by Sonya Blake
There were at least two dozen other sirens that she knew of in and around the USS Davis. Was Tommy planning on fighting them all? If so, there was no way they’d succeed in escaping without getting killed.
TRUST, he’d told her.
When he grabbed her hand and looked back at her, she squeezed his fingers in hers and followed, moving swift and silent as they traced their way out of the hold. They burst into the open water and were immediately spotted by an older female siren repairing a fishing net. She looked up at them slowly. Kaia met her eyes and waited for her to react, but the old one only blinked her eyes once, then turned them back to her work, knotting the rope with quiet, firm fingers as if to say it wasn’t her fight.
Tommy tugged at Kaia’s hand. They began swimming upward, toward the glimmering surface far above.
*
“They’re going to come after us,” Tommy said as they burst into the air. It was a relief to hear his voice—to hear any voice. “Ah, goddamn it feels good to talk again.”
The sky was cloudy and wintry. The wind blew harsh, far colder than the water, as it swept over their heads. Still, it was a welcome sensation.
“They’re hunting now,” Tommy said, “but when they come back, they’re going to be out for blood.”
“How many are there?” Kaia kept her head low enough that she could still respirate through the gills at the back of her ears and not instigate a change back to her frail human form.
“Twenty, all told.” Tommy’s eyes scanned the water surrounding them.
Kaia spotted land and felt her heart swell. “Let’s at least get to my house,” she said. “We can make a plan.”
Tommy gave her a nod. “You lead the way.”
Kaia looked over her shoulder several times as they made their way to Foley’s Point, hauling themselves to shore where she and Sam had lain together her first night in Quolobit Harbor. There, they rolled with their backs to each other for privacy as they coughed, sputtered, and wheezed their way back to two-legged humanity.
“Sweet Lord, thank you,” Kaia heard Tommy muttering to himself. “I never thought I’d be so happy to see my balls.”
She chuckled to herself as she got to her hands and knees first, skin prickling in the frigid air. “I would’ve thought you’d be more excited about the legs,” Kaia said as she stood, feeling pretty thankful herself. Glancing back at him to see that he was now standing facing away—slim, pale, very much naked, and human—she said, “Follow me.”
The snow was bitterly cold underfoot as Kaia began tromping up to the house. It was significantly deeper than before, too—and Sam’s truck was encased. There’d be time to deal with that, she told herself. They needed to get into the house first, into the warmth.
*
After dressing in jeans and a sweater, Kaia grabbed the speargun she’d left leaning beside her bed. She should’ve had that with her when she went into the water; maybe then this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t leave herself unprotected again.
She found Tommy in the living room building a fire, dressed in a pair of Sam’s boxer shorts and a flannel shirt he’d left here. Seeing Sam’s clothes stung. Images of the flannel landing softly on the floor, the boxers inched down over his sculpted hips, were too much to handle.
Tommy turned to her, eyes scanning her clothes. “I found some galoshes I can fit into in the hall closet, but I don’t suppose you’ve got any socks and trousers for me lying around?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I can make a run for the thrift store. Do you think there’s enough time?”
Tommy lifted his brows. “Hope so. They hunt for a long while—sometimes days. I don’t know. I could never keep track of time when I was down there, and they’ve never taken me hunting with them.”
Kaia wanted to ask Tommy more, to learn why he was being held prisoner, but if he was going to stay on land he’d need pants, plain and simple. And they’d need something to eat other than a package of stale crackers or the moldy leftovers in the fridge.
“All right,” she said, setting the speargun down on the coffee table. “I’ll leave this here, just in case. I won’t be long. Half an hour at the most.”
“Let me help you shovel out,” he said.
“But… you don’t have any pants.”
He stood, his mouth a grim line. “I’ll survive.”
*
Kaia’s hands shook as she put Sam’s rumbling truck into gear. She’d have to find a way to give the damned thing back without speaking to him. Tears stung her eyes as she bumped along down the drive, the snow making it impossible to go faster than five miles per hour.
