Johnny says something and she can make out the thin slice of his panicked, desperate face between the cage of the monster's tentacles, but Mako has no answer other than to wrench her weapon out with a sickening, sucking pop and plunge it ruthlessly in again. The tentacle shudders and writhes beneath the assault, but it's become her only handhold on an impossibly slippery surface that has lifted itself so high above the water in a dizzying drop she does not dare look at.

She can think of nothing else to do but force the branch in deeper. The water echoes with a low, rebounding screech that sounds so wrong to her ears but she throws all of her weight onto it, driving it unrelentingly downward.

With another reverberating cry, the monster lurches, tentacles unraveling in a wild flail, and the harsh movement tears the branch from Mako's grip.

She realizes too late that her hands are sliding helplessly off the thing's slick exterior, and she glimpses the glittering crest of churned waves before she reaches the peak of gravity's arc and feels herself begin to fall.