Rafe swam in a circle, dodging the attacking tiger shark, more intent on finding his friend, but he knew the way this mental telepathy went. Beanie could be anywhere within a fifty-mile radius or quite possibly even farther.
“Beanie!” he yelled.
The shark behind him bit down again, missing him by an inch or two. Beanie didn’t reply. Suddenly, the thought of his friend being gone sent a new wave of adrenaline shooting through his body. Liquid rage filled him from caudal fin to snout. He could imagine the blackness of his shark eyes where only death lived, and he knew he needed to turn that death on this fucking tiger shark riding his ass.
“You wanna fucking play with me?” he said.
The shark didn’t reply. It dove at him again, but Rafe was fast and was on a mission now. He swam out of the way and circled around. The shark was quick and stayed on his heels, forcing Rafe to lead it on a chase. Rafe dipped and so did the other shark. Rafe rose and swung a hard right, yet so did the tiger shark. Up and down and around they went. The cat chased the mouse and Rafe hated thinking of himself as a mouse. He wasn’t a fucking rodent. It was time to show this shark who was the real master of the sea. Rafe had rode the ocean in human form and would own it as a shark.
So, fuck this shark.
Rafe saw the boat overhead and swam straight at it as hard and as fast as he could. The shark was hot on his fins, snapping at him, trying to get a big enough piece of him that Rafe would be out of commission, but this wouldn’t be his day. Rafe was smarter than this piece of shit. He swung upward, and the shark followed. Rafe barreled straight at the boat’s motor, its metallic propeller just below the surface, waiting for him. The shark behind him must have been about to take his final bite because Rafe could feel him, could tell that his fin was dangerously close to entering its mouth, but then Rafe ducked down at the last second. The shark behind him wasn’t smart enough, nor was it fast enough, to escape the head-on collision with the propeller. It wasn’t moving, but it was waiting. The shark took a giant bite out of the boat motor, its body fighting so hard to keep up with its head that its teeth shattered over the metal, and its brain crushed inside its thick skin.
Take that!
The blood seeping from his body would only draw in more sharks. Rafe’s excitement died as he realized he didn’t have long before he’d become a snack. Up ahead, Cobalt was struggling to swim too. Blood flowed from a massive wound in his body.
What could have possibly done that?
Through the enormous cloud of growing red mist, Rafe saw so much carnage and so much fighting still going on that he couldn’t figure everything out. It wasn’t like a team of shirts vs. skins. They were all skins down here and any of them could be on either side.
“Kalina!” he called out.
“Here!” she replied. “With Penny!”
Penny? What the hell is Penny doing down here? No.
Rafe searched for Kalina and found her, nudging Penny’s near lifeless body. Either Penny was too destroyed inside to move, or she was refusing to, and either way would result in her death. She needed to move to breathe.
“Penny, please,” Thane begged as he bit into a shark that had the balls to get between him and his woman. “Swim, Penny.”
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s over. My baby… my baby is gone.”
Rafe had no idea the amount of pain she must be going through, but he knew she needed to swim. They needed to get out of there. Cobalt was hurt. More sharks would come, non-shifters, once they sensed his blood. They couldn’t beat all the predators in the ocean. They were barely beating the hammerheads. Rafe left them and made his way to Cobalt who was alone and struggling. Around him, Kino, Jagger, and Oliver swam, doing their best to ward off any other threats.
Sylvia and Evelyn zipped past him so quickly he almost missed them. The great white was faster when it came to speed, but the tiger shark was more experienced and was leading Sylvia toward the ocean floor where Rafe knew she’d try the same thing he’d done with the other shark and the boat motor. Evelyn was crafty. She would beat Sylvia. The great white in her had her thinking she was invincible and that could get her hurt badly. Rafe realized, as he watched, that his own blood was blending with Cobalt’s and only making matters worse. Sharks were coming. He coul
d see them. And the swimming bodies approaching stealthily could have been ten or could have been hundreds.
Squid and Hightail swam next to him and both weren’t their usual selves. They were exhausted.
“Damn, brah,” Hightail said. “We weren’t ready for this.”
“But we kicked some ass,” Squid said.
“Where’s Beanie?” Rafe asked. “I heard him earlier and he didn’t sound good. I think he was hurt.”
“What do you mean?” Squid asked.
“Have you guys seen him?” Rafe replied.
“He’s gone,” Faith suddenly said as she swam around them. “I’m sorry. I tried to protect him, but there were too many.”
Rafe couldn’t respond. This was too much. They’d known it would be a war, yet none of them seemed to have taken it seriously before this. So many of the opposition had died. Had the hammerheads felt the same way seeing their friends murdered? Rafe had always imagined them as soulless beings. This was wrong. They were all sharks. Why were they fighting like this? If none of them were beasts, if none of them were monsters, why were they behaving like they were?
“We have to stop this,” Rafe said. “Tiger, hammerhead, great white, mako, bull…we’re all sharks…and we’re obliterating each other.”
“Where is Evelyn?” Penny suddenly growled, seeming to snap out of the trance she’d been in. “She and all her sharks will die. And, Rafe, if you don’t like that, you can join them.”