by Mimi Cross
This time, everything is different. I step toward him. He steps toward me: Step, stop. Step; stop. The rhythm of a bride—walking down the aisle.
My breastbone is nearly against his—I thought he was taller than this. Then I realize, it’s because of me: I’m on tiptoe, straining upward, not wanting to wait for his kiss.
Now I am predator, he is prey.
His wings wrap around me, a black hole pulling me in, drawing me down. He tips his face, and I slide my hands behind his neck, clasp him tighter. Start to drown.
Through the silken night of his feathers, a brilliant light flares and I see forever—
Until his wings close tighter, create a coffin of obsidian.
But just before the onyx blindfold takes my sight completely, and buries me in the raven grave of him, I see the man I love standing on the path—
And know he’ll never reach me, because—because he is a killer, like the man who holds me now. And then they are one, but I am one with them. I am a Siren. A murderer. A monster.
I become water. The darkness is total. And the music . . . the music . . .
The melody is jagged, chaotic. A screaming electric guitar, smashed at the end of a set—
And then I’m screaming—
Into a bright morning bedroom, my bedroom, though the vivid image of the Siren still trespasses. I sit up and pull my knees in close to my chest. Wrap my arms around them. Streaks of darkness cross my vision—his jet-black feathers.
I finally told Bo about the series of strangely similar dreams. I also told him how I thought someone had been in my room—even though part of me still believed that the someone had been him. I’m ashamed, that I suspected him. But I couldn’t help it.
He denied it, of course. “There was never a time I was in your room that you didn’t want me there.” Then he went detective on me, asking lots of questions. Uncomfortable, embarrassed—I didn’t bring up the topic again.
But this nightmare is worse than embarrassing. It’s humiliating.
The creature that’s haunted my sleep for so many nights—
Has become desirable.
My skin prickles, and I imagine . . . he somehow crawls beneath it.
CONTROL
Bo not only took me to school in the morning, he parked and walked me to the building.
As he predicted, his brothers and Mia drove back the massive wave. They also told Bo, when he stopped home earlier—after apparently spending the night patrolling the grounds below the lighthouse, something that I found simultaneously romantic and unnerving—that Nick Delaine had vanished. Against Mia’s wishes, Jordan spent the night searching the coves along the coast. He found no trace of Nick.
Sick with nerves, I spent most of the day in the nurse’s office. Now, in the matchbox of a room where Lilah will sleep, I open the window—starting as the sea air blows in with a whoosh. Childishly, I pretend that when Mom gets here, she’ll magically make everything better.
But Bo and his siblings have come up with a plan of their own to fix things, and Bo told me that, since I refused to leave Rock Hook, they’d make it safe for me stay.
During dinner, I find myself telling Dad that I’ll be spending the weekend with Mia.
“How’s the zuppa di pesce?” he asks. But I can almost hear him thinking, Weekend slumber party, that’s a teenage girl thing, right?
“It’s really good.” He looks pointedly at my bowl. It’s full. “Guess I’m excited.”
Definitely, I can’t eat. But at least I don’t need to be concerned about Dad. Over dinner he decides to take advantage of the fact that I’ll be away this weekend and go to Bangor a couple days early to see friends. Surrounded by people, he’ll be safe.
“I’ll be in town when their flight arrives. Won’t have that long drive two days in a row.”
There’s been no change in Lilah’s condition. Six weeks from now we’ll fly to California for her procedure. As for Mom, it doesn’t matter to me anymore that I don’t have the relationship I want with her. I just want her here. And whatever issues she and Dad have? They’ve become unimportant as well. They don’t involve surgery. They don’t involve Sirens.
And how much more can they argue?
“If you’d had a real job instead of being captain of a fishing fleet, charter boats, party boats—is that really what you planned to do with your life? And now, you’ve ruined Delilah’s.” Mom hadn’t been able to stop. She’d needed someone to blame.
In part she was right, Dad hadn’t intended to work on those kinds of boats. He’d planned on adventure, sailing the world. But Mom herself had changed all that. She’d wanted Dad in one place, and that place was San Francisco, where she wanted to be.
