I didn’t know how many weeks had passed since I was converted into a siren. My mind hadn’t been straight since. Nightclub after nightclub, endless festivals and revelries. Much of what had transpired, I had blacked out, sleeping much of the days away, hiding away in corners, closing my eyes at every horror, but now I was finished with all that. I wanted to live.
I tried to distract myself from my hungers and the dryness of my parched tongue by looking out onto the open air dance floor where Wren, Lyra, and Gia were dancing with some rich high school guys they met at the poker tables in the lobby. The boys had some big wins and were footing the bills for all of us. Nice guys actually. Out of towners like we were.
In my opinion, Wren, Lyra, and Gia were getting too into the dancing. I hated them. They were all over the boys, pressed right up against their bodies as they moved to the rhythmic beats. I wanted to rip them away. A part of me wanted to feel the heat of a boy’s hips and torso the way they were. I wanted to feel hot human breath on my neck. I yearned to devour them.
But the sirens were too overt. They had to stop. They shouldn’t flaunt their hungers publically. Everyone at the bar didn’t have to know what was stirring inside of us. I ground my teeth.
In annoyance, I looked across the rooftop toward the swimming pool. The slave boy with sandy blond hair, Travis and his brown haired side kick, Blake, were hanging out on the lounge chairs by the pool. Travis was the bitch who upon seeing me for the first time at the campground mini-market, said he wanted to suck my face. Faggit.
And Blake was the guy who helped Dylan beat him up. I wished they would do it again. Now the idiots were hitting on some college girls who seemed to be going for their advances even though the young women were obviously older than the boys by a few years.
One of the girls was petite with cute “girl next door” looks. So innocent. She was running the side of her finger down shithead’s face. I just knew he must have sung to her to get her to move on him that quickly. He had no patience and even though he was extraordinarily good looking, his personality was too crude to appeal to women naturally.
Blake was less aggressive. He leaned back on his lounge chair and talked casually to the squirrel faced chick with a leaner, meaner physique. Though she was looking around the bar, she sat on the edge of the chair facing him most of the time.
“What do you think?” Dylan asked as he nodded toward the slaves. “You think Blake is going to sing to her?”
I rolled my eyes even though my breathing sped up at just hearing his voice. He was hot in a way a human never could be. “I get the impression he likes to win them over naturally.”
Dylan looked at me darkly. “Let’s bet on it.”
“What?” My eyes widened.
He leaned into me. “If he sings to her, I win.”
My heartbeat sped up. “And if he doesn’t?” I wiped the palms of my hands on my black short skirt.
“You win.” He looked at me through his thick lashes.
I clutched onto the edge of the table. “What do I get if I win?” My tone was suspicious.
His green eyes gleamed under the lights. “I’ll go with you to see your parents.”
I moved away suddenly, my back flat against the chair. “Wren would kill you if you did that.” Sirens were physically unable to leave the flock alone for more than a half hour at a time. We had to always be within close proximity to at least one other siren, so I would never be able to see my mother or father again unless one of the other six went with me.
“I said I’d do it,” he responded seriously. “But you have to win and you won’t.” A crooked grin lifted on his perfect face.
I bit my lip. “What if you win? What do you get?”
“You’ll eat tonight.” His eyes narrowed.
I got the feeling he was studying my face. “You know I won’t do that.” I just wished he would kiss me. Oh, that first kiss. Our mouths pressed together. What would it be like?
His cheeks paled. “You can’t starve yourself forever.”
My head shook involuntarily. “You’re not very good at setting a bet. I couldn’t live with winning or losing.”
Dylan shrugged and lifted his chin in the direction of Blake and the squirrel faced girl who was now kissing him on his lounge chair. “Can you hear that?”
In my mind, when I concentrated, I faintly heard Blake singing between kisses. “He sang—didn’t he?” I asked despondently.
“Yes.” Dylan leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “I guess you’ll eat tonight.”
“Hell no!” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t agree to the bet.”
He shook his head without responding and sort of gazed off. I wasn’t sure, but his eyes looked sad like he was awaiting some impending doom. I felt a constriction in my gut like someone was twisting my gizzards. I looked under the table. Dylan’s fists were balled up tightly. A vein in his arm was lifting from the blockage of blood flow as his nails dug into his palms. His pain was my pain and I experienced it as if it was my own.
Lyra and Gia and their two guys, Evan and Jasper, walked over to us. They were both tall and thin soccer players. Evan was cute with light brown short hair and a tattoo on his arm that said, “Golden Rule,” which means love your neighbor as yourself.
Jasper had a short army hair cut with average looks but his appeal was still apparent in his generosity and sensitivity toward others. In many ways, they were the kinds of guys you hoped your little sisters would marry—appealing, but good and stable with promising futures.
Lyra released Evan’s hand and leaned on my chair. Her long black hair fell over my shoulder.
I wanted to smack her.
“Let’s go,” she breathed. “We’re going to our room to watch movies.”
I looked over at the swimming pool and saw Wren directing Travis, Blake and the college girls over to us. Travis appeared anxious and Blake seemed slightly annoyed though he gave the impression that he was trying to hide his agitation. I got the feeling Blake liked the girl he was talking to a lot. He had a tendency to get attached.
