by Giger, S. L.
“Luke, what an unusual sight. What are you doing?” I leaned against the wall next to him.
“I don’t know.” He looked up at me with his unnaturally dark eyes with some spots of bright yellow. Unlike us female Sirens he hadn’t managed to turn his pupils into something less prominent. Any human would flinch at this sight. Part of why Melissa and he had lived kind of a loner life out on Cape Cod even before the whole thing with the Night Flu started.
Luke continued with his activity. “Now that nobody is left living in our street and Alex is the only heartbeat around, I feel so energetic.” He pressed out between a couple more push-ups. Luke was one of the few lucky male Sirens who was in control of his senses and didn’t kill a bunch of innocent people. However, he’d always had more troubles than any of us with accepting the constant background thudding of human and animal heartbeats. Our instincts were very sensitive about hearts and his were even more sensitive so that too many humans in one place gave him headaches.
Luke lowered himself to the ground and groaned. “I didn’t think it would make such a difference. Maybe I’d have been better off further away from people after all.”
“You were doing fine.” I waved off. “Plus, now that the whole world feels like a prison, your behavior fits as well. At least in all the prison movies I have seen, the prisoners are working out at some point.”
Luke rolled onto his back and laughed before turning serious again. “So, nothing new from Roisin?”
“Nope.” I grimaced.
“I didn’t expect so anyway.” He ran his hand through his dark hair. “Anything else?”
“Some humans do everything in order not to have to go to a shelter. In addition, harbors have been closed.”
“Ah really? First airports, now harbors.” He jumped to his feet as swiftly as only a Siren could do it.
“It was almost creepy to approach our house. It looks as deserted as all the other ones along the road. This gray paint does its job.” I said and glanced at the barricaded window.
“It’s depressing from the inside as well”, Alex remarked, joining us in the living room. “Candlelight is losing its romantic touch.”
I sighed.
Luke retrieved another candle from the cupboard to replace a dying one. “Which reminds me, I have been in this dark hole long enough. I’m off to Eastern Europe.” He put a pin on the world map. We had scratched all the areas we had searched so far with black marker. “I’ll be back early though in case something unforeseen happens.” Luke threw another checking glance at Rey. “See you two lovebirds later.” He waved.
I rolled my eyes and took the pen to mark the islands I had visited as he disappeared.
“So, how are you doing?” I joined Alex at the dining table. “I brought you some oranges.” I placed them in front of him.
He wrinkled his nose.
“Sorry, there was nothing else.” There was no time to sneak into abandoned houses on this trip and the provisions from former stores are watched too well by the VCP.
“Thanks anyway. I never liked fruit, but I guess I can’t be too picky nowadays. I’d give a lot for a nice piece of meat though.”
“If you haven’t eaten it for long enough, you won’t even remember you once liked it. I speak out of experience.” I gave him an encouraging smile.
“That doesn’t count.” He started peeling an orange, most likely hungry after all.
“So, I met this boy on the orange plantation today.” I let go of a breath and shook my head. “He looked savaged. Nobody should have to suffer like that.”
Alex played with the orange peel and rolled it into a ball. “Yet, it’s good to know that some humans are willing to take on hardships in order to keep their freedom. We’d have a much better stand if there were more of them.”
I shrugged. “I told him he could make life easier for themselves. They could go into a shelter and then start a revolution from the inside.”
Alex narrowed his eyes and I saw his mind rumbling. “You know, that’s not even a bad idea.”
“I didn’t mean you!” I exclaimed. “We need you out here.”
He took a deep breath. “Do you? Fact is, when Rey wakes up, I have to get away from here in case he can’t resist human hearts. There isn’t anywhere I can go because if I do go out I will be discovered and I will land in a shelter anyway. And if not, who are we kidding? I wouldn’t be able to survive on my own without you guys bringing me something to eat. This isn’t the best area to steal food or water.”
I tried to stay calm. Even if he didn’t want to hear it, I needed Alex here. He gave me at least somewhat of a sense of normality. “The goal is that Rey can cope well and then you can come back here like before.”
“To do what? I’m only a burden.” He pursed his lips.
“No, you aren’t. Like you said, it’s good to have supporters outside. Plus, if you were in a shelter, we wouldn’t even be able to talk to each other. It would be like with your family.”
He sighed. “I know.”
We hadn’t heard anything from any of our friends or his family since they had gone inside the shelters. At least I was still able to check on my family in Switzerland. Even though they didn’t know I was alive, I could observe them from a distance. They still lived in their own house. However, the VCP controlled the curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Visiting them without showing myself to them remained a challenge. To see my sister change into a young woman and not being able to give her tips about boys and school was hard. Or not to be able to be there for her when she was scared. To be so close to them but not actually be able to talk to them sometimes tore me apart. It was like a drug. Although it hurt a little, I needed to see them. I needed to know they were okay. A status which could change quickly at the moment.
