They came without warning in the middle of the night.

Being a light sleeper, Mya snapped awake at the nearly imperceptible sound of a lock pick scratching in the dead bolt.

She threw back the covers and ran to her daughter's room without turning on any lights. "Cassandra, wake up. We have to hide."

"Momma?" Cassie's groggy voice came across as both question and protest.

"No time to explain. We have to get to the panic room." Mya grabbed her daughter's arm and physically dragged her from the bed.

"Ow, Momma you're hurting me."

She couldn't spare a moment to apologize. They had mere seconds to secure themselves. The pupils in Mya's eyes dilated until all her whites disappeared leaving only jet-black orbs. At a quarter mile distant, a single halogen bulb hanging from a street lamp and shining through a high window provided enough ambient light to illuminate her way.

From the front of the house, she heard the rusty hinges of the door creak open when the hunters defeated the lock.

Mya fumbled at the lever to the steel-lined concrete door to their bunker. She struggled to pull it open. Even on lubricated, heavy duty hinges, it weighed nearly a ton.

A man's whispered voice reached Mya's hypersensitive ears. "Check the bedrooms first."

Mya's breathing hitched realizing the hunters would see them as soon as they rounded the corner. After she managed to open the steel door wide enough for them to slip through, Mya shoved Cassie through the opening.

The girl shrieked as she lost her balance and fell onto the bunker floor.

"This way," one of the hunters shouted after hearing Cassie's cry of distress.

Criss-crossing flashlight beams punched through the darkness. Heavy soled boots drummed against the floorboards. The hunters were almost on top of her. Mya turned sideways to fit through the narrow opening.

"Contact!" One of them exclaimed as he shined his flashlight on her face. He unleashed a volley of automatic rifle fire. The man had reacted, likely high on adrenaline, and had not aimed carefully. Most of the shots ricocheted off the thick steel door, but one lucky round buried itself in Mya's shoulder close to her neck.

She yelped at the searing hot pain, slipped through the doorway, and collapsed to the bunker floor.

Cassie knelt at her mother's side.

"The door," Mya shouted and pointed.

Cassie leapt toward the opening. She pulled the lever until it was nearly closed, but one of the hunters snaked an arm through the crack, grasped her slender wrist, and dug his fingernails into her soft flesh.

"He's got me, Momma," she shrieked. The door was being forced back open from the other side.

Ignoring her pain, Mya rushed to her daughter and got to her knees. She opened her jaws wide, bit down on the hunter's arm, and shook her head as a dog would after latching onto the back of a rabbit's neck.

The man's banshee-like scream reverberated through their room. He released his hold on Cassie and yanked his arm back through the opening. Together, mother and daughter grasped the lever door handle and pulled it shut, giving it a half twist to engage the locking mechanism.

Both sank to the floor and rested their backs against the door.

Cassie began to tremble all over and sob.

Mya wanted to hug her child, but she could feel blood pulsing from the hole in her shoulder. The bullet had apparently nicked an artery. She didn't want Cassie to see the damage and pressed a hand over her wound to staunch the worst of the flow, to buy time for her little girl.

"We're safe for now, honey." A lie. Maybe if the men were ordinary home invaders, the bunker would deter them, but these hunters likely had high-tech tools and would soon breach their shelter. She needed Cassie to calm down and pay attention to her words.

"Momma, what are we gonna do?"

"Hush up and listen. Use the escape tunnel just like we practiced." A submarine hatch embedded in the floor at the far end of the shelter led underground and out through a submerged culvert into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Can't we wait until they go away?"

"Honey, those men aren't going to go away."

They heard pounding from the door and an angry shout. "Let us in and things will go easier for you."

"Momma, I'm scared."

"You'll be fine. You'll get away just like we practiced."

"You mean we. We  will get away."

That had been the plan, but Mya felt her life force ebbing as blood from her ripped open wound flowed between her fingers. Cassie had to know too. Her daughter was in denial. Perhaps that was some small mercy.

"Cassie, I don't have much time. There's so much I should've told you, but you're only eleven and not ready. I wanted you to have a normal childhood for as long as you could. I'm sorry, but that's not going to be possible now."

