The Penny Drops (Sea the Depths Book 1) by Karmon Kuhn (warren buffett book recommendations TXT) 📕

but I ignored him, dug up my clothes, and turned to go. A hand rested on my shoulder as I did so, and I dropped the clothes onto the sand at my feet. Before I could consider my actions, my body wrenched the fingers from my shoulder and twisted.

He squinted in pain. I let him go and backed up. “I’m sorry.”

I picked up the clothing and he let me leave this time, but his eyes followed me until I was out of sight. All of the bodies I passed were too far for me to smell them, and it unsettled me that some of those eyes might belong to one of my own kind. I began to run and pushed my body as hard as it could go on its feeble parts. Once I was out of sight of the beach, I collapsed onto the sidewalk. Where was I even going?

***

Without direction or even hope, I found myself nearing Penny’s neighborhood. I passed Mug and Muffins and was tempted to curl up in one of the chairs and imagine that I was Alice again. Imagine that I could defeat the Red Queen and make everything alright. Pretend that anything could be alright.

Instead, I trudged on to her apartment. At her door, I stopped and was unsure of how to proceed. I’d broken my device and thrown it out of the juz̈uṣùs̈, so I couldn’t send her a message. At the tsez̈ø, we would scent mark or call out. Scent marking was ridiculous in this situation, so I tried the latter.

“Penny?!”

Nothing. I cleared my throat.

“PENNY?!”

Nothing again.

“PENNY?! ARE YOU IN THERE?!”

At first I didn’t know what to expect, and just as I was about to leave, feeling lost, I heard her froggy croak, “Hello?”

“Penny?” I asked.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Natalie,”

There was a pause, and I could feel her mind trying to work out why I was at her doorstep.

“Could I please come in?” I asked, breaking the silence.

I heard some clicking noises and then the door swung open. Penny backed up deeper into the apartment with messy, silver strands hanging in her face, dressed in an oversized t-shirt.

“Is everything okay?” she started with a yawn and then shouted, “What happened to your eyes?! Are you . . . sick?!”

“What?”

“Have they always been yellow like that? I thought you had gray eyes! Here.” She pulled me inside and shoved me in front of the mirror by the door.

She was right, instead of the clear gray my human’s eyes had been before, they were now a serpentine amber. The transitions had been too stressful. My body had been unable to complete the full modification. I inspected them, pulling the skin away and looking deeply at them, and then, I looked down at the rest of my body, turning my hands back and forth. Were my eyes the only unmodified part of me?

“What the hell happened? You look freaked out.” She was watching me observe myself.

“This is not why I am here. I discovered something difficult to handle, and,” I hesitated, “I don’t have anyone else.”

“Why didn’t you just call me?” she asked.

“I lost my phone.” I lied.

“Okay. Um . . . What happened? What can I do?” She asked and offered me a seat on the couch next to her. It was one of few pieces of furniture in the whole apartment. Just the sofa, a bookshelf, and a table with two chairs all in the single, large living area. There were three doors which no doubt led to the wash area and sleeping area.

“Do you need a second?” she asked me after my pause.

“I’m not sure,” I told her, “but . . . I think I’m in danger. It’s possible that we may both be in danger.”

“We?” she asked, waking up suddenly.

“Yes.” I said calmly, “There are some bad people I used to work with, and I found out that they are doing some unethical work. They may be looking for me now, and I know that they have been watching me for a few days.”

As soon as she heard those words, she sprung to her feet, locked and closed all of the windows, and turned all of the locks in the door. Once she’d secured the living space, she put some distance between us.

“Did you call the police?” There was a quiver in her voice.

“I know that this is a very scary situation for you.” I said, trying to stall, “To answer your question, I do not have hard evidence to provide to the police.”

Sheer panic began to tighten her arched eyebrows and open her mouth to gaping. “It’s like I don’t know you. I mean, I thought I did, but after last night, I mean . . . You were just so . . .”

I suddenly regretted coming here without a plan. I had to think quickly to get this under control. Humans were intelligent creatures, and they could pose an incredible threat to themselves and others when backed into a corner.

I held up my hands in a submissive gesture and spoke slowly, “What can I do to make you feel more at ease? Would you like me to remove my satchel? You can search my things. I didn’t come here to hurt you. I’m simply scared and confused myself, and I thought of you because . . .”

I paused then, unsure of why she’d truly come to mind. Was this an attempt at comfort? Was it that I felt responsible for her? For introducing her to this world? If she was any other tsùges̈ss, would I have come here under the same circumstances? Or, was it only because it was her?

“Because . . . ?” She broke into my thoughts.

“Because I am here alone, and you have been kind to me. I wanted comfort, and I wanted to be sure too that nothing had happened to you,” I answered, trying to determine how much of this was truth versus a story to de-escalate the situation.

Some of the