The Siren's Secret

by Heather Ostler

  “No,” she answered solemnly. If she wasn’t able to leave the prison tonight with Gabe and Sierra, at least she’d be able to contact Riley in Sirenity.

  The guard carefully shut the cell door, locked it, and left down the cement hallway.

  Julia quickly surveyed her cell. Cool air flowed through the small area and a large wall divided the room from the bathroom. A wooden cot sat next to the bench, and a clock hung above her.

  Julia felt completely exhausted and dehydrated. Ever since she became a full siren, she had depended much more on water. She always wanted to be swimming, drinking, or just surrounded by water.

  All she had now was a clear cup in the bathroom. She filled it with tap water and drank ten cupfuls before she felt satisfied.

  Julia stood next to the cell door and listened. She heard faint muffled voices in the cells next to her.

  “Sierra?” Julia called out, hoping the guards wouldn’t hear her. The voices ceased, and she became nervous.

  “Gabe, Sierra? It’s me Julia.”

  Across from Julia, and two cells to the right, she saw a slight movement.

  “Is that you?”

  Gabe emerged from the back of the cell looking anxious.

  His eyes darted from Julia’s red hair to her dark eyes.

  “Gabe, it’s me,” she answered urgently. “Julia.”

  He didn’t say anything, and Julia knew he was worried. He didn’t know whether she was truly herself, or if she was just a siren in prison hypnotizing him to think it was her.

  Julia sighed angrily. “I know you’re worried that I’m just hypnotizing you, but I promise, it really is me.”

  Gabe looked behind him and held a hand up. “Stay there.”

  He was obviously talking to Sierra.

  Despite his advice, Sierra’s small form peeked out from behind him.

  “Julia?” She tilted her head. “Is it really you?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Look.” She held up her right hand with the lie detector ring. “My name is Julia Levesque.” The diamond remained clear. “My name is Sierra Artesia.” The ring changed to an intense red.

  Both Sierra and Gabe watched, silent.

  “See,” Julia replied. “I saw that you were arrested and I stole a loaf of bread so I could get in here with you.”

  “I can’t believe we actually found you.” Sierra looked like she might cry. “It took so long.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julia answered. “Are you two okay?”

  Gabe took a couple steps closer to the prison cell entrance.

  “I can’t believe it’s you. We’ve been looking for you for over a week. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to find you when you left us with nothing! No clues.”

  She felt sick. “Well, you weren’t supposed to find me here,” she said. “What are you doing, anyway? Did my dad send you?”

  “Your dad?” Gabe looked confused. “Wait, you mean you don’t know?”

  Julia felt her heart stop. “What’s wrong with my dad?”

  she asked, panicking.

  Sierra’s eyes became sympathetic. “Julia,” she said, “he went missing.”

  “What?” Julia’s voice cracked. “When? What happened?”

  Gabe clutched the cell’s bars and swallowed. “He went looking for you when you first disappeared. He and Liam.”

  “Both of them? They’re both missing?”

  “Yes. When they started their search, they told the Soldier Union not to come looking for them. They were checking in every couple of days, but two weeks ago, it stopped.”

  “No one has heard from either of them in two weeks?”

  Julia’s stomach turned over.

  “Right now the Soldier Union is searching for them. Scarlet dropped her classes, and she and Caleb are looking too.”

  “Oh my gosh.” Julia covered her mouth. “We have to get out of here. I have to find my dad!”

  “That’s why we came for you,” Gabe said. “Caleb told us where they’re searching, and I think your dad is still alive.

  But if Alexis has him, then we have to hurry.”

  Of course— Alexis. It had been all too easy for her.

  Whether or not she knew Julia was a siren, everything had worked out perfectly for her. When Julia disappeared, Lancer probably thought Alexis was behind it. No doubt he went searching for her, walking straight into a trap.

  Last year, Alexis had asked for Julia’s help to unleash some sort of weapon. Alexis needed someone with Siron Feelious’s blood to unlock the power, either Julia or Lancer. Now that she had that, she would be able to unlock whatever terrible weapon she possessed.

