things could happen. Austin didn’t relish the idea at all. He would be no match against anyone right now.

Glen scowled. “Wouldn’t that be such a delightful waste of my time? You think I would send one of my own down into that filthy pit?”

Yes. The way Glen barked orders at his men, that would come as not surprise to Austin.

In the end, the two men up above ended up angling the rope as they lowered it so they could loop it around Austin’s body. Austin tightened the slip knots the best he could with his numb fingers, and held still while they dragged him up. As careless and rough with him as they normally were, the ride up was somehow even worse this time. They tugged and yanked on the ropes, jerking on them until he finally slid up onto solid ground.

It was like they knew there was going to be nothing to care for shortly.

While Austin was struggling to sit up with his hands trapped behind him, someone kicked him in the side. “Get up.”

Austin grunted, although at the same time he was a little surprised. The kick was rough and hurt like a bitch, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it could have because the person was not wearing steel-toed boots like literally everyone else. As he stood, Austin looked at the shoes. They were dress shoes of all things, only streaked with mud instead of totally covered.

He followed the shoes up to the legs, to the stooped form of Glenn.

Glenn gave a rather unkind smile and kicked at him again, landing a blow on his shin and nearly making him fall. “Don’t worry. You won’t be tired for much longer. Come stand over here.”

Fat Fuck and the other man flanked Austin. He couldn’t have run for it even if he wanted to, so he followed Glenn and stood where the crocodile shifter wanted him to.

No one asked him any questions. No one set about threatening to beat him, then following through with their threat. All the men just stood back, regarding Austin with blank apathy or else studying the tops of their boots.

Austin looked back at the men. He estimated there were about twenty or so of them. Most of them were very broad or tall, or both, with ragged features that hinted at a hard life. They were the ones carrying their tools, axes and shovels and even a saw or two.

Why? Intimidation? Or were they just not allowed to put their stuff down before Glenn forced them to come back here?

Out of the group, there were two who didn’t seem to fit with everyone else. Austin hadn’t paid much attention to them before, which he realized now was because neither of them had been ones to beat him up. One of them wore glasses, and it must have been hell for him to try and keep them clean. Both seemed very small in comparison to the others, though they had wiry muscles and stocky builds. The only way Austin could validate their presence here was by assuming they had some sort of necessary technical knowledge. An operation like this could only go so far with manual labor. Someone needed to know what to do afterwards.

The men were just standing around. Watching. Waiting. They formed a crude semi-circle around Austin; as Glenn came closer to Austin, the men shifted, closing the gap. Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

Austin faced his fate.

“Strange that it should come to this, isn’t it?” Glenn said. “All the time wasted with you. All the time spent trying to figure you out, to get answers from you. All the resources we wasted on your existence. Do you know how hard it was to create that hole you’ve been fouling up with your existence?”

“If you used heavy equipment, probably not long at all.”

He saw the slap even before Glenn moved. It started in Glenn’s eyes, a furious tightening around the corners. Rage, too strong to be contained. Tensing didn’t do anything to diminish the stinging pain that slashed across his cheek, but at least he had been prepared for it. If he hadn’t been, in this state, he probably would have passed out from the way his head whipped around.

“You’re even more of a fucking idiot than you seemed from the start,” Glenn snapped. “How the hell would we have gotten an excavator out here? How could we get anything of the sort out here? People can’t even walk on this fucking ground and you think that a giant machine can be driven here?”

Austin opened and closed his mouth a few times, wiggled his jaw. “You got me there. But then, what do those fools do?” He nodded in the direction of the two men who didn’t fit in with all the others. Their small size did nothing to diminish their apparent rage as they narrowed their eyes and snarled at him. Like everyone else, they possessed that roughness, that edge honed into them by the constant presence of hardship.

“Why should I give you my secrets when you’ve refused to give any of your own, Austin Night?”

Austin froze. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t told these people his name. Had he mumbled in his sleep and been overheard, or something?

Glenn grinned fiercely. His teeth were rimmed in red from his own blood. “So, that’s what gets your attention. Yes, I know your name. I know that you are definitely a police officer, just like Oscar.”

Austin froze. Oscar. One of the senior officers he had been working with. Could he be an informant, working for Glenn? Had all of the senior officers been in on it, as united as they were in everything else?

However, that didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have allowed Glenn’s mug shot to be seen.

“I know all of them. Oscar. Mike. Walter. Sam. Each one of them received a visit from my people and graciously told us everything they knew. Unfortunately, they won’t be leading anymore investigations after this.”

Dead. All of them. Even though he hadn’t known any of them on a deeply personal level, his heart hurt.

