The camera zoomed further, and Marcus’s pulse hammered at what came into view — a metal harpoon bolt, lodged cruelly near the fin, the line snaring the shark like a noose. His chest tightened. The predator before him wasn’t stalking. It was trapped. Wounded. Fighting silently against whatever force had done this to it.
Marcus lowered the camera, heart racing in a different rhythm now. Fear still gripped him, but it was tangled with something else — anger, and a heavy pull of sympathy. Marcus kicked upward, lungs tight, the reef and the silent giant fading beneath him. Breaking the surface, he ripped out his regulator and gulped the air, already pulling his mask to his forehead.