Lullaby

by Amanda Hocking

“We’ve got time to talk about it later,” Harper said, apparently noticing Gemma’s hesitance. “If you want to shower and relax a bit before Dad gets home. ”

  “Thanks. ” Gemma smiled wanly at her.

  “We do have time, right?” Harper asked. “How long do you think we have before the sirens come after you?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Gemma said.

  She thought back to when she’d gone into town the other day and killed Jason. She’d been gone for several hours, after basically stealing Sawyer’s car. But when she came back, the sirens and Sawyer were all there, looking nonplussed.

  Since Gemma hadn’t taken anything with her, they probably wouldn’t think she’d run away, so it would be a little while before they began a search for her. And even when they did, they wouldn’t know where she’d gone. It wouldn’t be too hard for them to figure out she’d gone back to Capri, but it might take them a few days before they went after her. They would probably expect her to come back to them, since she knew what it meant if she left.

  Eventually, though, the sirens would find her. They had to. Part of the curse was that they had to be near each other at all times.

  If they didn’t find her, Gemma would die within a couple weeks. And if the sirens couldn’t replace her, then Penn, Thea, and Lexi would die, too.

  “We probably have a few days,” Gemma said finally. “Maybe a week, tops. But that’s it. They will come after me, and they will take me away with them. ” She swallowed hard when she realized it. “If we haven’t found a way to break the curse by then, I have to go with them. ”

  “We’ll find a way,” Harper insisted, and Gemma wished she shared her sister’s conviction. “But for now, why don’t you just shower and change? Dad’ll be home soon. ”

  “What should I tell him?” Gemma asked as Harper turned to go. “I can’t tell him that I’m a siren, can I?”

  “No,” Harper replied, but she looked uncertain. She furrowed her brow, then shook her head. “No, it won’t do him any good. It’ll just make him worry, and he won’t be able to do anything to help you. ”

  “So what do I tell him?” Gemma asked.

  “Just…” Harper shrugged. “I told him you left with Penn, but I didn’t know why. So … just tell him you ran away because…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t give him a reason. You’re a teenager and were rebelling. That should be enough, right?”

  “It’ll have to be, I guess. ”

  Harper turned to leave and began shutting the door behind her.

  “Hey, Harper,” Gemma said, stopping her.

  “Yeah?” Harper leaned in the half-open door to look back at her.

  “Thank you for coming to get me and all that,” Gemma said. “No matter how this all turns out, I want you to know that I really appreciate all the stuff you do for me. Including but not limited to rescuing me from monsters. ”

  “Anytime. ” Harper smiled at her, then closed the door, leaving Gemma alone to get ready.

  Gemma had just gotten out of the shower when she heard her father come home. She was still in the bathroom, brushing her hair, when the front door slammed shut. Then she heard Brian’s booming voice telling Harper that he was home.

  Gemma knew he’d be mad at her. He was going to yell at her a lot, and while she was dreading that, it suddenly didn’t seem to matter. She’d missed her dad. She hadn’t realized precisely how much until she heard his voice.

  “Dad!” Gemma yelled as soon as she opened the bathroom door, and then she raced down the stairs.

  Brian was standing in the living room, still wearing his work clothes, which were stained with oil and smelled vaguely of fish. When he saw Gemma running down toward him, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

  She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her gruffly. He held her tightly to him for a moment, then moved so he could get a good look at her. He touched her face, his callused hands feeling especially rough on her smooth skin, and his blue eyes were brimming with tears.

  “I love you so much, Gemma,” he said. “You had me worried sick. ”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Gemma said, stifling her own tears. “I love you, too. ”

  “Where were you?” Brian asked.

  “I don’t know. ” Gemma lowered her eyes and stepped back from him, because she still didn’t completely understand how to answer that question.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Brian asked, and he started yelling. “What in god’s name did I do that was so terrible that you needed to run off for over a week without telling me? I’ve been searching all over for you! The police have been looking for you! Do you have any idea what you’ve put me and your sister and even Alex through?”