“And I know quite a lot about you too, because you have made a few occasional appearances on TV whenever I go into town. Isn’t that pitiful? You’re more popular gone than you were when you were actually there.”

As true as that might have been, Austin ignored the words and focused on their meanings instead. If he was on TV, then he was being reported as missing. Other people out there besides Lucas were looking for him. There was hope for him, even as time seemed to be running out, as grains trickled to the bottom of the hourglass. All he had to do was keep stalling, keep stretching his time out for as long as he could.

A touch of fur deep in his thoughts came at exactly the right time to reassure him, urging him to hold on.

“I know all about you,” Glenn repeated. “The question is what you know about me. Us. And not just the boring shit. I want the deep information, the kind you bastards never release to the public.”

Would it hurt him if he answered?

If he tried to keep it as simple as possible, surely Lieutenant Heart and all the rest couldn’t blame him.

Austin took a deep breath and sent a quick apology to his brothers and sister in blue. “We know more or less that you killed that manager at the Home Depot. There were witnesses saying you were there in the area of the scene.”

“Is that a crime in and of itself?”

“Knowing your history, it might as well be. We have all your police records, all the documents about your life that go back to your birth.”

“And when was I born?” Glenn grinned.

Austin shook his head. “I didn’t read those. I just know we have them.”

“Or perhaps you have a forgery I created when I moved here from Europe. And if you were to go to Europe, you would find a death and birth certificate for me. More forgeries. I was in Africa prior to that, for a very long time.”

Something inside Austin trembled, in a very deep and primal place at the back of his mind. He suspected Glenn was older than he had any right to be, but to discover that his criminal life encompassed potential centuries was terrifying. This crocodile had several lifetimes of experience.

“What else do you think you know?”

“You never went to the hospital for whatever happened to your back.” Maybe that hadn’t happened recently, though. He could no longer tell if it was important or not. “We know you went missing for a few years. And we know that you’ve resurfaced, based on those witness reports.”

“All hearsay.” Glenn shrugged. “It would never stand up in court. And if you’re curious about what happened to my back, it’s a rather funny story. I was curious as to whether or not the crocodiles here would accept me as one of their own. They chased me up a tree. I fell asleep hours later. Fell. Snapped my spine. I am not lucky enough to be able to afford health insurance, so I had to make do with my own abilities. I nearly died but, as you can see, I came back stronger than ever.”

Austin imagined Glenn lying on the ground in the swamp, screaming with pain, probably imagining he would die. As the hours went on, he would have grown wetter, colder, weaker.

A familiar image. Austin felt no sympathy.

“I think you’re not telling me quite a lot of things, Austin Night. They say on the TV that you were part of an investigation. What investigation?” Glenn held up his hands. “Seeing as you know so much about me, I can only assume you were investigating my activities. Just like those four old men. I am a wily one though, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Austin agreed.

“Do you see all my people here, Austin? Do you see their weapons? Do you feel your own exhaustion? Your hunger and thirst? Your hands look quite blue. I wonder if you would like to have your binds released?” Glenn leaned in very close. His reptilian eyes flickered, a nictitating membrane sliding over the marbled surface. “You can do nothing. You can go nowhere. Cooperate. Tell us everything. We will make your end quick.”

For the first time in a long while, Austin was afraid. It was startlingly easy to get disillusioned to all this when he was down there in his hole. He could think about all the possibilities about what might happen without actually having to face the consequences.

There was no escaping them now. He was going to die one way or another. The only difference was how painful it would be.

Please, get here soon.

“Okay,” Austin said. His stomach was full for the first time in days, stretched to brimming with tangled knots of anxiety. His heartbeat hummed in his ears, as fast as hummingbird wings. “You’re going to have to come closer, though. I think my voice is going to fail. I’ll have to whisper.”

The ruse shouldn’t have worked. He tried as hard as he could to act convincingly, but he could feel a thousand holes in his acting job. His voice trembled. He sounded unsure of himself. There was no reason Glenn should have fallen for it.

No reason except that Glenn was an old man, and old people often have the enthusiasm of children. They have spent their entire lives waiting for things, and are no longer as willing to do so. Plus, Glenn was dying, slowly, painfully. He had even less time to spend on waiting.

George Glenn leaned in very close to Austin.

Austin worked up what little spit he had, and then he spat in Glenn’s face.

Glenn didn’t move as the spittle hit his cheek, thick and gummy from dehydration, then dropped off into the mud. His eyes darkened with that rage again, and he stepped back. “He’s useless to us. Kill him.”

Austin felt that fear again, paralyzing him from the inside out. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up in patches, where it wasn’t plastered to his neck with mud. His spine tingled, like he could feel claws scraping against his bones.

