Of The Glades Bikini | Brittany Borges Guardians

An hour later, the three pythons were safely bagged and tagged. Brittany sat on the front of the airboat, rinsing the mud off her legs with a water bottle. The turquoise bikini was now more brown than blue.

Brittany had no choice. She lunged.

She slipped into the bikini, tied her dark hair back into a tight braid, and slid the narrow kayak into the water. The moment she pushed off, the world closed in. Towering cypress trees draped in Spanish moss blocked the sun, casting dappled shadows on the water. The air was thick, buzzing with dragonflies and the distant, prehistoric bellow of an alligator. brittany borges guardians of the glades bikini

Then, a rustle in the sawgrass. Crockett, a grizzled man with a snake tattoo on his neck, waded into view. He didn’t say a word. He just dropped to his knees beside her, grabbed the python’s tail, and began to carefully unwind it. An hour later, the three pythons were safely

But the female python sensed the intrusion. Uncoiling with terrifying speed, she slithered not away from Brittany, but toward the shallow water where the kayak was beached. If she reached the main channel, she would vanish. Brittany had no choice

She pulled the kayak alongside a mud bank and stepped out, the cool muck squelching between her toes. Her python hook was in her hand. Ten feet away, half-hidden in the roots of a giant strangler fig, was a mass of scales. It wasn't one python. It was three. A large female, easily fourteen feet, and two smaller males, all tangled in a breeding ball.

The problem was the route. The only way in was a two-mile paddle through a series of tight, shallow creeks too narrow for their airboat. And in the brutal, shimmering heat of a Florida July, that meant one thing: she was going in the water.