Siren Song (The Chameleon Effect Book 3)

by Alex Hayes

  My room at the Jacobsens? No, I’m in LA. My room at Idris’s place? But this space is different, smaller, not as modern or airy.

  An Evatenon hideout?

  I blink and focus my gaze on the tunnel of light leading to possible escape.

  An open door. A bright hallway. A counter with chairs and wood cabinets.

  Ignoring my crystal’s indolence, I grope with the need to move. My head aches, too heavy to lift. I curl onto my side, to ease the stress on my neck, and pain erupts from my rib cage, screaming like alarm bells.

  The pounding in my skull intensifies and combines with the band of agony circling my torso.

  I swallow bile, fighting the urge to throw up.

  Somehow, I’ve got to get out of here.

  My crystal’s hum increases. Why isn’t it freaking out when I’m ready to claw this place to shreds to escape?

  Then I recognize a resonance. Another crystal, at the same time familiar and terrifying.

  A shadowy figure looms. A voice growls.

  He tried to kill me. I must get out of here before that creature tries to assimilate me.

  My feet slide over the edge of a bed.

  A bed? What am I doing on a bed? Did anything…

  No. They don’t want to take advantage of my body. They want to steal it.

  Run, Rowan. Right now, before it’s too late.

  My toes meet the floor. Calves tighten and thighs flex, pushing me to my feet. The tourniquet around my middle tightens, but I ignore the pain, the pounding in my head and the fuzziness distorting my vision.

  Move toward the light. Get the hell out of here!

  I take a step. Another.

  My toes hook over something solid and I’m falling.

  Palms hit carpet and pain explodes across my midsection. I cry out and my vision spirals.

  “What the hell!” a deep voice shouts.

  The sound sends fear shooting up my spine, pulling me back from a dark edge.

  Run, Rowan.

  I scramble, so freaked out adrenaline blocks the pain.

  Something wraps around my ankle. Fingers.

  I scream.

  The grip falls away as I stumble to my feet and fly for the door.

  Some forward-thinking part of my brain recognizes the shoes lying in the hall. I scoop them up and make for the light.

  Run, Rowan. Run!

  “Wait! I’m not done with you yet!” the monster shouts.

  Oh my god. He wants to suck my life away. Get me out of here!

  My legs obey as hot terror rushes down my arms and into my hands.

  His voice chases me. “Stop. You can’t leave. I’m not done.”

  I slide across linoleum, dropping my shoes in order to save myself as I fall toward the door. Palms land flat and smoke rises as the painted surface melts under my burning touch.

  “Don’t leave. You’re hurt.”

  The words reach my brain, but I can’t comprehend them.

  I roll away from the white door, now blackened where my hands met its surface. My shoulder collides with paneling as I turn to face my attacker, fear screaming inside me.

  The Evatenon has morphed.

  He’s tall. Asian. A Bruce Lee-looking guy with chest muscles rippling through his T-shirt and long hair falling around his face.

  He advances.

  There’s a wild look in his eyes, like a predator closing in on its kill.

  My fingers search the surface at my back and curl around a doorknob. Eyes catch my fallen sneakers, two feet away. In a single motion, I grab my shoes and turn the handle. At the smell of melting plastic, I hook the shoes into the safety of an elbow.

  “Wait. Don’t go!” the creature shouts.

  I’m out the door and stumbling down a staircase.

  A determined tug tries to pull me backward, but I resist the urging. My crystal wants to go back, but I’m too disoriented to figure out why.

  I fumble with another door handle.

  My throat closes, choking off my breath, as the door gives way with a rattle.

  I’m on the street, chilled by fear and damp, running shoeless down a cracked sidewalk, casting glances over my shoulder.

  After many blocks and no pursuer, I stop. My feet are bruised and half frozen. At least my palms have cooled enough to handle the sneakers I clasp against my chest. I push my feet into the shoes.

  My whole body hurts. What did that monster do to me?

  That monster… I came here to find Con.

