Page 36 of The Most Dangerous Games

Not rushing.

“Honestly,” Jimmy says, voice aimed at the clouds like this is small talk, “if he was going to eat us, wouldn’t he have done it already?” Jack barely hears him over the slap of their arms hitting the water, almost in unison.

Synchronized, save-your-asses swimming.

“Don’t say that out loud,” Jack whispers.

Jack turns his head just enough to see the beach up ahead coming into clearer focus. It is an odd sensation, going backward this way, still in relatively slow motion, but running for their lives at the same time.

A hundred yards from shore now.

Maybe less.

“When do we make our run for it?” Jimmy says, having taken another look himself to try and see where they are.

“Soon,” Jack says.

He takes one more look at the shore, is about to tell Jimmy it’s time for them to haul ass, when the sun is blocked out and they’re staring up at the helicopter directly above them.

They hear the roar of it, feel the whirring of the rotors, the helicopter so close to the water it’s creating waves all around them the way a storm would. The sound is enormous. Physical. Jack feels it in his ribs.

Too fast, Jack thinks. Like it was already in the air.

The water around them goes rough.

Right before Jack flips over, he sees the shark’s fin coming faster, racing the helicopter toward the beach.

“Go!” Jack yells to Jimmy, rolling over—

—and the ocean explodes beside them.

Too late.

Steven Noble

27.

Antarctica

They should have died out there.

Wyatt is sure of it now, sitting in the rescue Zodiac with his arms wrapped around Hannah like he can hug the cold out of her. The four of them—Reg, Wyatt, Alek, Hannah—stare back at the black water they came from.

Against all odds, the two orca whales have almost acted as patrol boats for them. They moved with them. Around them. Almost like they were clearing a path, sliding through the chaos and keeping the other whales from slamming down right on top of them.

Hannah is conscious. Shivering hard enough that her teeth click. Alert enough to be aware of what’s happening on either side of them. Reg, Wyatt, and Alek are still talking about what the whales did for them. It felt like a miracle.

“Did you see that?” Reg says, breath still ragged. “Like they . . . escorted us.” He thinks. “Maybe nature thought it owed us one.”

Alek doesn’t answer. She’s still looking for the thing she felt in the water—the low pulse that didn’t belong to any animal she’s ever heard.

Hannah, several blankets wrapped around her and held down by Wyatt’s arms, providing as much warmth as he can, isn’t surprised at all.

“They’re not what people think,” she says finally. Her voice is thin, but it’s Hannah’s—steady under strain. “People think of them as only apex predators and orcas can be dangerous, sure, but they’re not . . . mindless. They’re social. Curious. Sometimes protective.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “Protective of us?”

Hannah swallows. “There are documented cases. They’ll intervene with sharks. They’ll push people toward boats. Sometimes toward shore.” She looks out at the water again, and her eyes narrow like she’s solving an equation. “But what I don’t understand is why they were behaving like they had . . . instructions.”