No one moved. The men looked back and forth from each other, trying to decide which of them would do the deed.

“Dump him in the swamp after?” asked the man who Austin called Scrawny.

Glenn shook his head. “He’s too likely to be discovered. We can’t take any chances he’ll be found, not even after we leave the area. Put him in the pit when you’re done with him. Fill it in.”

If any of the men hated the idea of having to do so much work, they didn’t show it. There wasn’t so much as a single groan from their numbers.

However, someone else spoke up. “We gonna sleep out here with ‘im buried right there? Right next to a dead body?”

“I don’t care where you sleep,” Glenn snarled. “Just do it!”

Some of the men moved in toward Austin. He held his ground, not knowing what else to do.

“What about his spirit?”

“What about your spirit when I stick you in the pit with him? Alive?”

Austin backed away as one of the men reached out for his arm, narrowly avoiding being grabbed. A wave of dizziness crashed over him from the sudden movement and he stumbled, his legs tangling together. He fell, hitting the spongy ground.

Then, he heard something. A sound which reverberated across the open marsh, much like the distant drone of machinery that Austin had become quite accustomed to after all this time.

“Fucking shit!” Glenn said.

Austin rolled over onto his side, lifting his head to try and see what could be causing that sound. All of a sudden, the men were scattering, running everywhere, blocking his view with their legs as they tried to get away from whatever was coming.

From the brief glimpses he was able to catch, Austin could see that several shapes were skimming across the water of the marsh at a fast clip. People clustered on top of the shapes, carrying things in their hands.

Boats, he realized. Boats, and police officers.

And, he saw, a single man in the very back of the rear boat, wearing no uniform, carrying no gun. He had curly blonde hair which waved around behind him as the boats created wind from their own passage.

“He brought the cavalry,” Austin croaked.

Almost as soon as he realized what was happening, the police reached the edge of the marsh. They leapt from their boats before the vehicles even came to a stop, branding their guns.

“Stop!” they shouted, all at various times. Their voices clashed together, mingling with the shouts of the fleeing men. It quickly became apparent that the men weren’t going to stop, and the police gave chase. Shots were fired. Everything was chaos.

Austin couldn’t get up. Every way he tried to move, the mud only shifted to accommodate him. He was floundering, and then he lay still. He had been found. Everything else would come in time, he supposed. He had to hold on a little longer.

His eyes slipped closed.

Someone patted his cheek, shook his shoulder. “Austin!” Lucas said, his voice like the summoning cry of an angel.

Austin opened his eyes and saw his omega, and everything else slid from his mind for a moment. Lucas' hair was all fucked up. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn’t slept or showered properly in ages.

I guess that makes two of us.

He laughed.

A brief flicker of disbelief crossed Lucas' face and then he brightened and laughed, and cried at the same time, and threw his arms around Austin and hugged him tight.

Austin closed his eyes, relishing the feel of Lucas' body on his. He sank into the embrace, luxuriating in the warmth, the sensation of arms wrapped around him. He could have died right then and there, that’s how good it was.

However, with the sounds of chaos still raging around them, he knew he couldn’t relax yet. They weren’t out of danger. “Can you untie me?” he croaked.

Lucas hurried over to his other side. Austin lost sight of him and that caused a pang in his heart. If Lucas was touching him, Austin couldn’t feel it.

“I’m so sorry, Austin,” Lucas whispered while he worked.

“I’m sorry, too,” Austin murmured. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, let’s just get out of here.”

Lucas said nothing else. A moment later, Austin was free. He didn’t even realize it at first because he still had no feeling in his hands or arms, and then there was a rush of blood to his extremities. He gasped, pushing his head against the mud as pins and needles danced up and down his arms, buzzing beneath his skin.

“Can you stand?” Lucas urged. His voice was soft, not at all panicked or worried. He knew what he was doing. Austin felt proud of him, though deep in the back of his mind he wished that this breakthrough had come about in an easier way. “We have to get to the boat and stay there until this all blows over.”

“I have to tell you, I would love to be on a boat.”

He caught a brief glimpse of Lucas' smile, and then the omega was helping him stand, bracing his weight until he could right himself. His legs shook and his footing in the mud was uncertain. He didn’t know how much more of this he could possibly take before Lucas ended up having to drag him around.

The scene was exactly as it had been before Austin fell, only less dense. The cries of men and gunshots were more distant, blurred by the swamp.

Police officers had criminals pinned to the ground and were slapping cuffs on them. They were chasing criminals, leaping at them, grabbing them. It was an abysmal and brutal scene, in part because the cops were taking no chances, and also because the criminals weren’t taking chances, either. They had no desire to be captured and sent to jail. They fought. They snarled curses, and struggled hard against their bonds.