I reached into my pocket to feel the cold metal of the two remaining dragon racer whistles. They had been given to me by a family of magicians and if you blew them, a protective force field would form around the person for about a minute. I meant to give them to my family to keep them safe. However, the Orbiters made sure I wouldn’t get in touch with them until I fulfilled my part in their plan. How unfair was that? They expected of me to set an end to PaNacea and Dr. Palmer’s destruction of the magical world, but they wouldn’t even let me protect the ones I loved most. I blinked away my tears before Alex would notice them. They weren’t tears of sadness but tears of anger. The Orbiters were so powerful that I had to follow their orders and PaNacea was showing their cunningness and malice on a daily basis. On both sides, I didn’t really know who my opponent was and how I’d be able to get everyone out of this alive.
I closed my fingers around the two whistles and brought them up on the table. “Alex, you should take them as well. You might need more than one.”
Alex reached for a whistle and explored it with his fingers. “I’m too curious if this really works or if these wizards lied to you to give you some kind of placebo effect.”
I shook my head. “It will work. Have them ready wherever you go.”
In a fast movement, he pulled the whistle which he wore on a shoe lace around his neck to his lips. Then, he held his breath in order not to accidentally blow it.
I tilted my head. “Not yet faster than a bullet but with a head start, you’d at least stand a chance.”
After that, it was just waiting. Waiting for Melissa and Luke to return and waiting for Rey to finally wake up.
Chapter 4
The past has shown that new Sirens had trouble controlling their desire to kill any human within reach. For male Sirens, self-control proved to be even more difficult. Therefore, Alex needed to leave our house at least for the beginning of Rey’s Siren life. Just to be sure. However, with the VCP on the lookout, it wasn’t safe for Alex to roam around on the streets for when Rey would wake up. The only comfortable place I knew beside our house was Rey’s home three blocks down the street. So that’s where I went with Alex on the evening before Rey’s transformation w
as supposed to be complete. We jogged along the tree line until the house with the adjoining glassblower shed came up. There was no sign of a VCP car and so we let ourselves in through the unlocked door. It felt strange to be in this dark and dusty place without Rey. We had shared a few conversations at the kitchen table but mostly, I visited him in his work shed. That's also where Rey slept since his wife had to go to a mental institution. Ever since then, the rest of the house had remained almost untouched and therefore looked like a museum of antiques which hadn’t been taken care off.
“Why do you look so gloomy? I won’t be here for long.” Alex said.
“I don’t like to leave you here alone.” In case the VCP got him after all, he couldn’t even let me know about it.
“I should be the worried one since I am the one staying at a stranger’s house. Except for having watched him while he was sleeping for the past month, I don’t know Rey at all.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” I said, although probably it would have bothered him since he wasn’t used to having people in his house except me. But that didn’t matter now. Rey had to get to a new life either way. “We will get you as soon as we know he is doing okay.” I swallowed. In case Rey would turn into a hungry beast, we’d figure something out as well.
“Do you think he has anything to eat here?” Alex asked hopeful.
“How can you think of food in such a moment?” I rolled my eyes.
“That’s pretty much all I can think about these days.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Besides you of course.” He lifted one corner of his mouth.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.” He kissed me and I tried to memorize the feeling of his lips, as so many things could go wrong in the next 24 hours.
“I’ll see you tomorrow”, he said. I stroked over the soft stubble on his cheeks for one last time and then hurried back to our house. Although Melissa - the one who had transformed me and had been a Siren the longest of us -was there to guide Rey as well, I had to make sure I’d be there when Rey woke up. After all, I was the one who started his transformation one month ago.
Melissa and Luke had installed themselves in the living room with an unobstructed view of Rey. It gave the picture of two people sitting at the deathbed of a loved one. Melissa’s shiny brown curls falling over her hunched back because she was checking Rey’s energy once more. I verified whether the chains around his ankles and hands were firm and well attached to the feet of the couch. These were the usual precautions since Sirens move about one hundred times faster than a human. Since a new Siren isn’t aware of that, she or now he would get killed by slamming into a wall right after waking up. Secondly, the chains were there to stop Rey from going on a hunt for human hearts right away. Hunting was our instinct, and Rey’d have to learn to control it. Hopefully, the new serum would make this process easier for him.
I sat down at the table with the others. “Was the atmosphere so tense when you changed me?” I addressed Melissa.
She smiled, and her green eyes sparkled. “Except that we were in Malaysia and went to the beach or explored the jungle while you were in transformation, it was pretty similar.”
My nervousness seeped into terror as I anticipated what was about to come. It could very well be that I had turned my kind friend into a human killing monster. I let go of a long breath.
“I’m nervous as well,” Melissa replied. “With you at least we could be pretty sure you’d turn out well, as your aura was right and the Orbiters themselves wanted you to become a Siren. However, with men, we've always been sure a disaster would happen if we transformed them.” Her eyes wandered to Rey.
