I remained crouched in a rigid pose while the team sprang into motion, cutting at tentacles or restraining them while someone else slashed at them. The need to help them beat in my chest, pinched at my temples, but the old fear hit me harder. My eyelids dropped shut, and a cold sweat bathed me.

Warm sand squished between my toes. A sharp pain radiated up my leg, and I plopped down to pick a thin piece of shell from my heel. Fat tears welled as I stared at my crimson-stained fingers. A taunting voice rang over the dunes. I shoved to my feet and limped after a darting shadow. The full moon was our only light. Daddy said it was made of cheese, that the dark spots were holes chewed by space mice. Momma said space mice had eaten his brain.

“Crybaby. Crybaby,” the breathless shadow sing-songed as she barreled into the surf. “Cam is a crybaby.”

Teasing laughter once muted by the crashing waves dissolved into screams.

A stampeding hippo slammed into me and knocked me flying. When I remembered how to breathe again, I sucked down hungry gulps of air. Dirt coated the back of my throat, making me cough as I rolled onto my side. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been a hippo, but those tentacles were all muscle, and I might as well have been a fly and it the swatter.

I shoved upright and absorbed the chaos surrounding me. Had I really thought this crime scene couldn’t get any worse? Black goo squished through my fingers when I braced in a puddle of congealing blood to get back on my feet. Its magic radiated up my arm. A kraken? In a sinkhole in Nowhere, Texas? Really? Its faint energy tinkled over my skin, and I knew what I had to do.

Of the eight original tentacles, three remained. Two hung suspended over the water. The one squeezing Flipper and the one constricting Thierry. The way Shaw was climbing the latter meant it wouldn’t last much longer. I had to move fast. The third remaining arm swung in wide arcs before slapping the ground then sweeping left to right as it bowled over the marshals in pursuit. My best hope was reaching that one, but I had to hurry. A guy wielding a flaming sword was in hot pursuit of it. No pun intended.

I chased after the swordsman, slipping in muck and stumbling over uneven earth. When I reached him, I yelled, “Don’t sever it.” His glare called me a crazy woman. I didn’t argue, but I did tack on, “Yet.”

He hesitated, and that was opening enough for me. “Help me pin it down.”