The path to the boats was a clear shot.

“Let’s go,” Lucas urged. He held onto Austin’s numb arm, which felt like it was on fire, and headed off across the mud.

Austin followed as best as he could. He had lost a shoe -when had that happened?- and his foot kept getting bogged down, sucked at by the force of the stinking mud. Their progress was slow and not at all steady.

And suddenly, they were making no progress at all. Fat Fuck stood there, one handcuff dangling from one wrist. There was blood on his mouth and his eyes were wild and crazy.

“He said to kill you,” the large man said. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

As Fat Fuck advanced, Austin saw the whites of the man’s wild eyes. He wasn’t angry. He didn’t want revenge. He was terrified, still trying to desperately obey George Glenn’s commands. He must have been petrified of the man, and that was no doubt in no small part due to the fact that Glenn could turn into a crocodile.

Humans were always of three minds when they discovered the existence of shifter. They were fascinated; they wondered as to the potential ramifications of this discovery; or, they were terrified.

No doubt, Fat Fuck would rather obey Glenn’s commands than risk feeling the wrath of his fangs.

Lucas stepped in front of Austin. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Then, a police officer ran over with their gun in one hand and a nightstick in the other. He dashed in front of Lucas, then came at Fat Fuck. The behemoth of a man tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. The nightstick came down on his temple, and he crumpled to the ground.

“Get to the boat,’ the cop said, as if that hadn’t been their plan the entire time. Austin couldn’t blame him, though. In a situation like this, there could be no chances taken.

Austin felt Lucas grab at him this time, though it might have just been an illusion because he could see the omega’s hands wrap around his. “Let’s go!” Lucas urged.

Austin started to obey, and then things were happening very fast.

The police officer looked to be in his 30’s. He had a golden band on one finger. His face was wide and earnest, the face of someone who had only the best intentions in life.

Bending down over the unconscious criminal, the police officer replaced his nightstick at his side. He reached out for the handcuffs, clearly meaning to finish what had been started.

The criminal reached out, almost paranormally fast. He grabbed the cop’s leg and wrenched at it, making him fall. Fat Fuck rolled with the fall, twisting around so that he ended up straddling the fallen officer. Somehow, he had the cop’s gun in his hands. He pointed the muzzle at the cop’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger.

The retort was sharp and yet hollow, like the sound of a watermelon being dropped from a small height.

Austin twisted his head away so he couldn’t see, though he could imagine it well enough. A person only had to have a minor understanding of guns to know the entry wound would be small, but the entire back of the cop’s head would be blown out. Brains, skull, everything revealed in a way it was never meant to be.

“Run,” Lucas urged.

Austin didn’t know if the words were spoken or if he had overheard Lucas' thoughts. Either way, it didn’t matter. He was already running.

There was nowhere for them to go, but into the swamp.

Each step was a pain, sending aching reverberations throughout Austin’s exhausted body. His breath came in great, panting rasps. He had to lean forward, or else he would have fallen over. His balance was terrible, and the world gyrated around him in slow circles. Black speckles appeared in his vision.

Then they hit the swamp, and he did fall. He put out his hands to catch himself, except there was nothing to catch onto. There was only water and loose, filmy mud where before there had been at least a pale imitation of dry land. Water and muck splashed up into his face. He spluttered, trying to get up.

Splashing, pondering footsteps from behind. He didn’t know who they belonged to, if it was Fat Fuck chasing them or someone else who had fled into the swamp who just so happened to be there.

Delicate hands grabbed at him. “Come on!” Lucas urged. His voice was sharp as a knife with fright.

Groaning, Austin tried to stand. His hands came out of the water with a sinister sucking sound, like the earth itself didn’t want to let him go. He felt Lucas tugging at him, trying to urge him on, to give him the boost he needed to be able to get going again. Only with Lucas' help was he able to start running again, though by now his run had slowed down to something resembling a toddler’s shambling walk.

From the outside, the swamp had looked like a solid wall of wilderness. It didn’t slowly rise from the marsh, separating itself into its own biome through small increments. Instead, it had been there, a line of thick, gnarled trees that leaned crazily against one another, creating natural barriers not found anywhere else in the world.

Being inside the swamp was much the same as looking at it from a distance. Trees lurched up from the boggy water, clustered so close together in some places that a person couldn’t have forced their way through even if they wanted to. In some places, the water was brown, and in other places, it was covered with a thick green sludge that looked and felt like the kind of snot a person produces when they have a sinus infection. Smaller trees and clumps of sickly-looking grass spurted up from beneath the water. Thorny bushes formed obstacles, as did splintered, rotting tree trunks, fallen trees, dense piles of pointed twigs. And that was just what could be seen.