Yes, they discussed splitting up, but instead, my parents are going to try again. The move, the possibility of a new life, Lilah’s upcoming operation. These things have given them hope.
Hope. That muscle is strong in me now. No longer atrophied or in need of exercise, hope seems to bounce in my chest. Unfortunately, it has company. Fear. And uncertainty.
“Are you psyched?” I ask, forcing myself to make conversation.
“Sure am.” But Dad seems distracted as he finishes his food. Also, he burned the garlic bread—very unlike him. Maybe he’s nervous about seeing Mom. That last letter she sent hadn’t told me anything new, but I have no idea what she’s said to him.
Tossing the burnt bread out seems to wake Dad up. “Bo going to be around this weekend?”
“I’m not really sure.” Keeping my eyes on the sink, I run hot water for the pots.
Dad clears his throat, and I glance up. He’s giving me one of his dad looks.
“Hey, there are three houses at Summers Cove, and Dad? I’m going to be with Mia.”
Bad liars always sound defensive.
We aren’t even staying at the cottages. We’ll be at Cliff House, because, supposedly, it’s safer. But no way will Dad let me go out there.
To ease his mind, I begin telling him about Mia, tossing around words like, “girl talk,” “shopping,” and “hair,” in the same way he seasons his soup, which is liberally, until his worries are forgotten. Sadly, I can’t forget my own.
“We don’t want to broadcast this all over the seven seas,” Cord told Bo.
He’d meant—one of them needed to speak with their father, face-to-face.
I’m not the only one who needs protection, and tonight Cord will go back to India, believing that the only way to keep Beth safe is to personally tell her as well: Nick Delaine is alive and out for vengeance. Now more than ever, she needs to remain in hiding.
“Neptune knows how,” Cord said, “but Nick’s honed the Deep Skills. He must have. He has to be behind the arc of violence we’ve mapped, because that arc ends here. Nick is the only Siren we know of with a reason to come to Rock Hook. It totally makes sense that he’s trying to exact revenge by creating a series of unanswered questions that will expose us to the world.”
“Unanswered questions” was Cord’s tactful way of saying missing boys and dead bodies.
Now, bringing the cold air in with him, Bo appears at my bedroom door. He’s just come from saying goodbye to Cord, who’ll leave late tonight.
“Less boat traffic,” Bo explains. “Less air traffic. Less chance of being seen in his Full Expression.” The bed sighs as he sits down beside me.
“You didn’t worry about anyone seeing you in your . . . Full Expression”—my face grows hot—“when you flew me to the lighthouse.” And your Siren spell made me want to—
“Some risks are worth taking,” Bo replies, his gaze level.
“What about the risk Cord’s taking, swimming to Goa alone?”
Bo reaches for my iPod, starts scrolling. “He’ll be safe. We don’t know exactly where Nick is, but Mia picked up his Signal. Finally. It’s faint, but she heard it. He’s definitely in this part of the world. J and Mia are going to swim the length of the coast, see if they can get a bead on his location. If they do, we’
ll confront him together. Meanwhile, say hi to your bodyguard.”
“Is that a step up or down from lifeguard?”
Bo doesn’t answer, just sets the iPod down and lifts my left hand, examining the calluses on my fingertips. “You know,” he says after a moment, “it’ll be the four of us at Cliff House.”
I jerk my hand away—
“Don’t worry, Jordie won’t be around much. When he is, just—don’t listen to him.” With a shrug, Bo holds up my earbuds. “If things get weird, put these in.”
“Beeswax, yeah? And what if I want to listen? You going to tie me up?”
“Sure thing, Odysseus, you and your red boots. On second thought, that might make things too easy for Jordie when he—”
“Shut up!”
“Okay, but seriously, he’s my brother. He’s a good guy. And despite any revelations you may have had? So am I. Now, your job’s not too tough. I’ll take you to Cliff House tomorrow after school. You’ll stay inside. Out of sight. Cord will be back Monday, at the latest. Our father will probably be with him. By then . . .” We sit looking at each other. The plan is simple: Two hunters. One babysitter. Switch. In the end, when they catch Nick, it’ll be three against one.
