The Syrenka Series Box Set

by Amber Garr

  “No!” I screamed at him. “Tell me it’s not the call. Please!” Never in my life had I acted like such a child, but never in my life did I need someone to tell me I was wrong as much as I did now. “Julian, please.” I collapsed to my knees, not caring how they stung with the impact. “Make it go away.”

  He reached out his hand. “Let me see.”

  I dropped my head, giving him permission to touch me. He pushed his hand through my hair until it rested tightly against my head. Despite his ability to know what was in our minds, he preferred to make that kind of contact through touch. He said it helped him see clearer and it didn’t violate our personal thoughts.

  I couldn’t hear him as the evil voice screeching in my mind drowned out all other sounds. Sobbing, I begged for it to go away. My whole life I’d been good to others. I took care of myself when forced to be on my own. I took care of Eviana whenever she needed me. I just wanted to be normal.

  “Brendan, I’m sorry.” Julian’s voice sliced a hole through my heart.

  “No!” I looked up at him. “Isn’t there something I can do? Some way to make it go away?”

  “Yes.”

  Hope filled my body and I jumped up to my feet. “There is? Please, tell me!”

  Julian shook his head. “Brendan, there’s only one way to deal with the call. You must succumb. Only then will you be able to choose again.”

  I swallowed the dread kicking around my throat. “But she’ll never take me back after that.” Julian remained silent. “I can’t go have a child with someone else and expect Eviana to forgive me!” Why didn’t he understand?

  “I agree.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “You need to leave.”

  Like the knife that had been stabbed through my gut a few weeks ago, the pain of leaving Eviana paralyzed me. “But I love her,” I whispered.

  Julian stepped forward and put both hands on my shoulders. “I know, Brendan. This is never easy.”

  His voice quivered with his own emotion and I suddenly understood. “It happened to you?” He didn’t answer. “You loved a mermaid once, didn’t you?”

  “I did. And I’m sorry to see you and Eviana going through this. I warned her-“

  “You what?” I interrupted. “You warned her about me? When?” I pulled away from our selkie leader and my friend.

  “I needed to. I wanted to save you both a lot of heartbreak.” He reached out for me again, but I took another step back. “You don’t have a choice, Brendan.”

  “But what did you do? How did you deal with the call?”

  “It wasn’t quite the same.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t feel the same type of call.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I couldn’t be with her anymore because I needed to lead the selkies.”

  “You’ve never felt this call before?” Suddenly I felt betrayed by Julian. Irrational, I know. But rational thoughts couldn’t form in my brain right now.

  “Not like you are. It’s strong, Brendan. How long have you been fighting this?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I snapped. “How can you give advice when you don’t even know what I’m feeling?”

  Julian sighed and rolled his head. Several vertebrae popped in the silence. “I’ve seen hundreds of you go through this. You don’t have a choice. Now act like a selkie and accept your fate.”

  Surprised by his tone, I softened my own. “I’m sorry. I…I just can’t imagine my life without her in it.”

  He stepped forward again, leaving his hands by his sides. “You have to accept it now. I suggest you leave before she knows you’re gone.”

  “What? No. I can’t do that.”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “For who? I don’t even get to say goodbye.” The words rushed from my mouth in front of the bile rising behind them.

  “It’s better for both of you.”

  Stunned into silence, I contemplated his justification. I couldn’t face her. I couldn’t see the look on her face when I told her I was leaving. Again. Breaking her heart once had been enough for me. I didn’t want that to be the last thing I remembered.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Okay?” Julian asked.

  “I’ll leave. But I want you to give her something for me.”

  “Brendan…”

  “Please. I can’t just leave without saying anything.” I pushed past him and opened the door. “Give me ten minutes.”

  I didn’t wait for his answer.

  Running up the stairs, I pushed through the pain in my heart and the fire in my head. I wanted to tell the voice that he’d won. Congratulations on ruining my life and destroying the only good thing in it. But then I had a thought. Even if Julian told me to leave, that didn’t mean I had to succumb to the call.

  I still had some choice in the matter.

  After throwing my meager belongings in my bag, I found a piece of paper and sat on the bed. A note. I was going to leave Eviana a note after spending most of our lives together. She deserved better. I knew that. But I had to let her know that I would never forget.

  Evs-

  I will probably never be able to convince you of how much I wanted this to be enough. I missed you with every fiber of my being and I will always cherish our time together. My father warned me, as did Julian. I refused to accept my fate.

  I wish I could tell you what I’m feeling, but it’s so overwhelming that I can’t find the words. Please know that I have not succumbed completely to the call, but it also won’t allow me to love you the way you deserve to be loved.

  You are special. You are sexy. And you are a leader. I am so proud of you and what you’ve become. It saddens me that we won’t be able to share our lives together, but know I’ll always have a place for you in my heart.