The girls acted dreamy eyed and willing to do whatever the boys said. The squirrel faced chick was staring into Blake’s eyes lovingly. And the cutesy girl was kissing Travis’s hand. But, in no time, they were all over at our table.
Once we got out on the street, the flashing Vegas lights were too bright on my eyes. I threw my head onto Dylan’s chest and let him guide me. The warmth of his body soothed. I hoped I wasn’t bothering him with my closeness.
Our suite at the Grand Golden Hotel was just about one half of a block away on the main strip. When we stepped into the lobby, everything felt alive around me. I could hear the mixing of heart beats, the patter of steps against the stone floors. The shuffling of cards in milky white hands.
We stepped into a glass elevator. Gia pressed a button. Number thirty lit up, the floor of our suite. I looked up at Dylan trying to read his blank expression. It was useless. He was good at covering his thoughts like that.
Wren’s boy, Nolan, who had sweet brown eyes and a stockier physique than his friends’, squeezed her hand gently. She leaned into him with more passion. I felt his breath hot on Wren’s mouth like it was my own as the elevator shot upwards. A part of me wanted to gag, but the more animal part of me wished I was her. I loathed myself for that.
When we walked into the suite, Nolan stopped kissing Wren briefly. His eyes widened as he looked around. “What’s all this plastic for?” He pointed at the clear plastic covering the couches and the floor of the living room.
Lyra took her lips off of Evan. “We were hired to paint murals for the hotel, so we laid down the plastic to keep the paint off the furniture and marble.”
“Oh.” Nolan nodded as Wren led him over to the entertainment center.
Lyra ran her hand over Evan’s tattoo. “What a curious concept,” she whispered to Evan. “Who cares about your neighbors.” She giggled.
His eyebrows furro
wed. “My parents died when I was a kid and the last thing my mother said to me before she passed was, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Now, I try to live by that rule as best as I can.”
Lyra gazed at him sweetly. I wondered if she regretted what she said. “You are beautiful inside and out,” she murmured as a comeback in his ear. “I wish I could have known you then to help you through that.”
He smiled lightly, but I saw pain in his eyes. “Yeah, it was a long time ago.”
Gia and Jasper sat down on the loveseat while Wren and Nolan picked out a movie. I looked down the short hall and saw Blake and Travis leaning up against the wall kissing their girls in the dark. Dyaln and I were just standing there watching everyone, sort of separated from them as we usually were.
“Come sit on the couch with me.” Lyra led Evan to the sofa.
Evan chuckled lightly as he sat down on the plastic beside her. “It’s strange how people forget about you after you die. Nobody at our church even talks about my parents anymore. But me and my little sister will never forget.”
“At least you have each other,” Lyra said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Yeah, I don’t think we would have made it without each other.” He ran his fingers through his short brown hair and looked up at the ceiling.
The slave boys led the girls to the doorway of an adjoining room. They were singing lightly, “Let’s dance, our dance, tonight. Oh, I want you, Oh, I feel you, in my arms—just right… So let’s dance this final dance tonight…”
The cutesy girl smiled brightly, opening her little mouth of pretty white teeth. I could just see her on a tampon commercial. She was that cute. “You have such an awesome voice. I want my uncle to hear you. He’s in the music industry; I bet he could make you famous.”
She looked over at her friend. “Aren’t they good singers, Tammy?” The squirrel faced girl appeared so dazed from the song, one might have thought she was lost in a heroin high.
“Yeah, they’re good,” Tammy mumbled. She swayed a little like she was about to fall over.
Travis opened the bedroom door for his girl and Blake and the squirrel faced girl followed suit. And as he was closing the door, I heard the cutesy girl say, “Plastic on the beds too?”
A sickened feeling nearly overtook me as I walked into the kitchen with Dylan. I wanted to run out of the suite and call the police, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to convince the law enforcement that the girls were acting against their will and were hypnotized. They would just say I was crazy, especially considering how enamored the young women were with Travis and Blake.
I looked at Dylan and whispered under my breath so that Wren, Lyra, or Gia who were sitting on the couch with their boy toys wouldn’t hear me, “Did you used to do what Blake and Travis do?”
He shook his head. His eyes narrowed. “Before they hooked up with the sirens, they were virgins. They couldn’t get a girl to even look at them. At first, after the conversion, Blake didn’t use his powers to seduce girls, but on his own merit he was a complete failure.”
I rolled my eyes thinking about how Blake really wasn’t that appealing even with his perfect physical features. He was nice, but too needy.
Dylan’s eyes looked sad now as he continued, “Eventually, Blake succumbed to his natural inclinations as a siren.” He leaned his hand on the granite countertop.
“What about Travis?” I whispered as I looked at Wren who was straddling the boy she brought back with her while they watched the movie Jaws.
“He was always a dick. Once he was converted, he became a madman.”
I could tell that Dylan couldn’t stand him. “Did you know Blake and Travis before the triplets converted you?”
He nodded, his gaze lifting upwards like he was thinking back in time. “We were school buddies hanging out one night on the beach when we met the sirens.” His eyes blazed at the memory. I sensed an inner rage within him.
