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TWENTY
Kayla watched from where she hung on the wire. Watched Justin Heard. Watched him run from the massive shark that had pulled itself free of the water. Watched him jump to the next rooftop, out of her sight.
The rest of the sharks slid back into the water, disappearing in the direction Justin had gone. The hunt was on.
And Kayla was alone.
The rain poured down her face but still her throat dried up. Alone. That's what she wanted from the beginning. To go it alone. But now, hanging above the streets of Point Chester, going alone made her spine turn to goo.
Justin told her to meet him at the marina. She'd have to get there by herself. Get there, and hope Justin was there too.
Her palms burned where her grip on the wire blistered the skin. She couldn't hang there all day. The others were waiting for her -- Melvin, and Maddie and Joey. They needed her to find a boat. All their lives depended on it.
She scanned the water below, making doubly sure no shark had staid behind. When she was convinced, she released her grip and dropped into the waves. The water swallowed her up, cold and flowing strong. Kayla knew the water. She grew up in it. She could get herself to the marina.
She followed the route she'd agreed on with Justin, swimming her way down Devon to where it met up with Anne Street. Well, what was left of Anne Street. The water level nearly touched the rooftops, everything drowned beneath the waves. She couldn't see the pharmacy, but it didn't matter. She could see all the way to the horizon, the sea overtaking the land.
And she could see the marina, see the boats that hadn't yet sunk thanks to their covers rocking on the stormy green waves. Seaweed. It must have been churned up by the storm. It blanketed everything.
But there was no sign of Justin.
Kayla closed her eyes and made a wish to the universe that the sharks hadn't got him. A lump formed in her throat. What were the chances he'd managed to get away?
There's no sense treading water here, crying about it, she told herself. She had to get a boat. And from the looks of it, she had her pick of whatever boat she wanted.
Kayla made her way across Anne Street, the muddy waters giving way to the slimy green that surrounded the marina. It slid and slurped around Kayla's skin, wisps of slimy thick emerald muck clung to her. This wasn't seaweed. It was more like a mucous. A sea of snot. And the further she swam into it, the thicker it got.
Ahead of her, a fin floated above the water.
Kayla froze.
Shark.
It was still. Unmoving. Had it spotted her?
Where were the others?
Kayla scanned frantically for more fins and she saw them, all around the marina. Her heart thundered against her ribs. More than eight. Nine. Ten. A dozen. More. She was surrounded. Surrounded and alone.
Something grazed Kayla's elbow and she turned --
A mouth.
Razor teeth glinting.
Kayla screamed.
But nothing happened.
The mouth just floated there, jaws motionless.
A hammerhead shark. Belly up. The animal was dead, floating lifeless in the sea of snot. Kayla glanced back at the fins that surrounded the marina. None of them had moved. Because they belonged to more dead sharks. She could see them now. A variety of species. All of them floating lifeless in the green gelatin. Still more, floating upside down in the waves. There were hundreds. Dead sharks bobbing up and down, trapped by the slime.
What were they all doing here?
She studied the body of the hammerhead -- boils and sores oozing along its white stomach. Sores just like the ones she'd seen on the highway sharks. The creature's eyes were cloudy. Just like the others.
Kayla felt a churning in her stomach. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. These sharks were all infected with whatever had turned the others into the monsters that were after them now. They had the same symptoms. But how had they gotten here? Trapped in the green? Kayla's skin began to crawl and she felt a panic rise in her throat. Was it the mucous? Was that what made them change? Kayla was covered in it. Would it change her too?
She reached for the hammerhead's eye, and when she touched it, there was a pulse in the water -- a ripple of phosphorescent green radiating out from the shark and fading into the water around them.
This was bad, whatever this was. The danger in Point Chester, she had the sinking feeling, just got a thousand times worse.
It was time to get back to the others.
Wading through the floating dead, Kayla tried to ignore the tingle in her skin.
You're fine, she told herself. You can do this.
She reached the nearest boat -- a fishing boat that was basically a rusted tin can with a motor hooked on the back. But it was all she needed.
Kayla hauled herself out of the water and into the boat, pulling off the cover. She worked slowly, slower than she should, scanning the distance for Justin. Every moment he didn't appear was a moment closer to her having to leave without him. But she couldn't wait forever. Couldn't leave Melvin and Maddie and Joey waiting for her.
And she had to be honest with herself. The odds that Justin was still alive -- they weren't good. But still, she couldn't let herself think like that. Couldn't just give up on him. Justin wouldn't have done that to her.
She thought of the knife, the way Justin had sliced open his hand. Thought of him jumping into the water, drawing the sharks away.
They were after him because of her. Because he tried to save her.
And now, she decided, it was her turn to save him.
She pulled the cord on the motor and it thundered to life, roaring above the pounding noise of the rain.
Kayla cast off and the boat took off, pushing through the floating bodies like butter.
But Kayla didn't see the electric ripples as she did. The pulsing green glow that shot through the waves with every creature she disturbed.
Couldn't see the glow travel beneath the waves. Travel to the one that made the sea of slime -- the one leading the hunt for Justin Heard.
The Big Boy, Melvin had called the shark. But he was wrong. It wasn't a boy at all.
And her nest was calling for her.
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