  “I’m sorry. ” Gemma stared at the floor, unable to look him in the face anymore.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Gemma!” Brian shouted. “There’s no excuse for what you did! You can’t just leave without telling anybody. That’s not okay, and you know it. ”

  “I do know, Dad, and I’m really sorry,” she repeated.

  “And with everything that’s going on, with the serial killer on the loose,” Brian went on. “That was so dangerous and irresponsible. You could’ve been hurt or killed! And Harper and I had no idea what was happening to you. Do you know how terrifying that is?”

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  Gemma swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. ”

  “And you missed Bernie’s funeral,” Brian said, but his tone had softened a bit when he said it.

  “What?” Her heart dropped, and she finally looked up at her father. “Bernie’s dead?”

  When she’d gone to Bernie’s Island and discovered the sirens there, tearing up his house, she’d suspected that something had happened to him. But she’d been hoping that maybe he’d been knocked out somewhere or had fled the island. Now Brian was telling her that her worst fears were true. The sirens had killed him.

  “Yeah. ” Brian had his hands on his hips, but his stance relaxed, and he looked apologetic. “He was found dead early last week. The funeral was on Friday. ”

  “Oh. ” A tear fell down her cheek, and she hastily wiped it away. “I’m sorry I missed that. ”

  “I know how fond of him you were,” Brian said, and he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “But that’s why you shouldn’t leave like that. You don’t know how much time you have left with the people you care about, so you shouldn’t waste any of that time running away for no good reason. ”

  “You’re right. ” Gemma nodded. “And I’m sorry. ”

  Gemma was crying softly, so Brian pulled her into his arms, letting her cry against his chest. He kissed the top of her head and held her until she’d calmed down.

  “I need to go make some phone calls,” Brian said. “Let everybody know to call off the search, since you’re home and you’re safe. But you and I will be talking more later. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. ” Gemma sniffled.

  “And you are grounded until you turn eighteen,” Brian said. “You are not to leave the house without my permission, and you’re not to have anyone over unless I say you can. That includes Alex. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. ” She nodded.

  “Okay. ” He stepped away from his daughter. “But I do love you, and I am glad you’re home safe. ”

  “Thanks. ” Gemma smiled meekly at him. “I really am sorry about all the trouble I’ve caused everybody. ”

  “Good. Maybe you’ll think twice about running away again,” Brian said. “Now why don’t you go up to your room?”

  Gemma ran back to her room almost as quickly as she’d come down. She slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, trying hard not to break down in tears.

  She hated knowing she’d scared her dad like that and all the crap she’d put Harper, Alex, and everybody through. She hated it even more that she might have to do it again. If she didn’t find a way to sto
p the sirens, she’d have no other choice. She’d be forced to leave with them to stop them from hurting someone else the way they’d hurt Bernie and Luke, and the way she’d hurt Jason.

  The problem was that Gemma saw no solution. There was no way out of this without somebody getting hurt.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Admissions

  Gemma was still sleeping when Harper left. After Gemma had talked to their dad the night before, she’d stayed in her room. Both Harper and Brian checked on her many times, but each time, Gemma was sound asleep. Whatever Gemma had been up to while she was with the sirens, it had obviously exhausted her.

  Harper had slept a lot, too. The twenty-plus-hour drive had been very tiring. But Harper woke up often, certain that Gemma had left again, and would rush across the hall to peek in on her.

  Even leaving today had been hard. Harper had called in to work, because she wasn’t ready to leave Gemma for that long. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Gemma not to run away. It was that Harper was afraid the sirens might come and find her.

  She’d called Daniel a couple times, and he hadn’t answered the phone. For some reason, that made Harper nervous. With possible revenge-seeking sirens on the loose, she didn’t like the idea of anybody involved with rescuing Gemma not answering the phone.

  It wasn’t like she could leave Gemma home alone, though. Harper had called Alex, and he came over to help watch out for her. Since Gemma was still sleeping, Alex got comfortable on the living room couch.

