Strength is a choice, not blood.

  The words, her grandmother’s voice, cut through the cold, crushing pressure of the deep. A current of warmth in the icy water. A spark of fire in the darkness. Kimo’s taunts were the final blow. Instead, they were the key.

  He saw her as two broken halves. He was wrong.

  She wasn't half of anything. She was whole.

  Not a thought. A surge. A flood of icy fire through her veins. The vampire and the Pula, finally one. The burning in her lungs no longer mattered. The pressure of the deep no longer crushed. She yielded to it. Became a part of it.

  She let her body go limp, a feigned surrender. Kimo’s monstrous face twisted in a triumphant sneer. He took a slow, arrogant step toward her. His mistake.

  She let go. The water became an extension of her will. She didn't need to kick. She just moved a blur of silent, dark purpose.

  She flowed.

  Past him. A dark blur.

  Her nails, now black claws, found his gills.

  A rake. A tear.

  He roared, a silent, bubbling explosion of rage. He spun, his clawed hands swiping at empty water.

  She was already behind him, feet finding purchase on a spire of coral. She pushed off, a torpedo of dark energy, and slammed into his back, driving him off-balance.

  They tumbled through the glowing water, a chaotic vortex of violence. He was a battering ram of brute strength. He grabbed her, claws digging into her back, and threw her.

  Impact. Metal shrieked. A jarring shock went through her bones, rattling her teeth. White light flared behind her eyes. The world went fuzzy.

  He was coming again, a hulking shadow against the sickly green light.

  Her hand, scrabbling for a hold on the rusted hull, brushed something hard and cold.

  Wood. And metal.

  Her eyes focused. A harpoon, half-buried in the sand. Old. Warped. The tip, a dull, rusted brown. But in the ritual’s light, a faint silvery sheen. Silver.

  Kimo was almost upon her, his jaw wide, a promise of tearing agony.

  Frankie’s fingers closed around the shaft. Heavy. Impossibly heavy. She pulled, muscles screaming, straining against the water and sand.

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  It didn't budge.

  Kimo was inches away, his glowing eyes burning with triumphant hate.

  Strength is choice.

  She channeled everything. The icy fire of the vampire. The deep magic of the Pula.

  The raw stubbornness of a Rivera.

  The harpoon tore free with a low, grinding groan.

  No time to aim. No time to think. Only reaction. As he lunged, a cavern of needle-sharp teeth, she pivoted, using his own momentum against him.

  She didn't lunge.

  She held her ground. Braced the heavy shaft against her body.

  And let him come.

  A dull, wet thud.

  The impact vibrated up the wood, into her bones.

  The silver tip, buried deep in his chest.

  Kimo stopped.

  His glowing eyes widened. Not in pain. In shock. Disbelief. He looked down at the wooden shaft protruding from his chest, at the dark, thick cloud of his blood billowing out.

  He looked back at her. For a second, the monster was gone. Just Kimo, his dark eyes filled with a pathetic, surprised betrayal.

  Then the monster returned.

  He thrashed, a wild, convulsive frenzy. He shrieked, a high, silent, bubbling scream of pure rage.

  And the ritual imploded.

  The green light did not fade.

  It exploded.

  A flash. A silent scream of pressure that felt like the world was tearing apart.

  White heat. Roaring chaos.

  The bone totems shattered. Shrapnel. The shark-spirits shrieked, their ghostly forms dissolving into a storm of blood and foam.

  The water itself turned on Kimo. A vortex of sand and coral and blood. It tore at him, ripping flesh from bone. His final, silent scream lost in the roar.

  Frankie flew backward, a rag doll in a washing machine of divine fury. The harpoon ripped from her grasp.

  And then, it was over.

  The light gone. The sound gone. The spirits gone. Kimo, erased.

  Silence.

  Deep. Profound. Absolute. The raging ocean, now still as glass. The pressure in her ears eased. The burning in her lungs was gone.

  Frankie drifted in the quiet darkness, her body a collection of deep, aching bruises.

  Battered. Bleeding. But alive.

  She had done it.

  She turned her face upward, toward the distant, shimmering silver coin of the moon. Her legs, weak and trembling, kicked. A slow, steady rhythm.

  She rose through the black, silent water, leaving the ghosts and the violence behind.

  Her head broke the surface with a soft splash. She took a breath, deep, shuddering, ragged. The night air was a sweet, cold balm. The moon was sharp, its light a clean, silver path on the calm, black water.

  She was alone.

  Battered. Broken. But unbroken.

  She had proven herself. Not to her family, not to her friends, not to the ghost of her enemy.

  She had proven herself to herself. She was truly a protector.