SEAMONSTER: An Aquarathi Novella (The Aquarathi)

by Amalie Howard

  She finishes the rest of the conversation mentally. Give it a chance. What do you have to lose?

  I stare at her, feeling the sharp desire to do just that pooling in my stomach. Nerissa’s right. I don’t have anything to lose … not to a human, anyway.

  The Secrets We Hide

  Anya isn’t there the next day, or the day after that. In fact, an entire week passes before I see her again, and it’s not at the beach. It’s at a local supermarket, and she’s not alone. Two beefy, fierce-looking men who look like they mean business flank her on either side. Anya’s eyes go wide as she sees me. She shakes her head in an odd sort of panic and slips out of view down the neighboring aisle. The burly men follow her as she beats a hasty exit. She seems terrified.

  “Hey, Anya,” I yell out from the sliding doors as she’s escorted to a fancy Bentley parked in the lot with dark tinted windows. Anya disappears into its depths without answering or looking at me, and the car squeals out of the parking lot. A part of me wants to let it go, but another can’t. What if she’s in trouble? Without a second thought, I hop on my skateboard and manage to keep track of the car through the streets of the neighborhood, hanging on to the back of a pick-up truck at one point. I lose sight of the car at an intersection, but take a gamble and skate through a shortcut towards El Paseo Grande, hoping that they’ll head to Anya’s place.

  Sitting near the opposite curb from the house, I wait. As the minutes tick by, I rake my hands through my hair in frustration. It could be a long shot. They could be going back to L.A. Or somewhere else. I’m just about to leave and trail her by smell if I have to when out of the corner of my eye, I notice the car approaching and turning into Anya’s driveway. I cross the street and grab my skateboard, hanging back until Anya is ushered out of the car by one of the two guys.

  “Anya,” I call out again. This time she does look at me. Her face is a careful mask, showing nothing. She says something to the two men and walks swiftly toward me. They wait beside the car, eyeing me with barely veiled hostility. “Who’re your new friends?” I ask.

  “Speio, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “You weren’t at the beach for the last week,” I say. “I was worried.”

  “I was … sick,” she says.

  I know it’s a lie as soon as it leaves her mouth, and I can see her begging me with her eyes to just believe her and leave it alone. My eyes flick to the men behind her. They look like they’re packing something under those leather jackets. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No.” But Anya’s answer is too quick, and the way her eyes are darting over her shoulder makes me think that the opposite is true.

  “You can tell me,” I say quietly.

  “I can’t,” she says with another desperate look at the car behind us, just as the second passenger door opens and someone steps out. It’s a young man, perhaps a few years older than us. I recognize him instantly as the one from the drawing. She’d said her fiancé was dead, so who is this guy? He’s dressed in a three-piece suit that doesn’t quite fit the California vibe, and looks even more ruthless in person. A soft huff leaves Anya’s lips, a shadow of something slinking across her eyes as the man approaches.

  “Who’s this?” he says in a deceptively even voice.

  “Someone I met on the beach.”

  “Hello, someone her royal highness met on the beach,” he mocks in an oily voice that makes me want to smash his teeth in. “What’s your name?”

  “Anya,” I say, ignoring him.

  Annoyance flashes across the man’s face at my rudeness and he grabs my arm, twisting me to face him. “I was talking to you.”

  “Get off me,” I growl. Something menacing underscores the tenor of my voice and the man steps back without releasing his hold, his eyes narrowing. I may be shorter than him, but he’s quick to recognize another predator when he sees one. I let my fury show, the coiled muscle between his fingertips bunching in angry, visceral response. I take his wrist between my forefinger and thumb, pressing ever so gently. The man hisses in pain and clutches his injured hand to his chest. I step between Anya and him just as the other two men rush to his side, scowls on their faces.

  The man smiles, one that goes nowhere near his eyes, and he extends one hand. “Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Marco, Anya’s fiancé. And you are?”

