Above World - By Jenn Reese Page 0,1

Elders are trying to keep out.”

Aluna clamped her mouth shut and looked up.

She felt the water grow cold as the deadliest predator in the ocean glided a few meters above their heads. Pointed snout, black pebble eyes pressed into pale flesh, rows of sharp teeth still trailing scraps of meat from its last meal.

Great White.

The shark lazed its way through the water, looking. Listening. Smelling.

Aluna was sure it would hear their hearts pounding or see the necklaces pulsing at their throats. Be still as a starfish, she told herself. Be calm as Big Blue.

The shark glided over them and zigzagged around the curve of the glowfield, as if it were searching for an entrance.

When the creature was almost out of view, Hoku kicked his feet against the current to maintain his position. It was a small, unconscious move. He probably didn’t realize he’d even done it. But Aluna noticed, and Great White did, too.

The shark twisted sharply, attracted to the sudden motion. In one moment it was swimming away, and in the next it was streaking through the water right at Hoku.

“Swim!” Aluna yelled, but he didn’t move. His arms drifted at his sides, his legs hung useless below him. He just stared at the shark.

Aluna vaulted up from the ocean floor, waving both legs and both arms, and screamed, “Over here, you big guppy! Fight me instead!”

Great White ignored her.

Only one thing left to try. She flicked the point of her knife across her palm, fast and deep. A tiny red cloud puffed up from the wound. Her skin would knit itself back together quickly, thanks to the ancients who designed it, but even one drop was enough. Sharks could smell blood from kilometers away. There was nothing they loved more.

Great White twitched. Aluna gasped, her vision suddenly eclipsed by the shark’s pale, monstrous body speeding toward her, fast as a harpoon. Deep battle scars marred its muzzle. Its great maw hung open, big enough to swallow her whole.

She switched the grip on her knife so that the back of the blade rested against her forearm. The knife is not a tool that you “use,” her brother Anadar always said. The knife is an extension of your arm. As soon as you pick it up, it becomes a part of you.

She knew she couldn’t hurt the shark, not without a thick spear and the skill to drive it deep into the monster’s gills, but it wasn’t expecting her to fight back at all. Sharks never expected that. If she could slash it on the nose a few times before it bit her, it might decide she wasn’t worth the effort.

The shark closed in. Aluna yelled and punched her knife at its nose. Great White dodged at the last moment and flash! A bright-green beam of light erupted from a spot above one of its pitiless black eyes.

Glowing lines crisscrossed Aluna’s body. The shark had cast a net over her — a net of light! She watched the net move across the dark skin of her arms and legs and over the tight seal leather that covered the rest of her. The green light shimmered in the current, dancing and flickering like moonlight on the waves. It didn’t hurt. In fact, she couldn’t feel it at all.

“Move!” Hoku yelled. His voice reverberated in her ear and woke her from her stupor.

She straightened her legs, lifted her arms, and dropped like a stone through the water. She hit the ocean floor and flattened herself against it. Lots of sea creatures hid themselves in the sand. She tried to be one more. The shark’s flickering green gaze refracted through the water where she had been, as if it were looking for her.

Aluna saw Hoku not far off, dug into the sand, just like her. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Hoku said. “I’ve never seen tech like that. And I’ve definitely never seen it coming from a shark!”

The creature darted left and right, searching.

Great White had legendary patience, while Aluna was renowned among the Coral Kampii for exactly the opposite. She couldn’t stay here forever. She had to take a chance.

“Wait till it chases me, then circle back to the city,” she whispered. “Don’t follow me, no matter what.”

She secured her knife in its sheath and waited. When Great White’s mysterious green light was farthest away, she pulled herself into a crouch, pressed her palms together over her head, and kicked off.

“Aluna, what are you doing?” Hoku yelled.

“Saving us,” she said