My mind is surprisingly blank. The only thing I can think is about her pain. I can feel it, deep in my soul, if I focus hard enough. And I don’t want to.
Running away feels too much like abandonment, but I promised Rosemera I’d give it a little time. I’d get away from the city, where the sirens know I am and we’d make a decision once we’re in a safer place.
So I’m doing that. I’ll walk for one day. When the sun sets, I’m free to make my choice.
Fight, my aunt’s hiss echoes through my mind. I’m still unsure if she was manipulating me. Logically, I know, the thought of following Whitley and accepting slavery willingly is literal insanity. So it’s possible, the fact that Aunt Emil would push me in that direction makes me wonder...
I swallow.
It could be another trap. More manipulation. I have no way of knowing.
Whitley
“Who am I?”
“The most powerful siren to ever live,” a bodiless voice answers through the waves. It wraps around my mind, constricting. “And I am your master.”
“Why do I hurt?” I ask the bodiless voice.
“He did this to you.” Her voice is like a warm blanket, covering me. Slowly spreading over my mouth and nose, comforting—then suffocating.
“Who is he?” I don’t know a him. Do I? Have I ever known a him? Have I ever known anyone?
“I will show you. But what will you do when you find him?”
“I don’t know. What should I do?”
“Hurt him,” the voice hisses. Her anger sends a shiver down my back. “Make him feel how he made you feel. He did this to you.”
He did this to me.
Bluff
We walk for an entire day, only stopping once to refill our water supplies when we pass a tiny town. No one pays us much mind as we pass through. We have to go the long way around one farm because their dogs are not kind to strangers. Otherwise, it has been an uneventful day.
Knick and Bingo walk so close their arms practically touch. Robert keeps near to Rosemera, who keeps near to me. I expected to have to deflect complaints from the youngest, but he hasn’t uttered much of anything the whole day.
Robert gave his share of huffs and puffs, his shoulders slumped half way through our travel. He was clearly not used to physical exertion. But I suspect the lack of groaning from the others kept his lips sealed.
The farther we walk the stronger the throbbing in my chest grows. My connection with Whitley has dimmed for a while. I don’t want to consider what that might mean. But then, all of the sudden I can feel the rush of waves and know we’ll find another bay in the next few miles.
I assume Rosemera thinks we are moving inland, but I don’t correct our course. These parts are full of dips and pulls, and even traveling north can lead to open water eventually.
I need to be near the water to be near Whitley. And now, I can feel the distance from her waning. I can feel her power growing and her pain fading.
My heart races, faster and faster, as we draw closer to the sea, but still, I don’t speak.
When the sun dips low in the sky, Rosemera begins talking. “We must find a place to sleep tonight. Bluff, what do you think?”
“Hmm?”
“Where do you think we should camp out for the night?”
I blink. Is she asking me because she suspects I don’t intend to wait out the night with them? “I don’t care.”
She purses her lips. “You must have some input?” she presses, wringing her hands.
“We could just keep walking,” I say absently.
“Are you serious? We need rest,” Robert says breathlessly. “We’ll need some kind of shelter.”
“I agree with Bluff,” a little voice says. “We should keep walking.”
“Why?” Knick says suddenly.
Bingo shuffles his feet as he walks, but he doesn’t respond.
“You’re tired. You must be tired?” Rosemera asks him.
He nods but doesn’t look her in the eye.
“He wants to find her too,” I say, studying him. His head whips up and he meets my eye.
“You’re not giving up, right?” he asks.
I give him a small smile.
“It’s too late, Bingo,” Rosemera spits, suddenly halting her walk. “Whitley is gone and if Bluff even goes near the water again, he’ll be gone too. Is that what you want?”
Knick grabs Bingo’s arm, pulling him behind his body. The little boy’s lip trembles.
“Let’s keep walking for now,” I say, not wanting to fight. The more we walk, the closer to the shoreline we get, even if Rosemera doesn’t realize.
