LURE

by Stephanie Jenkins

  When something—someone—gripped my foot, I turned in anticipation, expecting to see Mom’s translucent hand holding me. Five solid fingers locked around my ankle. The steady heartbeat was familiar, the same I heard the night I led the soul after Wyatt’s barbecue.

  My attempt to kick the hand away worked, but as soon as I tried to swim off, it tangled in my hair. No pain, of course. I just couldn’t break free. I struggled, trying to turn around to take a good look at my attacker’s face. He dragged me into the depths. Darkness tumbled around me, dancing in front of my face, like the sea wanted to warn me.

  Then, something slammed over my chest, and I burned all over.

  Grinding, searing pain.

  I never felt anything like it, but if I had to compare it to something screwed epically horrible, it was like having a cow brand dug into my skin by a masochistic serial killer.

  I couldn’t move. Whatever he put over my heart paralyzed me, and I floated listlessly, wanting to scream from the torture. My heartbeat started to drag. First, an extra ten seconds between each beat then fifteen.

  Music tore through the water. The song was an earsplitting threat that sent the darkness around us spinning and roaring into a shadowy tempest. My attacker struggled against the fierce pull and relaxed his grip over my chest. He yanked my hair one last time before completely releasing me and kicking against the back of my legs to escape.

  I sank down. Thin arms caught me and wrapped around my waist. My senses were hazy, but as I peered up at my rescuer, I couldn’t mistake the bright skin that was so similar to mine or the strands of gold floating around Lorelei’s face. And I certainly couldn’t deny the rage in her emerald eyes.

  Great.

  She waited until we were far from the sea to rant at me. “What do you think you were doing?” She flung open the door to her cottage, pointing for me to go in. I shook my head. Bony fingers dug into my elbow as she pushed me inside. She didn't let me speak before she headed to the kitchen. A few seconds later, she came back with a glass of water.

  “Drink,” she ordered.

  I sat on the edge of a chair, not really caring if the beads of water trickling from my hair and clothes ruined the golden fabric. Obviously, she could afford a new one. She disappeared again, returning with a towel and a bath robe.

  I didn’t feel comfortable with changing clothes in front of her. But I started toward the bathroom, and she gave me the vicious, siren stink eye, so I had no other choice. Her mouth flew open when I slammed my heavy clothes on the coffee table.

  “Charlotte,” she said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper, “you were singing a Lure.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I was attacked,” I pointed out. I flopped onto the couch, sliding my fingers beneath the terry cloth robe to rub my chest. My skin burned. “Can you explain this? Because you never told me this would happen.”

  She bent over me and knocked my hand away. I totally felt violated. She tilted her head to the side as she rubbed the pink spiral-shaped mark. Sighing, she pulled away and sat next to me. I scrunched my nose when she shook her hair loose and wrung it out into a decorative bowl on the side table.

  “You did a Lure Charlotte. The hunter comes after us at will, but you provoked him. You were practically asking to be attacked.”

  I wanted to confront her for saying I asked to be attacked, but I couldn’t piece together a coherent argument. Instead, I numbly said, “A siren hunter? You’re joking, right?”

  Pursing her lips together, she shook her head. “No.”

  I pushed to my feet and backed away from her. Not that it helped. I just refused to be anywhere near Lorelei. She freaked me out. “Is that all you’re going to say? Don’t you think I deserve, I don’t know, an explanation?”

  She played with the clinging silk fabric of her dress. When I started tapping my feet in frustration, she sighed. “My sisters and I became sirens because we made a mistake.”

  Like that told me anything! I threw my hands up in frustration. “Demeter?” At least, that’s what one of the books claimed. The Goddess of Fertility made the sirens after they lost her kid. On the other hand, my library research also concluded that sirens had wings and talons. The last time I checked, I still had toes.

  “Yes. Persephone was kidnapped under our watch. Needless to say Demeter was furious. She cursed us but only because she wasn’t allowed to kill us.

  I rolled my eyes. The more I heard about the gods, the more I wanted to vomit.

