Chapter 24
Let me tell you about sharks.
You know they’re down there. Hunting, feasting, waiting. But you’re stinging hot in the sunshine, your skin’s turning pink, and the water is calling. So you go.
You’re knee-deep now, waist-deep. That’s when you remember the stories, isn’t it? That’s when they flood your mind like a wave crashing in.
Girl mauled by bull shark in knee-deep water.
Great white attacks surfer.
But God, it’s bright and hot, and the water is so cool on your sunburned skin. So down you go, into the deep. Still, you feel the tug of fear. But it can’t be you. It won’t be you.
Until it is.
—
I stumble down the shore, thinking, Someone’s going to die today.
I step around a young family collecting shells in the shallows, past a couple strolling hand in hand, past a woman my age, sunglasses perched on her nose, magazine in a ring-heavy hand. I pause, inspecting them all. Which one of you is it?
Who’s dying today?
I look out across the water. The surfers paddle and scramble, jostling for position, chasing every wave. But not Trav. He’s straddling his board, calm and silent. He hasn’t moved in minutes. When the right wave comes, he’ll know. Until then, he’ll wait for it. As long as it takes.
There’s no news on Chris. Not a damn thing. But there’s someone in this town who knows everything. And I’m here to find him.
The sun’s going down, stretching long shadows across the shore. I look for Terry. Find him on the pier. He’s hunched on a plastic fishing bucket, back slightly bent, shoulders relaxed in that quiet, patient way only years can teach.
A tattered cap shades his eyes, but he seems to know I’m coming. The weathered wood creaks beneath my shoes as I head to him, salty breeze tugging at my sleeves. His line cuts through the air with a soft swish before it splashes into the water. “Hey, Min.”
I stop a few feet away, eyes flicking from his rod to the sea and then back to Terry.
He’s not looking at me. His eyes are focused on the water below like he knows all its secrets.
There’s something heavy in the air, but he doesn’t acknowledge it.
He just casts his line again with a smooth, practiced flick.
He’s squidding, and judging by the fresh ink staining his hands, he’s caught a lot.
“Ask your questions,” Terry finally mutters.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit, taking a step closer.
I fix my eyes on the surfers, seeking out Trav.
He’s waiting beyond the break, reading the rhythm of the water.
The swell rises and he catches it, feet finding his board like it’s a part of his body.
The wave curls behind him, cresting over his shoulder.
It reminds me of Heath’s broken trophy. The golden surfer.
The golden wave. Beautiful. “Trav works for you now?”
He nods, reeling in slowly. “He’s a good skipper.”
“And easily led.”
He lifts an eyebrow, fingers still curled around the fishing line. “You can’t make that boy do anything he doesn’t wanna do.”
That’s only half true. If he loves you, there’s nothing he won’t do for you. But does he love Terry? This surrogate father figure. Half mentor, half shadow.
“He needed a job, I gave him one.”
“Is that all he does for you?”
The old man doesn’t answer right away.
I step closer. “Anything I should know about?”
“Depends who you’re gonna tell, Min.”
Chris. He knows I’ve been working with Chris.
My heart pounds in my chest as the silence between us stretches. “That journo…someone left a shark tooth under his windshield wiper. Now he’s missing.”
His brow arches in quiet amusement. “A shark tooth. Did they?”
“Was it you?”
He lets the line float for a moment, then reels it in, thinking carefully before speaking. “Your mum…” He sits there for a long moment, the sound of the lapping water filling the space between us. “I was always sorry I didn’t do more.”
“Sorry you didn’t do more for her? Or for Heath and me?”
His shoulders sag. “All of you…the kids, too.”
His gaze is distant now, lost in the past. And I realize he’s talking about the blood boys in town, forced out to the Wicked Woods while their dads got shitfaced and violent at his pub.
Then I think of Terry’s paternal hand on Heath’s shoulder, how my brother leaned into it.
Trav skippering Terry’s beloved fishing boat.
“Maybe you thought you could make it up to Heath, to Trav,” I say slowly, “by getting them involved in something they shouldn’t be. Something lucrative…illegal?”
I move closer. “And you were worried about Chris finding out, so you sent him a warning. Now he’s gone. Just like Hannah Striker.”
There’s the briefest flicker of something on his face when I mention Hannah’s name. When he speaks, it’s with a certain weariness that makes his words feel like they’re laden with too much history. “Drop this, Min.”
“I can’t.”
