SEAMONSTER: An Aquarathi Novella (The Aquarathi) Read Online Free PDF

know exactly what you mean.”
    “And you’re right,” Anya continues. “I’m not from around here. I live in Los Angeles.” Her eyes cloud over as if an unendurable spasm of pain is wracking her body right at that moment. “I used to live there,” she murmurs. “My fiancé … was killed.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say and then frown. She’s old enough to have a fiancé?
    Anya carefully masks the flare of emotion, her face resuming a blank, serene expression—a feat that she makes look easy despite the earlier sharp crack in her composure. “Thanks, and it’s okay. Everyone dies eventually.”
    “I’m still sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” she says in a weird, strangled sort of voice. “He was not a very good person.”
    “Oh.”
    The girl has so many layers, it’d be impossible to peel back all of them. She seems like someone who has been through a lot, who has seen a lot, despite her fairly short amount of years. Maybe that’s why I’m so intrigued by her. I study Anya again. She can’t be more than seventeen, but she has a deceptively ageless face. She’s one of those people who could be fourteen or twenty-five. Her nails are short and polished, and her skin unblemished. The diamond studs glinting in her ears and quality of her clothing tell their own story—she’s not suffering from any lack of funds.
    “How old are you?” I blurt out.
    “Almost eighteen.”
    “ And you’re living here on your own?”
    “You know, you have a lot of questions for someone I just met,” she says, shaking her head, a teasing glint in her eye.
    “Hey, I saved your life and I sparkled,” I say, poking her in the arm. “That has to count for a couple years or something.”
    She flinches away from my touch, but covers it up with a brittle laugh. “You’re right, so maybe not just a complete stranger. Still, you never told me your name, so we should probably seal the deal.”
    “ Speio Marin.”
    “Sp—” she falters .
    “Spay-oh,” I say slowly and spell out the letters.
    “It’s a unique name,” Anya says after repeating the two syllables. “I like it.”
    “Thanks.”
    I lean back on my elbows and hook one ankle over the other. I can feel Anya studying me out of the corner of her eye, as if wondering why I’m still here and settled in like I expect to stay. Truth is, I’m wondering the same thing. But this girl is a puzzle to me. I want to know what lies behind that terrifyingly precise mask of hers. I want to know why sadness seeps from her every pore even when her face tries to pretend otherwise. I want to know what—or who—she’s running from. I want to know why her fiancé is a bad man and why she left L.A. I want to know more about her.
    And so I stay. I remain still even when she opens her notebook, her eyes shifting between the paper and me , the pencil flying in her fingers. I don’t mind that she’s drawing me. In fact, I kind of like it.
    “I’m not the best art subject,” I say, fidgeting. “Sitting still when I’m supposed to sit still is the worst. My eye is probably going to start twitching any minute.”
    “You’re fine ,” she says without looking up. Her bottom lip catches between her teeth, an expression of concentration furrowing her brow. “You have interesting lines.”
    I grin , wanting to make her smile again. “Whoa. Are you hitting on me? Isn’t that against artists’ rules or something?” I ask. Anya blushes, her eyes snapping to me, her pencil coming to a fast halt. Before she can shut the book closed, I stall her fingers. “At least let me see what I stayed so perfectly still for.”
    She hesitates, but pushes the book towa rd me. The drawing is arresting. Unlike the first one I’d seen of myself, which was more of a realistic portrait, this one is an anime-style image of a boy lounging in the sand and staring out at the ocean with a pensive look on his face. The boy’s lip is curled mid-smile as if he’s thinking about something fascinating. She’d