Gia must have sensed it too because she looked over at Dylan. I feared the way she watched him. It was too intense and entirely different than the way she looked at the guy she was making out with.
“You don’t want to talk about it?” I asked hesitantly.
He shook his head. “No.” His gaze fell to the marble floor and Gia turned back to the television.
“I don’t want to be here,” I whispered, pushing down the lump in my throat. “I just want to leave.”
“I know.” Dylan touched my fingers with his. I looked at his perfect face and saw him staring blankly, coldly at the wall.
We must have stood there for five minutes listening to the horror music of Jaws as the great white tore the first victim to death. “Let’s go out onto the balcony,” Dylan finally said.
I followed him outside the sliding glass doors. The hot wind was blowing through my long hair as Dylan threaded his arms around my waist. I shivered at his touch wondering if his intensions were just of friendship or if he felt as I did. “This isn’t going to be forever,” he said as he ran his hand over my bare arm.”
“How could it not be? Sirens never die.” My stomach tightened.
His hands fell from my waist and he took me by the shoulders. “I’m going to find a way out of this for us.” His stare was icy.
“Could we just throw ourselves off this balcony?” I asked suddenly.
But before he could respond, I heard screaming coming from inside. We rushed in. Wren had transformed. Her beautiful face was hot and passionate. Nolan jumped off the couch and fell onto the plastic covering the floor. His eyes widened in horror. At once, she reached out her arm swiftly like an animal and tore off Nolan’s face with her talons.
So much blood. I held to Dylan as our bodies changed. My legs stretched and tore open. Talons projected from my feet and hands. I felt the most pleasurable massage in my back. A hump grew and stretched and wings tore through my flesh. I folded the wings at my sides. My legs were bird shaped, but my upper body was mostly human and beautiful aside from my talons and sharp incisors.
Evan jumped on Wren and tried to fight her off of Nolan, but Lyra grabbed him from behind with her long nails as she was in the process of transforming.
He fell to the floor. “My little sister needs me,” he gasped, choking on his own breath. “Please…”
At once, she started tearing away at his neck and torso. His flesh ripped away in chunks as her wings broke through her back. There was the breaking of bones and the eating.
Meantime, Jasper ran for the door, but Gia chased after him and threw him across the way, back onto the plastic. She pounced on his head. He struggled beneath her body, but she was too strong and fierce.
I wanted to join in desperately. The hunger was nearly overwhelming. The smell of blood and torn flesh. Screams and pain. The fear in their eyes. Their beating hearts. It all only added to my yearnings. But I held back cowering in the corner, loathing myself.
The triplets ran into the bedroom. There were girlish screams. Crying. The blood thirst was great. Begging and pleading. And then it stopped.
There was silence.
And then the slaves scavenged for the leftovers. They weren’t killers, but they had to feed to survive. I couldn’t watch. My body transformed back into that of a human. In horror at the gruesome sight of blood everywhere, I ran back out onto the balcony. I climbed up onto the ledge and looked down at the moving cars so far below.
Tears streamed down my face. At once, I threw myself off.
CHAPTER TWO
Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. –YODA, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
When you are about to die, time slows. Every second is like an hour. Thoughts overlap. Images of your life pass through your mind in speed time.
As I freefell off the hotel balcony, tumbling through the night air past each hotel floor, I seemed to process everything at once. Quick visual flashes of my mother. The same of my father. How ashamed they would be of me.
&n
bsp; My heart pounded in my chest. My face was hot like fire. Dylan. Oh, Dylan! What had I done? He was my life.
Horror of my fate overtook me. I had to live for him even if I was unworthy of even a breath of life. What if the positions were reversed and he killed himself, leaving me alone with the sirens for all eternity? He needed me.
I gave up too soon. I wanted to live! Help me. My breathing accelerated. At once, I tried to concentrate on transforming into a siren. If only my wings would project from my back, I could keep myself in flight and land safely.
But nothing happened. I was still in human form. Only feet away from smacking onto the ground, I was about to die.
Terror strangled me. My body stiffened to meet death. Oh, God!
I saw my head was about to hit a moving car. Blood and guts would be everywhere. Suddenly, arms wrapped around me. My body was yanked upwards. I was in shock.
My mind was halfway in hell by now. I felt warmth surround me as I looked up into Dylan’s face. His sweet face. My love.
I couldn’t speak. How could I say anything?
He flew with me up straight into the air over the rooftop of the hotel. The wind shifted. He took its natural course and soared eastward and down into a shallow canyon hidden by trees. His landing was graceful as he perched on an oak’s limb and set me down beside him on the thick, stable branch. My legs dangled limply over the side, but his talons dug into the wood.
He still had blood on his face and on his sharp incisors that protruded from the sides of his mouth. But I didn’t care anymore, even if I should have. “You saved me,” I finally managed to whisper. My body felt weak from not eating and my eyes welled up, but I was determined not to cry. My stomach was concaving inward.
Besides the crimson around his lips, his face was pale and blood drawn. He didn’t look at me. “I was right behind you, Hailey, when you jumped. I felt it before it happened.” His gaze was focused in the distance.
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