  He’d brought his laptop with him, and he immediately returned to doing his Internet search on how to break the sirens’ curse. When Gemma woke up, they both hoped she’d be able to help out, since she knew more about the mythology than either of them did. But for now they thought it’d be better if Gemma rested, and Alex was left to his own devices until she woke up.

  Harper thought about warning him that his job was to guard Gemma, not make out with her, but honestly, she didn’t really care much about upholding Brian’s attempt at grounding Gemma, and he was at work so he couldn’t enforce it. Usually Harper would back him up, but this time she understood that Gemma didn’t need to be punished for what she’d done.

  Besides that, she didn’t think Alex should be punished. He’d worked hard to find Gemma, so at the very least he deserved to be an exception to the rule. And he could help protect and watch over Gemma when Harper wasn’t around.

  Still, Harper didn’t plan on making her trip down to the dock a long one. She just planned to see Daniel, make sure he was all right, thank him again for his help, and then leave. If she could do all that without getting on his boat, that would be even better.

  After overhearing his conversation with Alex the other night, Harper had become convinced that she couldn’t be around him anymore. She couldn’t become involved with him, not right now when so much was going on with Gemma, and it wasn’t fair to lead him on like that.

  But more than that, things were becoming increasingly dangerous for everyone around Gemma. Harper had seen what the sirens could do, and she had a feeling that if they did find Gemma, and Harper and the others couldn’t stop them, the sirens would seek vengeance on all the people who had tried to help Gemma. That included Daniel.

  Or it would, if he stayed a part of Harper’s life. It would be much safer for him if she stopped talking to him.

  So today she would just check on him, and maybe tell him good-bye. No, definitely tell him good-bye. She just didn’t know how to word it yet without it sounding weird.

  As Harper walked down the docks to where Daniel’s boat was moored, she tried to go over what she planned to say to him. Red, white, and blue flags tacked onto the docks’ posts waved wildly in the wind, preparation for the Fourth of July celebration this weekend.

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  When she reached Daniel’s boat, she was surprised to see a flyer taped onto the side, right next to the boat’s name, The Dirty Gull.

  It was warped and faded from the sun and water splashing on it, even though it had only been there for a few days, but the words Have you seen me? were still legible above a large picture of Gemma. Alex had printed up a bunch of flyers and hung them around town.

  Harper leaned over and grabbed on to the boat with one hand. She had to get the flyer down. For one thing, she didn’t want the reminder of Gemma being missing, but more important, she didn’t want the sirens to spot the connection between this boat and Gemma.

  She grabbed one corner of the flyer, and had just started to pull when a boat zipped by, creating a wave that made The Dirty Gull rock hard to the side.

  “Oh, no,” Harper groaned.

  She gripped the boat tighter to steady herself, but that only succeeded in causing her to lose her tenuous foothold on the dock. She tried to wrap her arm around the railing so she could hang on, but she couldn’t get a handle on it.

  Just when she was about to slip and splash into the water, Daniel’s arm appeared over the railing and grabbed her.

  “I’m seriously starting to wonder how you survived without me,” Daniel said, grinning down at her.

  “Much better, actually,” Harper said as his strong hands held both of her arms. “I wasn’t always trying to climb onto boats, so I very rarely fell into the ocean. ”

  Once he’d lifted her up and set her safely on the deck, she lingered in his arms for a moment before remembering why she’d come here. It was hard to do when he looked at her like that, his hazel eyes full of something that created heat in her belly.

  And he was shirtless—again—which only made matters worse. It was getting harder and harder for her to reject someone who looked like Daniel did when he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “What can I do for you today?” Daniel asked, his arm still wrapped around her waist so her chest was pressed to his. His abdomen and chest felt so firm against the soft contours of her own body, like he was made of concrete instead of flesh.

  “I, uh…” Harper couldn’t remember what he could do for her, so she shook her head and stepped away from him. It was impossible to think or even breathe when he held her close to him like that.

  “Are you okay?” Daniel wrinkled his brows in confusion as Harper backed away from him.

