Chapter 63: Bear Necessities

"No!" Ezra heard his bear roar just as something yanked Erin under the water's surface, her doll falling from her arms to land on the lake's edge. This could not be happening again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liam's monkey leap from the trees, his scrawny arms and legs extended as he began to shift. Ezra darted from where he stood to the lake, his feet pounding the ground until the water hit his ankles, and then he dove, hitting the water at the same spot he last saw Erin. He refused to lose another child in his care. He'd rip the hide off the alligator, if that's what took her, from its snout to the tip of its tail.

However, when he opened his eyes in the murky water, it wasn't an alligator that had Erin in his clutches. Ezra shoved himself through the water, his arms reaching for the foot of a man wearing a wet suit and oxygen tank in front of him as he tried to get away with the little girl. Ezra tried to calculate how long she had already been under, trying to determine h