by S. L. Giger
That surprised me.
“You say I should see him? After everything he has done to me?” I asked disbelievingly.
“I’m not telling you what to do. I clearly dislike what he did. There’s no argument on that point. But in the end, he didn’t hand his work in and was honest about it. That should count for something too, shouldn’t it? And therefore, I think he doesn’t feel indifferent toward you,” she stared at the ground.
I contemplated this for a moment. Could it be as easy as that?
I tried to swallow away more tears. I wished she was correct.
“Sometimes, listening to your heart is the right decision, although everything else speaks against it.” Cathy said. “Plus, Nathalie,” she added, “Alex is not dead yet. Death clears you of any possibilities or chances you might have had. The two of you still have them. Nowadays, people give up too easily. Some really would need a kick in the butt and work on something that is worth to put effort into. If you once thought that something was worth a big amount of your time and energy, it would be ridiculous to walk away from it.” She nodded in conclusion.
I turned a sob into a laughter. “Sounds so logical the way you say it. But from what you’ve told me about the Orbiters, we wouldn’t be able to stop them if they want to kill Alex.”
“I can tell you one thing,” Cathy started. “The Orbiters won’t get a say in this one, as long as Alex cooperates. To them, this is all just one move in a bigger scheme. They don’t care about any of us, and as soon as we have fulfilled our mission, we will be disposable as well. They—”
Melissa interrupted her. “Not so loud Cathy, they can hear you.”
“I don’t care.” The usually so very composed and cold Cathy was not so cold anymore. “They only act as long as it’s good for their own plan. What if we don’t agree with it? There is no balance. Don’t you see that they have all the power over us?”
Everybody glared at each other, but nobody said anything. I drew my head back because I was a bit intimidated by the sudden outbreak of emotions.
Luke was the first to start speaking again. “It might not all make sense, but I am sure they have a good plan that’s in the best interest of the majority.”
“Yeah, but along the way it doesn’t matter whose individual life is lost,” Cathy exclaimed. “And I am not talking about my own experiences here, but you can be lucky that somehow, you are still needed. What happens if you aren’t anymore?” She pierced him with her eyes. “I can tell you what. The same thing as with Toby. And now, what will they do with Alex, a simple human who knows way too much?” Cathy finished.
“Somebody first has to explain to me what the hell is going on here.” I threw my hands in the air, but Melissa ignored me.
“Actually, I’ve been asking myself the same sometimes,” she said. “I don’t know anybody else who has received so many puddles. We know too much. What will they do, if we aren’t needed anymore? Plus, they already know about Alex. I didn’t know what it meant when Roisin told me about Nathalie’s puddles, but now it makes sense that they were warning her about Alex.”
“She also received puddles?” Cathy asked, and I felt how everybody stared at me again.
Melissa sunk down on the couch. “All good things come to an end. I have actually been enjoying this, you know?”
“Yes, I liked having her around. She belongs with us,” Luke said.
“What is going on? Do I have to die?” I stared from one to the other. “You mentioning Toby,” I pointed at Cathy, “and then everybody talking about me leaving? I mean, I would have liked to leave many times, but you made it clear that it wasn’t a smart idea. But now, it sounds like I have to leave?”
“Because Cathy is right,” Melissa spoke. “In the beginning, we needed to teach you how to use your new body, without killing yourself. You have proven many times that you are fine on your own. And now I’m actually not sure, whether any of us can be safe anywhere.”
Luke squeezed her shoulder. “The thing is—,” he started but then closed his mouth. After a moment of silence, he started again. “First of all, you have to know that we had no choice. And now I think I speak for Melissa, Roisin and I, or perhaps even Cathy if I say that we can’t imagine life without you anymore.” Melissa nodded, and Cathy slightly rolled her eyes to the top right corner. I didn’t think that I could feel even worse than I felt before but I feared that more disappointment was coming.
“The thing is,” Luke said, “we knew long before your accident in Malaysia that you would become a Siren one day.”
I felt myself tensing up.
“About four years ago, we started receiving puddles from the Orbiters with little episodes of your life, to figure out who you are. We saw you, living your life along with the message to keep an eye on you and be there to save you when the time arrived. Usually, becoming a Siren is a chance. Coincidentally, another Siren had to be close by when an accident happened. But with you, it was made sure that you would become one. And it was made clear to us that we had to make you live a normal life again.”
Slowly, I shook my head. I had trouble processing what he was saying. “You watched me,” I repeated. “This is pretty creepy.” My expression hardened. “But the worst is,” I snorted, “you knew that we were going to have an accident. But instead of keeping us alive, you let Toby die to be able to transform me.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Melissa said.
“There always is a choice.” I contradicted her.
Cathy, who had a satisfied smugness about her said: “Look, I am the last person who wanted to help the Orbiters in any way. I never received anything from their side, when I needed it. But I also knew that if I hadn’t cooperated, they would have made me disappear and picked somebody else to do my job. I’m not at all happy with the situation. Yet, in the end, we can change or reach more, if we are directly working for the Orbiters. Instead of being just a normal Siren, who has no idea of what is actually going to happen.”