Underneath the water, there were twigs and roots and boulders and an occasional living thing, which slithered or hopped or flickered out of the way only an instant before it would have been crushed.

Progress was incredibly slow. Lucas wasn’t even deliberately going slower at this point. He was stumbling and falling just as much as Austin.

Through the racket they made as they forced their way through the swamp, Austin had no idea if they were still being followed. He didn’t even know where they were going at this point. He just knew they had to go.

Then, without warning, a bank appeared in front of them. It seemed like only a trick of the mind at first, probably a mossy trunk glimpsed through the gaps in this line of thorn bushes, and then they emerged out on the other side of the bushes and saw the bank for what it was. Sludgy water ended at a gradual slope of mud, which looked to be every bit as thick and slippery as the walls of the pit Austin had been kept in. The slope was covered in roots and protruding bits of vegetation. Then, as the bank evened out at its apex, the clusters of disgusting roots were replaced by a sweep of gentle green grass, as perfect and delicate as anything found in a suburban house lawn.

“Let’s try there,” Austin gasped. He slowed down. The very thought of being somewhere up and out of the mud, out of this slimy water, made him weak at the knees. He didn’t know how much he believed in God, but this was surely a blessing.

Lucas hopped in front of him, grimacing down at his sodden jeans for an instant. He twisted around, staring back the way they had come. “Shh! Hold still!”

Austin staggered to a halt, which was when he discovered it was harder to keep his balance while holding still. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Then again, this entire situation had long since lost any logic.

Finally, Lucas turned back to him. He dropped his voice. “I don’t think he followed us here.”

“Wonder why not?” Austin grunted.

“I don’t know. Let’s go. Up onto the bank.”

They went over to the slope, which was taller than it had looked from a distance. The angle wasn’t as gradual, either.

Lucas went up first, clawing his way up while holding onto the various jutting roots and twigs. He sprawled out on the grass for a moment, then straightened up. “It’s amazing up here.”

“Wish I could see it,” Austin replied. He bared his teeth, not sure if he was snarling or smiling.

“It’s more what you feel, not see.” Lucas sat up, then crawled over to the edge of the slope. He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

Austin reached for the roots, grabbing onto them with his abused fingers. He hadn’t been paying much attention to his arms while floundering through the swamp, which was probably a good thing. The worst of the tingling pain had faded. Now, however, he had a new difficulty to contend with. They hurt. Whenever he moved his fingers, it was like he was being bitten or pinched by dozens of little creatures with pointed teeth, gnawing at his veins, his joints.

What if I’ve got permanent damage?

He would have to worry about that later.

It took all his strength to claw his way up the slope. His hands were weak. He kept losing his grip on the roots, and his feet slid all over the place, unable to find purchase. Lucas grabbed his shoulders and pulled on him, grunting and gasping.

Inch by inch, Austin climbed the slope, and collapsed on his stomach on solid ground.

Nothing had ever felt so good, not even when Lucas came to him and hugged him. Turning his face to the earth, he kissed the grass, felt his tears wet the springy blades of emerald green. The solidity underneath him felt like the earth itself was apologizing for what he had gone through.

He would forgive it too, if he could only feel this safe forever.

However, he knew he couldn’t lie there for an eternity. Even though it hurt him to do so, every aspect of his being crying out against the need to keep moving, he pushed against the ground and sat up. His hands left imprints in the grass, though the ground beneath was as solid as ever.

“Good, right?” Lucas said, laughing a little under his breath.

“Yeah,” Austin agreed. “Real damn good.”

He looked out across the swamp and was amazed that there was no sign of their passage whatsoever. They were too insignificant to leave any imprint on this world.

“What do we do now?” Austin asked. He drew his legs up underneath him, resting for a moment.

“I don’t know,” Lucas admitted. “The only reason I was allowed to come was because I promised I’d stay on the boat and keep out of the way.”

“You did a good job of that, I’d say,” Austin said.

Lucas smiled and winced at the same time. “I couldn’t just leave you out here. I was going to take you back to the boat so you could wait with me instead of lying there in the mud. Then, well, you know the rest, I guess. Maybe we should stay here. You saw how many of those people ran into the swamp. There’ll be cops all over this place. They’ll find us. Take us back home. Or, we can try to go back on our own when you’re rested.”

Austin shook his head a little, though he wasn’t denying any idea in particular. “I have no idea what I want to do. Makes me feel kind of paranoid though, just sitting out here in the open.”

“Want to go deeper in the swamp?”

Austin looked down at the water and felt a slither of fear inside his chest, like one of his scaly friends had decided to come along with him. “Maybe let’s just move further back, away from the edge.”