  A loud bang erupted from the back of the prison cell, and Julia sprang back. Slow footsteps echoed off the wall and she waited anxiously for the guard. Had their conversation been overheard?

  As the footsteps came closer, Julia peeked out. The queen, wearing her elaborate gown, stood only feet away. She felt shocked to see the queen walking through the prison and didn’t know whether to be happy or scared.

  “Right here, your majesty.” The guard pointed not at Julia’s cell, but to Gabe and Sierra’s.

  “Ah, yes,” she answered loudly.

  Julia couldn’t see Gabe’s or Sierra’s face, but she knew they’d be just as shocked to see the queen’s resemblance to Sierra.

  “What are your names?” the queen asked.

  “Gabe and Sierra,” Gabe said quietly.

  “And who sent you here?” she asked.

  “No one sent us. We came here to find a friend. We mean no harm.”

  The queen became quiet for a moment. “Obviously you’re lying. You are not the first person who has used enchantments to change their appearances to look exactly like me.

  Who sent you?”

  The way she said the last part made Julia shiver. She thought Sierra was an imposter?

  “I can vouch for them!” Julia yelled from across the cell.

  Both the queen and the guard flipped around. “Julia?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Please, I know these two people. They’re my friends—”

  “Friends?” The queen furrowed her eyebrows. “So you are a part of this ambush too?”

  Julia clung to her cell bars. “No. They only came to find me.”

  “Stop talking now. You have no idea what you’re saying.

  Reanold, take the girl.” She pointed into Gabe and Sierra’s cell. “I’ll question her alone upstairs.”

  Without hesitating, Reanold motioned for another guard across the room. The second guard opened the door and lunged toward Sierra. She screamed and tried to push him away, but he restrained her arms with cuffs behind her back.

  Gabe sprang forward and began fighting against the guard, but the second guard seemed to have predicted this.

  While Reanold restrained Sierra, the other guard shoved Gabe against the wall. He fought back while Sierra tried to twist her way free, with little luck.

  “Stop!” Julia screamed. She could do nothing but watch her best friends get beaten up.

  The second guard kicked Gabe hard, and as he doubled over, both guards left the cell, taking Sierra with them.

  “Let me go!” she yelled in a terrifying high-pitched voice.

  Gabe scrambled up from the cell, but the door had already been slammed shut.

  “Sierra!” His words echoed off the walls as Sierra, the guards, and the queen shuffled away.

  “Gabe,” Julia breathed. “It’s okay. They’re going to let me contact someone tonight. The guard told me. I’ll have them get one of the sirens. She’ll help us.”

  He left out a labored breath and Julia saw that in the fight he’d received a black eye. “We don’t have time to wait for that.” He hit the cell bars and made a low growling noise.

  “I can hypnotize someone,” Julia said. “But I have to be close to them and have direct eye contact.”

  “That doesn’t help,” Gabe said. “We need to get out first.

  Can you transform in
your weretiger?”

  Julia shook her head. “I … I can’t.”

  He looked down disappointed and sank backward into his cell.

  Julia wondered when she’d be allowed to contact Sirens Cove. How long would it take for the message to be passed along to Riley? Days? A week?

  “Julia,” Gabe said after a while. “Why does Sierra look like the queen?”

  She shook her head, thinking. “I don’t know.” It didn’t make sense that Sierra and the queen looked identical. They even had the same neck birthmark.

  “Wait,” Julia said. “Gabe, Sierra was adopted from somewhere in Ossai, right?”

  His eyes opened wide at the realization. “Oh my gosh,”

  he whispered. “Yes.”

  “What if Sierra was born here in Sirenity?”

  He looked up at the ceiling, his face contorted in deep thought. “She’s a twin. The queen is Sierra’s twin!”

  “But how could she not recognize her?”

  “You heard her. She thinks Sierra is an imposter.” He dropped his face into his hands and exhaled.