  As fear trickles from my bones, reason returns.

  The man who shouted. Was that Con?

  Memories slide through my brain. Tripping. Falling. Flying.

  I shake my head, trying to clear the knot behind my eyes. I need Idris.

  My phone is missing from my pocket.

  Thank god, I have my wallet. I topple against a brick wall and pull myself together, while trying to ignore the stabbing pain triggering spasms down my right side.

  Finally getting a grip, I flag a taxi.

  Why didn’t I pay more attention and memorize Idris’s address? Without it, I can only offer a general direction of south to the driver. But if I can get close enough to Idris, I’ll pick up his crystal.

  “South?” The driver’s a big black guy. A bear of a man with a deep voice, but there’s nothing scary about him.

  Not like the Asian guy. The one my crystal pulled me toward. The one I thought was an Evatenon, but now I’m not so sure.

  What was wrong with him? Why did he attack me?

  Tears sting my eyes. That guy couldn’t be my bond mate. Con wouldn’t hurt a fly. He only ever fixed things.

  “Hey, Miss. Are you okay?”

  I look up from the backseat and catch the taxi driver eyeing me in the rearview mirror. I sniff. “Not really. I need to find my friend, but I don’t remember his address. If I can get close enough, I…I think I’ll recognize the area.”

  “Well, if you’ve got enough cash, I can give you a tour of the whole damn city.”

  “I’ve got a couple of hundred.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a ride.”

  9

  Connell

  “Stop!” I run down the hall after the girl because I haven’t finished fixing her ribs.

  The apartment door slams in her wake.

  Sliding to a halt across the kitchen floor, I consider following. I don’t want to chase after her, but I guess I’m going to have to. Then I spot two burn marks, handprints halfway up the paneling.

  My jaw slackens. “What the hell?”

  I grab the doorknob and feel my palm stick to the brass handle. Pain registers a microsecond later, along with the nasty smell of burnt flesh.

  “Ahh!” I yank my hand away and holler every swear word I know as I dive for the kitchen sink and flick on the tap. Cold water floods over my palm, momentarily dousing the pain.

  After thirty seconds, I tug my hand from the stream and examine my skin. Blisters swell at the base of my fingers and across my palm.

  What a mess.

  Fortunately, I’ve rested and recovered sufficiently to heal the burn.

  That girl, on the other hand.

  I ran out of strength before I was halfway done healing her. The bruising and the bump on her head were easy enough, but the cracked ribs… I’d hardly started work on those before I passed out from exhaustion.

  Hopefully, she’s smart enough to see a doctor.

  Once the skin on my palm is repaired, I examine the apartment door. Heat radiates off the knob, still too hot to touch, and the plywood circling the handle is charred. How will I explain that to the landlord? Or the handprints melted into the paintwork?

  I touch the markings, sweeping away a layer of soot with my fingertips.

  How the hell did she do this? And why?

  She was freaked out for sure. I could feel the fear radiating off her. Somehow my crystal picked that up. The stone has never done anything like that before, but then, it’s never yanked me in a perso
n’s direction either. I wish I understood what that is all about.

  But the power to heat a surface with her hands?

  Visions of Asian mythology drift through my mind. Maybe she’s a goddess. I laugh inwardly. Mind you, she was beautiful enough to be the Indian deity, Radha. Or Dalnim, the Korean goddess of the moon.

  I scoot onto one of the bar chairs at the kitchen island and examine my palm. Slightly pink, but otherwise healed.

  That girl’s a real mystery.

  My crystal’s hum picks up, as if reacting to my thoughts. Yeah, and what that gem says is she’s a mystery I need to solve.

  I lift my eyes to the ceiling and lightheadedness rushes over me. Ugh. Too much healing, not enough sustenance. I rub my neck and stagger to the fridge.

  Late evening, I’m eating a second course of leftover lo mein when the long-cooled doorknob turns and Azera elbows her way in with a rattle of keys.