  I am sorry-

  Brendan

  She would hate me forever, and I couldn’t blame her for that. I folded the note several times, contemplating what would happen next. Tossing the paper from hand to hand, I sat on the bed and stared at the door. Emptiness pushed against the destructive voice in my head, as I felt my heart break. The sad thing was it didn’t break over the loss of Eviana. It hurt because my instincts were satisfied and that made me sick.

  Without wasting another moment for the selkie in me to bask in its success, I grabbed my bag and marched outside. Julian turned and held out his hand. Knowing what I’d just done, I passed the note to him.

  “Please give it to her,” I said.

  “I will.”

  I looked at him, wondering if he just said that to appease me.

  He sighed. “I’ll do it. I promise you.”

  “I need you to do one more thing for me.”

  He looked perplexed. For once, I’d hidden my thoughts from him. Bending over, I pulled my seal skin from the bag. “If I have to do this, then I’m going to stay a seal as long as I can.”

  “I don’t understand,” Julian said.

  “The less time I spend as human, the less chance there will be for me to succumb.” My voice trembled. “I can’t do that to her.”

  “Brendan, you have to stop thinking about her.”

  I glared at Julian, daring him to say another word. I knew it was disrespectful of his authority, but I didn’t care. I would try to leave this place with some dignity.

  After a tense moment, Julian finally shook his head. “Fine.”

  I walked off the porch and made my way to the water. Julian’s footsteps followed behind, but we didn’t speak and I didn’t look back.

  “Where will you go?” he asked when we reached the water’s edge.

  “I don’t know,” I said then I shoved my clothes into the bag and rolled down the waterproof top.

  “You should leave California.”

  I ignored his comment. “Once I change, please strap this to me.”

  “Brendan-“

  “Just strap it on me, please,” I interrupted.


  Julian looked at me like I was a lost puppy. The sympathy in his eyes angered me and I couldn’t even justify the reason why.

  “You know how to find me,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to say it.

  He nodded and I took that as my cue to leave.

  Slipping the seal skin over my back like a cloak, my pelt shuddered with the magic unique to selkies. With all the pain and emotional turmoil going on inside my head, the shift to my other form brought a great sense of calm. The fur tingled as it became a part of me, and the fall to the ground didn’t hurt at all. My muscles and bones morphed effortlessly into another shape, and for the first time, I was thankful for the chance to be away from my human form.

  The voice retreated to a manageable background hum, and instead I heard the call of the ocean. Smells, sights, sounds…all of them beckoning me forward. I intended to immerse myself in those and stay as my seal as long as I could.

  Julian knelt down beside me and secured the bag to my back. “I’ll add some money to your account.”

  I barked at him and flashed my teeth.

  “I know you don’t want my help, but it’s my job. That’s why I had to leave her.”

  Looking into Julian’s eyes, I saw a pain hidden deep within. I guessed all selkies suffered this fate in one way or another.

  In the distance, the hazy outline of Eviana’s house lingered on the horizon like a phantom. I hated that I didn’t feel worse about my decision, and that would haunt me forever.

  “Go. I’ll give her the note.” Julian stood and backed away from me.

  Knowing I couldn’t stall any longer, I jerked my head at him in acknowledgment, then turned and slid into the surf. As the last wave crashed over my body, the muffled sounds of the ocean faded into the background along with the place my heart had always belonged.

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at WATERFALL, the first book in Amber’s mature YA dystopian series The Water Crisis Chronicles.

  Waterfall (Book One of The Water Crisis Chronicles)

  The water is gone. The wars have begun.

  Clean water is a luxury most can no longer afford. Climate change, industrial sabotage, and greed have turned country against country as each one tries to provide for its citizens. Terrorist groups target desalinization plants and frustrated governments hunt those who work against them. Rationing, sequestering, and patrolling have become routine at a time when there are too many people and not enough resources.

  While the world around them disintegrates into chaos, Zach and Vivienne hope that their life in a government-run complex will retain some semblance of normalcy. But when attacks on their water supplies bring war to their sheltered community, they must accept their new fate. Stay and fight or flee and endure—it’s a difficult decision with lasting consequences.

  Will they choose what’s safe? Or will they choose to survive?

  I swear someone broke into my house and stole one of every shoe I owned. It was probably that National Guard asshole who gives me dirty looks every time I leave our compound. Yeah, I bet it was him. Despite the world crashing down around us, he still made time to be a dick.

  “Mom! Where’d you put my cleats?” Reaching under the bed, I pulled out a crusty piece of pizza, several pairs of boxers, and a giant ball of gray fuzz. But not the other shoe I needed for football practice this afternoon. “Mom!”

  “Stop yelling,” she said calmly from my doorway. “You know, if you’d clean your room every once in a while, it wouldn’t look like a nuclear bomb exploded in here and you just might be able to find something.”

  Still crawling around on the floor, I tossed the mix of clean and dirty clothes to the side as I continued to search for my shoe. “Did you put them somewhere?”

  “Why would I take your shoes?”

