The stomach contracts. The whale knows he’s back. It’s worse without the buffer of the giant squid. The Faber tank is driven into Jay’s vertebrae. He thinks he hears the dolphin whine of bending steel. Every ball of bone in his skeleton—shoulder knobs, elbows, hips, knees, ankles—are fastballs against brick, nerve endings pinned. Hard parts of the BCD imprint deep into his flesh. One upside: he barely feels the itch of his acid burns.