  “What are you doing still up?” She sets her camera bag on a chair. “Figured you’d be toast after that road accident.”

  I put down my chopsticks. “I was. God, Az, it was awful.” I rub my forehead, trying to expel the image of that child seat and the motionless white arm. “I saved a guy only to find his baby…dead.”

  My throat locks up again.

  Azera’s eyes shut tight as I breathe through the pain. When she opens them, they’re full of tears. “Oh, Connie, I’m so sorry.”

  I swallow the lump blocking my windpipe. “Goes with the territory, I guess. I can’t keep hitting the front line and not expect to see this kind of crap. But I couldn’t help wondering if that guy would’ve rather been left to die. He’s gonna wake up in some hospital and be told his kid is dead. I just can’t imagine…”

  She squeezes my forearm across the countertop. “You did the best you could.”

  I shake my head. “My best wasn’t good enough.” I plant my face into cupped hands. “It makes me wonder… Should I be interfering at all? Like I’m a god or something.” I lift my head and meet her gaze.

  “You’re no more a god than the doctors and EMTs who save lives everyday. Think about it.” Sympathy and understanding warm her eyes as she cocks her head. “They’d have done the exact same thing you did. Tried to save that man’s life. Even if they’d seen his dead baby beforehand, they’d still have tried to save him.”

  She’s right. But I wish that wasn’t my decision to make. A judgment call over life and death. No one can want that kind of responsibility.

  Azera slides off her chair and rounds the island to rub my shoulders. “You know, he might have other kids at home. Probably has a wife or partner. Imagine if they’d lost two members of their family yesterday, instead of one.”

  My muscles relax under her working fingers while I stare into my noodles and sigh. “You’re right. I should try to be more positive.”

  My mind shifts to the girl who got hit by a taxi. That was my fault, my anger, my stupid paparazzo bravado…and my responsibility to make right, which I failed to do. “Something else happened.”

  Azera settles into the chair beside me and grabs the box of leftover fried rice. “Tell me,” she says, digging into the container with a dessert spoon.

  I explain about the guy in the street, how I thought he was a dealer and startled him into traffic, then discovered he was a girl. “I felt this…I don’t know what it was.”

  Azera doesn’t know anything about the crystal in my chest, and I’m not planning to tell her. That’s the only part about me she doesn’t know. The crystal doesn’t want me to share knowledge of its existence, and as the stone is hidden beneath my skin, there’s no visible evidence it’s there.

  I stretch my neck. “An attraction, I guess. A…tug.” I lift my chin toward the handprints on the door. “She freaked and did that on her way out.”

  Azera turns in her seat and her eyes widen. “Holy… Burn marks? From her hands? That’s too weird, Connie. What’d she look like? A monster?”

  My lips part as I reflect on the girl’s face. She was the antithesis of a monster; she was divine. The thought of her being a goddess almost makes me smile, but I purse my lips, instead, and meet Azera’s gaze. “She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Azera’s face scrunches into a doubtful frown. “Seriously? So this girl was beautiful and somehow attracted you. You? Mr. Impervious-to-the-Opposite-Sex? She must be a siren.”

  “What do you mean, a siren?” I find myself chasing those everyday. But this girl…

  “As in the mythical creatures from the sea who drag sailors to their deaths.”

  I blink. “Oh, that kind of siren.”

  Azera chuckles without much mirth, and her eyebrow flickers. “She really did a number on you, whoever she was.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I need to find that girl.”

  Suddenly, Azera looks cross. “Why? So you can get burned again?”

  Very funny, Az.

  But it’s not just the girl’s looks that make me want to track her down. Or the weird behavior from my crystal… “Her ribs are cracked, and I ran out of energy before I’d healed them properly. Bones are harder than flesh, and I was wiped out after healing the guy in the crash.”

  “Maybe it’s time you took a rest from being the Good Samaritan.”

  My shoulders tighten. “It’s my fault she got hit in the first place.”

