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

drawn my human form perfectly, down to the messy, spiky hair and the bare, sand-crusted feet.
    “I look kind of cool.”
    “You reminded me just then of Tidus from Final Fantasy , so I wanted to draw it.” She sees my vacant look and sighs. “It’s a video game, never mind.”
    “Not a sparkle to be seen,” I say to cover up my severe lack of gaming knowledge. I’m going to have to do some serious Googling later to up my street cred. “You’re pretty good. What else do you have in here?”
    Anya tries to snatch the book away, but I block her with my body and flick through the pages. My eyes register the handsome but hard-looking man in the first few sheets. Her fiancé, I presume. He has a long scar through one eyebrow, and even the drawing emanates a cold sense of ruthlessness. I dislike him immediately, and then feel guilty because the guy’s dead.
    Sensing Anya’s growing discomfort, I flick to the drawing of me—the first one I’d seen. “You gave me a tail? A tail ?”
    “You weren’t supposed to see that,” she says, reaching around my torso for the notebook. The shock of the contact of her warm arm across my ribs makes us both freeze. Wide cornflower-blue eyes collide with mine, and the rush of feeling in my chest takes me wholly by surprise. “I told you I was disoriented,” she says as her fingers close around the notebook.
    I laugh gruffly and release the notebook, trying to dissipate the sudden tension as Anya falls backward, book in hand. I can still feel the brand of her arm across my chest. “Shiny vampire man fish,” I joke. “Anime gaming hero. I am made of awesome.”
    Her lip twitches, but she slides the book into a bag lying on the sand at her side. I can see from the expressions playing across her face that she’s getting ready to bolt. I’m not sure if it’s me, or the fact that I saw some of her private drawings. Sure enough, she stands.
    “I have to go,” Anya says, brushing the sand off her shorts. “It was nice talking to you.”
    “Wil l you be here tomorrow?” I ask, pushing myself to my feet and dusting my hands together. She’s tall, I realize, almost as tall as me. Then again, she’d been horizontal when we first met.
    Anya b rushes her hair out of her face, darting a quick look to one of the houses looming behind us. So she is staying on the beach. Good to know. “Maybe,” she says.
    “Ok ay, I’ll be here. Same time, same place?”
    She stares at me, clutching her bag to her chest as if it’s a shield between us. “You don’t have to try to save me, you know. I’m fine. Yesterday was a … moment of idiocy, nothing more.”
    “I know.”
    “And you don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m not some charity case,” she adds. “And don’t say ‘I know.’”
    I surprise her—and myself—with my answer. “I like talking with you,” I say honestly. “And I don’t think you’re a charity case. Plus, I need to prove that I’m not a complete idiot, once I find out who this Final Fantasy person is.” She doesn’t smile back so I meet her gaze and opt for a more honest approach. “Look, the thing is, we’re all fighting some kind of battle. Some days, the battle wins. Other days, we do. The point is to keep going. One day it’ll be over, and it will be one more thing that you survived.” I glance at the ocean, where the tide is coming in and the sun is starting to set. The gold-tipped waves are crashing in toward the shore. My voice lowers. “Sometimes, you have bad waves, ones that will work you and try to drown you. Other times, you have ones that are perfect … ones that are worth all the rough ones. They’re so perfect that once you get on them, you can coast all the way in to the shore. Those are the ones that are worth waiting for, and fighting through all the bad ones.” I shrug, and turn back to Anya. “One wave at a time, that’s my motto.”
    “What’s your battle?” she asks me quietly.
    I don’t