Luke lay a few feet away, or at least Harper thought it was Luke based on the shock of red hair on his head. His clothes were stained a dark brown from blood. There’d been so much of it that it clumped in places, looking more like dried jam than blood.
His face and appendages appeared intact, other than the insects that covered him. A thick white grub crawled out of his mouth, and his closed eyelids moved with living creatures beneath them.
From his chest down to his groin, he’d been torn open. Her first thought was that it looked like a grenade had gone off inside him. Because of all the larvae, she couldn’t see well enough to be certain, but it looked as though all of his internal organs were missing.
There was another body almost right next to him, but that was in even worse shape, having apparently been there longer. The bugs and animals had really gotten to him, but from what Harper could see, he looked like he’d been left in the same state as Luke—his whole torso torn open down the middle.
A few feet away from that, Harper could only see a leg sticking out of the weeds. If it hadn’t been for the old Reebok sneaker on the foot, she actually wouldn’t have been sure it was a leg at all. She would’ve just thought it was a rotting stick.
The disturbing truth was that she might have stayed there all day, staring at the dead bodies, if Alex hadn’t turned and bolted back toward the path.
“Alex!” Harper called and ran after him.
As soon as he got to the trail, Alex hunched over and threw up. Her own stomach lurched, but Harper managed to keep her food down. She stood next to Alex and rubbed his back. Even after he’d stopped vomiting, he stayed bent over for a minute.
“Sorry. ” He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, then stood up. “I didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene. ”
“That’s probably a good idea. ” She nodded. “We should go get help. ”
They started out walking on the trail, but before long it had turned into a full-on sprint. They raced all the way to the police station downtown, as if they could outrun death.
NINETEEN
A Way Out
Gemma had gone to swim practice because she’d decided to try at this life. Spending the afternoon with Alex yesterday had cemented her belief that she couldn’t walk away from all this yet. She had to at least try to find a way to make it work.
Sleep had been difficult, though. She lay awake, tossing and turning all night. The ocean called to her, almost like a song. The waves beckoned her, and it took all her energy to ignore their pull.
In the morning, Coach Levi had been hard on her about missing practice this week, but her times were so amazing, he couldn’t fault her too much. Now, though, swimming in the pool wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.
The chlorine irritated her skin. Not that it gave her a rash, but she could almost feel it chafing her flesh, like itchy burlap rubbing against her. She couldn’t wait for practice to be over.
Thanks to her fantastic speed, she was actually able to convince the coach to let her go early. Since Harper had dropped her off in the morning, she probably planned on picking Gemma up, too. But Gemma didn’t want that. She needed to go see the sirens.
The problem was that she didn’t exactly know where the sirens hung out. Gemma imagined that the sea called to them the same way it did to her, so they probably weren’t that far from the bay.
Harper was off today, and Gemma had no idea what she might be up to, so she had to sneak around town. It was hard to be inconspicuous, but she tried to avoid Harper’s usual haunts, like the library and the docks.
On her way to the water, Gemma stumbled upon the sirens. She’d planned on going by the cypress trees to the rocky coast, where there weren’t very many people, so she could swim out to the cove. But she only made it as far as the beach.
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It was hot, so the beach was crowded, both with tourists and the locals. Still, the sirens weren’t that hard to spot. Gemma was on the grassy hill behind the beach, looking down toward the bay, and she could easily see the three girls in the crowd.
All of them wore bikinis, showing off their ample assets. Penn lay on a beach towel on her belly. Lexi was sitting propped on her elbows, flirting with an older guy standing next to her. In her usual fashion, Thea seemed bored by it all and read a dog-eared copy of Salem’s Lot while lounging in a beach chair.
Gemma had to push through the people on the beach to get to them, although she realized that she didn’t have to push that hard. People actually started parting for her, the way they always seemed to for Penn and her friends.
People were already starting to treat her like one of the sirens, like she belonged with them.
“You’re blocking the light,” Penn said without looking up. Gemma stood in front of her, casting a shadow across her back.
“I need to talk to you. ” Gemma crossed her arms and stared down at them.
