Her scream is blood-congealing. Her eyes balloon almost out of their sockets, and the creases on her forehead look like stairs. She grabs her left thigh, holding it so tight one of her fake nails pops off.

“Stop it, Chloe! It isn’t funny!” I bite my lip, trying to keep up my show of indifference.

Another nail pops off. She reaches for me but misses. Her leg jerks back and forth in the water, and she screams again, only much, much worse. She clutches the board with both hands, but her arms are shaking too much to stay anchored. Real tears mix with seawater and sweat on her face. Her sobs come in huge gulps, like she can’t decide if she wants to cry or scream again.

And I am convinced.

I lunge, grasp her forearm, scoot to her on the board. Blood clouds the water around us. When she sees it, her screams become frantic, un-human. I lace my fingers through hers, but she barely grips back.

“Hold on to me, Chloe! Pull your legs up on the board!”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she sobs, choking between breaths. Her whole body shakes, and her teeth chatter as if we’ve somehow drifted into the Arctic Ocean.

And the fin is all I see. Our hands separate. I scream as the surfboard tilts and Chloe is wrenched from it. The water snatches away her shriek as she’s pulled under. Blood trails behind as she becomes a shadow, moving deeper and deeper, farther and farther away from light, from oxygen. From me.

“Shark! Shark! Help! Somebody please help us! Shaaaaaaaaark!”

I flail my arms and scream. Kick my legs and scream. Bounce up and down on the surfboard—and scream and scream and scream. I slide off, stick the board in the air, wave it with all my strength. The weight of it forces me under. Terror and water cocoon me. For a second, I’m four years old again, drowning in my grandmother’s pond. Panic settles on me like stirred-up muck. But unlike then, I keep tethered to reality. I don’t detach; I don’t let my imagination take over. I don’t dream of catfish and striped bass pushing me to the surface, rescuing me.

Maybe it’s because I’m older. Maybe it’s because someone else’s life depends on my staying calm. Whatever the reason, I keep my grasp on the surfboard and pull myself up, swallowing part of a wave as I surface. The saltwater stings my raw throat even as the fresh air chases it.

The people on shore are specks, moving around like fleas on a dog. No one sees me. Not the sunbathers, not the shallow-water swimmers, not the moms hunting shells with their toddlers. There are no boats, no Jet Skis nearby. Just water, sky, and a setting sun.

My sobbing turns into lung-bursting hiccups. No one can hear me. No one can see me. No one is coming to save Chloe.

I push the surfboard away, toward shore. If the waves carry it in, maybe someone will see that its owner didn’t return with it. Maybe they will even remember the two girls who took it out. And maybe they will look for us.

Deep inside, I feel I’m watching my life float away on that glistening board. When I peer down into the water, I feel I’m watching Chloe’s life float away with that faint trail of blood, blurred and weakened by each passing wave. The choice is clear.

I breathe in as much air as my lungs can take without popping. And then I dive.

4

TOO LATE.

As fast as he is, Galen is too late. He powers through the current as the floor of the gulf slants steeper and steeper. Every time he hears Emma’s desperate screams, he pushes harder, harder than he’s ever pushed himself before. But he doesn’t want to see it. Whatever is happening to her to make her scream like that, he doesn’t want to see it. Already, he knows he’ll be haunted by those screams forever. He doesn’t want to add to his torment with the sight of it. Chloe has already stopped screaming—he doesn’t want to think about what that means. And he refuses to acknowledge how much time has passed since he heard Emma. He clenches his teeth and slices through the water faster than he can see ahead of him.

Finally, finally, he finds them. And he is too late.

He groans when he sees Emma. She clutches Chloe’s limp arm, pulling and tugging and twisting, struggling to pry her friend from the bull shark’s jaws. She doesn’t see that each jerk, each yank, each inch she gains only tears more flesh from Chloe’s leg. And she doesn’t see that her friend stopped fighting long ago.

She and the beast are at war. It shakes and writhes, mirroring her actions, pulling them both into deeper water, but Emma won’t let go. Galen glances around, wary for other contenders the blood might attract. But the haze of red is dissipating—Chloe is almost drained.

Why didn’t Emma change? Why didn’t she save her friend? Doubts mingle with remorse. He swallows the eruption of bile shooting up his throat. Rayna is right. She isn’t one of them. If she was, she would have saved her friend. She would have changed, would have carried Chloe away to safety—all healthy Syrena can swim faster than sharks.

I was wrong. Emma is human. Which means she needs oxygen. Now. He starts toward her but stops.

The several minutes she has been fighting that shark should have sapped her strength. But her tugs are becoming stronger. A few times, she even makes headway toward shallower water. She is making headway with a bull shark. Galen remembers Dr. Milligan saying humans make something called adrenaline, which makes them stronger, gives them more energy when they need it to survive. Maybe Emma’s body is making extra adrenaline.…

Why are you thinking about it? Even if it is adrenaline, she’s still human. She needs help. And where is Rayna? She should have been here by now, with those useless humans who call themselves lifeguards. Lifeguards who sit in their tall wooden stands, keeping careful vigilance of the beach to make sure no one with a bikini drowns in the white sand.