No, she would not let herself cry. Not for Sam. He was a liar. He’d used her. Betrayed her. He’d made her think they could have something real together, something lasting, and she’d been a fool to believe him.
Had it all been for the sex? Was that all Sam had wanted? Because if that had been it, he could’ve just said so. She’d probably have slept with him anyway. But that hadn’t been how he’d acted. He’d acted like it was real for him, like he wanted to be with her for the long haul. He’d even been upfront with her about the other woman he’d been seeing.
I could never love her, he’d said, not like I could love you.
Lies.
“Dammit!” Kaia cried, slamming her palms down on the wheel as a sob came and ripped through her chest. “Fuck you, Sam!”
She wept till she got into town and found her way to the thrift store parking lot, then scraped her face dry on the cuffs of her jacket. After buying clothes for Tommy, she ran into Penfeld’s Market and grabbed two frozen pizzas, a package of pre-made hot wings, a garden salad for good measure, and a bottle of wine for afterwards.
Afterwards… after whatever was about to go down. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. It wasn’t just food she needed, but a good cry and a long night’s sleep. The last thing she needed to do right now was fight off twenty bloodthirsty sirens.
“Kaia?” A friendly voice greeted her in the booze aisle. “I thought you went home to Nashville.”
Kaia turned to see Felicia Dunne with her daughters, one the lanky teenager with long braids, the other a bashful little kid with an afro hiding behind her mother’s hip. Felicia gasped when she saw Kaia’s bruised face.
Kaia’s eyes darted to see who might be within earshot. She stepped closer to Felicia, into her aura of patchouli and summer sunlight. “I didn’t go home. I was… abducted by the sirens.”
Felicia clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide beneath her big, tortoise-rimmed glasses. She shook her head back and forth. “That was two weeks ago, Kaia,” she gasped. “Are you all right?”
Kaia gave a shaky laugh, unable to answer. Felicia’s older daughter narrowed her eyes at her.
“So you are a siren?” the girl whispered. “I thought so.”
“Claudette!” Felicia chided.
“It’s okay,” Kaia said, praying Felicia’s kids were trustworthy. “Yes, that’s me. Kaia the—the siren.”
Felicia gathered her daughters closer and whispered. “What did they want?”
“I really don’t know what their end goal is, but they tried to force me to, um, procreate,” she stammered. “I escaped with another prisoner, Tommy. He’s at my house now. They’re coming for us, Felicia. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I will go back to Nashville.”
Felicia scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Please don’t do that,” she said, resting a warm hand on Kaia’s cheek. Her littlest daughter peered up at Kaia from behind the wooly billows of her mother’s coat. “Listen. I’ve got an idea. That sunken ship they live in? It’s getting pulled up, and soon. Town council voted yes on the wind farm and that’s the spot Maracor wants to build in. Your enemies are about to be homeless. There are scores of people in this community who want to fight this thing, but there just hasn’t been anybody to organize them.”
“We’re gonna fight the wind farm,” Felicia’s little one chimed in assertively. “D
o you want to protest wif me and Claudee, Miss Mami Wata?”
“Tessa, hush.” Felicia leaned closer. “You need to tell the sirens what’s coming, and convince them you can stop it. You’ll organize a protest committee and stop the construction. In return, they leave you the fuck alone.”
Knowing what she now did about the way the siren clan operated, Kaia doubted whether a negotiation would be possible. Still, it was either that or fight them—and who knew where that might lead? Kaia shivered at the thought.
“Thanks, Felicia. That might just be the only non-violent solution here. What’ve I got to lose? I’ll try it.”
On her way out of the market, a poster caught her eye. It depicted one of Sam’s paintings, a storm.
“Hey, what’s the date today?” she asked the cashier.
January thirty-first, she was told. Sam’s show was tomorrow. Kaia shook her head and walked out of the market, into the bracing cold where Sam’s rusted old pickup was waiting for her in the lot.
