“Shalie?”
“Callum?” Shalie said, sounding like she hardly believed it any more than he did.
She was cut up badly. She had tiny shark bite marks all over her face, neck, arms. Her shirt was torn and she’d lost a pant leg. As she ran over, she hobbled, lurching from side to side.
He’d never seen such a beautiful woman in his life. He surged forward to meet her. With his one good arm, he caught her around the waist and pulled her to him, swinging her around. He kissed her hair, her cheek, the back of her hand. Anything that was in range.
Laughing, Shalie urged him to slow down. “I’m okay, really. I’m good.”
Callum stopped spinning and leaned forward, finally finding his target, right on the lips. At first she stiffened, then Shalie wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling them even closer together, responding to his kiss with her own warmth.
His body arched into her. A desire held in so long it felt like he might not survive its release.
The kiss only ended as a discrete cough came from the doorway. Tonaka, reminding him of all those damned problems back at the control room.
He kissed her again, gently. “I should have done that a long time ago.”
Her one eye sparkling, Shalie laughed. “Yah, you should have.”
He hugged her again, then set her down. “How did you get away? You looked gone for and when search and rescue went out they didn’t find anything.”
“No kidding,” Shalie said hobbling next to him as they went out to join the robots. “Let’s just say it involved a ventilation shaft, hitching a ride on Lebowski and a rather nasty encounter with a sea turtle.”
Callum wanted to know more, but now wasn’t the time. He allowed the QX to pick Shalie up.
“I can carry you both,” the QX stated.
“I’m good,” Callum said filled with such gratitude and hope that he felt like he could keep up with even a QX.
* * *
Nick made it back to the control room. He was soaked through and starting to feel like his socks had somehow melded with his flesh, but he’d made it back. His temple was still oozing, but he could take care of that later.
He burst into the control room. “We’ve got a saboteur.”
Everyone in the room turned to him, the same, startled, unbelieving look on their face.
“No, seriously. We’ve got a guy mucking up the works. Check out the jet ski bay. He trashed it.”
Callum, also drenched crossed over to him. “Looks like you took a pretty bad blow to the head.”
“Yes, from the saboteur!” Nick exclaimed realizing a bit too late he was starting to sound a little hysterical and the word “saboteur” just sounded silly.
“Are you sure you aren’t having some kind of movie flashback?”
“Okay,” Nick admitted. “It does sound a little like Two Uzis and a Priest,” he paused waiting for the knowing nod, but he didn’t get one. Not from a single person in the room. Not even Nami.
Wait. “Where’s Nami?”
Callum frowned. “I wasn’t here…”
Oh, this wasn’t good.
“Where?” Nick demanded.
Callum nodded to the monitors. There were two figures standing on the far side of a rather rickety catwalk. It took a second for Nick to realize that it was Nami and Dillon. Plus, Nami was holding a young boy.
“What the hell happened?”
“Nami insisted on going out to inform Dillon that we had created a dry passage back to the control room. She helped save dozens of people’s lives.”
“Then what the hell is she doing out there?” Nick demanded. This was insane. Nami should be here, right here in the chair he left her in. Why wasn’t at the least she back in her closet? He’d liked her closet days better.
“They sent the guests ahead and went to rescue the boy and now, this is their only way back…”
Nick didn’t like it one bit. “Can’t we signal them to wait, send out the robots? Something? Anything?”
Callum slowly shook his head. “That side of the island is sinking more quickly than this side. We can’t get anyone out there before they lose land.”
Nick couldn’t believe it. Even from here he could see the dorsal fins cutting the surface. Those freaking sharks were just biding their time, waiting. Waiting to eat his daughter.
“We’ve got to do something.”
“We are. We are watching.”
A figure came from behind Callum. “You’ve got to have hope.”
It took a few seconds for his brain to register who was in front of him. “Shalie?”
She reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. Not the kind of squeeze she gave it before. More like a sisterly squeeze. A look passed between Shalie and Callum. Something had happened that Nick didn’t know about and frankly didn’t care about at the moment.
“If I can make it, so can she,” Shalie said, her lip oozing a bit at the corner.
Nick, feeling completely and utterly helpless turned back to the screen. The two teens were looking over their shoulders, watching the crashing, storm driven surf encroach on their tiny islet of land.
Dear god, they were getting ready to make their way across the bridge from hell.
He begged in his mind for her not to go.
Don’t go, baby, don’t go.
They must have been able to get a robot or something over there.
But she stepped out onto the gangplank, holding the little boy to her body.
Why did she have to get so brave all of a sudden?
CHAPTER 22
Nami felt the catwalk shake under her feet. This was so not a good idea. But behind them was a rapidly rising water level. Pretty soon the sharks could just reach out and take a bite from the shore.
Dillon took her hand. They had used sheets to create a pretty snug baby wrap. She was going to need both hands for this stunt.
“My guess is there isn’t anything over fifteen feet in there.”
She supposed that Dillon meant that to reassure her. However knowing there were fourteen feet six inch sharks underneath of them wasn’t helping at the moment. She could feel the old fear. The old dread rise in her chest like bile. It threatened to overwhelm her like it had on the beach with Rusty.