“And what is going to happen?”, I asked.
“Well, we don’t know yet either, but a feeling is telling me, that we are going to find out soon. Now that our prodigy fell in love with a human who knows all about us.”
“Don’t call me a prodigy,” I snarled at her. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of her anymore. I began to understand that Cathy wasn’t evil and had no intention of harming me. She was angry about being suppressed by the same people who are to blame that I had to leave my family in the first place.
“I guess I have to thank Cathy for finally bringing this up. Or would you ever have told me about this small detail?” I glared at the three of them, becoming angrier by the second.
“Exactly.” Cathy nodded.
“Don’t hold this against us please,” Melissa said.
“How could I not?” I exclaimed.
“There was no reason for you to know. You needed to live life the way you would have lived it, without any prejudices. Your path is predestined, or the Orbiters wouldn’t have chosen you. Everything had to happen, just as it happened.” She concluded.
“Even Alex’s betrayal?” I said, tears welling up in my eyes.
Melissa sighed and got up. She put an arm around me, and after some reluctance, I let her enclose me into a hug. It felt wrong.
“Thank you.” She kissed my forehead. “I swear now you know everything we know.”
A few tears rolled out of my eyes and dropped onto her shirt. I loosened myself out of the hug and took a step back. “Just as I was getting used to my life here, it seems that everything crumbles.”
“Maybe at first glance, it doesn’t look so rosy but actually, everything is still the same,” Luke said. “But you have more information now.”
“Information, which kind of makes me want to run from here. Again.” I gasped.
“The sad truth is, no matter where you go, the Orbiters will find you and use you for whatever they have in mind. But if you stay here, I can
promise you, that you will have the support of all of us.” Melissa smiled weakly. “Plus, we kind of need you too. I am in full agreement with Cathy here; we only have a chance once this is all over if we stick together.”
“I can’t accept all of this right now.” My body felt heavy and I had trouble breathing. “I need some time to think about all this in quiet. I’ll be in my room.” I glanced at the hunched group in the living room and closed the door behind me. I stayed in my room with my cell phone turned off and sending everybody away who knocked. My mind ran in circles about how I could still be with my family if they had saved me. About everything good that had happened since the transformation, and how I had found such good friends. But then again, that somewhere, there was a hidden task for me, which I had to fulfill, but I had no idea what it was. The more I thought about everything, the more I wanted to leave this house. Again and again, I asked myself, where I should go from here.
The decision was made a lot easier when on the second day a car pulled into our driveway. I heard voices and finally left my room when I realized that one of them was Alex’s.
I passed Luke who was standing in the door frame with his arms crossed, stepping between him and a slightly intimidated Alex.
“What are you doing here?” I asked curtly. I didn’t want to make it that easy, although he was standing there with flowers in his hands. He looked extremely handsome the way some dark curls fell across his forehead.
“I just would like to talk to you. These are for you.” He gave me the flowers with a pleading look. I took them and nodded.
“We can go for a walk,” I said.
“Do that; I can be there fast if you need me to.” Luke actually snarled. I thought he was overdoing it a little. I pressed the flowers in Luke’s hands, stepped out on the porch and closed the door in his face.
I started walking toward the beach path and Alex followed. I slowed down so that he could catch up with me. We both had our hands in our sweater pockets, and there was a foot distance between us.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” I asked.
“I guess, I mostly want to say sorry. I’m sorry that I lied to you about the project but what was I supposed to do? In the beginning, I didn’t know you and thought that you might kill me if you knew I knew.”
“What makes you think I won’t kill you now?” I said angrily.
“For the record, you lied to me the whole time too, but of course I can see where that was coming from. Just try to understand my side as well. I didn’t lie about one point.” He made two fists in front of his chest. “I wished I could, but it’s not possible.” He shook his head. “I can’t deny my feelings for you. I thought if I knew about the danger of being around you and would figuratively chain my emotions to a rock, like Odysseus chained his body to a ship mast, I would be able to resist you. But I have to say, whatever this is, it’s the best thing I have ever felt.” Alex gave me a crooked smile. “I was happy, I was satisfied with where I was, I wanted to spend every day of my life with you. Despite all the precautions, I fell for you. Why someone like you should reciprocate these feelings for someone like me is a mystery to me. But we both know that there are a lot of mysteries in this world and what we had actually felt real.” He stopped walking and made me turn around to face him. “That’s why I am here. Because a big part in me hopes that you feel the same way about me as I feel about you. I love you, Nathalie. I’m sorry for never having told you this before. It’s just that I tried to fight it so hard; I didn’t want to admit it to myself that these feelings had been there all along. I sincerely wish that we could start over again. No lies this time.”
I let go of my breath I had subconsciously been holding for the longest time. A heavy weight lifted off my shoulders. He did love me. It did not have to be over.
“Aren’t you scared? After all you’ve learned about me, aren’t you afraid of being with me?” I quietly uttered my remaining doubt.
