Lock, Croc and Two Smoking Barrels

"What the hell are you doing?!" A previously unseen loudspeaker squawked at them. Odile jumped away from Michael, allowing him to drop senselessly to his side, the tip of his dong barely touching the concrete floor.

Odile looked around for the source of the sound. Not finding it, she spoke uncertainly to the drop ceiling sky. "First aid." She'd heard someone say that before.

The loudspeaker stayed silent. Odile relaxed, helped Michael back to his sitting position, tucked him back into his jeans and cradled him until he came around again.

The first thing he said when he woke wasn't something romantic, sadly. It was:

"Why does my dick feel like someone rubbed it with sandpaper?"

Chapter 24: Croc This Town

Odile cradled Michael's head and held him close, waiting for his senses to return to him in full. One of the first comprehensible questions he asked, besides the one about the sandpaper and his dick, was what happened?

Odile was conscious the whole time. She explained it as best she could.

***

Odile was being carried by her four limbs, a bag put over her head. If she'd known about the trend to make fashionable luggage out of her brethren, she might have felt insulted to being carried like so much suitcase. She was thrown into the back of some room, where she was free to thrash around a bit, trying to break free of her binds.

The room started to move, and she could feel herself sliding about the room. She must have been in one of those wheelie-boats that scoot over the solid blackwater with the yellow stripe. They drove just far enough for her to nearly get her legs free.

The truck stopped and Odile was dragged back out of the truck, her hood removed. "Lass!" Said Salty Peter, still dressed up and still 'in character.' Odile calmed down a bit and listened. "I'm going to let you go. Don't do anything foolish."

Odile allowed him to remove the tape from her face, somehow using a clearly plastic cutlass to cut the tape on her arms as well. Odile moved away from Salty Peter and removed the rest of her binds before asking him. "Where's Michael?"

"Ye shouldn't worry yourself about him, lass." Salty Peter advised. "He's bad news. He's not a friendly pirate like me."

"Where is he?!" Odile jumped up towards him. He dodged back effortlessly, keeping his distance.

"Now you calm yourself, or you'll be tied up again."

"Where is he?!" She shouted, hissing, bending at the waist to bring herself lower, her more natural predatory position.

Peter didn't move back. "He's still unconscious."

"What's unconscious?"

"He's sleeping, and he won't wake up until he wants to."

"Where did you take us?" Only now did Odile consider her surroundings. This was the city. Not the fake city of the theme park. This looked like a regular city. With buildings and people and shoes and everything.

"Where the Mafia will find him."

"What's the Mafia?"

"It be not actually the Mafia, like LCN." Odile continued to look at Salty Peter sideways. "Look, Michael is evidently an errand boy for organized crime. I'm throwin' him to the sharks so they don't come lookin' at the cove. You should swim back to the swamp before they find you, too."

"I'm not leaving him." Odile said. "I will protect him."

Peter had begun moving Michael's motionless body out of the passenger's seat of the featureless van. "They will kill you! You can't let yourself get hurt because of one foolish landlubber! I won't keep ye prisoner, but ye can't throw yer life away! Why stay here for this bum?"

Peter rested Michael's unconscious body against a rusted newspaper rack for a paper that no longer published. Odile looked down on him, and up to Salty Peter.

A single tear fell from her right eye.

Salty Peter groaned piteously. "Oh, lass..." He shook his head. "You can't protect him. Their guns ain't plastic like mine!"

"Better they shoot at me than him." Odile said. "My skin is stronger. I am stronger."

Salty Peter lowered his head. "You do what you think ye must." He said. "I wish ye luck." He entered the van's driver's seat. "But... don't come back to the cove. What's after him... don't bring it back to me. Them cannons on the roof near the entrance... they ain't plastic."

"You protect what you want to protect." Odile said shortly. "So will I."

Salty Peter drove off with an empty van and a little sadness in his heart as he watched her fade into a dot in his rear-view mirror.

From here, things were less clear in Odile's memory. She tried to carry Michael off somewhere they could be safe, but there were too many people around. Some brave souls actually came up to her. She snapped and snarled at them, but she knew Michael wouldn't want them hurt unless they threatened her life. Soon, a crowd was gathering all around, to where she couldn't even escape.

