Oh, Bite Me (Guardians of the Deep 1)

The hands on her were caring and warm.

“Come with me, Miss Penny,” Juan Diego said as he pulled her away from the ladder. “We need to get you away from the water.”

“Poet,” she asked. “Where’s Poet?”

“He…he went in the water after you,” J.D. said.

She thought about it for a second and then said, “The great white?”

“Yes, Miss Penny,” he replied. “He’s different from the others.”

She could only imagine the pain he must go through when shifting into such a large shark, if it hurt her so badly transforming into a smaller one. He hated shifting, yet he’d done it for her.

“Can he beat her?” she asked, concerned about her new friend’s safety.

“Most tiger sharks, yes,” J.D. said. “Unless they are bigger than him. Evelyn? I do not know.”

Hands grabbed the ladder behind her and Poet pulled himself onto the boat, drenched, and shaking. He wasn’t hurt at all, but he looked terrified.

“Are you okay?” Penny asked.

Poet looked up at her and stared at her side.

“I should be asking you that,” he said.

She looked down and saw that she was covered in blood. She fell over, clutching her side.

***

Thane searched the water everywhere and couldn’t find Evelyn.

“Where is she?” he asked, pinging the question off the other sharks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” came his answer in the form of Axel, headed straight for him.

Axel knew better, but it seemed he’d received a pep talk since their last battle. Evelyn must have either scared the shit out of him or made him believe he was Superman, because the smaller shark was on course to go head-to-head with Thane.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Thane said. “Fucking punk.”

Both sharks dove downward at the same time, then realizing an upward attack wouldn’t work, Axel swung right, and Thane followed.

“Run, little bitch,” he said to Axel.

“I’m not the little bitch,” Axel replied. “The little bitch is being taken care of right now…as we speak.”

“What?!” Thane thought. “Fucker!”

Axel chuckled and made a sharp left turn that baffled Thane for a second. His mind was no longer in the game but had turned to Penny. Was Evelyn attacking her?

That’s why she’s not here.

Thane turned to leave the scene and go after Penny when the younger, smaller shark shot up from the bottom, slamming his snout into Thane’s underbelly, and opening its mouth to take a bite out of Thane. Thane was too smart and too fast for such a stupid attack. He used the crash’s momentum and swung with it, letting Axel’s snout pass right by his caudal fin at the rear, and then swerved around to Axel’s bottom and seized the younger shark’s pelvic fin in his teeth. Axel swam so hard and so fast he ripped his own fin out from Thane’s mouth. Blood filled the water.

Axel tried to swim away but didn’t get far. His pain was too immense. Thane knew that. He’d hurt him bad. He considered letting him go, but he’d told his group to fight for the kill, and being their leader, he needed to do the same. With lightning fast speed, he swam at Axel and opened his mouth around his body, chomping down on him until he tasted blood. Then he chomped again and tore left and right, ripping the belly out from under him. Thane didn’t let go until he saw the fight leave Axel’s body. Then, as he let go and watched the other shark sink to the depths of the sea, he finally turned to go save Penny, and he sensed even from such a great distance, that something bigger was in the water, and it wanted to get to Penny first.

***

Penny’s side throbbed and she knew if she didn’t get to a hospital soon, she would bleed out and die. She wasn’t sure how much the shark blood would help her. Would she heal her own self, or would she die before she could learn to do it?