Her little girl's sobbing broke Mya's heart. She wanted to hold her but had no time. She needed to be strong. "Stop crying and listen. You always knew I was different, right?"

After a pause, Cassie said, "You're the same as any of my friends' moms...except there are times during storms at sea—"

"—Well, honey, you're different too."

Cassie sniffled. "Huh?"

"I won't be around to guide you, but when your time comes you'll know what to do."

"Momma, please, I don't understand."

"Go to the hatch and take the bug-out bag we prepared. In it you'll find your bathing suit but don't change now. Wait until you're in the water. Keep to the Gulf so the hunters won't find you. Swim up the coast to Sunset Beach at Tarpon Springs. You know how to get to your Aunt Marnie's house from there, right?"

She didn't wait for Cassie to answer. "Tell Aunt Marnie everything that happened. She'll know what to do and will take care of you."

"But Momma, what about you?"

"Don't worry about me, but I need you to always remember one thing. Don't ever stray more than a few miles from Anclote Key. Can you remember that? Anclote Key."

Cassie raised her voice. "Momma, you're not making sense."

"In time it'll make sense. One more thing. Sewn into the lining of your bathing suit is a token. Give the token to the man who will become your custodian. Trust your instinct to let you know who that man will be. Now go."

"No," she screeched. "I'm not goin' anywhere without you."

With her supersensitive hearing, Mya heard one of the hunters say on the other side of the steel door, "The hinges are on the right. Shape the charges to shatter the hinges but don't make them so strong they'll kill the females. We need them alive."

"Screw that. I'm gonna kill 'em," another of them whined. "One of those bitches prit near chewed my arm off."

Mya spoke in a commanding tone because there was no more time to argue. "You have to leave. Now. I'll follow behind if I can." Another lie. It would be the last one she'd have to tell her daughter.

Cassie shuffled to the hatch and turned the wheel. She pulled it open. The scent of salt water and decaying sea vegetation wafted up from below.

"Momma, it's high tide."

"That won't be a problem for you. You're a strong swimmer and can hold your breath long enough to reach the end of the tunnel."

Cassie wept.

"Go. Don't forget the pack with your swim gear."

Her daughter stepped onto the ladder leading down into the water. "Momma, all I have on now are my pjs."

Mya sighed. Her heart ached over sending her young daughter out into the world alone and underprepared. There was so much danger. If the hunters ever found her...no, she wouldn't die with that thought at the front of her mind. "Quit stalling. You'll have to manage, honey. I know you can do it. You're intelligent. More so than most. You're strong. Remember everything I taught you about evading the hunters. Be brave."

The girl's sobs turned into hiccups. "I love you, Momma."

"I love you too. Now go."

Cassie descended and Mya heard her splash into the water below. She crawled to the hatch, closed it, and turned the wheel locking her daughter out so she wouldn't be able to change her mind.

"Charges are ready," one of the hunters said from the other side of the door.

Mya got to her feet dizzy and cold from the blood loss. She exhaled and cried out in pain as a row of fins punched through the skin covering her vertebrae. A long tail grew from her lower back. She extended her hands, as webbing filled the gaps between her fingers. Sharp barbs protruded from her fingertips.

One of the hunters yelled, "Fire in the hole."

The concussion resulting from the detonation flung Mya against the back wall, stunning her, sending her to the floor. She knew she had only a few moments left to live.

The hunters streamed into the bunker blinding her with their flashlights.

"Remember, we need her alive," one of them said.

"Hey, there were two. Where's the other one?" Another hunter asked.

"What the hell kind of monster is she?"

Mya recognized fear in the trembling voice of the man whose arm she had bitten. He was weakest and would be her target.

She sprang at the hunter, clawed deep gashes into his throat, and bit down. Mya tore out his larynx with her teeth rendering him unable to scream.

Muzzles flashed. Hot lead ripped into her.

And she knew no more.

The top photo, I think, perfectly captures the terror a child like Cassie would experience living through this scene. No worries. The photo was staged and is not real.

Credit: Emily "Unfurled" - http://www.flickr.com/photos/46744581@N00/2457429583 via Photopin.com Creativecommons.org license

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