  “We have to tell someone.” She forced her face through the prison cell and tried to see as far as possible down the hall.

  “Guard! I need to speak with you!” Her yells were answered with silence. “Please, I have something urgent to tell you about the queen!”

  A bang echoed down the hall. Julia froze and locked eyes with Gabe. The same light footsteps from the queen’s shoes reverberated toward them.

  After a moment, she appeared down the hall, shockingly unaccompanied.

  When Gabe saw her, his lips curled back into a snarl.

  “What have you done with her?”

  “Gabe,” Julia warned. If they wanted to make it out alive, they needed to cooperate with the queen.

  Ignoring Julia, he continued to lash out. “If you did anything to her, I swear I will rip you to shreds.” His hands were shaking as he clutched the bars restraining him.

  The queen continued to walk toward him, her head held high and proud. “Is that so?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “She wasn’t an imposter!” Julia yelled. “She’s completely innocent.”

  The queen smiled. “I believe you.”

  Julia closed her mouth, confused. That didn’t sound like the queen. She didn’t have an accent. And had her hair changed?

  She wore a pink sari elaborately decorated with diamonds and silk threading. A large crown adorned her head, and she had on several necklaces.

  Gabe didn’t say anything as the queen stopped right in front of his cell.

  “Guys,” she said. “It’s me. It’s Sierra.”

  “Sierra?” Julia dropped her jaw.

  Gabe didn’t look convinced and continued to glare at her.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She ran toward Julia’s cell, and instinctively Julia backed away. “Julia, let me see your ring.”

  She folded her arms. “The queen wanted my ring. How can I trust you?”

  “Stop this. We don’t have time,” she urged. “I’ve known you since sixth grade, Julia. You used to be in love with Thomas Riddler. Remember when you told me that? Now hand me the ring.”

  On command, Julia slipped the ring off of her finger and passed it hesitantly through the cell.

  Sierra snatched it up quickly and slipped it onto her finger.

  “I am Sierra Artesia.” She turned so that Gabe could see her. The ring remained clear and amazingly colorless.

  Gabe exhaled loudly. “Sierra?” he asked astonished.

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll explain later. I have the keys to the cells. We need to leave now.”

  She stuck the key into Julia’s cell and with shaking hands fought to turn it. Finally it clicked, and she pushed the gate open.

  Julia ran out of the cell, and together they worked to open Gabe’s. Once he was free, Gabe wrapped his arms around Sierra.

  “Guys, later.” Julia motioned toward the prison entrance.

  “We have to leave now.”

  Sierra grabbed their hands. “Listen, as far as the guard on the other side of the hallway knows, I’m the queen. So you still need to be prisoners. I’ve got to act like I’m taking you out for questioning, and you must act like you don’t want to go. Got it?” She quickly straightened the crown on her head.

  “Let’s go.”

  Gabe twisted his hands behind his back like he was cuffed, and Julia followed suit. Sierra grabbed each of them and began walking briskly toward the entrance.

  The guard on the other side acknowledged her and immediately rushed to the door. “Your majesty,” he said, bowing.

  His eyes opened wide as he saw Gabe and Julia twisting on each side of her.

  “I’m taking them out for further questioning,” Sierra said in the meanest voice Julia had ever heard escape her lips.

  The guard tilted his head. “Can I help you in any way?”

  “Let me go,” Julia growled.

  “Hold still!” Sierra retorted before turning back to the guard. “No. That won’t be necessary. I need you and every other guard to just stay out of my hair.”

  The guard nodded but looked uncomfortable. Sierra’s last words had lost the accent.

  Without wasting more time, Sierra pulled Julia and Gabe away from the prison and up the stairs.

  Once they were to the main entrance hall, Julia felt Sierra stiffen with fright. At least a dozen guards were roaming through the palace. Three shot her quizzical looks.

  “This way,” Sierra hissed at them. She moved away from the guards, but only Julia knew they were going in the wrong direction.