  “A friend.”

  “Nice to meet you, friend,” he says in a tone that means anything but as he spits the last word. “You’ll have to excuse us. Urgent family business and all. Anya here has a lot of explaining to do, and her family is worried.”

  I think quickly. If this guy is who he says he is, it has to be bad for Anya to have told me that he’d died. I can feel the fear rushing around in her blood, smell it rising from her skin. “She’s missed a lot of work at the Marine Center,” I say. “They almost put in a missing person’s ad and got the local police involved, but I told them I’d stop by one last time to see if she was at home.” Marco’s eyes narrow at the mention of police, confirming my suspicions that there’s a lot more behind his sudden appearance. I shrug. “I mean, they may take my word for it that she’s okay, but it’ll be better if she shows up for work herself.”

  “Where’s this Marine Center?”

  “A few blocks south of here.”

  Marco eyes Anya with distaste. “Is what he’s saying true?”

  Please say yes, I will her silently. Her eyes dart from me to Marco as if she knows exactly what he’s capable of. Let me help you, I beg with my eyes. If she disagrees with what I’ve said, there’s nothing I will be able to do.

  “Yes,” she says eventually, her voice a faint whisper.

  “Fine,” Marco snarls. “Go check in. Frank will drive you while we wait here.” His voice lowers. “Anya, don’t try anything stupid. I don’t have to tell you what will happen.”

  She swallows hard, and I bristle at the overt threat, but she nods. Frank, the bigger of the two men, motions toward the car and we both get in. The interior is all dark leather, and reeks of cigar smoke and an unidentifiable scent that makes my blood crawl. Anya and I sit in silence the few blocks to the center. I slide my hand across the leather seat and cover hers with mine, squeezing gently, but hers remains limp and numb beneath mine. The beaten look on her face makes something fiercely protective bloom in my chest.

  We arrive at the Marine Center and, as instructed by Marco, Frank follows us inside. Taking a deep breath, I push out a glimmer toward the security guard at the front. I’ve never tried to manipulate a human before, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I slip into the guard’s brain, feeling my waters connect with his. Holding strong against the onslaught of all his thoughts, I smoothly place the suggestion into the guard’s mind that the man following behind is a threat. There’s no guarantee it will work, but I have to try.

  When I withdraw, I nearly slump against Anya who is watching me with a wide-eyed look, cradling her bruised fingers with her other hand. I must have had her hand in a death grip when I did the glimmer. I flash my credentials to the guard, holding Anya beside me to indicate that she’s with me, and walk past him. I hold my breath as the guard stops Frank and assertively tells him that the back is for employees only. Frank’s face goes thunderous, but there’s nothing he can do short of causing a scene. I usher Anya ahead of me through the doors before he can stop either of us.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Anya under my breath, stroking her hands.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she says. “Are you? Because you were out of it for a moment back there. You looked like you were somewhere else.”

  Yeah. I was inside Mr. Security Guard’s head and it wasn’t pretty. I clear my throat, and rub her fingers gently between mine. “Sorry about that. I was trying to figure out what to do. Minor panic attack that the guard would let him tag along with us, but it worked out.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done, Speio,” she says in a rush. “Frank is a bad man, and Marco is worse. You never should
have gotten involved with me.”

  I pull her into a quiet corner of one of the back rooms, one holding a giant saltwater tank. It’s for injured sea animals, and right now the only creature in one of them is a large Mako shark with a mangled tailfin. “I thought you said your fiancé was dead?”

  “I thought he was, too,” she admits. “I … shot him, and then I ran. I didn’t think he was alive or that he would find me here, but he has. It’s over.”

  “You shot him?” I say incredulously. I look at Anya in a new light. Marco had called her “her royal highness” in a disparaging tone as if she were someone of importance. “Why? What’s over? Who are you?”

  She sighs deeply. “You should have just left me there in the water. And now you’re going to be in danger because of me. Marco doesn’t like loose ends, or for anyone to get close to me.”

