Page 19 of Oceansong
The winds accelerated. Hands grabbed her ankles, pulling her deeper, deeper, the cold wrapping her in a chilly embrace.
Mer hands.
She jerked her foot away, but the grasp remained. Her heart was a flying fish desperate to escape her chest.
Angie yelled, the sound an unintelligible gurgle as soon as her head dunked beneath the roaring surface. Salt stung her eyes. Her legs flailed and kicked behind her, and another pair of hands gripped at her ankles, one pushing, one pulling. Her hands fumbled to her sides.
Her mind raced. Think fast, Angie. Or you’re a dead woman. She was descending lower, lower. Light began to fade, her head and ears thrumming with pain and pressure.
Her Glock was still intact and sealed in its holster. After unbuttoning it with quaking fingers, she whipped it out, aiming behind her and firing a shot when the barrel pressed into flesh.
A muffledboommade the water ripple behind her.
Nine
Both pairs of hands releasedher.
Sweet merciful Buddha.
Still clutching the gun, Angie broke into a flutter kick, her legs in hyperdrive until she touched the shoal, and breathed in the sweet, sweet air.
She crawled back onto the beach, coughing up globs of seawater. Saltwater exposure blurred her vision. Gritting her teeth, she swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands and screwed them shut to expel the scratchy, salty liquid. Her hair, which she normally curled at the ends to give more volume, now lay pin-straight and stuck to her back like an adhesive.
She spun in a one-eighty direction after hearing furious splashing behind her. A familiar maroon tail came into view, the mer leaked streams of blood resembling tiny, crimson snakes wriggling across the sea’s surface. A tuft of dark hair emerged like a flash.
The mer struggled, movements in the water sudden and jerky, fighting the small currents.
Good. He was hurt, but Angie couldn’t unearth much more than a shred of empathy for the son of a fish. Especially if it was that rude merman who had spewed a lungful of venom at her. She stopped in a half-kneel position when ashy triangular shapes appeared from the horizon, coasting along like toy sailboats.
Sharks.
Three, no, four of them circled the struggling mer, who thrashed and flopped about like an injured fish desperate to survive, which, she supposed, he was.
The sharks were familiar to her. They were a species she learned about for her final project for her bachelor of science degree, a presentation on lesser-known shark species.
Two, short, brown fins belonged to blue sharks, and two, long, gray fins were from salmon sharks, and their curious and aggressive natures would drive them to poke and prod until they had their fill.
The sharks closed in, and Angie clambered to the shoreline and then watched the scene play out. One shark struck, biting the mer’s tail. Another followed, but the mer dodged it and jerked his torso and arm away from the sharks’ jaws.
Angie flinched. As averse as she was to the mer, her heart constricted at the thought of one suffering a slow, drawn-out death by sharks because of her.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. “Hey! Come back!”
Of course he couldn’t hear. His head was submerged.
Damn it. Angie chewed on a nail, gaze zeroing in on a pile of rubble in front of her. Another shark attacked, and she grabbed her gun, aiming it for the fins darting and zigzagging around. She couldn’t get a clear shot.
Stuffing her gun back into its holster, Angie instead reached for a rock the size of her fist. The sharks hadn’t relented. Even if she scared one away, others would soon follow the scent of blood.
More fins appeared from the horizon.
The mer’s dorsal fin appeared, and Angie reared her arm back and chucked it in the mer’s direction.
The rock bounced off him, breaking the water’s surface with an audibleplop. The merman’s head jerked out of the water.
Angie waved her arms. She didn’t know if he would understand her meaning, but she had to try.
He ducked underwater, tail wiggling and thrashing beneath the glassy surface as if his life depended on it. It did. Once he was closer to shore, the merman faced the encroaching sharks. Angie grabbed his tailfins with both hands and gave a forceful pull.