“But so far, all the male Sirens transformed instantly,” Luke jumped in. “I was human and in the next moment, I was a Siren with all the abilities of a Siren. My body wasn’t ready for the changes. The one-month break is necessary and it’s the serum that caused the slow transformation in Rey. Which means Cathy did a good job.”
An image of beautiful Cathy flashed before my eyes. She had been the most typical Siren of all of us with her cold and unapproachable manner and her killer looks. It was her who had the right idea how to create the serum. Unfortunately, the idea demanded the death of a living Siren. She had been so convinced of her own idea and that the serum would work that none of us could talk her out of killing herself for it.
“If only he would wake up.” Luke traced along his jaw with his fingers.
“You think Rey might not wake up?” My eyes widened.
“I don’t know what to expect,” Luke replied.
Now the tension in the room was almost touchable. This would be a long night. We passed the time with some card games. It reminded me of the old times when I first arrived at their house and we needed something to do at nights, since we didn’t need sleep. Then, my thoughts wandered to Alex who was about three hundred yards away. Was he sleeping or lying awake with the same worries that plagued us? I made out his heart from all the other tubby thuds from the animals in the area. His was vital and strong, making my mouth water and bringing excitement to my body. He was safe from me though. Unless you count this one incident from my first hunt in Malaysia, where I almost ripped a poor human’s head off, I was never blindly driven to kill someone. Luke on the other hand still needed a chaperone when it came to his hunting time. We were hoping this would not be the case for Rey. Yet, should anything go wrong, we’d have to keep him in his chains until he’d be too weak to hunt on his own. I didn’t even want to say this out loud because it made the whole situation appear even more inhumane.
At the break of dawn, Melissa walked to the couch and sat down on the couch table. Luke and I followed her. Nothing showed that Rey might wake up soon. He only looked a few years younger than one month ago. His head was still bald because he had shaved it but had fewer wrinkles and marks from the sun. He now looked about fifty instead of sixty and would probably stay that way for the rest of his life. However long that may be.
Without warning, Melissa drew back in a brisk movement. I would have missed Rey's first moment otherwise. He had opened his eyes. My jaw dropped and the three of us stared at him in surprise. His eyes weren’t evil and dark like I remembered mine to be when I first looked into a mirror. No, they were a mixture of different shades of light blue, like the ocean in the Caribbean Sea. What made them even more unusual was that the pupil was missing. Therefore, I couldn’t be sure what he was looking at and whether he had seen that we were here. He must have noticed us though, for suddenly he wanted to back away from us and pushed himself further into the couch.
“Rey, it’s okay. Welcome back!” Melissa said.
He didn’t relax and only turned his head from Luke, across me to Melissa and back on me again. Then he noticed that he was tied up and pulled on the strings around his hands.
“It’s alright, we’ll tie you lose in a minute. How are you feeling?” I tried.
He closed and opened his blue eyes a few times in a quick manner. “Who are you?”
Melissa threw a worried glance at me.
“What do you mean?” I took a deep breath. “I’m Nathalie, this is Melissa, and this is Luke, don’t you remember us?”
Rey sucked in quick and short breaths. “No,” he stammered. “And why am I here like this?”
“You can calm down. We have talked about this. You agreed to become a Siren. We used the serum on you and now you have been in transformation for one month. It’s probably normal that you wake up a bit confused.” Then, I beamed at him. “But Rey, it has worked. You woke up exactly on schedule.”
He snorted and tried to kick his legs. “Why do you keep calling me Rey?” he pushed through his teeth while pulling down with his arms with all his might.
His question had left me speechless.
“Because that is your name,” Luke answered for me.
At that moment, the couch gave in to the strength of Rey’s arm and the chain including the white, wooden foot
of the couch flew into our direction. All we could do was jump aside. With the momentum that Rey had gained he ripped his other arm free as well.
“Rey, stop!” I yelled and pushed down on his feet because he was about to yank of the chains around his ankles as well. His eyes that were such a calm and serene contrast to his behavior rested on me for a moment not letting me know what was going through his head. In the next moment, I was flying into the wall and the impact knocked every wisp of air out of my lungs. I sank to the ground, struggling to inhale, to exhale or to do anything. Oh boy, he was strong. Dazed, I watched how Melissa and Luke tried together to push him back down on the couch while talking to him insistently.
“Give us a minute to explain, please. We don’t want to cause any harm.” Melissa breathed.
“It’s normal to feel confused in the beginning, you have to get used to everything first.” Luke joined in.
“You are crazy,” Rey yelled.
It wasn’t a pretty spectacle to watch. Rey tried to fight both off, hitting and kicking as hard as he could.
I stepped in front of the couch, not joining their fight but trying to calm him down otherwise. “Please, Rey, we are your friends. Even if it might not look like it right now, you can trust us.”
He stopped fighting and eyed me suspiciously which gave Luke and Melissa some time to catch their breath. “I am tied to a couch, you are talking about Sirens and I don’t even know my own name or age and I should trust you? I’m sorry.” Before either of us saw it coming, he reached out for Luke’s and Melissa’s heads and smashed them together.