Get back fear, she warned. She wasn’t messing around. She had enough guilt to last her a lifetime. She couldn’t add to it. She had to try to save this little boy or die trying.
“Ready?”
“About as much as you are,” she teased. Dillon was trying to be all brave, but she could see the fear in his eyes and how his finger trembled in hers. In some ways it made her feel less a freak. He was scared too. This was scary. Scary, but doable.
“We are going to take it at a run. There is a gap in the bridge about half way through. We’re going to jump it so we’ve got to be at top speed to make it.”
Nami nodded. They had studied the bridge before they came out from the tunnel.
“Keep running no matter what,” Dillon said. “No matter what.”
Nami knew what he meant. He meant even if he fell, she was to run past him. They agreed their priority was the boy. Nami didn’t want to, but she nodded. “As long as you promise not to fall in,”
“Done,” Dillon said with that crooked grin of his. She wanted to stand there in the rain and just soak up his smile, but they needed to get this show on the road.
“One,” Dillon said, squeezing her hand. “Two.”
“Three,” she said with him. They set off at a sprint. The catwalk was drenched, making footing treacherous. Only by holding onto Dillon could she stay upright. The toddler started to cry against her chest. How she wished she could join him.
She could see the gap in the bridge. They were almost there. She was getting ready to jump when the entire catwalk clanged, nearly throwing her off the side.
* * *
Tonaka’s breath caught in his throat. He could only imagine how Nick felt. The girl caught the railing, swinging out and over the w
ater. The toddler was strapped so tightly to her chest, he didn’t even budge.
Sharks snapped at her.
He could remember the feel of that impact as the shark hit the support struts. He could remember tilting away, shoving his beloved Nica to what he thought was safety.
His arms were still sore from dangling there, thinking the shark was coming for him, when the whole time it had been angling for his precious wife. He could still remember her bravery, then her scream, then nothing.
His electrons were trying to go about their business, leaving him, seeking her, but not finding her. Forlorn and exhausted they returned to him, empty handed. Would that be how Nick felt?
Then Dillon leaned over the railing, grabbing Nami’s hand, pulling her to safety. Or at least a safe harbor for the moment.
Dillon backed them up. They were way too close to the gap to try and jump it from there. The kids started running again, then at the last moment leaping.
* * *
Nick prayed to any God that would listen to his pleas. Let her make it. Let her make it. A shark jumped from the water, trying to snatch his daughter from the air, but she gave a kick, hitting the shark in the nose. It fell back to the water.
That’s my girl, Nick murmured.
She landed on the other side, but was knocked to her knees. She staggered up, clearly shaking off the impact. Dillon hadn’t been so lucky. He had barely grabbed hold of the side with his hands. He was dangling just above the water.
They didn’t have audio, but Nick could read Dillon’s lips. “He’s telling her to run,” he informed the room. He’d learned lip reading while playing a detective who lip read but was going blind in a movie ill-fatedly called A Life Ruined That was the year he had married Talia.
Callum frowned as Dillon kept screaming for Nami to leave.
His daughter didn’t though, she backtracked to the teen. She leaned over the side, but her arms weren’t long enough to reach him. You could see Dillon begging her to leave, but she refused and he knew why. Rusty. And if he knew his daughter, she wasn’t leaving Dillon, no matter how much he begged.
“Grab the pipe,” Callum yelled at the monitor as if Nami could hear him.
Then it looked like she did, as she searched around her and found a loose pipe. She pulled it from its mooring and lowered it to Dillon who climbed up.
* * *
That had been close, Dillon thought as he hugged Nami which wasn’t nearly as pleasurable as it should have been since they had a squirming toddler between them.
“I thought I told you to not look back,” he mock scolded her.
“I thought I told you not to fall in,” Nami shot back.
A shark banged into the struts again, getting their feet moving. The catwalk swayed side to side in a serpentine motion. Nami held onto the rail, when there was one. Dillon surged ahead, leaping from the crumbling bridge to the ground.
“Jump!” Dillon yelled as the bridge gave out from under her.
She trusted Dillon to catch her as she hurled herself and the boy forward. They hit Dillon hard, knocking them all to the mud.
Quax ran toward them. “Get up!”
A shark came out of the water, chasing after his escaped prey.
Nami scrambled to her feet, fleeing the scene.
“Whoa!” Dillon yelled grabbing her arm. “Not in there.”
Behind a large “restricted area” sign was a large pool.
“There’s piranhas,” Dillon explained.
Seriously? Really? “Why in the heck would your father have piranhas?” Nami yelled as the shark slid along the slick ground, still angling for them.
Dillon shrugged, “He likes ‘em. And they were impounded from a crazy ass collector in New Zealand so dad took them and built them this pen. ”
He grabbed her around the waist and moved her out of the shark’s path. The shark tried to correct his course, but had way too much weight to stop. He slipped into the piranhas’ tank.
