Page 14 of Swimming With the Sharks
Sacrin swam in front of the three contenders...well, four counting Foster who was hanging onto Goboli’s neck witha wide smile.The loud call of the hippocampus, sounding like thewhistle of a steamboat, sounded, and the race was on.
The speed they took off at almost had Fosterlosing his seat, but Jabari watched as his mate leaned down andgripped onto Goboli harder, whispering something in thehippocampus’s ear causing the damn hippocampus to put on speed.
Jabari watched as Goboli came across a largecavern and went inside, racing out the other end, almost smackingFoster’s head.Jabari was going to kill that damn animal if hismate got hurt.However, the loud laughter coming from his mate madeJabari refrain from saying anything.
Polaris sped past him, calling out, “Eat my seadust.”
Pulling his mind into the game, Jabari passedPolaris without a strain and made it to the tail end of Goboliwithin seconds.Hearing Foster shouting, “Jabari is gaining on us,Goboli.”
“Not on my watch he isn’t.”Goboli called outjust as loud.
Just as they came to a large broken aft part ofa ship, Goboli zipped up and to his right, barely missing the steampipe.Unable to hold himself back this time, Jabari shouted, “Hurtmy mate and I will gut you, Goboli.”
Polaris must have gone through the wreck becausehe was next to Jabari, laughing and doing his stupid nickeringsound as if to say, “Hello,” but Jabari wasn’t about to let thebastard take him.If he wanted to, Jabari could have passed Gobolia long time ago, and the two hippocampi knew this.However, withthe distraction of his mate and the sound of pure joy coming fromthe man, Jabari wasn’t about to ruin that by having his mate losethe race...but Polaris was something altogether different.
Goboli made a sharp left and turned to go backthe way they had come, racing under rock formations and throughcaverns and around wreckage, when Polaris called out, “Stop!”
Everyone instantly came to a stop, but Fostermust not have heard Polaris’s shout because he hadn’t locked hislegs enough to stop his forward momentum, and tumbled head overheels over Goboli and landed with his back on the ocean bed.
Jabari raced to his mate, fear filling him,watching as his mate shook with what Jabari could only assume weretears of pain.Gods, how bad was he hurt?“Foster!Foster are youalright?”
It took a moment for Jabari to realize his matewasn’t crying, but instead he was laughing.Forest looked at Jabariwith a wide smile as he continued to laugh.“I think I could havehandled that better.”
As Foster went to sit up, Jabari held him down,“Don’t move until I can check you out.”
“I’m fine, Jabari.My ego is a bit dented, butotherwise I’m fine.The sand I landed on was relatively soft, and Iguess because we’re under the water the fall wasn’t that hard.Nowwhat the heck happened?”Foster asked, insisting he sit up and lookat Polaris who was talking rapidly to Goboli.
“Polaris, what’s going on?Why did you yell forus to stop?”Jabari asked.
“Sacrin says Formaci and some of his friendshave five young Atlanteans pinned in a cave.Thankfully the cave istoo small for him or his buddies to get inside, but Sacrin can’t doanything to help them because he’s busy with one of Formaci’s menat the moment.”Polaris explained.
“Then we need to go and help the young ones.Goboli, take my mate to the arch...”
“No.I’m going with you.”Foster quicklysaid.
Shaking his head, Jabari immediately responded,“No, you are not.Foster, I will not have you hurt, and trust me,Formaci is a danger to us and that means he is deadly to you.”
“You need Goboli with you, Jabari.I won’t havehim wasting time taking me to the arch when you need him by yourside.I will not be the reason you get hurt.”Foster said, grippingJabari’s forearm.“I don’t want you hurt any more than you want meto be.There has to be a place I can stay while you take on thisFormaci guy or thing or...”He waved his hand around, saying,“...or whatever the hell he is.Now we’re wasting time.Let’sgo.”
Jabari didn’t like it, but he could tell hismate was going to be stubborn about this.Sighing heavily, Jabarisaid, “Goboli, my mate will ride with you for now.When we getclose, I will see where we can hide him while we take care ofbusiness.”
“Yes, Jabari.”Goboli replied, all traces of fungone from his tone as well as his body.
Jabari looked at Polaris, “I’ll go ahead andcheck out the situation.When you get there, wait for me and we candecide what we’re going to do to get those kids out of that caveand back to their families.”
CHAPTER 7
Foster wouldn’t lie, he was scared shitless.Fuck a massively ugly duck.It would have helped if someone wouldhave told him that Formaci and his buddies were giant fuckingsquids.Fuck...seriously?Okay, in a way it was fascinating to seeone so close, but it was beyond terrifying as well, even if he washiding behind a coral reef not too far from where Jabari and thehippocampus trio were having a standoff with the nasty bugger andhis friends.
The damn things were ugly...seriously fuckingugly.They really did have ten appendages dangling in the water anda long head that was a boring sandy brown color, and the eyes...shit, they were like these gelatinous orbs that you couldn’t tellwhich way they were looking.
“Okay, Foster think.What did the nationalgeographic say about these things?”Foster asked himself.
They had ten dangly bits and two were longerthan the rest.Those two had suction cup thingies that they used tocatch their prey so that the eight could snag you and use nastyteethlike things to pull you into their beak mouth thing and eatyou.That shit sounded painful.
Foster remembered a YouTube video he had watchedabout a diver who was trying to study the things getting grabbed bythe fin of one, but then a bitch ton of the bastards came at himand wrapped those suction things onto his neck and body, and theyworked together taking him deeper and deeper into the ocean.Theguy finally snapped out of the shock of what was happening andstarted fighting until they finally let him go, but when he got tothe safety of the boat he had a bitch ton of lacerations from theseventy-two thousand teeth hooks the fucking squid had.Hedefinitely didn’t want this to happen to Jabari or the hippocampustrio.
Noticing movement next to the cave, Fosterglanced in that direction and saw another squid trying to make hisway towards Jabari.Foster was ready to scream for Jabari to lookout, even if Goboli had warned him to stay quiet, but he didn’thave to because Polaris did this puff-up thing and Foster couldn’thelp but draw in a deep breath when the hippocampus grew larger andlarger until he was towering over the intruder and forcing it toturbo away.