“If you love your brother…” His eyes flick to mine. “If you still love Trav…you’ll drop it. You’ll leave it alone.”
I’m about to speak when the scream rings out. Silence sweeps over the beach like invisible hands are holding our mouths shut.
Conversations cease. Children stop laughing. Even the surfers are frozen on their boards, heads lifted high, waiting.
And then someone screams out, “Shark!”
A fin strikes through the surface, only meters from the small group of surfers.
They cry out in alarm, bolting up on the boards, pulling their limbs out of the water as the fin surges closer.
The shark is huge, the dorsal fin towering over their heads.
The surfers huddle together, gripping their boards tightly, as the fin circles them.
“Oh my God!” A woman bolts up from her towel, pointing at the shallows. “There’s two of them!”
Emerging from the shallows is another fin, racing through the water like a nightmare. A man stands waist-deep, frozen, eyes locked on the fin. The people on the beach bolt to their feet, pointing and yelling at the two fins.
“Get out of the water!”
“Shark!”
“Get out! Get out!”
Amid the panicked screaming, Colleen lurches forward, running for the water. “Trav!”
I race after her, down the pier, jumping onto the hot sand, weaving among the screaming people. Colleen charges for the water as the swimmers come scrambling out. Panicked, they run for the sand, looking over their shoulders the whole way.
“Oh my God!” someone is yelling. “It’s got him! It’s got him!”
My heart thumps hard as I chase Colleen down, almost knocking over a woman holding a screaming toddler, and a man hauling a teenage girl out of the shallows.
Colleen reaches the water. She’s ankle-deep and screaming out for her son. “Trav!”
I finally catch up to her, grabbing her around the waist, holding her back.
I can feel her heart hammering under my forearm.
She pushes at my chest, tries to free herself, but I hold her tighter.
With a cry, she glances desperately at the water.
It’s empty now except for the surfers, still coiled together. Trav. Where’s Trav?
Colleen struggles harder, while I frantically count the surfers.
One, two, three…
It’s got him. It’s got him!
Oh God.
“Trav!” Colleen shrieks in my ear, momentarily still from shock. “Where is he?”
A wave begins to form, rising and rising in the water.
In a quick movement, the surfers paddle hard for it, and even from the beach I can feel their desperation, their terror.
They scramble for the wave, riding it to the shallows, as the people gather in a loud line on the beach, yelling encouragement.
Two surfers make it back, sprinting to the shore as soon as their feet hit the sand.
The third staggers like a sleepwalker, dripping blood.
His knee buckles; his eyes roll back in his head.
A woman rushes for him, shrieking as he collapses into a bloody heap on the sand.
She throws herself beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.
“He’s in shock!” she yells out. “Someone call an ambulance!”
The other two surfers hover over him, eyes wide and vacant.
“I’ll do it,” a man calls back, digging into his shorts pocket, pulling out a phone.
“His arm…” someone calls out, voice heavy with horror. “My God, his arm.”
The beach is tense, silent now. Mothers snatch their toddlers into their sunburned arms, slinging towels over their shoulders, ushering their older children to pack up, quick, quick, quick. Don’t look.
A teenager huddles under a beach umbrella, knees pulled tight to her chest, speaking tearfully into her phone. “Mum…come get me.” Her voice breaks. “Please.”
A bundle of school-aged kids flee to waiting parents, sand flying beneath their feet.
“You need to get here,” the man hisses into the phone, staring grimly at the surfer, “and you need to get here now.”
Only Colleen and I notice the final surfer emerging from the water. Trav. Waves crash behind him, spraying foam as his surfboard cuts through, gliding to shore. He almost looks like a part of the ocean itself. The sun glints off the water, and the black fin rises behind it like a towering shadow.
For a moment, it looks like the shark is hunting him down. But Trav glides effortlessly back to shore, and the fin hovers in the hull of a cresting wave before sinking back to the depths.
Trav watches the injured surfer from the shallows, seawater dripping from his chin.
He makes no attempt to help. Instead he eyes the bleeding boy with barely concealed hunger, veins pulsing in his throat.
There’s a damp sheen on his skin like he’s sweating out poison and failing.
His eyes are dilated and darting rapidly, lips curling back like a wolf that’s gone too long without a good, bloodied meal.
Or a shark.
Colleen calls his name over and over like he’s a child trapped in a fever dream. He ignores her, runs his tongue under a spiky incisor, eyelids half closed.
And I stand on the shore, thinking.
I know why the sharks don’t want him.
He’s one of them.