“What will you . . . do to him?”
“Arion.” Bo’s voice is dark now, black on black, like a shadow at night. He touches my face. I lie down on the bed . . .
“But—” I protest weakly. “He’s like you.”
“We’ll take his breath,” says the shadow voice. “It’s the only way—”
His lips graze my neck.
“To kill a Siren.”
I’m lost in his Song . . .
TRUST
“I don’t want you alone for a second.”
Bo is actually walking me in to the school—or, trying to. But the front doors make a bottleneck, and we’re unexpectedly stuck in the crowd on the front steps. More than a few girls—and a couple of guys—glance at Bo. At his face, or his form, at his light hair shimmering in the morning sun. Some people turn away after a quick look, moving off as if pursued. Others are rooted, unable to leave Bo’s orbit. None of them can meet his eyes.
“I won’t be alone. There are at least twenty people in each of my classes.”
“What about in between? The hallways. Bathrooms.”
“Fine, I’ll tell Mary when I have to pee.” Bo’s brows draw down. “Sorry, I know it’s not funny. But the halls are crowded. Plus, Mary and I usually walk to class together, except gym.”
“Do you have gym outside?”
“On a day like this, definitely.”
“Then you need to play sick, go to the nurse.”
“I can’t, I did that yesterday.” Only I hadn’t been playing. “The PE teacher warned me about missing any more—crap.”
Bo follows my gaze. “Nice boots.”
“I’ll have to borrow Mary’s sneakers. I can’t miss gym.”
“What about Delaine?”
“What about him?”
“Ask him to walk you. When you go outside.”
“But you said—”
“Forget what I said. I’ve been thinking about your ardent admirer. If Nick sees you with Logan, his attention might be torn. That might mean extra time. I’ll be close by, so if—”
“Do you really think Nick Delaine will come here?”
“I don’t know, but if he does, Logan might act as a distraction, even a deterrent, and—”
Bo breaks off, his expression becoming unreadable.
“And what?”
“And he’ll do anything for you. Trust me on that.”
Trust. The word seems to waver.
“Just get him to walk you, Arion.”
It may be a little late for that now that I’ve lied to his face and acted like a total bitch.
Bo narrows his eyes. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ll talk to him. That was the bell for the end of homeroom. I’ve got to go.”
Only going isn’t so easy. Something’s nagging me, some thought I’ve tucked away in a corner of my mind, a dark corner, where the wriggly-as-eel thoughts about Bo have recently taken up residence. But finally, after exchanging a look with Bo—a kiss would be impossible—I start down the hall, leaving him behind.
As I walk away, I feel his eyes on my back. It’s reassuring, but also . . . also . . .
Another eel thought slip-slides away before I can catch it.
Continuing down the hall, I become aware that I feel slightly nauseous.
The lovesickness. It’s getting worse. It kicks in right away now, as soon as I leave Bo’s side. The Siren sickness. I’ll never be able to leave him now. Not ever.
BODYGUARD
Logan emerges from the classroom with a girl who’s obviously crushing on him. She keeps touching his arm as she talks, and now she brings her lips to his ear, as if sharing a secret.
Secrets. I have to tell him, tell him everything.
“Surprise, surprise,” Logan says when he sees me. He stops walking and makes a show of saying goodbye to the girl, whispering in her ear like she’d done with him. But when she runs a hand through his hair, he jerks his head away in annoyance, waggling his fingers in farewell. “What’s up, Rush?”
“Have you forgiven me?”
“You mean for lying to me? Or for telling me my brother’s note is bullshit?”
Briefly, I close my eyes. This was a very bad idea.
He taps the pointy tip of my red cowboy boot with the blunt toe of his black motorcycle boot. “Where’s your master?”
Keeping my eyes on our boots, I say, “What, did you get a motorcycle or something?”
