And that was when Callie found herself alone on the branch. In practiced synchrony, Alex, Zeke, and Serena fell upon the Sirens, instantly rending the wings off of one as Zeke held her still and Alex tore off the silver masses. Serena had been reaching for the second Siren when the woman on the ground stood up, shocked, and seemed to remember her bearings. With a cry of rage, she flew at Serena. Zeke, mentally charting the woman’s path in an impossibly small second, stepped forward and, when the woman flew right by him, clutched onto her wings. The woman was propelled forward by her own momentum, her body falling lifelessly onto the ground at Serena’s feet while Zeke held the feathers in his hands.
Meanwhile, Alex had trapped the last Siren against the ground, her arms folded at a painful angle behind her back, while the Guardian she’d been about to attack flew away unscathed. Serena turned, and ran over to them. She and Alex each split a wing from the woman’s back at the same moment.
For a breath, there was silence on the forest floor, each of the protectors looking around for hidden enemies. Callie felt nausea rise in her throat as she saw the rivers of blood which soaked the moist, fertile dirt. It was a gruesome mingling of life and death.
“Alright,” Zeke said gruffly. “Let’s go.”
Alex glanced up at Callie, who still sat on the branch of the tree, and almost simultaneously he had lifted her in his arms and they were flying through the canopy once again.
They didn’t need to look for long before they heard voices.
“Shh,” Zeke said, holding out his arms and halting Serena and Alex. They froze in the sky, and Zeke cocked an ear. After a time, he pointed downwards. “On the falls,” he whispered. “Lots of ‘em.”
Slowly, they flew lower into the forest, gliding along the floor before curving up again as they drew nearer to the rocky, vertical face of the waterfall that Callie had come to know well. Zeke was the first to perch upon the stone; he clutched onto the jagged rock and hung off the side of the slope, his wings beating silently to suspend him. Serena joined him quietly, and then Alex, until they were lined up against the falls, a light mist spraying them from the left. Callie was cradled between Alex’s chest and the mountainous wall before them, her arms wrapped around him while he held onto the rock behind her. Though she couldn’t see anything besides the valley behind him, she felt his heart speed up when he lifted his head above the crest of the falls to ascertain the number of Sirens.
“How many?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply, his face as set as the stone he hung from. She craned her neck, and gasped.
There were dozens of them, their silver wings forming a forest of their own. They milled about in a circular formation, and Callie squinted to see what they were gathered around. There, amid the circle they made, were at least thirty Guardians, all tied up and seated in a rough clump of bodies. They were alive, she saw, but they were battered and trapped and outnumbered.
“Zeke,” Callie breathed. “I—I can’t. I can’t get to all of them.”
“It’s okay, kid,” Zeke replied, his words both rough and soothing. “Like I told you, just one by one. Nice and easy. As soon as one goes, the rest’ll get confused, and that’s all we’re looking for.”
Alex tipped his forehead down to touch Callie’s. He wasn’t holding her now, but she felt the gesture as she might a hug. She took a slow breath, steadying her nerves, inhaling his scent. It calmed her, and made what she was about to do seem more manageable.
“Are you ready?” Zeke whispered.
Callie swallowed, and then looked up at Alex. He was watching her tenderly, compassionately. She knew that her task was small in comparison to his, but he was gazing at her as though he understood her fear.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured. “Say the word, and we’ll go back to London.” She chuckled quietly, remembering, though his face remained somber.
She softly stroked the side of his face, savoring the feel of his warm skin beneath her fingertips. It was a moment she knew she would treasure, as the sun warmed his back and her face with its penetrating rays. It blazed through fear and uncertainty, worry and insecurity. It gave them that small space to claim as their own, shading them from what would come.
But then Callie drew back and looked away. She didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes as she replied, “I’m ready.”
She turned in Alex’s arms, bracing her hands atop the lip of the falls, and silently hoisted herself up to sit on the rock. She crept into the patch of forest beside the watery clearing as quickly as she could until she was standing behind a tree. She leaned out and peeked at the women walking around the circle of Guardians. It astounded her again how beautiful these women were; most men would gladly die at their hands. But the ferocious expressions they wore marred their allure, and caused Callie to hesitate.
She focused on one Siren, a brunette standing relatively still, glowering at the Guardians with her arms folded across her chest. Callie closed her eyes and focused on the woman’s mind, and experienced the rush of being transported into her memory. The atmosphere was dark when Callie opened her eyes; this was an unpleasant thought. Callie was back on the Siren’s island, on the shore. Though the sun was midway across the sky, the air was tinted a deep blue as though it were evening.
Emeric stood on a boulder above a throng of Sirens, and he was in the middle of giving a speech.
“…the battle would be useless. Therefore, do not kill the Guardians until they have all been collected and confined. Your first priority should be to gather them, to make sure that you have successfully gathered each member of the village. Some may try to escape; this must not happen, for if any escape they will seek vengeance at the war’s end. We will not be safe until we have killed every last Guardian. Entrap them first. And then, once they have been collected, you may do away with them,” Emeric boomed, sounding less like a human than a demon.