  Skidding to a halt, she looked down at the floor. “Wrong way,” Julia said without moving her lips. “Head toward the other door, behind the fountain.”

  A few more guards watched closely as Sierra flipped around and started jogging toward the door.

  “Your majesty!” one of them called behind her.

  Ignoring him, she bolted through the door and out into the courtyard. Outside, Sierra released them.

  “Run,” Julia whispered.

  Together they bolted out into the courtyard, heading toward the city. They dodged workers in the courtyard, and Julia nearly crashed into three different people.

  “Move!” Gabe yelled when a particularly slow cart blocked their way around the gate.

  They had barely made it outside of the palace’s gate when chaos broke out behind them. Guards yelled out and alarms sounded off.

  “Where are we going?” Sierra asked breathlessly.

  Quite a few people pointed to Sierra, and a few yelled out comments.

  “Sierra,” Julia said. “You’re still dressed like the queen.”

  “Well, I don’t have any other clothes,” she snapped. “So either I look like the queen going out for a little jog, or I run the streets naked.”

  Gabe smirked a little, and Sierra glared at him.

  “We’re going back to Sirens Cove,” Julia replied. “Don’t worry. The end of the city market isn’t too far.”

  They ran through the city until they reached the end of the coblestone street. Stopping, they caught their breath.

  “Okay,” Julia began breathlessly. “It’s a long journey, but once we’re to Sirens Cove, we can use the portal and go back to Lockham.” An awful sensation filled her stomach as she thought about her father.

  “Julia,” Gabe said, watching her. “It’s going to be okay.

  We’ll find your dad. I know they’re okay.”

  She nodded but couldn’t help the tears that began to stream down her face. “This is all my fault.” She wiped her wet cheeks.

  “It’s not.” Sierra put her arm around Julia. “It’s not your fault that halfway through the school year you changed into a siren. I don’t blame you for running away. I didn’t realize that you had completely changed. You must have been terrified.”

  Julia sniffed. “I was in the middle of transformation class and
suddenly I wasn’t a werecat anymore. My whole world crumbled. But I was a coward and didn’t tell my dad. And because of that, he and Liam are gone.”

  She put her hands up to her face. “I’m so sorry. I know you risked your own lives coming here to find me.”

  Gabe put his arm around Julia too.

  “We didn’t even hesitate,” he said. “We knew that we’d find you.”

  Julia nodded. “I’m sorry. I just feel so sick about what I’ve done.”

  “Listen, I know it’s hard,” Gabe said. “But we need to start heading. It won’t do your father any good if we’re caught and thrown back in prison.”

  “You’re right.” Julia took a deep breath, and together they began the journey back to Sirens Cove.

  Soon the sun began to sink in the cloudless sky. After a scorching day of heat, the darkness came as a relief.

  On the first half of the journey, the trio hardly said a word to each other. But during the second half, Julia felt comfortable talking.

  “So, Sierra,” Julia began. “What happened? How did you escape?”

  Sierra looked tired, but a small smile came over her lips. “Well, I was terrified, and the guard was relentless.” She glanced at Gabe’s eye, which had turned a terrible blue-black color. “The queen took me upstairs to a sort of living room and forced me to sit down. She kept interrogating me and screaming at me. Over and over, she said I was an imposter.”

  Julia glanced at Gabe and saw his hands tighten into fists.

  “Finally she pointed to a small table, which held a per-fume tray full of different bottles. She told me that the bottles contained poison and truth serum. She said that even though she could use the serum, she preferred the poison to get me to talk.”

  Sierra shivered despite the heat and humidity. “I was so scared, and this sort of adrenaline came over me. So I jumped up, still restrained, and ran to the tray. It only took seconds for me to figure out which bottle the poison was in.”

  Julia watched her, astonished.

  “However,” Sierra continued, “I was still restrained. So I flipped around, picked up the whole tray behind my back, and flipped it across the room.”

  “And the poison hit the guards?” Gabe asked incredulously.