She might have set him back to terra firma, ripped off her robe and swimsuit and screamed, "Is this what you want?!" and thrashed about on her belly, inciting people to try to fuck with her if they thought they could. Not in those exact words.

Someone called animal control. The poor bastards who showed up were not ready, their flimsy poles snapped like pretzel sticks as they fought with her. They were unprepared when another team of animal control experts drove up, and they were armed with aluminum baseball bats. Odile avoided getting hit in the head, but finally got overwhelmed by the throng of thugs. She was tied up again and tossed into the back of their van and driven off.

The animal control people were confused. The other van had no identifying marks, other than the license plate. Who else was doing animal control around here?

But nobody noticed as the unconscious man was hauled into the same van.

Odile was dragged hand-and-foot by four men in the back entrance of some building, by some strange green-felted tables, down a flight of stairs and into a cage not unlike her first home at the park. A moment later, they brought Michael down. Odile jumped to life and swung her claws out through the bars, but some brave man got in close and pressed the barrel of a large revolver right up against her forehead.

Odile stopped moving, snarling at the man. He looked eager to end her life, and she wasn't sure the skin on her head would withstand a bullet as well as the scales on her arms. Other men went inside the cage and locked Michael's arms to the back wall of the cell. Once he was safely trapped, they backed off.

At the moment the men left the cage, Odile swiped her hands up and ripped the gun from the man's hands. Everyone else's guns came out, waiting to watch this chimera work a firearm. Instead, she swung her arm in a mighty arc and slammed it barrel-first against the corner of the cage. The cage rang like a bell, and only when the sound faded did she slide the gun along the concrete back to its owner.

The man picked the gun up off the ground, but could already see the barrel was deflected about fifty degrees upwards. He scoffed. He'd have to ask for a new one.

Odile looked at all the other men pointing guns at her. She opened her arms. "Anyone ELSE want to shoot me?" She stood there, glaring at the men defiantly until they backed off, holstered their firearms and left.

The next time someone checked on her in person, rather than through the security cameras, they found she'd used her claws to scratch six circles into the white brick of the back walls, three rows of two.

Nobody knew what it meant... except for Odile.

Chapter 25: Croc is Dead

If Michael hadn't fully recovered from his concussion, he was good enough for now. He was aware he was no longer in Salty Peter's Cove of Fun, unless they had a surprisingly non-pirate themed dungeon where they'd been sentenced.

"So we don't know where we are..." Michael said, still held in the tender scaly clutches of Odile. "But we're not at the park anymore."

"That's what I reckon." Odile responded. "We're in the city somewhere, but I don't know where."

"Do you think you can break my chain?" Michael asked.

"I already tried." Odile pulled her head back and looked into Michael's eyes. She smiled regretfully, showing a few missing teeth, the base of a few shattered ones refusing to leave her gums. "I shouldn't have tried biting it, but I wanted you free so bad." Michael was amazed how little her having no front teeth affected her speech. Unlike everyone else in the South who loved tobacco but didn't love Colgate, her front teeth would grow back.

"Why do you suppose they chained you up, and not me?" Odile asked.

The answer seemed obvious to Michael, but he answered anyway. "Because they want you to eat me." Odile's eyes widened, her vertical pupils narrowing. "That's what they wanted you to do from the start."

Michael addressed the air, knowing someone was watching, and probably listening. "Whoever you are..." He projected, making sure he could be heard. "Come down here. I want to talk."

There was no response from the loudspeaker. Michael put his still-throbbing head onto Odile's shoulder, and she his. Odile had never felt weaker in her life, not even when she was the one chained to the wall.

A few minutes later, two loud locks slid out of place on the door, and someone walked in. It was a beautiful blonde woman in a black dress and high heels. She looked like a classy woman who'd interrupted her night at the opera to talk to some political prisoners.

Michael removed himself from Odile's grip and stood as close to the front bars as his chains would let him. "Have we met?"

"Only once." She reached into her purse and retrieved a distinct pink wig, exactly the same color and style of the protester he'd talked to outside Salty Peter's.

Michael sighed. "Do you drive a BMW?"

The woman looked surprised. "How did you know?"

"I saw it in the parking lot." He answered. "Didn't think anything of it at the time, but... it makes sense now. You're part of the gang."

"I'm Sue Singer." She said.