“Hey, Gemma. ” Lexi turned to look back at her and used her hand as a visor from the sun. “You look great today. ”
“Thanks, Lexi,” Gemma said offhandedly but kept her focus on Penn. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, you need to talk. ” Penn still hadn’t moved on the towel. “So go ahead. Talk. ”
Gemma glanced around. People were involved in their activities, like tanning or reading or building sand castles, so it wasn’t like they were just sitting and staring at the sirens. Yet the people were too close, too crowded together, to ignore the sirens for any amount of time, and they kept looking over.
“Not here,” Gemma said, lowering her voice.
“Then I guess we’ll talk later,” Penn told her.
“No. I need to talk now. ”
“Well, I’m busy now. ” Penn finally lifted her head to glare at her. “So it will have to wait, won’t it?”
“No. ” Gemma shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere unless you go with me. ”
Thea sighed loudly. “Penn, just go talk to her. We won’t get any rest until you do. ”
“If I’m going, we’re all going. ” Penn cast a look to Thea, who scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Fine. I guess we’re done here, then. ” Thea closed her book and shoved it roughly into her beach bag. “Come on, Lexi, let’s pack up. ”
“What?” Lexi looked confused. “Aren’t we coming back?” When Thea started to get up, she waved her hand. “No, we’ll come back. Somebody can just watch our stuff. ” She turned to the older man, who was now sitting next to her. “Will you be a sweetheart and watch our stuff until we return? We shouldn’t be gone that long. ”
“Yeah, sure, no problem. ” He smiled eagerly at Lexi and nodded.
“Thank you. ” Lexi returned his smile, then stood up and brushed sand off her legs. “Okay. I’m ready. ”
Penn and Thea got up more slowly than Lexi, and Penn led the way off the beach. Half a dozen guys said hello to them as they walked away, but only Lexi responded. Gemma, who garnered some male attention of her own, wasn’t used to quite this much ogling, and she found that she didn’t enjoy it.
They went to a rocky area that jutted out into the bay, not quite to the cypress trees, but far enough to be out of sight of the crowd on the beach.
As soon as they got there, Thea slipped off her bikini bottom and waded out into the water. From where she stood, Gemma couldn’t see her legs turn into a tail, but she knew it had happened just the same.
“Shall we go for a swim?” Lexi suggested, slipping down her own bikini bottom.
“No, I don’t want to swim,” Gemma lied. “I just want to talk. ”
Lexi’s bikini bottom was just below her hips, and she paused, looking from Gemma to Penn. Penn only stared at Gemma for a minute, debating what she planned to do.
“You go ahead and swim,” Penn told Lexi without looking at her. “I’ll stay here and talk with Gemma. ”
“Okay. ” Lexi sounded hesitant, but she took off her bi
kini bottom and went into the water. Within moments she’d disappeared out in the bay, swimming with Thea.
Gemma watched from the corner of her eye but tried not stare. It was hard to be this close to the ocean and not swim. The waves lapping against the rocks were like music, singing to her.
They were summoning her, seeming to beckon her at a cellular level. Her very being yearned to be in the water, but she needed to talk to Penn. She didn’t think she could do that if she were frolicking about in the bay.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Penn asked, leaning back against a large boulder behind her.
“For starters, how do you deal with that?” Gemma gestured to the ocean beside them and tugged at her earlobe. “It’s driving me nuts. ”
“You mean the watersong?” Penn smirked at Gemma’s obvious distress.
“The watersong?”
“That music you’re hearing right now, the way the ocean sings to you? That’s the watersong. It’s calling us back home, and it’s why we can never be that far from the ocean. ”
“So it doesn’t ever stop?” Gemma twisted a strand of hair around her finger and glared out at the waves.
“No, it doesn’t,” Penn admitted somewhat sadly. “But it does get easier to ignore when you’re not hungry. ”
“I’m not hungry,” Gemma insisted. “I ate breakfast this morning. ”
Penn shrugged a shoulder and looked out at the water. “There are different kinds of hunger. ”
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something you said. ”
“I assumed as much. ” Penn watched Thea and Lexi splashing around a ways from shore, then turned back to Gemma. “Are you ready to join us?”
