Really? Here I thought you must be senile if you’re calling me Penelope.
Clementine breathed a little easier. Gods, she missed her sister.
Don’t blame me for naming you. It could be worse. You were named after a cartoon character. I was named after citrus.
True. And at least my nickname doesn’t sound like a disease you get from a public pool, eh Clemmy?
Clementine rolled her eyes. No one had ever called herClemmy.It was either Em or Clementine — if they knew what was good for them.I’m sorry, did you need something or were you just calling to tell me about your experiences with licking the bottom of public pools?
Har-har.She could imagine her sister scrunching her nose.I just wanted to see what you were up to. Did you do your supply run yet?
She flicked her gaze toward the monitor on the right side of what could only be called the dashboard. Was that blip on the sonic imager a tuna or something bigger?No. I’m on my way now. Almost to the dock. Why? Did you want me to pick you up some milk or something?
Ooh, what’s it like in the sub all on your own?
She swallowed. That shape on the very edge of her imager was a lot bigger than a tuna. It also wasn’t coming any closer. It was keeping pace.
Uh, eerie.
Her sister’s mental voice shifted from playful curiosity to alert in a moment.You okay? What’s wrong?
Clementine sat forward once more. Her shoulders tightened with tension as she scanned the seemingly endless blue ahead of her. It was useless to think she’d see them, since sheknewthey were behind her, but it was the animal part of her that looked andlooked.
Being under water did strange things to her abilities. Her keen telepathy wasn’t quite so sharply honed beneath the waves, which themselves carried a good amount of magic. She’d once heard it compared to environmental radiation. Magic was in the very atmosphere of their planet, pooling and moving in currents. The oceans had far less than the atmosphere, but it was condensed into a far smaller area. Or something. She wasn’t entirely sure. Those were the basics she understood. Only m-theorists and scientists could really explain it.
What Clementine knew for certain was that the water acted a bit like interference. Normally she could have skimmed the area without lowering her barriers and found any living beings within a twenty-five mile radius instantly, but in the sub…
Feeling spooked, Clementine dared to lower her barriers just enough to reach for the familiar mind and feel?—
Him.
She gasped, slamming her barriers back into place almost as quickly as she’d lowered them. Her fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel.That’s my predator.
She wasn’t sure what exactly tipped her off this time, but something in the tenor of his mind screamedmale.He felt like a hurricane at her back; all wild, lashing energy aimed directly at her.
Clementine couldn’t say why she was surprised, only that she was. She hadn’t even consideredwhoher predator might be. In her mind, they were a friendly, genderless entity with a talent for giving gifts and a shy disposition.
Now she knew better.
The being who had lurked around her island for weeks, slipping past her security to leave her precious handmade gifts, was not a sweet-tempered ocean dweller. He was a being of raw energy and absolutely unerring focus.
And every ounce of that focus was aimed her way.
Em? Answer me! Silence means you’re dead!
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she glanced at the control panel. The smart thing to do would have been to increase her speed. The dock was less than a minute out at her current speed and it had intense security designed to keep merfolk out. If she could get within the ring of security, she would be fine.
Her eyes flicked to the sonic imager’s screen once more.
The dark shape was… much bigger than she thought it would be. It was slim, hydrodynamic, but long. It was easily twice the length of her dinky little submersible.
It was also getting closer.
Her hand shook as she reached for the control panel. She knew she could protect herself, but that logical side of her wasn’t working. Clementine couldn’t shake the feeling of being prey, of being chased down like one of those sleek silver fish about to be swallowed whole.
It wasn’t her logical side that smacked the screen until the submersible lurched forward with a low mechanical purr. It was the side that came down through generations, ingrained in DNA and the spongy tissue of a being’s brain stem. It was the part of her that knew, in that moment, how easily she could be devoured.
Clementine’s breaths sawed in and out of her as her gaze bounced between the approaching dock’s opening gate and the sonic imager. A high, choked sound escaped her tightening throat when she realized that the sleek shape wasn’t just matching her speed. It wasbeating it.