Callie understood why this memory was so dark. The woman did not like the fact that she had to wait to dispose of the Guardians she was babysitting. This, to her, wasn’t real battle. Callie shivered at her thought process, and exited the memory with accelerated speed. She was in the gloom again, surrounded by pinpoints of images. Just as before, she raced backwards, trying to locate a scene which was more illuminated than the rest.
She halted next to a face she recognized. With a roll of her eyes, she stepped into a particularly bright memory of Alex.
The room she entered was Alex’s bedroom. She turned away when she realized exactly what was going on in that room, and exited the memory soon after, using the bark beneath her palms to draw her out.
The Siren had stopped shifting back and forth, her arms had fallen to her sides. Her whole face was glazed in confusion, as though she didn’t know where she was. Another Siren stopped, realizing that her friend seemed to be in a trance, and began yelling at the girl in a harsh language that Callie didn’t recognize. This garnered the attention of other Sirens, each pausing in her march to see what was the source of such commotion.
And that was when the three protectors leapt out from behind the rock, each rising up with angry vengeance, charging the field in the form of true warriors. The Sirens fumbled for just a moment, caught off guard. But that moment was all that the three needed to strike with confident speed, instantly felling at least five Sirens before moving into battle with the rest.
Callie worked quickly then. She jumped into the minds of Sirens, quickly extracting the memories she sought before exiting one and immediately leaping into another mind. It became easier as the progressed. She learned that she didn’t need to stay in the original memory for more than an instant; it was like leaping onto a stone in the middle of a river while crossing to the other side. And using the same totem to pull her from each conjured memory was helpful, as she barely had to think about what to focus on.
At one point, she saw Adeline a few meters away. The ruby-haired Siren had filled the position of commander, roaring orders at her fellow Sir
ens as they became swept up in the chaos of the surprise attack. One Guardian attempted to stand up, his wings already outstretched, when Adeline struck him with an angry kick to the chest, winding him and effectively seating him once more. But Adeline was too far away, and people were swerving in front of and around her with speed too great, for Callie to insert herself into Adeline’s mind.
Silver wings were being strewn everywhere, each dripping with near-violet blood. Bodies were everywhere, both alive and dead, each running or flying or climbing into trees. All trying to survive. Callie peered through the battlefield to find her friends, and saw Alex relatively nearby. He was tearing wings off in pairs, flying from Siren to Siren, cold and clinical in his killings. He was a machine, well-trained and efficient, hardly visible as he flicked from place to place wrenching the lives from the women. His victims hadn’t even fallen to the ground before he was on to the next, their blood barely being spilled before they were forgotten. It was difficult to watch, but Callie knew that he was only acting in the interest of his people; people who, even now, were cowering in the center of it all. They were not the soldiers here. They were the ones who needed protection, the last of a noble breed on the verge of extinction.
Callie realized that he was purposely staying close to her. Every few seconds, he would throw a glance over his shoulder and ascertain that she was safe, before returning his attention to the battle at hand. Each brief look scared her a little more; it was a second in which he was vulnerable.
She turned her attention to a Siren who was only about fifteen feet away, and was about to enter her memories. However, at that moment, it was as if the Siren felt Callie’s eyes on her, for she turned and immediately spotted Callie amidst the foliage.
The woman’s eyes narrowed into black slits, and before Callie could blink, she had flown across the field and had yanked Callie forward by the hair, withdrawing her from behind the trees. Callie gasped as she was pulled into the clearing, a human in plain sight amongst warring gods. But before she could understand the enormity of the fear which surged through her at such exposure, the woman had braced her hands on either side of Callie’s face, as though to twist her head in a neck-snapping circle.
Callie, working purely from instinct, took hold of the woman’s shoulders and drove a knee into her ribcage. There was a loud sound of something cracking, and the Siren grunted, losing her hold of Callie’s head, but Callie suspected that the motion had injured her more than the Siren. She hopped backwards on her good leg, the kneecap in the other smarting with excruciating jabs of pain.
However, as soon as Callie saw that the Siren was beginning to stand up again, recovering from the blow, that same instinct compelled her to bring up her wounded leg and thrust a kick into the woman’s jaw. But before her foot could connect to that bone, the Siren had shot out a hand and grabbed Callie’s ankle. Keeping her clutch on Callie’s leg, the Siren stood erect, a lethal expression on her petite face, and then jerked Callie’s leg in a quick circle, causing Callie to spiral horizontally through the air until she landed face-down on the rock.
Searing agony flooded through Callie’s hip and consumed her until she had to scream in release, a series of faint pops telling her that the bone was broken. But the woman wasn’t finished. She straddled Callie, one foot planted firmly on either side of her back, and swiftly reached down to grab Callie’s elbow. She paused once she had gripped it, as though in tantalization, and then, with breathtaking force, jerked it across Callie’s back in such a way that both bent the elbow backwards too far and dislocated the shoulder.
Callie felt lightheaded as she heard herself shrieking in torment. She felt disconnected from her body, and the world began to spin. She glanced at Alex from the corner of her eye, her vision beginning to blur and fade.