  “A flyer!” Harper announced excitedly when she remembered. “I was peeling a flyer off your boat. ”

  She’d actually managed to rip off half of the flyer. But in her attempt to hang on to the boat, she’d dropped it into the water, where the scrap of paper was presumably floating out to sea.

  “You mean the missing poster for Gemma?” Daniel’s expression grew even more confused. “You came out to tear that off my boat? How did you even know that I had one?”

  “I didn’t. ” Harper leaned back against the railing behind her, trying to put some space between her and Daniel. “I happened to see it when I came out here, so I was trying to take it off, and then I slipped, and here we are. ”

  “Yes, here we are,” Daniel agreed as a bemused smile spread across his face. “The question is, why are we here?”

  “I tried calling you earlier, and you didn’t answer the phone,” Harper said. “I thought maybe … I don’t know. Something might have happened. ”

  “You were worried about me?” He stepped closer to her, and his smile grew wider.

  “Yeah. So?” Harper shrugged and tried to seem casual. “I worry about people. There’s lots of crazy stuff going on right now. It makes sense that I would worry. I worry a lot. That’s not a big deal. It’s just how I am. ”

  Another wave came up, and since Harper had been leaning against the rail, she almost fell backward over it. She caught herself at the last second, and Daniel grabbed her arm, just to be safe.

  “Why don’t we go down inside and talk about how natural it is for you to worry?” Daniel asked. “It’s much less likely that you’ll fall overboard down there. ”

  “Yeah, sure. ” Harper stepped back from the edge and
followed Daniel down into the boat.

  This was actually going against her original plan, which was to avoid getting on the boat in the first place, and, if she did go on the boat, not to go down into his living area. But it was better than standing on the deck and getting tossed around so he’d have to catch her.

  When Harper went down, she noticed his tiny quarters appeared a bit cleaner than when she’d seen them before. A stack of neatly folded clothes was at the end of his bed, and his bed was actually made. There was an empty bottle in the tiny sink, but that was about all that constituted a mess.

  “So?” Daniel leaned against the small dining table that sat between padded benches. “You were saying that you were worried about me?”

  “No, I was saying that with everything going on, it makes sense that I would worry in general. ” Harper sat down on the bed, since it was the farthest away from him that she could sit. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I was sleeping,” Daniel told her. “I went on this really long road trip yesterday, and I was awake for, like, twenty-four hours in a car. For some reason, that made me really tired, so when I got back, I slept a lot. ”

  “Sorry. ” Harper smoothed out a wrinkle in his blankets. “I mean, thank you for coming with. And all the stuff you’ve been doing to help me, and Gemma. You really have been so helpful lately, and it means a lot to me. ”

  “That’s so weird how you can do that,” Daniel said, and she looked up at him. He was staring out the window, his lips pursed.

  “What?”

  He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “You can say something that’s supposed to be nice, like you’re trying to compliment me, and you make it sound so bad. ”

  Harper bristled. “How was that bad? I was just thanking you!”

  “Exactly!” He motioned to her, the sad, crooked smile still on his face. “You’re thanking me, and I can just hear the ‘but’ coming. ” He changed his voice to a high falsetto, presumably meant to sound like Harper. “‘Thank you so much for helping me, Daniel, but the thing is, you’re a dick. ’”

  “I never said that!” Harper shot back, genuinely offended by his impersonation. “I would never say that! I don’t think you’re a dick!”

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  “Sure you do. ” He scratched the back of his neck and wouldn’t look at her. “You think I’m some kind of a slob and a loser. You have ever since we met, and I am sorry about the way we were introduced, but I think I’ve spent enough time trying to prove to you that I’m not like that. It was just a really bad first impression. ”

  When they’d met, Daniel had just woken up and decided to pee over the edge of the boat. Harper looked up at just the wrong time and got a full of view of his nether region.

  “That was an awful first impression,” Harper said. “I will agree to that. But I’ve never … Okay, I haven’t thought you were a loser for a long time. You’ve been so great with me and Gemma and everything that’s been happening. I know that you are not a dick at all. You are kind and patient and brave and funny and so nice…”