  “Hades felt indebted to us because if it wasn’t for our stupidity, Persephone wouldn’t have become his wife. He offered us a deal: guide the souls and receive protection. We accepted and he spoke with the other gods—she can’t directly hurt us.”

  “But wasn’t Persephone returned? And isn’t Hades like . . . well, the devil?”

  Lorelei lifted an eyebrow. Her head drooped again, and her shoulders began shaking. Was she crying? She looked up, and I realized she was laughing. At me. Because she thought I was a joke.

  “I’m glad to see I amuse you,” I hissed.

  She held up a hand as her giggles died down. What the hell was wrong with her? I should be the one laughing. After all, she was the one listing off names I’d only heard on the TV show Hercules up until a few weeks before.

  She was like a walking, talking epic poem.

  “Sorry. You just shouldn’t believe everything you read. It’s horribly incorrect.”

  Glaring, I slid my body down the wall and sat slumped on the floor. “Can you just finish telling me or do I need to ask Francesca? You know, since she's the logical sister.”

  That stopped her ignorant giggles. She stiffened at the mention of her bitchy sister. “Persephone was never returned, and Hades isn’t the devil. When Demeter made us, she knew precisely how to make us suffer. How to make us crazy. Our mother was the Muse of Singing, and all six of us loved music. Imagine our surprise when we were banished to an island singing against our will to lure sailors to their death.”

  “And this relates to me being attacked how?”

  She sucked her cheeks in, making me feel like every single questioned I asked her was completely stupid. “We eventually learned how to fight the urge to Lure. When we escaped the island, it only made Demeter furious. She hired a man—the brother of one of the sailors who died because of us—to track us and kill us.”

  “A mortal?”

  “Yes. She blessed a tiny shell. The hunter uses it to . . .” She noticed the look on my face and huffed. “I realize it sounds ridiculous, but it’s the truth. Every century, there’s a new hunter. I’ve been fortunate enough to escape each one I’ve encountered.”

  She dipped the neckline of her dress to show me the scar over her heart. It looked like a scarlet target. Mine looked pathetic and faint compared to hers.

  “He came for you after you moved here?” I asked.

  Her mouth thinned into a tight line as she stroked the scar. “1773.”

  “Huh?”

  “The year. In Germany. I fell for a man and didn’t realize he was the hunter until he was sucking my life away. At least I kept one decent thing from my time living in the Rhine Valley—my name.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I was seriously at a loss for words as I watched her drum her fingers and stare down at her lap. I couldn’t imagine discovering that the guy I cared about wanted to kill me. My feelings for Lorelei were mixed, but I didn’t want to see her suffer. Seeing her in pain was like kicking a cocker spaniel or taking chocolate from a first-grader.

  I opened my mouth to stutter an apology. She stopped me. “It’s fine, really. It was over two hundred years ago. I’ll get dressed so I can take you home. Cammy will be wondering where I—” She cringed, but I knew exactly what she was about to say.

  My brother was the reason why she was dressed up. No wonder he was MIA when I went home earlier. Lorelei must have been out with him when she heard my Lure. I wondered if she left him at one of the expensive restaurants on the waterfront
twiddling his thumbs with a gigantic bill he couldn’t afford.

  Because I wasn’t too sure if I could take a car ride with her then have to endure watching the inevitable snuggle routine, I decided to go the Golden Boy route. “Don’t worry about it. I think I’m going to go see Wyatt,” I said. I definitely didn't appreciate how her face went from pinched and irritated to beaming in a matter of seconds.

  “That’s wonderful.”

  At times, Lorelei was a Stepford freak.

  I took a deep breath before asking her about Wyatt. “When—if—I kiss him, what am I doing to him?” If she had made me immortal with a kiss, I was terrified of what my lips were capable of.

  She laughed. “You can’t turn a man into a siren, Charlotte. It’s perfectly fine to kiss him.” I started to speak, but she answered my question as if reading my mind. “Just be careful because too much contact makes the boys weak.”

  That explained why Golden Boy shivered when we touched sometimes.