Nodding, Lucas stood, then helped Austin stand. “I want to kiss you, but you really smell right now.”

Austin laughed. “You’re not exactly fresh as a daisy yourself. I don’t think you have any right to judge me.”

“Trust me.” Lucas' voice grew very soft. “I’m not. After all you’ve been through, you can be as stinky as you want.”

They laughed together again. Then, their fingers wound together and they turned around to see what else awaited them on this miraculous stretch of dry land.

As they walked, they said nothing else. Neither of them knew what could be said. They had found each other again and that was all that mattered. Explanations and apologies could come later, when there was time for such things.

Being on dry land, above the water level, actually did not make visibility all that much better. Trees and bushes still crowded in, and the grassy slope had its fair share of obstacles in the form of sudden holes and hidden roots.

Austin caught sight of a tree trunk and paused. They had already passed by many trunks in the swamp, splintered and blackened and covered in moss or fungus.

This one was different.

Its chopped top was relatively smooth.

This had been done deliberately.

He turned to Lucas to point it out. Lucas was already looking at him and he nodded, as if to say he knew.

The two of them went on, and that was how they found the logging site.

An entire enormous stretch of swamp had been eaten away. Trunks with smooth tops studded the earth, like tombstones. Surrounding the graveyard of trees were swathes of forest which had yet to be cut. The canopy was extraordinarily tall, the trunks spindly but strong, covered with leathery bark.

At the far end of the area of clear ground were two yellow monsters, which were clearly heavy machinery. Austin couldn’t make out their purpose from there. That wasn’t because he couldn’t see far enough, though. The machines had been put away properly, their extensions -if any- tucked down and folded up. Branches had been piled against the sides and the tops, to disguise them much in the same way as the tents had been.

For a moment, he almost felt betrayed. Glenn had said they didn’t have heavy machinery like this, that they had to dig Austin’s pit by hand.

Then, he thought of the water and mud which lay between here and the camp at the edge of the marsh, and reconsidered. These vehicles would have been a pain to bring over there, if it was even possible.

“How did those get here?” Lucas asked. His voice was an awed whisper. His blue eyes were wide with sadness and horror at the destruction in front of them.

Austin shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably the same way they get the logs out of here. Trucks?”

“Boats?” Lucas offered. Then, he sighed. “That’s not important. Do you want to go deeper, or?”

“Let’s just stay here for a bit,” Austin said. Suddenly, he was so tired he hadn’t even the strength to stand anymore. He went over to the nearest stump and dropped down onto it, and it was the best chair he’d ever known. Everything inside him ached. He felt like he had been torn into pieces and put back together hapharzardly.

Lucas came over and crouched beside him, then placed a hand on his thigh. He looked up at Austin.

Austin looked down at him, then lifted his weary hand and gently stroked his fingers through Lucas' hair, loving the way the curls wrapped around his fingers. He drank in the sight of those sapphire blue eyes, which were more refreshing right now than a glass of water ever could have been.

“Austin, I’m so, so sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“With the way I acted, I’m grateful you came at all. So, so grateful.” Austin tilted his head back. He hadn’t ever looked at the sky throughout his time here, and he couldn’t believe how serene it was, how blue and how calm, with fluffy little clouds dotted here and there. It was the same sky he saw over Pensacola on most days. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve thought about all the things I could have done differently.”

“We both could have done things differently,” Lucas said softly. “I have things to tell you and I want to know all about what you’ve gone through. But, all that can probably wait for a better time. When we’re back home and safe.”

Austin nodded. He kept his fingers roaming through Lucas' hair, sliding down the soft skin at the nape of his neck. “How did you even find me?”

“I don’t know,” Lucas admitted. He sounded very uncertain, and Austin had to smile because it was very much like him to not be certain of something. At the same time, he was smiling because of the fact that Lucas wasn’t being unsure of himself, just how he had done what he did. That was an important distinction, and one he was glad to see. While he had been down there in that pit, practicing his stubbornness, Lucas had been busy making some very serious adjustments to his life and personality.

Very quickly, Lucas gave him a vague overview of his thought process, and of how he had found out Austin was missing. He remembered their talk about the Everglades.

Austin loved him for that, for paying so much attention.

“I hopped on my motorcycle and I just… drove here. I could feel that you had to be here somewhere. And the closer I got, the more I could feel, until I knew exactly where you were. I could have pointed to the exact spot on a map if someone asked me to.

“And the cops down here did. Ask me, I mean. I told them everything I knew, and I just kept repeating myself. I don’t think they would have listened to me, except the Chief of Police was a shifter and he took me aside, and made me explain everything without any gaps. I pointed out the spot on the map where I knew you were.”

