KAY, I’m no marine biologist, so the whole octopus/squid distinction is lost on me. All I can tell you is that it was way bigger than me, gushy, slippery, impossible to get hold of, and seemed to have a million tentacley arms that it wrapped so tightly around me I couldn’t move.

I remembered how octopi and squid eat their prey—they pry open clams and use their sucky arms to shove the soft clam meat into their parrotlike beaks. It was trying to pry me open! Then it would stuff soft bird-kid meat into its beak!

I drew in panicked breaths from the regulator, thrashing around, trying to kick backward, everything I could think of to break free.

Reminder: One cannot build up a lot of power in water. One cannot jump up and kick something. One cannot use one’s weight effectively. One can only thrash around, pushing helplessly against gushy, squishy, stretchy tentacles, trying to pry them off of everything.

One can also try to reach the eight-inch knife one has strapped to one’s thigh. Of course, I couldn’t get mine, because that was howthis whole day had gone.

And then it pulled my mask right off my face.

Cold salty water splashed into my eyes, went up my nose. Meanwhile, the slimy beast pulled the regulator out of my mouth, almost yanking my teeth along with it as I tried to hold on. Now I had no air source.

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t swallow the salt water. We mutant freaks have very efficient lungs and air sacs, but we do have to breathe. If I couldn’t breathe, I would drown, here in a dark cave, lost and alone.

Without ever kissing Fang again.

Tears are kind of redundant in the ocean, but I felt them well up hotly in my eyes.