  She lent me some of her clothes to wear—a pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt. Before I left the cottage, she stopped me, grasping my wrist. “Do not use the Lure. Guide the souls without distraction, and you’ll be fine. And don’t interfere. It’s an easy way to anger Demeter.”

  I was under the impression Demeter was pissed off, anyway. I nodded, stepping onto the stone walkway. As I prepared to leave, a thought hit me. I turned to face her. “You said there were six original sirens. And you told me before that you made another. How many are left?”

  “Three: You, Francesca, and myself.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Four dead sirens wasn’t too bad. At least, that's what I tried to tell myself. Then I realized her sisters might have had changed dying girls out of pity. Girls like me. I would have been lying if I didn’t admit I was frightened of the hunter.

  Wyatt was outside. I stood watching him for a few moments, debating with myself. He wasn’t my type, yet I was still drawn to him. I wanted to be around him, so much that when I didn’t see him, he was constantly in my thoughts. I had the lightheaded sensation I used to get from chugging beer.

  “I'm still messed up from the hunter,” I whispered.

  Right.

  Wyatt tossed a football with two other guys I immediately recognized as the friends he brought to Romano’s the night we met. A strong part of me needed to see him, but I refused to put up with bullshit. Determined to creep back to Lorelei’s unnoticed, I turned around.

  “Charlotte?” he yelled.

  If I kept walking, he would think it was someone else, and I wouldn't seem so damn clingy.

  But Wyatt ran fast and caught up with me. He held up a finger as he tried to catch his breath. I flicked my gaze on his friends. I could see them nudging each other, even in the dark.

  He straightened. A lopsided grin slunk across his moist face. I couldn’t decide whether he looked good or just plain annoying. “Can’t stay away, huh?” He linked his fingers together behind his head.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Golden,” I snapped, spinning in the sand. My inner-voice yelled at me, though, and urged me to admit how much I’d thought of him. As usual, I ignored it.

  His smile broadened. He closed his fingers around my wrist, pulling me to him. I contemplated knocking his hand away as it crept to my shoulders then to my hair. He dropped his lips to my temple and stood quiet for a moment. I could hear him drawing in air—slow, deep breaths. And even though the night air was humid, I shivered. His heart sped up.

  I envied him for his heartbeat.

  “It’s okay if you couldn’t stay away,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to.”

  I yanked away, my hands groping the spot on my neck he'd touched. When I saw him, I pushed all my problems to the back of my mind. I felt disgusted with myself because his friends were watching. Irritated because I looked forward to seeing him now. Livid because he hadn’t kissed me.

  “Some people may call that stalkerish, you know?” I nodded toward his friends. “Didn’t think you’d have company.”

  He shrugged and caught my hand in his. His head cocked to the side as if he was waiting for me to berate him. After a few moment of silence, he said, “Nothing else going on so they drove in from Boston. Come on.”

  When I stayed rooted in my spot, he tugged me to himself. I could have made up some lame excuse and refused to go. Instead, I shuffled beside him. Dealing with his friends as a waitress had been simple.

  And dealing with Wyatt when I thought he was nothing more than a whiny Summer Boy had also been easy. Now I was his . . . friend.

  “I like you in bright colors,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.

  Translation: I think my June Cleaver mom would approve of seeing you in something other than black and gray.

  “Thanks.”

  We reached his friends. They sat in the sand, guzzling high-priced beer. I wanted to tell them the cheap stuff did the trick, but I decided against it. Wyatt’s parents must not have been home because only the deck light was on.

  “Charlotte, this is Ethan and that’s Justin,” he said, nodding to the dark-haired boy first then to the taller guy. His friends smirked at each other and did some type of eye twitch I figured was their version of winking.

  “What the hell is that look for?” I asked impatiently.

  Justin, the paler of the two, flushed. “We’ve had to hear about you all night. Didn't think he’d call you.” He sounded almost irritated—like I interrupted sacred boy bonding hour or something. Ethan was more playful about the situation because he kept snickering and making whip noises.

  I wasn't even aware people did that anymore.

