The Penny Drops (Sea the Depths Book 1) Karmon Kuhn (life changing books TXT) 📖

though I’d never had such intimacy with one of my own kind or with a human, the action felt comforting and natural, and I was wholly enveloped by the moment.

When she pulled away, I wanted more. The bonding process was meant to attract the human to me, but was it normal for me to be affected as well? She looked at me and smiled with a wide, earnest grin. It steadied me and allayed the fears.

***

We stayed in the park and continued talking. I was grateful for having found such a pleasant possible tsùges̈ss with which to occupy my time and was very fond of her. It was strange in the best way to skew from the solitude of my normal routines.

“Are you close with your family?” she asked at one point.

“No. Where I am from everyone collectively takes care of the children, and we spend most of our time at the education centers.”

She looked at me, clearly concerned and said, “That’s sort of sad. Where are they now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Don’t you miss them?” she asked.

“I do miss my mother sometimes. I have pleasant memories with her,” I answered, smiling to myself. “She used to cook eggs and fish stew for celebrations, and she is the one who taught me to make jewelry. I remember the first time that she showed me how to hunt for sea glass and we nearly . . .”

I stopped myself, suddenly alarmed. On that day, my mother had been teaching me how to spot sea glass and other refuse that could be repurposed and removed from the environment. We laughed and rolled around just below the surface of the waves near shore. And then, as if out of nowhere, people arrived. We raced away and dove toward home. When we realized that no one was following, we’d laughed about it, but almost being spotted by the local humans kept my mother from the surface for a long time.

“You nearly what?”

“We almost got in trouble,” I answered and then changed the subject.

***

My skin began to prickle, long into the conversation. As I scanned the park, Penny caught sight of someone and called her over. A friend of hers, who she introduced as Delilah. At Penny’s request, Delilah stayed. Penny sat close to me with our legs touching. She smiled at me and took my hand. Dopamine exploded in my brain.

As we talked, Delilah did not share much. She often flared her nostrils when I spoke and revealed her neck or tousled her hair when Penny did. Her behavior concerned me. It was possible that Delilah was in competition for Penny’s affection. I’d need to be vigilant around her.

Even so, I was still confident and eager to see if I could pull off an early retrieval and get back home quickly. The majority of the discussion was interesting and revolved around books, pets, and the lovely weather that day until Delilah decided to finally speak at length.

She cut me short in a story and said, “Mhm. Penny, have you heard about the disappearances?”

Her sentence was punctuated with a look at me.

“No, I haven’t heard anything about that,” Penny answered, the smile disappearing from her face.

“Yeah. There are, like, 10 women so far. Most of them from the campuses.”

Penny and I looked at each other and then at Delilah, unsure of what to say in response, so Delilah continued, “I just thought you’d want to know since you study late. I’m doing a story on it for the newspaper. It’s weird because there’ve been a lot of disappearances here for the last few years. Always young women, about our age. And even though the cops and everyone are looking, no one seems to know anything. I talked to one of the girls’ friends, though, and she told me about this creepy guy with tattoos all over his arms who looked all sickly. Derek or Darrin or something like that who’d been hanging out lately. She said he looked like he was on drugs or something.”

Again, she looked at me when she finished, and a new kind of prickle spread along the back of my neck. Darius’ name came to mind. Delilah smiled as if she’d read the thought. The air was thick following the statements, and Penny squeezed my hand. I knew that I should keep my mouth shut, but I had to ask.

“Have you spoken with the police about this?”

Delilah narrowed her eyes and assessed how much she should say, then looked at Penny, “Once I know more, I’ll go to the cops, but I need to have more than some tattoos and guesses at a first name.”

At least she hadn’t notified the authorities. Could Darius really be capturing these women? Why? The rite of the trials only required a single tribute per trialist. And why were only women disappearing? Sex of tributes was only distinguished for purposes of specific research. Would the tsez̈ø really request so many females?

Around 3 o’clock, Penny startled. She was late for a class, and Delilah offered to walk her. Penny squeezed my hand and planted a soft, tender kiss on my cheek before they left. Delilah glared at me in response.

As they walked away, I overheard Delilah say, “I can’t believe you were alone with her. We talked about this! People don’t just pass out on the beach in the middle of the morning! Maybe I was wrong about her being homeless, but she could still be a drug addict! There are always needles all over that beach!”

***

Air puffed out of my lungs as I walked toward the beach. After Delilah’s comments, I was careful to watch where I stepped, but it took all of my will not to stomp through the sand. Who did she think she was? How dare she villainize me to Penny! As I reached the water, I waded again with my device. Once the screen showed a face, I spoke.

“Zhoṣuṣùssss, I was with the potential tsùges̈ss, and