“And where am I?”

“On the edge of a cypress reserve.”

“He said he had some information that he’d gotten through other shifters, which he was trying to figure out how to use in a way that would make sense to humans. He’ll have to think harder now, because we’re here. You were here. I was right. I found you.”

“Yeah,” Austin agreed. “You sure did. And I am so fucking glad you did. I owe you my life.”

“I’m sure sometime in the future, you’ll have the chance to save my life. And then we’ll be even.” Leaning over, Lucas rested his head on Austin’s arm.

Austin sighed. He tilted his head down to look at Lucas again, and then he lowered himself down to press their lips together. He might not have been able to manage it if Lucas didn’t stretch up to meet him halfway.

The kiss was sweet and simple, a long touch of lips, lingering together before parting.

Lucas whispered, “Your breath is terrible.”

Chuckling, Austin wrapped his arm around Lucas and held him close. They looked out at the ruined forest together, and Austin remembered something rather important. “Lucas, the man who did all this is the same man who killed that manager I was telling you about. And it’s worse than that. He’s a shifter.”

Lucas stirred against him. “For real? What kind?”

“A crocodile. I think.”

“He’s destroying the home of his own kind?”

“Idiots.”

The voice belonged not to Austin, and not to Lucas, either. It wasn’t the voice of a police officer, come to scold them for having done everything wrong.

It was a polite and mannerly voice, rough around the edges, as if the speaker was a heavy smoker.

A wave of exhaustion swept over Austin. He clenched his eyes shut and fought against it, pushing back as hard as he could. This wasn’t over yet. In fact, it was a very long way from being over.

Dropping his hands down by his side, Austin used them to help himself stand up. He turned and came face-to-face with George Glenn, who now looked as dirty and as untamed as any of his men. His dress shoes were bricks of mud.

“You’re both idiots,” Glenn rasped. Blood drizzled from the corner of his mouth. “You think that I should feel anything for stupid animals, crawling in the mud? I told you, Austin Night, about how those beasts chased me into a tree when I tried to test that theory. It’s their fault I turned into a crippled lump of a man. They mean nothing to me. We aren’t animals. We aren’t men. We’re better than both. Why shouldn’t I take what I want and use it for my own purposes?”

What he said almost made sense. However, Austin knew that anything could sound logical if it was put into the right words. That was why lawyers were often so successful at getting lowered sentences for terrible criminals. Truth was not a static thing, but malleable like clay. It could be twisted into all sorts of shapes and stay more or less the same.

Did that teenager rob a convenience store at gunpoint so he could join a gang, or was he a misguided youth who had been failed by everyone, who had nowhere else to turn? Either way, he robbed the store. The same thing happened. The stories were just a little different.

Austin knew shifters were more than human, more than animal, but that didn’t make them better. It made them more. Stronger, faster, healthier. Yet, it also gave them struggles that no human would have to face. A hawk shifter had to deal with the constant fear of having their toddler fly away in public, and so on, with unique difficulties cropping up for each species of animal a person could be. They were more, and that was tempered.

It gave them no right to destroy.

“Why are you here?” Lucas asked. He stood his ground, though his body was trembling. Glenn’s crocodilian eyes were enough to strike fear in the hearts of the most courageous of men. “You’re a crocodile. You could just go lay in the water for a few days and everyone would leave you alone.”

“Idiots, and small-minded to boot.” Glenn took a threatening step forward. Lucas trembled, but stayed where he was. “Both of you know. They would find me, somehow. I’m too fucking old now to go running again. If I get rid of you, they won’t know. And then I will hide.”

“What about the rest of your workers who just took off running?” Austin pressed. “They know. Why wouldn’t they tell?”

“They know better than that,” George Glenn said, and then he shifted. Where he had once stood, an old man in poor condition, there was now a massive crocodile unfurling. His head was absolutely enormous and he opened his huge maw, exposing rows and rows of jagged yellow teeth. He looked every bit like a dinosaur, a flightless dragon, a nightmare given shape and form.

Lucas leaped away from the crocodile as it lunged toward him. His ankle snagged against a root hidden in the grass and he tumbled onto his ass. He rolled as he fell, trying to get up, and then Glenn was upon him.

Austin saw the bite come as if in slow motion. Glenn jumped forward, propelling himself using his thick legs and his enormous tail. His maw opened wide, a thrumming hiss pulsing from the back of his throat. The inside of his mouth was abhorrently fleshy, peach-pink and filled with folds and ridges. His yellowed fangs gleamed dully in the sunlight.

Then, Glenn slammed his jaws shut.

Lucas screamed as monstrous, ripping force clamped down his leg.

