"Hold on!"
"Help me!" the terrified girl screamed again, nails drawing blood from Kendle's wrist as the weight of the rail that had ripped away pulled her down toward the angry sea, where the rest of their group, also still anchored to the heavy metal, were fighting for every breath they took.
"Dawn!" Their wet fingers slipped, and the screaming teenager was yanked off the boat, as Kendle jerked frantically on the rope around her other wrist, unable to get free to follow.
"Dawn!"
Bam!
Kendle screamed as the speedboat was hit hard from underneath, rising out of the water and tossing against the steering wheel. Stars bursting across her vision, her hands found the wide, wooden spokes just as the craft plunged back down. It slapped up sprays of water and she barely kept herself from flying out, arm wrenching painfully.
Bump, splash...Bump!
The boat rocked violently from the hits, and she held on to the wheel, heart thudding at every creak of waterlogged wood.
Thud...splash!
Her shark was back. She saw the fin, watched it roll over. Her eyes widened when she realized her net was wrapped around its streamlined body. It was trapped. If it dove, she would go under too.
"Move!" her mind screamed, and she slid closer to the wildly thrashing animal as her fingers went for the net. 'No time!' the panic ordered, water sloshing into the shallow boat as the shark tried to roll itself free. 'Kill it!'
Kendle looked around. How?
The claw hammer was still buried in the shark's eye, the long handle being pried out by the ropes of her net, and she grabbed the biggest can she had, its label long gone. Kendle hefted it over her head, trying to wait for the right moment.
The Great White suddenly plunged downward, pulling the boat with it and as water began to pour in, she swung, slamming the heavy can down on top of the hammer.
A sound of agony was ripped from the shark. More a vibration than a noise, the cry was one of a fatal wound and Kendle shoved herself back against the side of the boat to rebalance it, shivering. She had just killed her first shark. That was something she hadn't done before the War, when she couldn't wait to face nature's challenges.
After a minute, the shark stopped moving, blood leaking out into the softly lapping waves, and she forced herself toward the corpse, her back and shoulder on fire. She ripped the hammer out of the animal's head, the tearing sound making her gag, but she didn't stop, swinging the slimy weapon back into the shark's meaty area.