  “Tell me who you are,” I say.

  “My name is Delmonico,” she breathes as if that explains everything. I stare at her blankly. “Daughter of Anthony Delmonico?” she says at my expression.

  Recognition sparks. The name itself evokes a memory of something. Maybe I’d seen it on television or heard it on the radio. I reach for the memory, trying to dig into it and get to its source. Shadowy images from a newscast fill my brain—a notorious crime lord from the east coast being arrested and put on trial for the murder of another man. The man who’d been killed was Anthony Delmonico. His daughter, Anya Delmonico, the only one who’d seen the act and would be called to testify against her father’s killer, was missing. The trial had been postponed. She was the heir to a multibillion-dollar export empire her father had left behind.

  Oh.

  I think of the Aquarathi, and what they’d do if they knew I’d transformed in front of a human girl—a half-conscious human girl—but human nonetheless. Our laws are clear and are unbreakable. If any human sees us, they have to die. Our existence cannot be made known, and nothing I can say or do will stop them from eliminating Anya if they suspect she has any inkling of what we are. She and I have more in common than either of us knows.

  “I’m not in any danger, Anya. No one can hurt me.”

  “You have no idea who they are and what they can do,” she says on a ragged sob, wringing her hands and staring at the doorway as if she’s expecting Frank to come bursting through any moment. “They’ll kill you.”

  “No one’s going to kill anyone,” I reply in a soothing voice. I pull her shaking body into my arms, stroking her hair until she calms. “Is that the real reason you jumped from the cliff the other day?”

  “I was afraid of being scared all the time,” she says against my shoulder. “I wanted to see how hard it would be if push came to shove.”

  “It’s not the answer.”

  “I know.”

  I breathe into her hair. “Hey, that’s my line. So why do they want you so badly?”

  “The case the D.A. has against Marco’s father is solid without my testimony. He’ll get jail time for sure, especially because he’s a known criminal. I’m the final nail in the coffin because of what I saw, but Marco wants me to lie on the stand and get his father out.”

  “We could go to the police, get you some help.”

  Anya raises a tearstained face to mine. “I was in witness protection. They found me. Killed everyone. I shot Marco in the shoulder, and I jumped on the first bus I could find. It came here. The house was up for rental so I took it, just to figure things out.”

  “How did you pay for it?”

  “Cash. I withdrew funds.” She lifts her head and exhales sharply. “That’s how he found me. How could I be so stupid?”

  “You’re human, and we all make mistakes.” I stroke her temple with the pad of my thumb, ignoring the fact that I’d just lumped myself in with the humans. “Seriously, how is that guy your fiancé?”

  “Ex-fiancé,” she murmurs. “I broke it off months ago, after I found out that Marco wasn’t who I thought he was and that he and his father had been extorting my father for years. We were supposed to be married after I turned eighteen. I guess my father tried to make a stand after I broke off my engagement. And he got killed for it, right in front of me. Marco still wants to get his hands on the family business, and get his father off. He won’t kill me, at least not now, but he will once he gets what he wants.”

  “He sounds like a great catch.”

  Anya smothers a muffled laugh against my shirt. “I was an easy target,” she says quietly. “When a guy notices you, and only you, it can go to your head. You don’t see past anything but how much they want to be with you, and the attention is … intoxicating. It’s blinding. And then you think you’re in love, but you’re really in love with the idea of love. And then when they have you where they want you, they kill your father and threaten to kill your sister and take everything away. People are horrible, manipulating liars.”

  “Not all of them,” I hear myself say.

  “You tell me the name of one good person that you know.”

  “You’re a good person,” I say.

  “You don’t know a thing about me, Speio.” She pushes away and walks toward the tank where the lone shark is swimming. She watches the shark’s motions as if they’re hypnotic. “I tried to kill a man. I tried to kill Marco. I wanted to kill him. And I tried to kill myself because I’m a coward looking for the easy way out.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  She turns to face me, her fingers sliding against the glass of the tank. The ten-foot shark swims by lazily, eyeing her like she’s tasty morsel. “No, because you saved me.”