“That’s the thing. ” Gemma shook her head. “I don’t want to join you. ”
“So, you want to die, then?” Penn raised an eyebrow coolly.
“No, of course not. But there has to be a way out. There must be something else I can do. ”
“Nope. There’s not,” Penn said simply. “Once you take the drink and transform, you’re locked in. You’re a siren, and the only way out is death. ”
“But that’s not fair. ” Gemma clenched her fists because she could do nothing else to ease her frustration. “How could you do this to me? How could you turn me into this without even asking what I wanted? You can’t just force me to be this … this thing. ”
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“Oh, I can, and I did. ” Penn straightened up and took a step toward Gemma. “It’s too late. You’re a siren whether you like it or not. ”
“Why would you even do that?” Gemma asked with angry tears stinging her eyes.
“Because I wanted you. ” Penn’s voice was cold and hard. “And I do whatever the hell I want. ”
“No. ” Gemma shook her head. “You can’t do this. You can’t have me. I’m a person, and you can’t just force me to be something because you want me to!”
“Honey”—Penn smiled—“I already did. ”
Gemma wanted to hit her, but she kept her hands at her sides. She had a feeling that Penn was a lot more dangerous than she looked, and she didn’t really want to ignite her wrath. At least not yet.
“I don’t think you know as much as you think you know. ”
“Like what?” Penn laughed drily.
“You said that it wasn’t possible for guys to really love a siren,” Gemma said. “But Alex cares about me, the real me. ”
Penn’s eyes flashed hard and her smile vanished.
“That just shows how young and stupid you are,” she hissed. “Alex is what, seventeen? Eighteen? He’s a teenage boy with raging hormones. You think he gives a damn about you?” She laughed darkly. “Look at you! You’re gorgeous, and that’s all that matters to him. ”
“You don’t know him, and you don’t know me. ” Gemma glared at her. “You picked the wrong girl. I will find a way out of this. I will undo your stupid curse, and I’ll set myself free. ”
“You are so ungrateful!” Penn shook her head, tossing her long black hair around her. “A curse? This is everything you’ve ever wanted, Gemma. I saw you. The water has been calling to you your whole life. ” She stepped so close she stood right in front of Gemma. “I gave you everything you wanted. You should be thanking me. ”
“I didn’t ask for this!” Gemma shot back. “And I don’t want it!”
“Too frickin’ bad. ” Penn turned away from her, walking back toward the boulder. “You can’t undo it! You drank the potion, and now you’re a siren until the day you die. ”
“Potion?” Gemma shook her head. “What potion? What was that?”
“The blood of a siren, the blood of a mortal, and the blood of the ocean,” Penn recited.
“The blood of the ocean?”
“It’s just water. Demeter always had a flare for the dramatics, especially when it came to composing the rules of the curse. ”
“So what is the blood of a mortal?” Gemma asked. “Is that like tears?”
“No, that’s blood. ” Penn looked at her like she was a moron. “It was Aglaope’s blood and human blood. ”
“I drank blood?” Gemma’s stomach clenched, and she put her hand on her belly. “You tricked me into drinking blood? What kind of freaky monster are you?”
“It’s called a siren, remember?” Penn rolled her eyes. “You are so much dumber than I thought. Maybe I made a mistake with you. Maybe you’re right, and I should let you just go ahead and die. ”
“Who’s blood?” Gemma asked, doing her best not to gag.
“Aglaope’s. I already told you that. ”
“No, the human blood. ”
“Oh, does it even matter?” Penn shrugged. “It was some human. ”
“How did you get it?” Gemma asked.
“This is so tedious. ” Penn stared up at the sky and shook her head. “I hate turning new sirens. Especially thankless ones like you. This is a waste of my time. ”
“If you hate it so much, then why did you do it?” Gemma asked.
“I didn’t have a choice. We have to have four. ”
Gemma couldn’t take it anymore, and she bent over and started to dry-heave. The thought of drinking blood, together with everything else Penn had been telling her, was too much to handle, not to mention the migraine she was getting from resisting the watersong.
