Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

she normally worked on the floor she wasn’t in as much danger.
    The feeling of dread increased with each stroke of her rake. She found herself stopping every few minutes to look around her. She studied the abyss. Could a shark be prowling there in the shadows? Her heart rate increased, but she forced herself to stay calm while she went back to work, determined to get it over with. The sea urchins were plentiful and large, the harvest amazing.
    She filled her first net in a matter of twenty minutes and, as the weight increased, she filled the float with air to compensate. In another twenty minutes she had a second bag filled. Both nets floated just to one side of her while she began working to fill the third net. Because she was working at thirty feet, she knew she had plenty of bottom time to fill all four five-hundred-pound nets, but she was getting tired.
    She hooked the bags to her hose, and stayed on the bottom while she let the bags go to the surface, holding the hose to slow the urchins’ ascent and so the air didn’t leave the float once it reached the surface. She climbed her hose a foot a second until she hit ten feet, where she stayed for five minutes to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    be good and safe before completing her ascent.
    Working in the water was exhausting, with the continual flow of the waves. The wash could push forward and back against a diver, and exposed as she was, having to be careful not to fall into the abyss, harvesting the urchins had made her arms feel like lead. At the surface she hooked both bag lines to the floating ball and climbed onboard to rest and eat two more peanut butter sandwiches and a handful of peanut butter cups, needing the calories.
    The strange dread that had been building in her seemed to have settled in the pit of her stomach. She sat on the lid of the urchin hold and ate her sandwich, but it tasted like cardboard. She glanced at the sky. It was clear. Little wind. And the sea itself was calm, yet she felt threatened in some vague way she couldn’t quite comprehend. As she sat on her boat, she twisted around, looking for danger. It was silly, really, the feeling of impending doom. The day was beautiful, the sea calm and the sky held no real clouds.
    She hesitated before she donned her equipment again. She could pull up another two nets filled with sea urchins, bringing her total to several thousand pounds, enabling her to pay a good amount of money toward the Farm. She was being silly. This part of the ocean had always given her a bad feeling.
    Resolutely, Rikki put on her weight belt and hooked her hose to her belt before reaching for her tank.
    The air around her suddenly changed, charging, pressure pushing on her chest. She turned, still reaching for her tank, when she felt the tremendous swell building beneath her. Rikki turned her head and her breath caught in her throat. Her heart slammed against her chest as she stared at the solid wall of water rising up out of the sea like a monstrous tsunami, a wave beyond anything she’d ever witnessed.

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    About this Title
    This eBook was created using ReaderWorks®Publisher 2.0, produced by OverDrive, Inc.
    For more information about ReaderWorks, please visit us on the Web at www.overdrive.com/readerworks