Michael knew that name. She was the wife of David Singer, a high-ranking enforcer in the gang his brother was part of. "Oh, I've heard of you. I'm Michael. I'm Walter's brother." He paused. "Forgive me for not shaking your hand."

"You've caused us a lot of problems." Sue said coldly. "How did you stop her from killing you?"

Michael didn't feel like giving the real and still embarrassing answer. "She was full."

"Well, she won't stay that way." Sue said.

Odile stood up, able to move closer than Michael. "I will never eat him. I will sit here and starve before I eat him."

"Thank you, sweetie." Said Michael.

Sue pursed her lips together. "We'll see." She moved to turn away, but Michael called out.

"My brother... you guys threatened to have him killed in prison if I didn't do your drug deal."

"That sounds about right."

"Do you know what my brother was planning?"

Sue was silent.

"He was tired of the problems with cocaine and crack and other hard drugs in Florida, and he was tired of the gang's 'not-our-problem' attitude towards it, so... he planned to kill you all. He was going to find when he could get the most of you together in the same place and take out as many of you as he could. With a gun, a bomb, I don't know. He didn't get that far. He told me his plan because he trusted me. And I told the police. They got him on some sort of weapons charge, but they had no evidence of his plan, and he never mentioned it to anyone else."

Michael leaned forward, the chain holding him upright as his center of gravity moved past his feet. "I could have let him do it, and all my problems would be over, and there might even be less drugs in Florida. But I stopped him. Because it would still be wrong for him to take anyone else's life just because he lived in an era where he had access to modern weaponry. That's what makes him different from me. He thought violence was the answer. I don't, unless there is no other option."

"When you made those threats against me at the park... you reminded me of him." Sue said.

"I tried to picture how he would have handled a situation like that." Michael said. "He never really had a job where he had to work with the public."

"And I never had a blog where I talk about 'micro-aggressions,' but... I'm a quick study." Sue said. "But it doesn't matter now. We have both of you now. I don't believe her when she says she'll let herself starve. She is an animal, and even if she were human, she will eventually eat you, and she'll eat anyone else we put in front of her. The only thing that changed from the previous engagement is we don't have to keep renting rowboats. Now, our garbage disposal lives right under the sink, just like in the Flintstones."

Sue turned around. Michael barked, "Listen to me." She turned around slowly. "If you let us both go--"

She didn't even let him finish that one. "Why would I let you BOTH go? Even if I felt like letting you go, we're keeping her, no matter what."

"If you let us both go," He repeated. "that will be the end of it. We'll find somewhere to live, and you'll never hear from us again. But if you leave, and we get out of there... I promise you all will die in agony. She'll go through you all like box of chocolates, taking one bite and leaving you to die in the most painful way imaginable. Your ranks will empty and her belly will fill. You'll wish I'd just let my brother set off a bomb at the pool hall or whatever he was planning.

"Let us go, and this can be avoided, and you can have your criminal enterprise. But if you walk away... then we will ruin you."

"Are you trying to be your brother again?" Sue sneered smugly.

"No. This one's me."

Sue blew a sigh out her nose. She reached into her purse, pulled out a pistol, pointed it at Michael, and fired.

Odile was just fast enough to intercept the bullet, and she fell to the concrete in front of Michael, clutching her chest, her hands unevenly overlapped over a wound.

"NO!" Michael screamed, going down to his knees. Sue's mouth fell open in horror. Had she just killed their most prized possession? She ran out of the room.

"Help! Somebody HELP HER!" Michael screamed out to whoever was listening. Odile pulled Michael's face close to hers, and she winked.

Whoa. Where did Odile learn to do that? He'd never talked about the human tradition of winking. Odile moved her left hand off her right wrist and revealed the bullet hidden underneath her hand, flattened against her scales. She smiled and continued her twitching and gasping.

For his part, Michael continued his act of desperation, pulling on the chains with his body weight and thrashing around, hollering for help.

Sue returned with the first guy she found. He was only a few years older than Michael, but far more muscular. Michael took a wild guess and assumed this guy was probably not a doctor. Sue pulled the key to the cage out of her purse and opened the door. Odile resisted the instinct to jump out of the cage immediately. She let the 'doctor' kneel down to her and inspect her 'wound' before springing up and slamming him to the side as she darted out the door, right for Sue.

Sue fired again, just before Odile pinned her to the wall and stripped the gun from her hand. Odile hissed from the pain, shaking the flattened round from her scaly exterior. "That still hurts." Odile snarled.

