I sit up straighter, my heart pounding harder. I long to run back to the beach to make sure Whitley is safe, but I don't want to expose my fear to my mother. Not yet. Maybe I can still get information from her.
"Are you here to help?" I ask her.
"What kind of help would you like, dear son?"
I roll my eyes. "Don't call me that."
"What? Son? Is it not true?"
"If you cared about me in the slightest, I wouldn't mind. Don't pretend you do."
"I care for your survival. And it's not looking great at the moment, is it?"
"You care for my survival so you can continue to gain from my existence. It's not exactly the same thing. And I'm doing just fine."
"Perhaps. But to answer your question I am indeed sending help. But I am not here for you. I am here for something much more valuable."
My stomach sinks.
“Something you must not cherish as deeply as I thought, leaving her all alone,”
My hands are shaking. "You can't get to her here," I say more to comfort myself than for her.
"Sweet naive boy."
I close my eyes, icy fear filling my veins.
"All I need is for her to enter the water alone. Humans are so easy to tempt."
My head whips towards the beach as she laughs. No. No, no, no.
I don't wait another moment. I sprint towards the beach where I last saw Whitley.
Whitley
The melody is so beautiful. I follow it— deeper. Deeper.
Water fills everything. My sight. My soul.
My lungs.
Until there is nothing else. No island. No danger. No memories.
No Bluff. No Whitley.
Water and the sound. That's all there is, and all there ever was.
Bluff
The feeling that rushes through my veins when I catch sight of Whitley's limp form in the water is indescribable. Like being dropped into the icy cold ocean with my whole body paralyzed. I just—sink.
There's no one around to save me.
I pause for the longest moment of my life when my feet just barely touch the wet sand, watching her white skirt float through the water.
My heart doesn't beat. My lungs don't expand. My soul is crushed.
Then I push through the panic and run to her, feet splashing in the shallow water. I dive into a wave and swim.
"Whitley," I force out through barely usable vocal cords as I reach her. Her face is up, but her eyes are closed, and her face is so pale, her lips blue.
I grab her shoulders and shake, but there's no response. I call again. "Whitley!" This time so much more forceful. Desperate. God, please. Wake up.
There are no signs of sirens. What does that mean? I wonder.
As I pull Whitley's limp body into my arms, pressed against my broken heart, I mostly feel her cold skin, but I also feel something else. A spark. I press my face against her neck. My hand reaches for her wrist, scrambling awkwardly for any way I can feel for a pulse.
Her heart beats. Quickly. It's faint but fast.
That's good but bad.
My heart leaps and aches all at once. She's alive. But there's magic beneath her skin that wasn't there before. I've always feared why the sirens would want her. Not to kill her. Not to hand her over the Stede.
They wanted to turn her.
Which they’d only be able to do if she had some siren blood in her linage. It explains so much. So much I didn’t want to admit to myself.
I don't know which would be worse: Whitley dead, or Whitley as a siren—cold and heartless.
"Please," I whisper in her hair, my voice weak and strangled. "Please wake up," I whisper, tears threatening to fall. My whole body shakes, struggling not to crumble under the weight, the pressure. The darkness.
I squeeze her hair into my hand and let out a scream of frustration. Desperation. The scream turns to a sob, but I can't let my emotions take over. I must keep my mind clear. Can't give up—not yet.
The whisper of a haunting laugh drifts past my ear and I want to scream. She left her here, in the water for me to find. To taunt me. To show me what I’d lost. I’m sure of it.
But maybe I can use her pride as my one last chance.
I dig through every ounce of myself. My mind, my soul. That strange place where my power comes from. Searching for something that may have meaning. The only thing I can feel, the only thing that stands out, are my feelings for her.
I slip through my memories: first seeing her in the prison. When she hid her chuckle at her father tripping out of the carriage—even then I knew she was special. So beautiful. Yet I fought it so hard. When I danced with her, indulging in the safe moment when I wasn't me and could touch her. When I helped her escape that house, our bodies so close it made me ache to let go. Still, I fought it. When I asked her if she was worth saving.
I pull back and look at her pale face. So beautiful, even now that death clings to her. I know life still lingers. I run my thumb over her blue lips. "You're worth saving, Whitley," I whisper as the waves rock us. "I was so foolish to fight it for so long."
I press her cold lips to mine, gently. Desperately. The spark pulls towards her. I don't know what it means, but it feels like magic.
I pull back, tears stinging my eyes, running down my cheeks. "I love you," I tell her. I don't even know what that means. Perhaps it's stupid to fall in love after only a few weeks. I don't care. This was an inevitability—not because of some prophecy. Because this girl is incredible.
Suddenly, Whitley's eyes open, and I feel several things at once. Jubilation. Panic. And fear.
Her eyes aren't the same blue they once were. They're... silver. Shifting with colors of green and blue and purple and red.
I blink and release her for just a moment. Her expression is unreadable. Inhuman.
Her body sinks in the water, and I rush to pull her back up, not sure if that even matters. But there's another hand on her now. Scaled and webbed, the siren's hand grasps at Whitley's forearm.
Then, several other forms rise from the water, surrounding me. My heart pounds.
