Born Predators - Prologue

Prologue

The ocean brought everything towards Henessey. Fish. Salt. Blood. The great waters filled her gills and skimmed her rough skin. The ocean was a stairway, a conveyor belt, a larder, a universe—as it had been for Henessey’s family for 400 million years.

And Henessey still thought like her ancestors. Especially when she was hungry.

With slow beats of her crescent tail, she idled North through dark water, mouth held slightly open to taste the currents. Not searching—just sensing the ocean around her for prey. Her nugget-eyes never blinked. Her broad side fins and the telltale dorsal were three-part stabilizers. She was gun metal grey on top, but the color of her underbelly gave her a human name. White Shark.

She had left the southern part of her migration route weeks before. She slalomed in and out of the warm Gulf Stream, up and down the ocean depths on a roller coaster ride, gliding down into the cool undercurrent like a plane landing, then powering upward to reach the surface and the green soup of coastal, productive water. Productive for plankton, fish… Seals.

Henessey had followed this same warm northward current every summer, skirting beaches and cities. Her path opened the way for her to reach the abundant food nurtured by more northern counter currents. She’d cut this same path ever since she’d grown large enough to eat small seals. Small seals. Panicking silhouettes, frantic tail beats, final movement. Her instincts sought the fleshy, hot taste of one. Especially now.

Because new life grew within Henessey.

Midway through her third decade, her first brood of pups lived within her. Seven small lives grew in the folds of her belly - on yolk and young unfertilized eggs, crowding themselves into a tight sardine embrace. When four feet long, they would be born into a warm ocean cove. Then they would slip away into the dim green water - and the lonely monarchy of their kind.

Until then they were both a heavy burden and a guiding force within Henessey. With her hunger rising, her need to feed her young, she veered towards the deeper cold where big prey usually hid. But when the babies moved inside her, signaling their imminent birth, she diverted towards the warmer shore where they needed to be born. But wherever she was, cold currents or warm water embrace, Henessey sought the food they needed.

She was a mother and always hungry.