Wheeling Gull Isle paperback dreams in their deep dose,

the last thing ava saw was a dark fin cutting roughly through the water; then it too slipped beneath the surface, bubbles of water tension spilling in a strangely ominous swirl.

and then it went black. she was not even aware of how her body was hurled into the air like a softball — or how, when her orbit came plummeting back to the surface, her skin came into impact with the toothsome snarl of the sea.

perhaps it was better for her survival that she’d been knocked unconscious; who knows how much further damaged her bones and organs would have been if she fought with gravity’s unimpeachable force during her descent. 

she was saved by her father. they bobbed against the fighting tide, but at last she was supplanted on the shore, limp as a doll. her tongue lolled to one side, her jaws slack.

he dragged her further from the sea’s tough, coarse grains of salt collecting on her pelt. she was laid straight on her right side, her breath scarcely perceptible over the dull thrashing of the tide.

caracal must have been terrified — truly — as his little daughter laid still in the cold sand. he worked tirelessly to save her; his paws pressed against her chest in forceful compressions that shook her entire limp frame.

at last something unwedged itself from within her. with unexpected force, ava spat out a gale of bilgewater, rising to life in a series of choked coughs.