He looked over when he heard her scream, despite the struggle he was having in killing the latest Siren. When he saw her lying on the ground, his face became a mask of guilt-ridden horror, and he quickly returned his attention to the Siren he was fighting and threw her over a nearby tree stump, holding down the back of her head with one hand while he messily tore her right wing from her back. Then, not bothering with the second wing, he lunged across the field on open wings.
The Siren was still focused on Callie when Alex knocked into her, driving her a few yards away, and landing in a sloppy tumble. Callie struggled to sit up, crying out when the movement snapped her hip back into place, and the bones began to heal in painful fusion. Alex and the Siren were rolling about on the ground, each clawing for the upper hand. The Siren managed to pluck out a few feathers in her attempt to rid him of his wings, which caused Callie’s heart to stop a few times, but each time she succeeded in that task Alex rolled them over again so that he had the advantage.
Finally, Alex pinned the Siren to the ground in what seemed to be an unbreakable hold. Callie sighed in relief, watching as he moved to strip the woman of her wings; however, at the same moment that he moved, the Siren rolled back onto her neck, bringing her knees to her chest, and then thrust both feet upwards, leveling a clean kick to Alex’s stomach. He flew backwards, the force carrying him almost all the way back to Callie. The Siren ascended into the air in a motion too quick for Callie to witness.
Callie winced as she stood, limping towards Alex. He stood up awkwardly, and Callie saw his large shoulders rising and falling in shallow pants as he struggled for breath.
She helped him to stand, using her good arm, trying not to let her face betray the pain radiating from her other shoulder. “Are you alright?” she asked.
He nodded, and spoke in broken sentences laden with a thick accent that Callie had never heard him use before. “Get…back behind…that tree,” he gasped.
Callie’s eyes widened as she saw one of his ribs, which was sticking out from his chest so that the blood-coated bone poked through his skin, beating slightly to the rhythm of his heart. She felt sick, and he looked down to see what had captivated her attention. Without second thought, he clasped a palm over that broken bone and grunted as he shoved it back into place. She whipped her head away, not able to watch.
“Go,” he growled, agony roughening his voice. She turned and fled, her knees shaking and weak as she ran back to the patch of forest at the edge of the cliff. The day was beginning to get the better of her; she felt as though she were slowly losing her sanity.
As she ran, she felt a cool breeze licking at her back. And then she heard the rush of wind as it was cleaved into by a foreign body. And then she knew, even before she turned around, what was about to happen.
“No!” Alex roared, the word stretching into a dismayed howl.
Callie spun around, her stomach sinking. She barely saw the silver wings descend upon her, the furious mask of hellfire that the returning Siren wore, the wide-eyed shock on Alex’s face, before she felt the push of two small hands like twin bullets against her chest.
Before she lost her footing and stumbled back, her heel catching empty air, her body’s weight pulling her downwards.
Before she realized that she was toppling over the edge of the cliff, sinking lower and lower until Alex’s face disappeared atop it.
Before she remembered, mid-fall, that this would be at least a five hundred foot drop before she hit the stream below.
Before, as her vision went black and the thud of her heart ceased to sound, she understood that the last thing she would ever hear would be the tortured terror in Alex’s voice as he cried out after her.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Farewell
There were many moments in Callista Ryan’s life that she wished she could remember. The first day she rode a bike; her father had told her tales of that day for years afterwards, about how she had insisted that he let go each time, even though she had continuously proceeded to crash within seconds of his compliance. The first time she saw the ocean. Every Christmas that she had still listened for hoof prints on the roof, lying awake in wide-eyed anticipation. The last words her mother had spo
ken before she’d died. The entire night in which she’d first met Alex.
But the moment that she woke up, soaking wet and suffering from a massive headache—all over her body….That was a time she immediately wished she could forget.
The first thing that Callie was aware of was the sound of trickling water to her right. That, however, was quickly overshadowed by the dull, throbbing ache which initiated in her skull and extended down her neck, into her shoulders, out to her fingertips, and all the way down her legs. Her heart was beating at a fast clip, much too quickly for Callie to believe that she’d simply been asleep a moment ago. She had yet to realize where she was; all that she knew was that something terrible had happened.
Slowly, hesitant to move any small part of her stinging body, she lifted her eyelids a fraction of a centimeter.
The sting of sunlight made her wince, but through the intense rays she saw a man, crouched over her, his black hair dripping with water, the droplets from his hair comingling with the tears which streaked down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered then, his voice rasping in strain. He held her limp left hand with both of his, nestling it tenderly. He knelt next to her, his back hunched over her near-lifeless form, his head hung as he sat stricken with silent grief. Before Callie recognized the man, she recognized the expression.
It was desperation, the same she had worn when she had woken up in her hospital bed and been told that her parents hadn’t survived. It was the same aimless sadness, the same panicked sense of loss, of being lost, that she had gleamed a hundred times in the mirror after that day. This man had lost something that he loved. Before she realized what she was doing, or with whom she was interacting, she found herself reaching a hand out to that man, placing a comforting palm on his cheek in empathy.
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