"You can't have her," I tell them with a strained voice. Even I wouldn't believe me.
I keep my hold of Whitley, but so does the siren in front of me. She's smaller than most, with hair black as night, and skin covered in freckles. She hisses.
Then my mother rises, just feet from us. Her body is much more solid now that she's in the water, but there's still a shimmer telling me she's not at her full strength in the shallows.
But there's so many of them. I can't fight nine sirens at once. I can't win this.
"She belongs to us," Mother says so nonchalantly. "You've lost."
Whitley
I'm so cold.
Water covers my whole world. My soul is drowning. My mind spins, sputters, trying to pull myself to the surface. There's something I need. Someone that needs me. But I can't move. I can't think.
The song is still there, drifting in and out. Soft then harsh. Perfect harmonies and then offkey screeching. It's all I can hear. But then a soft voice whispers in my ear, muting everything else.
I love you.
The shock of those words jerks me forward, and the world around me blinks into focus. I see Bluff, his eyes red, his expression pained but angry.
I try to call to him, but my focus blacks out again. There's a pressure on my chest. Someone holding me down from the inside out, desperate to keep their control over me. The song turns fearful. The shrieks echo around me, the harmony losing form in their panic. The sirens are scared of losing.
My body won't react. I can't move. The words I so long to express don't leave my lips.
But at least now I can feel. Bluff is holding onto me. A cold and sharply scaled hand is gripping my arm. Her pull is stronger.
I drift lower. Deeper.
"You can't have her," he tells them, and my heart leaps. Don't let me go, I beg inside my head.
"She's belongs to us. You've lost."<
br />
Her grip tightens over my soul, crushing me. I writhe in pain but fight back. I must reach him. "Bluff!" I call, and for a moment my sight is opened again.
I can see him. He can see me. His face is so full of fear, and he reaches for me, but I'm pulled away, several bodies ripping us apart, moving between us.
I can still see, but blue ripples cover the bright sun, and this time when everything goes black, I know it's because I'm in the depths of the sea.
Bluff
The sirens screech as they leap at me, several of them all at once, their power and magic overwhelming me. I hold tight to Whitley, but her skin breaks under my nails as she's literally ripped from me. A few drops of blood dissipate into the blue water until they too are gone for good.
I keep fighting, even long after she's gone. There's no hope to get her back, but I scream and I kick and claw at everything I can. The sirens hiss as they claw at me, working to avoid my violent thrashes. One by one, they fall back into the deeper water and swim away. I begin to follow, ready to destroy anything in my path, but the deeper I get into the water, the more the darkness overwhelms my soul at the realization that I lost.
Whitley is gone. And I can't get her back.
I scream in frustration and slam my fist into the water. Then my mother appears before me, this time, entirely under water. She looks up from her safe place in the sea, only her distorted face visible.
She laughs, her chuckles rising in bubbles.
"I'll kill you if I get the chance," I tell her, my hands in fists.
She smiles. "You won't. Because now I have everything that I need to control you." She winks, and I punch the water where her face is, but by the time the ripples disappear, she's gone.
I lay on the beach, staring up at the blue sky. Soft white clouds float. Everything hurts. My skin stings where the siren's clawed at me. My muscles are heavy and sore. My head throbs. But most of all, my heart is lying in shattered pieces somewhere in my chest.
"This is your fault," I tell the water. The sea pulled her in, the way it's been trying to pull me in my whole life. She just didn't know the risk.
Why didn't I tell her? Why didn't I warn her that the sea isn't our friend? That being alone in the water is dangerous. If I had... well, at least she'd have been with me longer. Maybe I was always destined to lose. We were brought together, just to be pulled apart.
Fate won.
I lost.
You don't deserve her, the wind whispers into my ear. I sit up, surprised. I don't recognize the voice. It's not my mother—not this time.
"What?" I ask, wondering if I'm just going insane.
If you give up this easily, then you don't deserve her.
I suck in a breath. "Who are you?"
No answer. I swallow and consider the voice’s message. But how do I not give up? I can't exactly go into the Depths. Their power would be so much greater than mine there. I couldn't beat one siren that far below the surface let alone a city of them. That's if I could even reach it. Perhaps if I’d been raised below, I’d have become like them and could fight them. But then I wouldn’t have the emotions of a human, and I probably wouldn’t want to save her.
My mother left me as a human because she didn’t want me. Now, if I go below, I’ll either drown—die the good old-fashioned way—or they’ll drown me in their magic and make me one of them. Then they’d control my mind the way they now control Whitley’s.
My mother doesn’t want that, or she’d have done it years ago.
But then again, what does it matter if I don't survive?
I wouldn't win, but neither would they.
I stand and wipe the sand from my pants before stepping into the ocean. But just as the cool water hits me, something gives me pause.
In the distance— usually so empty, only blue as far as the eye can see— now there is the silhouette of sails. There's a ship coming.
I have a feeling I know which one.
Whitley
A white light shifts, swirling in dark water, glowing brighter, then weaker. Shadows meet the swirling light, twisting together in a strange sort of dance. My body shifts along with their movement.