“Why, you wanna ride? That why you’re lurking outside my class?”
“Something like that.” I kick lightly at one of his boots.
“Our disagreements aside, Rush, you totally ignored me today in homeroom.”
“Yes, well, I was late. I was there for like, half a minute.”
And the last time I talked to you in homeroom, you kissed me—then walked off the set.
Our eyes lock and he grins. He’s thinking of the kiss, he has to be.
“You know what?” I start to turn away. “Never mind.”
“Wait, what’s going on?” He pulls me into an empty classroom.
“Nothing. I have to go.”
“There it is again, sweet nothing. And where do you have to go in such a hurry?”
“Hello? Class? Why, what are you going to do, cut next period? I can’t just do that.”
“Why not? Boyfriend breathing down your neck? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he is. Okay, then, bye-bye, see you around.” He turns away, about to step into the hall.
“Logan.”
He turns back. “Hmm?”
“Will you—will you walk me to the gym?”
“Since when do you need an escort to PE?”
Wordlessly, I look at him. Stare, although I know I shouldn’t. His long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones as he looks down at me. Now the full bow of his mouth curves into a smile. “Rush.” He shakes his head. “Why do you fight it?”
“Hey, I’m not the fighter,” I manage to say, dropping my gaze to his bandaged hand. “Who was on the receiving end?”
“No one you know. Listen—”
“Come on, what happened? Tell me.”
“Yeah, no, it’s just a scratch—”
“Are you okay?” My voice gives something away I didn’t even know I had. One of Logan’s dark brows lifts slightly. He heard it too.
“Arion.” With his other hand he touches my forehead—the space between my eyebrows. The tight scowl I hadn’t known I was wearing relaxes and my shoulders soften. Logan’s fighting makes me sick with worry, but now that he’s touched me, something besides worry buzzes through me.
“We have some crazy chemistry,” he says softly, running his fingers down my arm. “You can’t deny it. Even with the Silver Surfer acting like he owns you—”
“S
top, okay? Nobody owns me.” But my voice falters. His lips twitch. I narrow my eyes. “Delaine, what the hell are you trying to do?”
“Me? Nothing. Well, maybe something. A little something. ’Course it doesn’t feel little, it feels big. Heavy. I’m like that guy, what’s his name? You know, the guy who pushes the boulder up the hill, and it keeps rolling down, and he’s got to keep hauling it back up, forever?”
“Sisyphus,” I say drily.
“Right. I’m Sisyphus. And you’re the boulder. I get you to the top of the hill, but you won’t look at the view—”
“That’s ridiculous! There’s no view in that story. The view—”
“Is everything. But you won’t see it. The truth, I mean. You just . . . roll away from it.”
But he’s laughing now, and I start laughing too. And suddenly it’s all so—Logan. So familiar, the mix of sulking and laughter, anger and . . . that thing he does to me.
“Come on, Logan, I’ve got gym. But seriously, we have to talk, okay? I can’t argue with you, we can’t have these fights, it’s crazy.” I have to tell him, he deserves to know.
“Stupid crazy. Total waste. But okay. We’re talking.” He leans against the doorframe.
“I mean,” I give him a pointed look, “we need to talk.”
“What, we’re not talking? Sounds like we’re talking.” He reaches out—lays a finger across my lips. “That—is not talking. Not. Talking. Look—now I’m not talking either.”
Automatically my gaze moves to his mouth, his full lower lip. My stomach goes into a spin as I take in the unshaven shadow along his jaw, his cheekbones, and finally, his light eyes with their impossibly long lashes. My lips pulse beneath the gentle pressure of his finger—
I slap his hand away. “You’re a jerk.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, laughing, grabbing my arm as I whirl to go. “A jerk?”
“That’s what I said.” I yank my arm back.
“Yeah, well, I’d like to hear what else you have to say. So, okay, let’s talk. I mean, let’s plan a time to talk. That’s what you want, right? Such a girl thing,” he scoffs. “Let’s talk,” he adds in a mincing tone.
“I can see why someone hit you.”