“I am scared, but just because I don’t completely understand what the deal is with you and your family. However, I am even more afraid of having to be without you. I am afraid that you will find me boring or too slow or too old when I get older, and you don’t age. But that doesn’t reduce my desire of being with you.”
“You should write texts for soap operas. Girls would melt if they heard their favorite character say this.” I said and scratched my neck. “I miss you, Alex,” I added. “I kind of wished that it was otherwise. Yet, somehow the universe decided to create a connection between us. I couldn’t walk away from you even if I wanted to.”
“That means, you give us another chance?” He held his breath.
I didn’t need to say anything; the answer was obvious.
He let go a sigh and held out his hands. I lay mine in his. The touch felt so familiar, and right away the electric waves he still sent through my body sent new life into me.
He pulled me closer and kissed me on the top of my forehead. He had the perfect height difference to me.
“I missed your smell.” He mumbled into my hair. I stroke my fingers over the familiar stubble on his cheeks. The ocean breeze seemed to push me slightly against him. As if the natural forces were trying to tell us, that this was the right thing to do.
“But I have to ask you something.” I took a step back.
“Sure, what?” His hands still rested on my hips.
“Can I stay with you for a while? A lot has happened here.” I blinked away some tears. When Alex noticed that, he pulled me into a hug. “Of course. That will be nice, actually.”
I relaxed a little.
“What made you decide not to share the information you found out about us?” I asked after a while.
“I knew that I had found something amazing here, but the more I started thinking about it, the more I realized that my real excitement concerned you. I thought more about you as a person and your background was an incredible bonus. I can’t really say what impact it would have on you if I had gone public. People are pretty open-minded and accepting today after all. But I realized that I would lose you if you found out about what I did behind your back. However, at that point, I found it quite difficult to watch my studies go down the drain. I needed some space. A few days to breathe in the forest. And after that, I would have explained everything to you in peace and quiet.” He squeezed my hand. “But then you showed up in the forest, and our conversation got out of control. When you had suddenly disappeared, and a little later, your relatives showed up, I wanted to give up then and there. It was very tempting to crawl into a dark hole forever.” He shook his head and lay an arm around my shoulder.
“Yeah, perhaps I went a little over board with my reaction. For a moment I only saw your betrayal and not what you actually were trying to say.”
“Oh, a little over board.” He fake snorted.
I squeezed Alex against my side. I felt so save, hugging such a tall and strong guy.
“I learned a lot about myself as well since we last talked.” I sighed. “You soon might not find it so awesome anymore, that I am a Siren.”
“But I have to thank the gods that for a reason that is beyond my comprehension you chose to like me so much. Really, what do I have to offer you? You haven’t even seen my best side up to this point. This year has been quite a disaster for me. Broken leg, destroyed car, loser of the university. I want to be more.”
“You can be more. Besides, I don’t care about all this. In all the time we spent together, you were always exactly what I wanted.”
“See, that someone like you can say something like this about me. I don’t know what to say,” he trailed off. “You are so much more than what I could have asked for in my dreams. I don’t even remember the last time I’ve been in such a good mood. With you, I could skip along the beach or the sidewalk whenever you touch my hand. I want to be able to give you the moon.”
“Maybe that’s what’s so charming about you. To everything you do, you apply 110%. You
put so much effort even into the little things. For example, like running cold water over a glass that came out of the dishwasher. Simply that I won’t have to drink lukewarm water,” I smiled. “You have a good eye for seeing what is important and you don’t let it go until you get what you want. No matter how harsh the setback, you always get up again. Believe me; you possess much more of this strength than I do.”
“Well, you are a woman. Aren’t you supposed to be a natural emotional disaster anyway?” He softly nudged my waist.
I pinched him in return which evolved into a short tickle fight. As the mood relaxed, so did my nerves.
“So, what happened to your studies?” I asked through my laughs to bring an end to the tickling.
“I’ll forever be the joke of these professors; that’s for sure. I’m twenty-one which is already a year older than most of my classmates, but I don’t have the financial means to continue my studies. I’ve been thinking about taking up a loan, though. The money will come back at some point, right? It’s such an interesting field; I don’t just want to throw everything away. But perhaps, I could also find an internship in a lab for a while. Or find something similar at a cheaper school,”
I nodded.
“And whose car is that in our driveway?”
He grinned.
“Mine. I bought it from a friend who moved to Chicago. He sold it to me dirt cheap. I don’t know how long it will last, but I thought I at least needed some kind of status symbol to make myself look better.”
“Yes, a second-hand car is really what adds that certain something to a guy in my eyes,” I chuckled. I thought about what he had said. About being scared that I could ever find him old or boring and not want him anymore — I couldn’t see that happening.
Hand in hand, we walked back to the house with the rushing of the ocean in our ears and the scent of the sea salt in our noses.
Heart of Power
The Siren’s Awakening
By S. L. Giger
Book 1 in the Heart of Power Series