  “You and I were in the same place for a reason,” I tell her, walking over to where she’s standing. “You said they threatened to kill your sister. Would you want to leave her alone with someone like Marco? How old is she?”

  Anya’s eyes are wide. “Eleven. She’s in protective custody, too.”

  “Just as you were?” I say. “From what you’re telling me, I don’t think Marco is the kind of guy to take losing so easily, and if you were his ticket to a billion dollar fortune, what’s to say that your sister won’t be once you’re gone?”

  The color drains from her face as she considers what I’ve said. “But she’s only eleven.”

  “And your Marco sounds like the kind of psychopath who will wait a few years until he can seduce her, too.”

  Anya slumps against the tank. “Oh, God, you’re right. What do I do, Speio?”

  “When’s the trial?”

  “In two days.”

  “Then we hunker down and wait them out,” I say. “That’s our only option for now.” That, or I change into Aquarathi form and tear the guy’s head off. He’s already rubbing me the wrong way, and from what Anya’s telling me about how he’s been manipulating her, I have to stop myself from running back to her house and showing him what real bullying is like. I exhale slowly, releasing my clenched fingers one by one.

  Anya eyes me. “Why are you doing this all of this? I was some random girl you pulled out of the ocean. You should just walk the other way. Get yourself out of this mess while you still can.”

  “Trust me, Anya,” I say, leaning against the tank beside her. “I can handle Marco.”

  “But why? Why do you want to handle Marco? Most people would run in the opposite direction.”

  I don’t know what she wants me to say—that in the days I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve come to care about her? That her life matters? That I couldn’t turn away now even if I wanted to? That I want to help her?

  “I’m not most people,” I say, right as a loud thump on the glass tank makes Anya’s eyes pop. She leaps back, staring at the shark that has just bumped its nose into us in an odd aggressive motion.

  “The shark is going nuts,” she says. “It’s swum by about twenty times in a row. It must think you’re its dinner.”

  Or maybe it’s posturing because I’m the bigger predator around here. Turning away from Anya, I meet the shark’s eye for a second and let mine f
lare. The beast scurries in the opposite direction, swimming toward the other side of the tank. Our pheromones attract sharks, until they get close and realize what we are. It’s one of the reasons Nerissa and I only surf when there isn’t a full moon. We’re like shark magnets then—safe for us, but not so much for people.

  “Whoa, what’d you just do?” Anya whispers.

  “Stood up to him,” I say with an inner grin of satisfaction at the shark’s suddenly submissive behavior. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I know a place we can go.”

  Swiping a yellow floater keychain from the rack of keys, we slip out the backdoor, running toward the pier where a small boat is docked. “Get in,” I tell Anya.

  “Are you sure we can take this?”

  “I’ll return it later, once you’re safe,” I assure her. By the time Frank realizes we’re no longer at the center, we’ll be long gone. I navigate the small craft to my beach, and tie it to the waiting dock. “Come on.”

  “Wait,” she says. “Are we going to your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about your family?” she asks. “What are you going to tell them about me?”

  “Nothing. That you’re a friend visiting from out of town who needs a place to crash.” I almost snort—not that any of them will believe me. I don’t tend to have friends, especially of the human variety, and especially not girls. “It’ll be okay. Do you trust me?”

  She looks at me for a long moment, but nods. “You know I do.”

  “Good.”

  We walk up the beach together and enter through the back door. I’ve already checked that Nerissa is not in the pool in full-out Aquarathi form, but they’re all waiting in the living room. My parents’ faces are expressionless, and the look on Nerissa’s is openly approving.

  “This is Anya. She’s new to town, and she needs a place to stay for a couple days. Can she stay here?”