I’m here. Where is he?
Don’t come in this room. Please.
You pretty much guaranteed that I have to. The words slipped out before I could stop them, my anger at him for being so petty, so selfish, boiling over. His jealousy, his blind rage over me being with Mark, had brought all of us to this point.
He’ll kill you.
I am well aware of that fact! I snapped. Now tell me where the hell he is.
He’s to the right of the door. He’s waiting for you.
Of course he was. And of course he was on the side that meant I’d have to make it all the way through the door to reach him.
I took another deep breath, refused to let myself hesitate. If I did, I might never make it through that door. And then, gun in one hand and spear in the other, I flattened myself to the floor and slid through the entrance.
I got off a shot before he could move, but guns weren’t my thing and it slammed into his tail instead of his upper body. He roared, his tail coming up to slam against my already injured ribs.
I went flying, slamming into the far wall. I glanced down, saw a chunk of flesh missing from my side, but didn’t have time to assess any more damage because he was coming at me, every spike on his body standing straight up.
I slid down the wall a second before he crashed into it, head-first, and rolled out from underneath his long, serpentine body. I glanced at the wall where Kona and Mark were chained, looks of horror on their faces as they strained against the chains binding them to the wall. Then I dismissed them from my mind. I couldn’t think about them now, not if I had any hope of defeating the Leviathan.
I made it to the far corner away from Mark and Kona, where I had the wall to my back and a good view of the room. The headfirst smack into the wall had seemed to stun the Leviathan for a second, but he had shaken it off and was coming for me again.
I blasted him with everything I had, sending an energy pulse at him that should have felled a roomful of elephants. It barely fazed him. I tried to gather electricity from the water around me, but there was too much blood in it. It messed with the viscosity, made it impossible to do what I needed to.
I hit him with another energy pulse, then jumped, somersaulting over him as he slammed into the wall again. But this time he was braced for the impact, because it didn’t stun him. Instead, he curled his tail upward and wrapped it around my waist. Then he started to squeeze.
I struggled for air. He was crushing my insides, while the razor-sharp scales of his tail were slicing into my flesh wherever it touched. I wanted to scream in agony, especially as he pressed against my already-injured side, but I didn’t have the breath to make a sound.
I fumbled for the gun at my waist, but my fingers wouldn’t work. I dropped it, watched as it fell uselessly to the ocean floor. I summoned up the strength for one more energy pulse, let it loose, but the Leviathan was ready for it. His head slammed backward, but his tail kept squeezing until I felt like I was being sliced in half. Then again, that was probably exactly what was happening.
Tempest! Kona was screaming my name, and I looked over at him. He was crying, yelling, yanking against the chains with every ounce of strength he had. Mark was doing the same thing, his face frozen in abject horror. I didn’t want this for them, didn’t want them to watch me die. Knowing that they would be killed next, because I’d failed, was even worse.
But the Leviathan was too strong and I was getting weaker by the second. Finally, I did the only thing I could. I sent a blast of energy straight at Mark and Kona, hoping it would be powerful enough to knock them out. They wouldn’t see me die, and if I were lucky they wouldn’t feel their own deaths either. But I was weak and off-kilter and the blast missed them. I’m sorry, I told Kona as the world around me grew dimmer. I’m so sorry.
Kona screamed, pulling as hard as he could against the brick wall. As he pulled, a couple of bricks began to tumble to the ground. My blast had knocked them loose.
Tempest! he yelled. Do it again. Hit the wall again!
I was fading fast, could barely comprehend what he was saying. But I tried to follow his directions, lifted my hand and sent a weak energy pulse his way. More bricks tumbled and then suddenly, Mark was free. Not Kona, who had powers of his own, but Mark. The human who had none.
Terror raced through me, woke me up. No, Mark! I yelled, as he looped the chain still attached to his wrist around the Leviathan’s tail and started to pull. Stop! He’ll kill you! But he couldn’t hear me. Of course he couldn’t—there was no path between his brain and mine. He wasn’t meant to speak underwater.
The Leviathan whirled around at this new attack, lashed out with his head and drove a spike straight through Mark’s left arm. I screamed, but Mark just reached up and grabbed on to the spike where it met the Leviathan’s head. I watched as he broke it off, leaving most of the spike embedded in his upper arm.
The Leviathan bellowed, slammed me into the ground as he unwound himself from me to go after Mark. I reached for my telekinesis, but it was gone. Everything was. I couldn’t even swim. I was too weak.
I tried to crawl across the floor to the Leviathan, but the thing must have had eyes in the back of his head because his tail came up and at me. I dodged the first time, but the second time it skewered me right through the abdomen, so hard that it slammed me against the wall. Held me pinned there.
Kona screamed, and at that exact second, Mark picked up the gun I’d dropped and started firing straight into the body of the Leviathan. The thing jerked, once, twice, over and over again as Mark emptied the gun into it. Then it hit the floor, face first.
His tail twitched, with me attached, before sliding slowly down the wall as he fell unconscious. I collapsed on the floor, pinned under the weight of the tail as my blood leaked into the water around me.
All hell broke loose. Mark ran to me while Kona and Zarek—who was chained to the opposite wall—screamed at him to let them go. Of course, he couldn’t hear them as he fell to his knees beside me. He reached for the tail, started to pull it out, but I could tell he was torn. If he left it in, I would die; if he pulled it out, I would bleed to death faster.
It didn’t really matter. I was fading fast. At least they were safe, for now. Kona could get them to the safe room. They would be okay. Mark would be okay. That was all that mattered.
I reached my hand up, cupped Mark’s cheek. I love you, I mouthed.
He shook his head. Don’t do this, he mouthed back. Don’t you dare leave me. Not like this. Not like this. He was sobbing, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the force of his grief, as was mine. He picked me up, stroked my hair back from my face. Rocked me in his arms. Kissed my forehead. Then pulled back so I could see his face. I love you, he mouthed to me. I love you, Tempest.
I closed my eyes, buried my face against his chest. There was no more pain. I just felt numb, cold. But there were worse ways to die. At least Mark was here.
Kona.
Tempest!
Make sure Mark tells my dad I died. I don’t want him waiting for me like—
Kona roared, the most inhuman sound I had ever heard him make. There was a crash of waves against me, and then he was there. And Zarek was too, pulling the tail from my stomach.
I blacked out.
I woke up sometime later in the safe room. Mark was there, along with Kona and Zarek and the few other guards who were still alive.
Mark was the first one to realize I’d woken up. “Tempest?”