“Oh, my God. ” Penn sighed, watching Gemma cough and gag. “You already digested the blood, hence the whole siren thing. What do you think you’re throwing up?”
“I’m not trying to throw up anything. Just the thought of being like you is making me sick. ” Gemma stood up straight and wiped her mouth.
Penn narrowed her eyes at her. “You are such a mistake. ”
“Then tell me how to get out of this! Tell me what to do to change back!”
“I already told you!” Penn growled. “You have to die! That’s it! And if you don’t stop being such an ungrateful bitch, I’ll be happy to put you out of your misery!”
With frustrated tears in her eyes, Gemma shook her head. She pushed her hair back from her forehead and stared out at the ocean. Thea and Lexi’s heads occasionally bobbed out of the water as they swam around.
“So then tell me how to live with this. ” Gemma took a deep breath and looked back at Penn. “You need a fourth, and I don’t want to die. So tell me what I need to do. ”
“First, drop the attitude. Then you leave here and come with us. We’ll show you what you need to do. ”
“Why do I have to leave?” Gemma asked.
“It’s better if we don’t stay in one place for too long. Things tend to get messy. ”
“What about my family? And Alex?”
“We’re your family now,” Penn told her, and her voice bordered on something that resembled kindness. “And Alex doesn’t love you, and he never will. ”
“But…” A tear spilled down Gemma’s cheek, and she wiped it away.
“It’s not his fault, and it’s not your fault. He can’t, Gemma. It’s not possible for a mortal to love a siren. I’m sorry. ” Penn let out a long breath. “But the thing is, when you live long enough, and you see enough things, you realize that it’s impossible for mortal men to really love anyone. Knowing this will save you heartbreak. ”
“How can I believe you?” Gemma asked. “You tricked me and forced me into this. How do I know anything you say is true?”
“You don’t,” Penn admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “But who else are you going to believe? Who else knows anything about being a siren?”
Gemma realized bitterly that Penn was right. For better or worse, she’d been put in a situation where she didn’t have a lot of options. This hadn’t been her choice. This wasn’t what she wanted. But she had to make the best of it. She could still do the right thing, even if Penn had backed her into a corner.
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A commotion in the nearby cypress trees distracted both of them. Urgent voices echoed through the bay, along with the static sound of a radio. It was far enough away that Gemma couldn’t see a lot, but she could see movement and blue uniforms, like those of the police.
“What’s going on?” Thea called, drawn closer to the shore by the noise in the woods.
“Are those the police?” Lexi asked, floating next to Thea.
“We should go,” Penn snapped and walked toward the ocean. “You should come with us, Gemma. ”
“Um…” Gemma pulled her eyes away from what was happening in the woods and looked back to where Penn had stopped at the edge of the water. “No. At least, not yet. ”
Penn pursed her lips. “Suit yourself. But we’ll only be here a few more days. Then we’re gone. ”
“Come on, Penn,” Thea called to her, swimming away from the shore. “We need to get out of here. ”
“’Bye, Gemma!” Lexi waved to her.
“’Bye. ” Gemma waved back, but Lexi had already ducked under the water.
Gemma watched as Penn waded out into the water. She stopped when it was just about to her waist, and Gemma could see her tan skin changing to iridescent scales glittering up over her hips.
“For what it’s worth, I was telling the truth,” Penn said, then she dove in the water and swam off.
Gemma stayed on the shore for a little longer, watching the waves, but the sirens didn’t surface again. The watersong nearly drowned out the sound of the men in the woods, but she didn’t really want to hear them anyway.
Eventually she pulled herself away from the bay and walked back to her house. She still wasn’t sure exactly what she should do. Die or join them. Neither option sounded acceptable.
Just as she made it to her house, a police car pulled up in front. Her heart pounded, and she stared wide-eyed as a police officer got out and opened the back door of the car. Harper and Alex got out of the backseat, and that completely dumbfounded her.
Harper had her arm around Alex, and his face was stark white.