"Dey smell us?" Alexei asked. He had backed up with the rest, but he leaned as far forward as he could without betraying the rule, eyes bright, trying to smile himself into courage. "Or see us?"
"Both," Zubair said. "More of one than the other."
The water shifted color in the near distance. Something big moved with power, not the thrash of debris but a line cut with intent. A dorsal fin knifed the surface and sank again. The room tightened by instinct alone.
A shadow came closer—sleek and heavy, but not curious.
"Great white," Elias said before he could stop the taxonomy. He sounded like he hated himself for having the word ready.
The shark crossed the boulevard-turned-channel, its body a roll of muscle under water as it turned to the glass by the surge's backwash. A zombie turned toward it. Then another one.
Sera's mouth tightened.
It should have passed.
That was what sea-rules said: implied, not written.