*
“Pizza’s in the oven. Should be ready in ten minutes,” Kaia said as she came into the living room. She found Tommy hunched over on the couch, staring at a Led Zepplin album cover as the record, forgotten on the turntable, hissed at its end.
“Pizza?” Tommy looked up at her, bleary-eyed. “Didn’t have you figured for a wop.”
“Excuse me?” Kaia demanded, offended at the slur.
“All that red hair and them freckles, you look like a Mick to me,” Tommy said, eyes trailing down to the record cover again.
His broad thumbs traced the edges of the cover’s design. Something that glittered fell from his face and splattered onto the lettering of the album. Kaia sat beside him, setting the bag of clothes on the table.
“Tommy? You okay?”
He sniffled and shook his head, then got up and turned the record over, setting down the needle as the beat of Immigrant Song began, followed by Robert Plant’s feral cry.
“What is this?” he asked, turning to Kaia. “This music… it’s crazy.”
Kaia quirked a brow. “Are you saying you’ve never heard of Led Zepplin?”
Tommy grunted a bitter laugh. “I’ve heard of a Zepplin, all right, but after the Hindenburg disaster…” He trailed off, looking down at the record spinning. The music was loud and grating, and his face contorted into a grimace. Flicking the needle off the record, Tommy stopped the sound.
Kaia looked up at him, confused.
“Hindenburg?” Tommy repeated, lowering his brows. “Happened in New Jersey about six, maybe seven years ago? Almost forty people killed?”
“It sounds… familiar?” Kaia said dubiously.
Tommy scoffed, shoving his long, surfer-boy hair away from his face. “You live under a rock or somethin’?”
“Uh, no,” Kaia replied, standing. “Do you?” She rested her hands on her hips. “Who’s never heard of Led Zepplin?”
Just how long had the sirens kept him prisoner? Kaia was frankly afraid to ask.
Tommy bit his lips and sighed. There was something edgy about him, something unsettled and unhinged, and Kaia was pretty sure it wasn’t just because of the siren clan. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d already been crying when she’d come in. She picked up the bag from the thrift store.
“Hey, why don’t you put on some clothes and come into the kitchen and eat?” she suggested.
Tommy nodded, taking the bag from her. He went into the hall bathroom and appeared in the kitchen several minutes later dressed in a pair of slightly large jeans and an old-man cardigan, eyes large and childlike, taking in all the appliances.
“I know—pretty vintage, right?” Kaia said, licking her fingers as she set out a platter of hot wings.
Tommy picked up the cardboard box the frozen pizza had come in and eyed it suspiciously. He turned it over and examined the back. Tapping it, he asked, “This, uh, ‘best by’ date. What’s this mean?”
Fearing the pizza was spoiled, Kaia leaned over to read the date. “Oh, it’s fine,” she said. “Says we’ve got till June.”
Tommy tapped the box again. “No. What’s… what’s this year?” His voice trembled. His eyes were glistening. “Because I know the roaring twenties have already happened and I’m pretty sure I haven’t gone back in time…” Tommy swallowed. “What year is it, Kaia?” he whispered.
“2020,” she told him quietly.
Tommy sank into a chair, letting the pizza box fall to the floor. His breath came in swift, heavy swells filling his chest as he began to shake his head slowly back and forth.
“No, no,” he murmured, eyes filling with tears as he gripped the table’s edge.
Kaia bent to pick up the pizza box and put it in the recycling bin before pulling the pizza from the oven. Best not to push Tommy to talk, she thought. Whatever he was going through, it seemed he had just as much reason to hate the siren clan as she did.
“I thought it was nineteen forty-four,” he told her simply, as she put a plate of pizza in front of him. “I knew time worked different down there, but…”
Kaia didn’t meet his gaze as she sat herself down at the table and took a bite of blessedly cheesy, garlicky, saucy pizza. She cared about Tommy’s situation, but that didn’t negate the fact that she was desperate for food.
