1
Tobias
Three Months Earlier
I first noticed him just as the reef tank blossomed into its artificial dawn. A soft cerulean light filtered through forty thousand liters of saltwater, shimmering off living coral and the curved glass in wavering bands. The gallery was hushed except for the excited murmuring between patrons.
Most visitors pressed their foreheads and palms against the glass of the tanks, leaving splotchy, greasy smears as they hunted for a single brilliant hue to satisfy their juvenile attention spans.
He, however, stood a step back—far enough that the glass didn’t mirror him. His shoulders sloped naturally, his spine a straight column, hands loose at his sides. He wasn’t merely looking; he was submerged, his dark-green eyes flecked withgold, flowing with the same unhurried grace as a fish weaving through coral arches. Where others scanned in quick fragments, he traced each drift of color patiently, as if he felt the saltwater’s rhythm more keenly than the air around him.
He stood around five-ten, with long, lithe limbs hinting at both strength and flexibility. His hair glowed burnished copper, the hue of sun-warmed pennies. Tiny silver clips—sea stars and seahorses—pinned his braids into a neat crown at the nape of his neck, beautifully expressive of his individuality, but still practical enough to keep every strand off the collar of his employee shirt.
The tank’s pale light made his skin look porcelain-smooth, and a constellation of freckles spilled from the bridge of his nose down the hollow of his throat—an arrangement I honed in on instantly.
I’d always been good at spotting patterns.
Behind me, a child’s cry echoed. Footsteps rattled across the polished floor. An elderly couple bickered quietly over something trivial. Still, the blue glow never wavered, and my subject remained motionless.
When he did move, it was with purpose. He checked his watch, rolled back his shoulders, and swiped his ID card through a staff-only door. Then he disappeared.
I’d never believed in coincidence. I built my fortune predicting human behavior—how desire leads to action, action to habit, and habit unveils the machinery beneath. People are systems, and once you map their variables, they become easily predictable.
I wanted to learn more about this new subject, find out what his variables were. Something in me tugged me towards him, and I needed to know why.
I needed to know him.
So I returned the following Tuesday at exactly the same time. There he stood again, hair freshly restyled with a single clamshell clip anchoring his braids into a bun. That tiny change thrilled me more than it should have.
I began my inquiries that afternoon.
Cove Sinclair was twenty-two, had recently graduated with a Bachelor’s in Marine Science from a respected university in the States, and was here on a six-month internship with the hope of it turning into something long-term.
His visa was temporary, of course.
“Temporary”made me think.
Some creatures aren’t meant to drift without direction.
Some only thrive under permanency.
By the third week, I’d reshaped my entire schedule around his. My philanthropic commitments could wait; this was far more compelling. I’d spent years crafting environments where rare specimens could live comfortably under precise conditions—lights calibrated, temperatures locked, variables reduced until survival was simply inevitable.
A remarkable find in the wild had only a matter of time before I collected it. And as luck would have it, I had room for a new specimen.
Shift rotations hung behind the staff desk on laminated sheets with names, initials, and assignments in neat columns. During my next visit, I hovered until I could read them without suspicion.
“Sinclair, C. Tropical Reef—Mondays & Tuesdays. Shark Feed—Thursdays. Quarantine Assist—alternating Saturdays.”
Shark feed. Perfect.
That Thursday, I joined the crowd at the shark tank aschildren perched on adults’ shoulders, their phones raised in eager anticipation, energy rippling through them all. Cove emerged from the service corridor carrying a brimming steel bucket and wearing thick rubber gloves pulled up to his elbows. His hair was braided again—two thick cords from his temples merging into a single rope down his back.
He didn’t acknowledge the audience. Stepping onto the grated platform, he narrowed his focus, as though he preferred water to people. Kneeling on one knee, he leaned forward, a half-smile curving his lips—not for us, but for the sleek shapes cutting through the greenish water.
He extended the feeding pole with calm precision, tracking the nearest shark’s approach like an angler reading currents. When the creature struck, his wrist made a micro-adjustment, and he withdrew the pole in one fluid motion.
The crowd gasped; he did not.