I blink and I’m balancing on two feet, but only barely. Every shift of the boards beneath me, every rock of the ship, almost pitches me over. I’m certain I’d fall if not for the set of hands clenched tightly over each arm. Hands... scaled and webbed, glistening in the sun.
My limbs are heavy. My vision is fuzzy—everything spins. Where am I?
All I can register about my surroundings is that I am on a ship. That, and I really want to lie down and sleep.
A strange feeling throbs through my veins. Like the rush of the ocean waves—the purr of moving water, pulsing through me. That sensation masks the voices around me, making it near impossible to comprehend. Who is holding me? What is happening?
Where am I?
Where is he?
I can’t even think of who he is, just that he should be with me.
I can feel him though. A golden drop within the darkness.
“Whitley?” someone says, approaching. His voice is familiar but unwelcome. I wince away from the man’s voice.
“Whitley,” he whispers, closer now. Soft fingertips glide against my cheek. “Are you all right?” he asks. His concern is believable. I shouldn’t believe him though. He never cared about me.
I force my gaze up. He steps back, terror clouding his expression as my eyes meet his.
“Father?” I don’t remember why, but the anger simmers within me. I hate him.
“Yes!” he says through a gasp. “I... I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I huff out a bitter laugh, but it takes so much energy. My mind almost succumbs to the darkness. I blink it back, concentrating. Then I look him straight in the eye again and use the anger building to send my hand through the air. It hits his cheek with a resounding smack.
This action doesn’t take my energy. It fuels me.
Several laughs resound, and a feeling bubbles in my chest. Power.
I like it.
“Yeess,” a slithering voice whispers in my ear. “He is a man. He will pay for what he’s done.”
For one moment that feels right. That feels good. But...Shouldn’t you pay, too? I want to say to the voice. I don’t speak.
A conversation commences around me, the voices snapping together in my clouded mind.
“Where is the boy?” a rough and unfamiliar voice echoes. “You brought the girl, but without the boy she is useless.”
A tall woman next to me chuckles. “He will come. Don’t you worry about that.”
“If he doesn’t?”
“Then we have everything we need to force him here.” She places a scaled hand onto my shoulder. I clench my jaw. I do not like that.
“Do you even know how this works? Can you make her call him?”
“Trust me. We will not need to. He will come on his own. But if it comes to that, we may choose to experiment. Fear is as much a motivator as pain. One of the two will work.”
The bearded man smiles in a way that sends a shiver down my spine. “In that case,”– he nods to a red headed pirate next to him— “perhaps we can speed the process up a bit.”
The red pirate pulls out a knife that glints in the sunlight.
Bluff
My limbs are shaking, weak. The energy in my chest, though, is fueled by rage as my fingers grip the wet wood of the rocking ship and pull my body up, higher and higher. Thick salt water drips off every inch of me. I will destroy this entire ship if I can manage. I will end every life that dares to conspire against me. Against Whitley.
I revel in the anger and in the power. I do not want to feel. I want to crush everything in my path.
Luckily, there are only enemies in front of me, but if The Freedom dares show its face, they’ll meet my vengeance as well.
If a single soul survives this, I’ll consider it a failure. That includes my own.
I reach the rai
ling of the main deck and find a place to settle. My foot rests on the bottom plank, my arms cling to the railing. I’m exposed enough it’s possible I could be seen, but it’s unlikely. It’s a risk I’ll have to take, because I must know what’s happening on board before I approach.
“Your thirst for violence will be your destruction, pirate.” The voice unmistakably belongs to my mother.
I twist to get a better vantage. Two sirens stand beside a girl with blonde hair and a white dress. Hair hangs over her face. Her head sags like she doesn’t have the energy to hold it up. Anger bubbles even higher in my chest.
“Nothing wrong with a little blood lust,” Stede’s gravelly voice says low and steady. “Besides, it’s true, no? Pain will force him here quicker.”
A red headed pirate steps forward. A short narrow blade hangs casually in his right hand.
“On second thought...” Stede places a hand on the pirate’s shoulder. “Perhaps they are right. There are other ways to punish him without scarring the girl.”
Stede steps up, right in front of Whitley. “Everything that happens to you,” he tells her in a sinister whisper, “is his fault. Remember that.”
Pain like a knife twists in my stomach and I nearly lose my grip and fall back to the sea, but it’s nothing compared to the poison that fills my veins when Whitley looks up to Stede with red angry eyes and hisses.
A scream explodes inside my head. I’m barely able to hold it in.
I can’t stop my mind from spinning through all my worst memories with sirens. A siren laughed the day I broke my arm climbing through the nets of a ship and cried to my mother for help—I was nine. Or the day my mother tried to convince me to plunder an island town I’d lived in for over a year, and had plenty of friends in, just because one man had escaped her attack. Then she “punished” me for this disobedience by murdering a sailor who was like a father to me—looking me in the eye, and smiling, as she snapped his neck. Or the one and only time I allowed a young siren to allure me into trusting her. She rewarded that trust by sinking her fangs into my best friend’s neck.
Sea of Treason (Pirate's Bluff Book 1) Page 20