“Nineteen forty-four. That’s the year it was when the clan took me,” he muttered. “My plane crashed in the North Sea between England and Germany. I was in the Air Force. Fighting Hitler.” Kaia looked up at this. Tommy’s face took on a grief-stricken, bewildered expression. “My wife, my Olivia, she was born a hundred years ago and… so was I.”
Kaia swallowed and looked at Tommy as sobs began to shake him. “Oh, Tommy,” she said, and got up. She sat in his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he wept, letting him rock her, rocking him back. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
From where Sam stood in his bedroom, painting in the last light of day, putting final touches to the crumpled bedsheets, something caught his gaze. He turned away from the canvas and the bed beyond it—the bed he’d shared with Kaia, where he’d lumped together pillows beneath the covers to give himself something to work from in her absence.
Looking out the window, he saw lights in the house on Foley’s Point. Lights that hadn’t been on the night before. Or the night before that. Or any night since Kaia had left.
He didn’t think twice about pulling on his boots and his jacket and heading out for his boat. So what if Violet saw him going over there? So what if she wanted to summon and torture him? She’d do it anyway. But if Kaia had returned to Quolobit Harbor, that mattered. He had to see her. He had to try to explain himself, however unbelievable his story might be.
The January evening was bitter cold as he pulled his wool cap close over his ears and started the Angeline’s engine. His stomach coiled into a tight knot as he steered toward Foley’s Point. He’d have to own up to his mistakes. He’d have to tell Kaia he should have broken things off with Violet before letting himself get involved with her. That would be easy enough to say. Easy enough to believe. But the fact that he’d been bewitched and sexually tortured? Not so easy to say. Not so easy to believe. And he wasn’t even sure it had been torture. He’d enjoyed it. All of it. Immensely. Like a drug addict enjoys a hit, and feels helpless and disgusted with themselves afterwards.
His heart began a low, thumping beat in his chest, heavy and fearful. There was little chance he’d get Kaia back. Little chance she’d feel anything for him besides hatred. Violet had seen to that. Still, he had to try.
He threw down the anchor at the Point and got into the skiff, praying he wouldn’t be thrown overboard by the rough incoming waves as he rounded the peninsular edge of Kaia’s property. The lights were blazing in the house, and Sam pulled the oars hard, hoping to God it was her in there and not just the realtor or the cleaning lady. Of course, if it was somebody else, there’d be another vehicle on the property. As of the moment, it was just his old truck
and, if he wasn’t mistaken, someone had recently removed the snow from it.
Pulling the rowboat up to land, he clambered up the icy, jagged rocks, using his gloved hands so he wouldn’t fall on his face. He was winded by the time he got up to the back door of the house, where he paused on the steps and took a moment to catch his breath before knocking.
That was when he heard the sound of an unfamiliar man’s voice. Not Kaia. Someone who had no right to be there. A trespasser. Fucking squatters.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, backing cautiously away from the door. He jammed his hands into his coat pockets, but he had stupidly forgotten his cellphone in his rush to get to Kaia.
Moving low, he scrambled back down the rocks and rowed hard out to the Angeline. Breathless from the exertion, he unlocked the glovebox in the wheelhouse. His fingers closed around the heavy, cold metal of his handgun.
He’d had to use it only once, on a porpoise that had been badly injured, run into by some asshole and left screaming on one of the tiny islands peppering the coast. Now, as he checked the chamber and flicked the safety, he hoped he would only have to use it as an intimidation tool, nothing more. He’d confront whoever was in there, get them to surrender, and call the cops from the house phone.
This time his heart was racing like hell as he rowed back to shore again. Sweating now, he took off his gloves and gripped the handgun as he slowly worked his way up to the house. He leaned against the back door and listened. The man, whoever he was, was still talking in the kitchen.
Gritting his teeth and gripping the gun firmly in his right hand, Sam turned the knob and swung the door open. There was Kaia, sitting on some guy’s lap at the kitchen table, their arms around each other. Holding each other close.