  “She was hanging around on the street. Maybe you were right. Maybe she is a dealer. Or a hooker.”

  “Come on, Az. She was dressed more like a guy than a girl. And all she had on her was a phone and wallet.” Her phone had chimed, which is how I’d discovered them.

  Damn, and I bet that phone’s still lying by the bed. How am I going to get that back to her, unless I find her?

  “Was there any cash in it?”

  “Huh?” I stare at Azera. “What?”

  Her brow lifts. “In her wallet. Any cash?”

  “I didn’t check. Why would I?” I might not be the greatest guy in LA, but I’m not a thief.

  Azera rolls her eyes. “Maybe she’d already got paid for her stash.”

  “If she’d been paid, why would she be hanging around?” I counter. “Look, I got it wrong, okay? There was nothing about the girl that said drugs or anything shifty, once I got a close enough look at her.”

  “How close?”

  My frown deepens. “What do you mean, how close?”

  “You said she was beautiful. How close did you look?”

  “Shit, Az. What are you suggesting? That I stripped her? I don’t need to touch a wound to heal it. Physical contact, someplace, is all it takes. You of all people should know that.”

  She pushes her food away and crosses her arms over the counter. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

  “In what way?” I realize it isn’t every day I’m taken by a girl’s looks. Actually, there’s never been a day. Before today.

  Her face tightens. “It’s weird. Not at all like you. I mean… There’ve been times I wondered if you weren’t interested in girls.”

  My turn to cross the arms. I tilt my head and give her a disdainful look. “Have you seen me looking at any boys?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I’m straight, okay. I just haven’t met a girl who caught my interest.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Until now. What’s so special about her?”

  My lips part.

  What was it about the girl that made me want to get into her personal space? As in get to know her intimately.

  Something magnetic. Something going on in my chest. With my crystal.

  I shrug because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t say anything without mentioning the stone’s existence.

  Azera slips off her chair. “You could probably use more sleep.”

  Like that’s the reason I’m gaga over some random girl?

  She may be right though. About needing sleep.

  After helping her clean up, I seek r
efuge in my room. I lie on the bed and close my eyes, take a deep breath and pick up a scent. Lavender and something much more subtle. Whatever the sweet smell is, it fills my head with images of that mystery girl. I turn onto my side and try to catch more of her perfume off my pillow.

  A quiet buzzing makes me lift my head. Her phone.

  I check the screen.

  A text message from Idris Williams.

  I’ve seen that name before. On a celebrity gossip rag. But I’m too tired to go searching the Internet now. Probably a different Idris Williams, anyway.

  I close my eyes, breathe in deep and let the sweet lavender perfume of that beautiful girl take over my senses.

  10

  Rowan

  It’s after one in the morning when I finally pick up Idris’s crystal.

  The taxi cruises down a residential street edged with palm trees, nothing like the neighborhood where Idris lives. Modern two-story homes sit back from the road with their manicured front lawns edged by box hedges and evergreen bushes.

  As the taxi approaches a corner, I pull out my wallet. “This is the place, Albert. You can drop me here.”

  “That’ll be two hundred even, dear.” Albert stopped the meter when his shift ended at eleven but continued driving me around.

  “Thanks for everything.” I give him all my bills and the taxi pulls away.

  I wander down a wide sidewalk, following my crystal’s guiding tug toward Idris. It leads to a boxy house with giant windows and sharply angled roofs. Given the movement beyond its windows and piano music slipping through the open front door, a party is in full swing.

  Idris is inside, but I’m in no condition to crash this event. Choosing the feathery trunk of a nearby palm, I prop myself to wait and rub my sore ribs tenderly.

  “Rowan?” A hand touches my arm.

  I open my eyes and draw in a deep breath. My ribs protest as I move, making my face tighten.

  How did I end up curled in a ball at the base of this tree?

  Idris squats beside me. He looks wide awake, his white dress shirt still crisp and only the finest layer of dark stubble shadows the edge of his jaw. “What the hell are you doing out here?”