He swung down his torch and the sickly yellow flashlight beam revealed the face of a Dweller. Ryan felt a cautious rush of relief mixed with fear. Why was the mutie fishman down here? And did the mutant know Ryan wasn’t one of Poseidon’s men?
Shit on a dinner plate, how could he even begin to explain it?
Then Ryan realized he knew this mutie.
This was the one Shauna had called Mike, the one who had saved them after Poseidon’s mine had ripped into their boat during the storm.
Mike gestured, and Ryan followed with the flashlight, revealing a half dozen other Dwellers swimming at an angle above them. They were busy with Brosnan’s body, tearing the former follower of Poseidon limb from limb, their incredible strength hitting home to Ryan for the first time.
One of Brosnan’s arms drifted lazily by, trailing blood, dark black streamers extending off into the twilight depths. Ryan saw a flash of white bone, and he aimed the flashlight down farther. He hadn’t particularly liked Brosnan, but the man had given Ryan a fair shake in revealing the escape trunk. Ryan had no desire to stare at pieces of his burst and dismembered corpse.
They’d both gotten a fighting chance, but Brosnan was unfortunately the first man out of the trunk, and he possessed no such hidden advantage as Ryan did in having previously met one of the aquatic mutations who wanted to kill him. Who knew how long they had been dwelling here for this opportunity, day and night, watching for an attack to approach from below to wipe out their homes and the homes of their friends on land?
Waiting to defend it the only way they knew how.
Ryan almost laughed, suddenly understanding now how the reactor had blown up without the radiation rippling out and chilling them all. The Dwellers had seen the massive sub coming toward that part of the coast, and they’d used one of Poseidon’s own magnetic mines against him.
Mike was no longer holding Ryan’s ankle in his misshapen flipper of a hand. Ryan wondered if this was how he would perish, alone in the darkness, flailing out at the muties who now called this part of the ocean their home. The muties who had abandoned their eager ripping at Brosnan were now slowly surrounding him, one by one.
Ryan took a deep breath. The air coming into the mouthpiece really did taste foul.
The muties had now circled him, and he moved the flash from one to another, their eyes glowing yellow in the feeble light.
He realized he wasn’t afraid of them; he hadn’t caused them harm.
Twenty-four hours ago, the world had been an entirely different place. Ryan hadn’t particularly cared if he lived or died, but that was before he’d learned that Krysty was alive, deliciously alive and whole.
He wanted to feel her touch again.
IF ONE HAD BEEN PRESENT on the water above, he would have heard Ryan before seeing him.
Air bubbles from his tank erupted on the surface of the calm sea in a series of burbles and pops before Ryan’s head broke free from the ocean. The first thing he saw was the brightly colored naval emergency raft floating in the moonlight. He had almost forgotten sending it up.
The Dwellers, their attention on both the sinking Raleigh and the escaped Brosnan, had allowed the raft Ryan had shoved out of the hatch to arrive safe and unharmed on the water’s surface.
Ryan nearly hadn’t made it back. The precious oxygen in the tank had gotten more and more metallic as he struggled upward, his arms and legs becoming increasingly leaden as he struggled to keep moving, keep swimming. Mike had pushed and prodded Ryan onward, even pulling him the last stretch of the journey.
Ryan had been completely lost. He had no idea at any given time how close he actually was to the surface, as the night sky above offered no comforting sunlight to those below.
The mutie had led Ryan up through the darkness of the ocean safely, and now the weary warrior stretched out as well as he could manage on the rubbery canvas floor of the raft. He mused he was almost getting used to the sensations of trying to be comfortable in a life raft when the queer face of the mutie that had saved his life appeared, staring at him.