Before I could even consider diving down after her, hands grabbed me and pulled me upwards, away from Ashling, and out of the water.

“No!” I screamed as I broke the surface, the last of my air erupting in denial. There were people all over the water; rescuers dove after Ashling. But I knew what they didn’t. They would never find her; somehow I knew that not only had my sister been stolen away, but my world had just shattered beyond repair.

And it was all my fault.

~~

5

“Shark attack? Out here? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Just look at the girl’s leg, there is nothing else that bites like that. And the instructor said he saw a fin right before the attack.”

I turned from the open window to see that the source of the whispering was two nurses outside my room. I’d been rushed to the hospital, my leg bleeding profusely. The paramedics had wrapped my leg and now I was waiting for the doctor to come and stitch me up

I let out a barking laugh; even I could hear the hysteria in it. “He’s lying, there was no shark.” The nurses spun towards me, their eyebrows raised and their mouths hanging open in unison. The chubby brunette pulled it together first. “My dear,” she said. “What was it that attacked you if it wasn’t a shark?

I was saved from having to reply by the doctor’s arrival. The nurse lifted the blanket off my leg and started to unwrap the gauze. She had barely uncovered the top of the wound when she stopped with a gasp. She regained her composure quickly and pulled the bandage completely off. The bite marks were a mirror image of the scars on my other leg. In fact, they were identical to the scars on my other leg—completely healed.

My mind scuttled back to what Grandpa had done to me. Was this part of what it meant to be Quickened? An increase in the speed of how your body healed? I shivered and looked at the doctor.

He stood beside me, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Mary, go call Constable Pollett. He’ll want to speak with her.”

I didn’t understand what was going on. Why would they need the police here? Shouldn’t they all be at the beach, looking for clues?

“A shark was it?” he said, a patronizing look on his face. I had the sudden urge to slap him. “It wasn’t a shark, it was . . .” I paused. I didn’t really know what the two monsters were; I had no name for them. And how was I to explain what I saw? They would blame my crazy descriptions on the fear and my past experiences. Or even my family history. Maybe Grandpa wasn’t as crazy as we’d thought. Or maybe I was about to join him at the Pavilion.

“It wasn’t a shark,” I said again, sticking to the one part I knew for sure.