Page 20 of Austen

The attack came from behind, first a bump, then a terrible wrenching, her body tossed in the water.

Bertha had hold of her tank.

She turned and punched the shark, just like Hunter had said, and yeah, exactly what her training told her not to do, but panic hit her bones, filled her body, and she had nothing else.

The hit landed in the soft flesh of Bertha’s snout, and the shark jerked away, darting into the depths.

Her tank had saved her.Which meant—yeah, no blood.But any remaining air whooshed out, and now water rushed in.

Dragging her down.

No—no?—

She took a last breath—the final trapped air in her BCD—and unsnapped her vest, the waistband.Pressure cracked her ears, and she equalized even as she kicked hard, fighting the pull to the bottom.

Stay calm!

Shrugging off one side, then the other, the vest finally fell away.

She swam for the surface.

The warmth trapped between her vest and her dive skin vanished, cool water chilling her to the bone as she surfaced into the fading sunlight.

Her dive light hung attached to her vest, fading into the depths.

Along with...Oh no.

Her PLB.Whether it had worked or not, she didn’t know, but why hadn’t she put it in her dive pockets?She’d secured it into her BCD pocket and...

Now it sat at the bottom of the ocean.Perfect.

So it was a choice—get eaten or drown.

She couldn’t lie on her back, not if she didn’t want to resemble a seal or a dolphin, but she couldn’t tread water indefinitely.

At least she’d ditched her weight belt.Maybe she should shuck her dive shorts too, heavy as they were on her legs.

Wait.She reached into her pocket and—yes,thank you—found her inflatable safety marker curled inside.She’d taken it out when she put her PLB into the Velcro pocket.

Thank You, Jesus.She pulled it out, unrolled it, and opened the valve.

No shark tried to kill her as she inflated the bright orange “sausage.”Six feet tall, it stuck out of the water like a flag.And if she wanted, she could float on it.

She tucked it under her arms, stopped kicking, stopped moving, and prayed.

More.

Prayedmorebecause she’d kept herself from weeping last night by mentally singing every hymn she knew, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and finally settling on the twenty-third psalm over and over.

And over.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley—ocean—of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil!”

The sunset dragged a finger across the waves.Maybe she’d scared Bertha off, because no more bumps hit her from below, but now the ocean had turned wild, and in the distance, another squall hovered over the horizon from the west.

So, this would be another fun night.As long as her sausage didn’t spring a leak and she didn’t drift into some dead animal or succumb to the temptation to slurp up any of the ocean water?—

Maybe she should just let go, sink to the bottom.

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