Read Online Fathomless by Jackson Pearce - Free Book Online

don’t exist.
    Just like triplets with powers don’t exist.
    She finally makes it onto the shore, collapses. Even fromhere, I can see the blood running from her feet, making tiny rivers that are destroyed with each new wave. She looks limp and broken, like the ocean stole her bones and threw her out. Each time a wave sweeps far enough onto the sand to touch her toes, I see her quiver, try to cling to the water that so quickly slides back where it came from.
    She is frightening, but she is also helpless. And staring at her lying there certainly won’t help me get her out of my head. I swallow and start toward her, kicking up dry sand and squinting against the reflection of the almost-set sun on the waves. She turns her head up toward me, and I see her eyes—dark, gray like stones—widen. She forces herself up shakily, moves toward the water. Her legs buckle under her with every step, like they’re broken, and there’s the blood again, though it’s now dark and thick. She makes it to where the water is shoulder-deep and falls in, and suddenly, it’s like she’s home. Her body slips under, every bit as graceful as a dolphin. She’s leaving, I have to—
    “Naida!” I call her name. Again and again, I yell as I watch her dark form start away from the shore.
    And then stop.
    I’ve reached the edge of the water. I drop my hands to my knees and pant while trying to keep my eyes on her. She’s still, she’s listening. “Naida,” I say. “I’m not… I…” What am I, exactly? I’m not going to hurt her? I’m more worried about her hurting me, to be honest. Say something, though, anything….
    “I met you last night,” I call. “I just want to talk.”
    About the scream in your head. About why your memories are different from everyone else’s. I want to talk to you so I can forget about you.
    I see her turn against the waves. She slowly lifts her head out of the water.
    She is beautiful—more so now that she’s in the water. Her skin is not quite as gray up close, but around her ears, her hairline, her shoulder bones is a light bluish color, like she’s very cold. Everything about her matches the sea, except her hair—it has the slightest hint of chocolate brown in it, like it would be better suited to a forest.
    “Please. Talk to me,” I say, finally standing up straight again. The lights on the pier flicker on automatically with the encroaching darkness. Her head snaps toward them, and for a minute, I think she’s going to vanish again.
    “It hurts.”
    I almost can’t hear her at first, over the sound of the waves, but I manage to understand what she said. I don’t respond, because I have no idea how to.
    “It hurts to walk on land. It cuts me. It’s like knives,” she says. There’s no inflection in her voice, no happiness or sorrow, only a single note that bounces through every word.
    “Can you come any closer? So I can hear you better, at least?” I call out. She considers this, then obliges, creeping closer before sitting down where the waves are knee-deep. I nod, then sit in the wet sand where the tiniest remains of waves lap up, soaking my shorts and covering my toes with sand.
    She stares at me. She doesn’t blink, and I know if I wereto stand suddenly, run toward her, yell, that she’d be into the deep water so quickly that I wouldn’t even make it a step before she was gone.
    She’s waiting for me to speak, I can tell. I’m unpracticed at starting conversations—that’s Anne’s job, and less often, Jane’s. But…
    “You left last night,” I say. The words sound stunted.
    “I didn’t want to be seen.”
    “I’d already seen you.”
    “That was necessary. The boy would have drowned,” she says, as if this is obvious.
    “That’s right. You saved him,” I say. “You pulled him out of the water.”
    “You breathed for him,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m glad he’s alive. He didn’t need to die.” She pauses for a long time, but doesn’t look away from