  I looked up at her and shook my head. Blonde hair pulled up into a bun, arms crossed, and her body leaning gently against the door frame, my mom had no intention of helping me. In fact, she was trying not to smile.

  “Because you enjoy tormenting me?” I mumbled.

  “I don’t enjoy tormenting you, Zachary.”

  Rolling my eyes at the use of my full name, I stood and grabbed my bag off the bed. “Well, I guess I’ll just go to practice barefoot.”

  “Did you check your closet?” my mom asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Of course I did!”

  “Really?”

  She jerked her chin in that direction and I followed her gaze. There, resting up against the white slated door, sat my football cleat. “Did you just put that there?”

  My mom laughed. “Yes, I have the power of telekinesis and I use it specifically to torture you.”

  “You definitely have the power of sarcasm,” I groaned, picking up my shoe and shoving it into my overstuffed athletic bag. “Now, thanks to you, I’m going to be late.”

  “Don’t blame me for this.”

  I walked past my mom and hurried down the stairs. Her light steps followed me into the kitchen where, much to my annoyance, I didn’t see any breakfast. “So now you’re trying to starve me?”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Here.” She lifted a tote off the counter and shoved it into my hands.

  Peeking inside, I saw some dehydrated fruit, dehydrated meat, and a green thing I couldn’t identify. I also noticed the one liter of water. “Where are my other bottles?” I asked. “I have a three-hour practice after school.”

  My mom dropped her head and started busying herself with cleaning up a spotless counter. “They’ve cut back on our rations.”

  “What?”

  “There was a note attached to the door this morning. Your father talked to the guards outside and they explained that our community water tower is running low and the government is behind schedule with their monthly refills.”

  “Why? The whole point of them turning our community into a refugee compound was so they could control our consumption.” And our behavior.

  “Apparently they underestimated the need.” My mom walked over to the sink, which was now covered with a large piece of plywood, reminding us not to use it. “Or they let too many people in.”

  “Why anyone thought the idiots in Washington could manage this disaster is beyond me,” I snapped.

  “Zachary! Don’t speak ill of the government. They’re doing the best they can.”

  “I’m only repeating what Dad says.”

  “Your father works for the government,” my mom added.

  “Exactly! And even he can see how fucked up everything is.”

  “Language!” She shook a finger at me, trying to be parental.

  “Sorry, Mom.” I walked around the counter and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I have to go. Thanks for the food.”

  “You driving today?”

  Despite all of the crap going on in the world, I’d still managed to get my license a month ago. And since Dad hopped on the government transport each morning and Mom stayed home, I was able to borrow the Jeep and steal a few miles of freedom every day. The trip to and from school felt like my little piece of normalcy.

  “Yeah. And I’m late. Vee’s not going to be happy.”

  “Well, you both have a good day.”

  My mom waved as I hustled out of the kitchen and through the front door. Throwing my bag in the back, I noticed my favorite guard staring at me from the end of the driveway. I saluted and said “At ease, soldier.”

  He didn’t move.

  I hated how our home had turned into a military state. It wasn’t more than a year or two ago that I remembered living a relatively simple life. Even though other countries were killing each other over the state of the environment, the United States had managed to stay somewhat civil. When several states out west were deemed uninhabitable, cities along the east coast made room for the displaced. The government built desalinization plants and designated compounds where clean drinking water would be delivered on a regular basis.

  Our particular gated community outside
of Philadelphia had become one of the refuge sites. Now we had armed guardsmen protecting our gates as the threats of national and international terrorism continued to grow. I’d heard that several of the upstream water sources had been hijacked by militia and the like. Most of the water had already been poisoned by industry years ago, but the few good sources left were now being targeted. I wondered if that’s why our rations had been reduced.

  “What are you looking at?” snapped the soldier.

  I hadn’t realized how long I’d been standing there so I quickly replied, “Just trying to figure out if it’s worth hurting my Jeep to back over you.”

  “You’re an ass,” he said.

  I gave him my one finger salute and jumped in the car. Revving the gas a few times, I checked the rearview mirror to see if the soldier was going to move. I don’t really know why he hated me so much. We’ve had this thing going on now for several months and it had become part of the routine.

  Just as he started to walk away, I gunned it. Flying backward out of the driveway, my squealing tires caught the attention of several guards and refugees camping along the streets. I laughed at their appalled looks and waved as I passed by.

  Vee’s house was only two blocks away and we almost always drove together. We’d been friends since middle school and practically inseparable that entire time. Although recently, Vee had been acting weird. We didn’t have many classes together this year, and I’d been so busy with football that we only really saw each other on our ride to school.

  I pulled into her driveway and laughed when I saw her burst from the bright red front door. Angry blue eyes glared at me under layers of dark makeup. A ridiculous streak of pink stood out against her black hair and the gothic outfit was something new.

  She yanked open the passenger door and threw her bag inside. “You’re late.”

  “And you forgot that it’s not Halloween.”

  She huffed and climbed in the Jeep. A few seconds later she snapped her head around and raised her eyebrows. “What?”