All the anger Austin had felt before, when he saw Glenn walking calmly down the street only a few hours after murdering someone in cold blood, that was nothing compared to what he felt now, watching his omega be brutalized.

Lucas should never feel such pain.

It was like Austin’s heart had been replaced by flame. He was burning up. Smolders of red and black ignited at the corners of his vision, then covered the rest. His breath felt like smoke. His veins were lava.

He was so. Fucking. Pissed!

He screamed, and it was a sound unlike any human lungs had ever produced before, because he started shifting in the middle of it. The cry of outrage and fury and pain melded into an animalistic, snarling howl .

Austin hit the ground on all four paws. Never, ever in his entire life had shifting felt so good. After all that time spent cooped up in that tiny pit, this felt like he was stretching, getting out all the kinks and knots in one quick motion.

He hardly felt the grass under his paws. The moment he came down, he leapt, landing right on Glenn’s back. He sank his blunt claws into the scales and ripped, but he didn’t even leave any marks.

Lunging his head down, snarling, he tried to bite at Glenn, to inflict upon him the same brand of pain as he was giving Lucas -who was still screaming, wretchedly, struggling to free himself, clawing at the ground. Austin’s fangs clashed dully against the armored scales on the back of the crocodile’s back. The impact felt like it had almost been enough to break his teeth.

Not working, he thought, and switched tactics.

Pushing himself forward, he lifted his paw and brought it down as hard as he could on Glenn’s eye. He tried to claw directly at the eyeball, but hard, spiked ridges made his claws skip right over the soft orb.

It didn’t matter in the end, because Glenn let out a thundering hiss and writhed underneath him. The force of his reptilian muscles sent Austin crashing on his side several feet away.

And then Glenn was on top of him, and Austin was glad, because this meant Lucas was no longer in any danger. Even if he was going to die, at least he would have bought time for Lucas to escape.

There was nothing in the world comparable to the experience of having an alligator on top of him. If a tree came to life and body slammed a person, and had the worst breath in the entire world, that would be in the general area of what it was like. Austin couldn’t breathe. He was being crushed under a writhing, gyrating mass of pure muscle, hot breath that reeked of rotten meat blasting in his face. Long, sharp claws punctures his skin, made him bleed.

Yet, he wasn’t being bitten. Glenn couldn’t get his head down at the right angle to do so.

Austin struggled, tossing his head around. He scrabbled with his paws, clawing at anything he could reach. His claws slid harmlessly over scales, caught in grooves. He was doing nothing.

Someone was shouting, but he wasn’t sure who it was. Himself, Lucas, or someone else?

Huge pressure crushed down on him, pushing all the breath from his lungs in a great gush of air. Then, the pressure released and Glenn swung to the side, clearly meaning to come back around for a proper bite.

Austin twisted out of the way, corkscrewing his body, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid being hit by that massive tail, which uncoiled like a length of chain and felt like it too, when it slammed into him. He was thrown, his flight stopped only when he crashed against one of the many tree trunks.

He collapsed, almost certain he had no fight left in him. Glowing reptilian eyes were all he could see as Glenn came for him, and then he saw the fleshy insides of that horrendous mouth.

I can’t give up. Not now. Not when we were so close.

The jaws came down.

Austin lashed out, a final blow with every last drop of his strength behind it. He was a ragged, empty thing.

He felt fangs press into his fur… and then lift.

“My eyes!”

Opening his own eyes, Austin saw Glenn, human now, and no longer a crocodile. He crouched in the mud with his hands clamped over his eyes. Blood and a strange clear fluid leaked from between his fingers.

“I can’t see! I’m blind! My fucking eyes!”

Someone in the distance shouted, “Don’t move! We’re coming!”

The cops. It’s about time.

Grinning a little, because now he was pretty sure he knew what a normal person felt when they had waited so long for someone to come to their aid after calling 911, Austin shifted back into human form. He looked around. “Lucas?” he called.

There was only a groan in response.

His heart jamming up into his throat, he stumbled to the source of the sound and found Lucas sprawled out on the ground, mostly hidden from sight by two trunks placed close together.

There was blood everywhere.

Austin dropped to his knees, his legs giving out. He crawled the last couple feet to Lucas, filled with a dreadful certainty that the police wouldn’t get here, that Lucas wouldn’t be taken back to the hospital in time. This might well be the last moments he ever spent with this beautiful man, in a graveyard of trees with a screaming man in the background.

“Lucas,” he whispered. He bent very low, placing his lips next to Lucas' ear. “I love you, too.”

Did Lucas smile, or was it only a trick of the light?

The police were upon them then, and Austin let them take care of everything. He had held out for as long as he could. Now it was someone else’s turn.