The water roiled, turning a sickly red. The shark tried to fling itself from the water, but with half of its flesh eaten off, it couldn’t get the air. It fell back into the water. The next time it surfaced, it was nothing more than a picked over skeleton.
“Okay, maybe piranhas aren’t such a bad idea,” Nami said, shivering in his arms.
He would have kissed her right then and there but a toddler stuck his face out. “I want my Mommy!” he demanded.
* * *
Nick rushed to the door as Dillon and Nami entered. The toddler saw the robot. “Quax!” he yelled, climbing out from his swaddling and putting his arms out for the robot to take him.
Guess everybody loved that robot.
As soon as the child was extracted, Nick pulled his daughter into a fierce hug. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“I’ll work on that,” Nami said, backing away, brushing her wet hair out of her eyes. “But we did good.”
“Yes, you did, baby,” Nick said, rubbing his hands up and down her wet arms.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Callum greet his son. It was slightly more awkward than Nick and Nami, but it was a good start.
“And look who the cat dragged in,” Callum said and moved out of the way.
“Shalie!” Dillon cried, running to her and giving her a completely un-awkward hug. “You’re alive.”
“And so proud, Dillon,” Shalie said, kissing the top of his head.
It looked like Shalie was adapting to the stepmom gig pretty seamlessly. Nick was happy for her. Sort of.
“What about this saboteur?” one of the techs asked.
“Oh no,” Nami said. “This isn’t a flashback to that Guy Ritchie movie?”
“A little, but this is true. This guy trashed the jet skis then hit me over the head.”
“Oh no, dad,” Nami said, using her wet shirt to dab his bloody wound.
“If you don’t believe me, look at the footage.”
Callum stepped forward. “Call it up.”
The tech did as asked and in stark black and white they watched Nick find the damaged sleds then get hit by an unseen intruder.
“See! I told you!” Nick said. It really would have been embarrassing had it all been a flashback.
“So there really is a saboteur?” Callum asked.
“Yes,” Nick restated for what he hoped was the last time.
Callum fell forward, catching himself with his one arm. “Oh thank god.”
That was possibly the oddest response to the revelation that someone was trying to destroy your island, ever.
“Callum?” Shalie said, rubbing his back. He straightened up, with a sad grin on his face.
“It just means this isn’t all my fault,” Callum stated.
Nick had no idea what that meant, but it looked like a thousand ton weight had been lifted from the director’s shoulders.
* * *
This whole time Callum had thought that it had been his hubris or lack of attention that had doomed his island. He thought he had miscalculated, overestimated how prepared the island was for a category five cyclone. But with a saboteur in the mix, that responsibility was transferred to this mystery man. Callum’s island had been solid. Someone else had weakened it.
“Can you follow the man via the cameras?” Callum asked the tech who was already on it. They needed to find this guy before he could do any more harm.
“I’ve got him coming out of the sled bay, then crossing this bridge and ducking into this complex of storage sheds,” the tech said. “Unfortunately from there the cameras were down at that time so we lost him.”
“Are we sure it is a him?” Tonaka asked.
Shalie leaned forward, squinting as the tech ran the footage again. “From a biometric standpoint, that is a male figure.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Tonaka asked.
“It isn’t any of my staff,” Callum stated.
“Can you be so sure?” Tonaka challenged. “Any man can be bought for a price.”
Callum shook his head. “All my staff are accounted for. And if any of my staff had done this, they would have had a plan to get the hell off this island. They would have understood that their actions were suicidal if they stayed.”
“If not your staff, then who?” Tonaka asked. “Everyone else is an investor. Why if they wanted to destroy the island, would they invest millions in it first?”
Callum shrugged. He had vetted everyone who came onto the island. They were solid. Except for…
“Jack,” Shalie, Nick, Nami and Dillon all said at the same time that Callum thought it.
“But he’s been in the brig,” Tonaka stated.
“Yes, however where are his crew?” Callum turned to the tech. “Are the robots still on their quarters?”
The tech’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I don’t think so. I think they got called off once Jack got locked up.”
Sure enough, the footage outside the Shark Hunters suite was unguarded. “Check the footage once the robots leave.”
Within a few moments a figure dressed in dark sweats and a hoodie, snuck out of the room and disappeared down the hall.
“Can’t we get a face to go with that?”
“I can tell you one thing,” Nick said. “It is one of the two cameramen who hauled ass back to the island, leaving Jack and I stranded out by the reef.”
“What reef?” Nami asked.
“Nothing, honey,” Nick said. Callum didn’t override him, clearly he hadn’t told his daughter about his near miss out by the Great Barrier Reef.
The tech was already scrolling footage of the groups return to the island.
“There,” Shalie said. “Send me that still.”
* * *
A deep understanding of robots didn’t usually help in any situation except with robots, however this was one of the few exceptions. She fiddled with the program on the computer screen. She was checking basic physical characteristics like femur length and shoulder width to determine which of the two cameramen was their saboteur.
“It is the shorter one,” Shalie announced. “A Milo Harenster.”
She brought up his picture. He looked like an average Animal Planet cameraman. Shaggy brown hair, full untrimmed beard wearing a Bob Marley beanie.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 25