  I avoided meeting Wyatt's intense blue stare, though I could feel his eyes burning into the side of my face. Justin and Ethan exchanged goofy looks again. I was dying to know what Golden Boy said to them.

  Sinking down onto the sand, I wrapped my arms around my knees. Wyatt slid beside me. He rested his hand on my thigh. His touch against my bare skin sent a jolt running through me. It was a numbing mixture of good and awkward, and I didn’t push him away. “Talking ‘bout me behind my back, huh?” I asked, tilting my head back to stare at him.

  Ethan snorted. “It was pretty pathetic, too.” He didn’t say anything else because Wyatt shot him a murderous glare. Instead, he shoved a beer in my direction and frowned when I played with the tab. “You don’t drink?”

  “I can drink your Abercrombie-wearing ass under the table.” I expected him to flip out, but they all laughed. He gave Wyatt a thumbs-up. I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t tell him to shove his seal of approval.

  It didn’t take long for Ethan and Justin to get wasted. Each time I teased them, they drank more, determined to prove me wrong. Just as I predicted, they were lightweights. I was glad when they stumbled to the deck to pass out; their sex jokes were annoying.

  “So you were talking about me?” I asked again. Wyatt slid behind me, draping his arms around my shoulders. His fingers brushed against my chest and the painful wound over my heart. I winced, but he didn’t notice. He was too distracted by my moist skin, shimmering under the faint moonlight.

  “Wondered what you were doing; funny you always show up whenever I do that.”

  I rolled around and faced him. Before I could stop myself, I dragged his mouth to mine. The drunken idiots hooted from the deck. Neither of us cared. And as much as I hated to admit it, I thought about kissing Golden Boy. Dreamt about it in more vivid clarity than any nightmare—any dream—I’d ever had. “You shouldn’t wonder so much,” I murmured, my lips still close to his.

  We kissed one more time, and then he spoke, his breath was ragged. “Trial run?” he asked, echoing my response from the night I first kissed him. His fingertips flitted over my lower lip. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

  Flicking my tongue over the spot he’d touched, I asked, “Huh?”

  “I heard you singing tonight. Or maybe I imagined it . . . that foreign song you sang the morning I caught you
in that wet t-shirt.” He closed his eyes, probably to recapture some dirty image of me standing in his backyard in drenched clothes.

  I shuddered.

  ***

  When I discovered I was a siren, I thought that my strange nightmares were finished. I knew my job. I accepted being an immortal.

  So I didn’t understand why Mom sat beside me on a rock. Her eyes were the only part of her that was still the same. The rest frightened me . . . and assured me she wasn’t real. She wore the same clothes from the night she died, but now, they were shredded and stained with a mixture of seaweed and sand.

  “You know this is an illusion,” she whispered. She cocked her head so far to one side that I thought it might spin around. I nodded, too afraid to speak, even more terrified of waking up.

  She lifted a strand of damp hair. Her hand was pale like the rest of her body, but as light from the rising sun touched it, it turned gray. She noticed me gawking and pursed her lips together at the sight of her fingers. “I need you, Char, more than ever.”

  I fought the urge to cringe as her hand stroked the side of my face. Her touch felt like liquid and ice and fire. She said this is an illusion. Still, my throat tightened because it felt so real.

  I finally found my voice. “I can’t believe I’m dreaming about you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I never said it was a dream, Char. But you should open your eyes now and figure out how to help.”

  What was she talking about? Before I could force words past my lips, she gripped my chin, focusing my eyes on the sun beaming overhead. What did the light have to do with my dream? I looked back at her for an explanation, but she was like Brian and Mr. Sidney, like all the souls I guided.

  Liquid.

  She sank into the sea. Her voice floated back up at me.

  “Help.”

  ***

  “Help what? Are you okay?”

  Blue eyes and dimples hovered above my face. Wyatt stood so that I could sit up in the sand. He held out his hands and pulled me up toward him.

  Our bodies were entirely too close. So close that I could smell the soap he used. His palms slid down my shoulders, down the front of my damp tank top. He stopped at the fabric by my waist, digging his fingers into it. He didn’t repeat his question. He didn’t even breathe.