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

at the park. This is silly to admit, but I think she was a little jealous of you. I knew that she had a crush on me, but I didn’t think she’d ghost me for talking to someone.”

“Oh, I see. Are you and Delilah close?”

“Yeah, kinda. She’s been one of my closest friends since I got here. I wish she hadn’t disappeared. Maybe it’s for the best, though. She’d be salty about all of . . .” Penny gestured around her and tried to encapsulate the whole situation in a wave of her hands. “This.”

“I’m very sorry, Penny.” I wished she knew just how sorry and for what, but I couldn’t possibly tell her.

She looked up from her device and walked slowly as if she didn’t want to reach our destination. I tried to catch her eye, but I couldn’t. She was too deep in her mind to notice that I shared her concern.

***

When we arrived at her apartment, the door was slightly ajar just as my room at the inn had been. I motioned for her to be silent and stay behind me. She nodded her head up and down in comprehension. I slid between the doors and saw that, again like at the inn, things had been thrown across the room and broken. This time, however, rather than signs of a struggle, it appeared to be rage.

A board in the floor creaked behind me, and the hair on my neck stood up straight. As I swiveled to look at Penny, I saw a familiar face in the doorway of the bathroom. It was Darius, but just barely. He’d begun a modification!

All of the color drained from Penny’s face as she backed up flat against the wall. She hid behind me, completely unaware of what she was seeing. Darius fought the transformation process and tried to crawl toward us. As his body tore and wriggled on the floor, blood and tissues littered the carpet behind him, and the squish and suction of his body changing was audible at each stage.

I couldn’t think. Why would he modify here? It made no sense until his natural coloring began to develop. Rather than a yellow belly and black back like mine, the forming scales along his body were ruddy, earthy tones with dark stripes just like the ebony bands of his human body. He was not part of my community at all.

If he was of another race, his scales could grip land surfaces. That would leave only the benefit of his true body’s strength without the handicap of slow movement.

“Find a weapon! Anything!” I screamed at Penny, “And, stay away from him!”

As she ran for the other side of the sitting area and then disappeared into her bedroom, I approached Darius. He was still reeling in pain, but he’d almost completely transformed back to his original body. I landed a swift kick to his head, trying to knock him out before he regained his full strength.

He let out a garbled hiss and fell to the ground. I struck him again with my foot into his ribs and grabbed the coat tree by the door. I pulled it swiftly up and behind me to swing down on him as his head lifted to look at me. I only had a few moments to determine the outcome of this altercation.

I swung down with all of my might and hit his shoulder as he tried to swivel out of the way. The wood splintered and left a long gash in his flesh, but he began to rise from the floor regardless. The majesty of his broad chest and enormous, scaled tail stunned me.

He bared his fangs and placed his clawed fingers over the gash. His forked tongue parted the grimace on his face, and he sensed my fear through my body’s chemistry. He darted toward me, and I swung again, hitting his side. He swiftly darted his tail forward and whipped it against my back so that I stumbled closer to him. He swiped clawed fingers at me and missed me by millimeters as I ducked away, tearing my shirt with his claws.

I backed up, but he advanced again. Unlike my own born body, his gripped the floor here effortlessly. He was clearly a river or lake species unlike the sea species of my home.

Penny appeared in my peripheral vision and shuddered again. She held up a long, smooth piece of wood that I later learned was a ‘baseball bat’. She inched toward him, lifted the bat, and then froze as he turned on her. He whipped his tail at her, grasped the bat, and threw it across the room into a cushioned chair that nearly broke on impact.

Still stunned and motionless, she waited for his next move. I swung the coat tree before he could strike and hit him in the head. This time, he fell but managed to flick the tree from my hand with his tail as if it weighed as much as paper. I kicked at him again and heard another utterance of pain. That gave me hope that I was doing some sort of damage.

Frustrated now, he rose up to full height from the ground and puffed out his chest to me. Even with my puny human nose, I could smell the ferocity of the nonverbal cues he was sending. With an open hand, he swung his arm and struck me hard in the face. I flew rightward onto the carpeted floor near the chair, and blood began to pool and drip from my nose and lip.

“What do you want?” I yelled.

“I am here to clean up your mess! You have put us all in danger! Your people and the rest of us.”

“But why come here? Penny didn’t make any mistakes? I have! Let her go!”

“She knows too much. And now, it is my duty to prove my allegiance to the community and bring you both to the tsez̈ø.”

He lunged at her, and I lunged for the bat.