"Don't you hurt her!" The 'doctor' yelled, holding the still-helpless Michael in a loose choke-hold.

Odile turned the gun on the doctor. He didn't move. Michael's body was mostly in front of his. Michael wore no regret in his face. If he died, and Odile escaped, that was good enough.

The gun didn't seem to scare the doctor, so Odile swung it back around and shot Sue in her left kneecap. Her mouth widened to scream, but Odile's scaly hand was over her mouth to smother it. She howled endlessly into her hand, tears tumbling down her green fingers.

"See?" Odile said flatly. "It hurts." Odile turned to the doctor. "Let him go."

The doctor undid the lock on Michael's shackles. He walked out of the cell, rolling his sore shoulders. "Do you have a radio?" Michael asked. The doctor handed it over. Michael said to him, "Don't walk, run out of here. Tell everyone you see to leave everything behind and go."

Obediently, he ran. Michael stood shoulder to shoulder to Odile, still pinning Sue to the wall and covering her mouth. He held the radio to Odile's mouth. "What do you want to say to everyone listening?"

Michael pressed the button in. Odile thought for a second. "Do you know who this is?" She purred, hoping her unique voice would come across on the low-fidelity radio.

Nobody responded. Michael pointed the radio at Sue. "Your line is 'help me.'" He said, as Odile lowered her claw from her mouth.

"Everyone you two have ever known is now dead. Congratulations." Sue growled.

"Does that include you?" Michael asked, pointing the radio back at Odile, which was aflurry with concerned calls from sensitive goombas wondering what happened to their matriarch.

"I'm a predator, but I am not a monster." Odile continued speaking into the radio. "I don't eat people unless they threaten my life. You used me to do your dirty work. So this is the only warning you'll ever get. Turn yourself in to the local police. It is the only place you will be safe from me. Anyone who stays will meet me face-to-face and will experience my wrath."

Odile looked down at Sue's knee. "Is the bullet still inside you?" Sue looked down nervously, it no longer necessary for Odile to cover her mouth.

"Don't worry." She smiled her broken teeth at her. "I'll get it out."

***

On the way out, Odile gnawed the bone a bit before throwing it over her shoulder. "Michael..." She asked, wiping the blood from her lips with the side of her thumb, her tongue too short to do the job.

Michael turned, seeing the bloody bone with the foot still attached on the floor. Odile looked him in the eye and asked that question every guy wants to hear.

"What's the Flintstones?"

Michael chuckled. "It's a cartoon."

"What's a cartoon?"

"It's like television, but drawn on paper or in a computer."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"It might be on Netflix. I'll show you an episode." He stepped out of the back entrance to the hideout. The outside was filled with light, as if they were walking out on stage. The light was mostly white, some red and blue. Three police cruisers were pointed headlights-first at the doorway. The light was too intense to make out many details, but they saw four uniformed cops had their guns drawn and pointed at them.

"Hands up!" They cried.

Michael slowly rose his arms. "Do what they say, sweetie." Michael said. "Don't hurt them. They're the good guys."

She brought her arms over her head. "I thought we were the good guys."

The police officer handcuffing Michael advised him to be silent. He did so. Odile allowed two cops to shackle her hands behind her back, but one of them casually cupped his hand underneath Odile's right breast.

Odile gasped and leaned at the offending officer, a short-haired fellow with sharp cheekbones and a small nose. "What?" He smirked.

Glancing momentarily at Michael, all she did was sneer.

Chapter 26: For Those About To Croc (We Salute You)

Davit Avanovich exited his car, dismissing his driver for the night. He left his garage and entered his mansion. He passed through the parlor and a few other rooms, not encountering his wife at all. Maybe she'd gone to bed. That would make a very early night for her, and a surprisingly sober one.

Davit lurched his way to his bedroom, It was dark, but he saw a figure asleep in the bed. He stepped out of his shoes, stripped his suit off and came to rest on the other side of the bed.

"Davit Avanovich?" A voice said from somewhere inside the bedroom. Davit looked around in the dark before pawing to the lamp and turning it on. A young man he'd never seen before had a gun trained on him. Davit panicked and threw the drawer out of his nightstand. His own firearm wasn't there. It was probably being pointed at him at this very moment.