We walk in silence; Bingo now sends quick glances to me every few minutes.
Almost an hour later, we reach the top of a particularly steep hill and Rosemera gasps as she looks out over the ridge. I step up beside her, looking out over the expanse before us. Glistening in the distance, still a few miles away, is open water.
“How did we get back to the sea?” Rosemera asks confused.
“It’s Lake Pontchartrain. Just north of New Orleans.”
“You knew.” Rosemera says. It’s not a question.
“Not at first.” I shrug.
She throws her head back. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Whitley is near?” Bingo asks.
I nod gently.
“Good,” he says with a sharp nod, looking me right in the eye.
“Not this again. I don’t need you encouraging him to commit suicide!”
Knick steps forward, his shoulders back, chest out, like he needs every ounce of strength to stand up to Rosemera. She’s a force, to be sure. “We don’t want harm to come to him,” Knick says, “but we also don’t want to give up on her. I don’t see how her being with the sirens means she’s as good as dead.”
Rosemera groans. “You all are fools. When someone becomes a siren, they lose all of who they were before. Everything that made Whitley Whitley is gone. She won’t know you. Any of you.” Her eyes dart to me, but then away. “She’ll kill you just like she killed countless strangers in New York.”
“She’s been a siren for weeks. We spent an entire week on a ship with her. Why is it different now?” Knick asks.
Rosemera presses her eyes shut. “Because when they tried to turn her the first time, Bluff was there to stop them from finishing. She kept her soul, and some of her memories. And even then, she went on a rampage. This time? The Siren Queen has had her for more than a day, as opposed to minutes the last time.” She opens her eyes. “She’s GONE,” she spits.
Bingo shakes his head quickly, tears in his eyes.
“Rosemera is right,” I say.
Rosemera lets out a relieved breath. Bingo gasps.
“Which is why you shouldn’t go anywhere near sirens,” I tell Bingo. “If you see Whitley, assume the worst. Run. Or close up your ears and hide. Don’t dare talk with her.”
Rosemera sucks in a long breath. “Thank you,” she says as she releases.
“I will be the one to go find her. No one else.”
Everyone pauses, all eyes on me. “Bluff,” Rose says, her voice weak. “Please don’t.”
It doesn’t matter what logic tells me, not anymore. I’m tired of running from the inevitable. And I won’t leave Whitley with this burden. Even if she did leave me.
I know my fate now—it’s her.
Whitley is all there is.
And the agony of living without her is worse than the terror of slavery.
I’m not giving up. I’m giving in.
“I promised you one day. I’ve given it to you.”
She shakes her head, her curly hair whipping as she does. “No.” she says, tears suddenly on her cheeks. “No, I won’t give up on you.”
I step forward quickly, grabbing her upper arms. “Then don’t,” I say. “Don’t give up on me.”
She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to my shoulder, holding back a sob. I wrap my arms around her a
nd press my cheek to her hair. “I love you like family,” I tell her. “That won’t ever change. Even if I lose this battle, they can make me do things. But they can’t steal my mind, not like they can to Whitley. I’ll still be me, and I’ll still love you.” She grips my tunic in her fists. Then she pulls back and hits my chest.
“Damn you, Bluff,” she says with anger that shocks me.
“I’m sorry,” I barely get out. “I’m so sorry, Rose.”
She cries into my shoulder, and my heart breaks for her. My heart breaks for both of us. But I look out at the water, ready to face my fate.
Whitley
He’s coming. I can feel it. Feel him.
Excitement squirms in my belly as I wait in the lake, magic swirling around me in a tight embrace.
I cannot wait until I come face to face with this him.
“Remember what he did to you,” my master whispers in my ear. “He is your enemy.”
My enemy.
Bluff
It takes another hour for us to reach the water’s edge. There are no ships here, no cities nearby. Even the swamps have cleared out, leaving only open coastlands. It’s beautiful, really.
Dark clouds gather in the distance. Waiting.
I know what they mean, but I’m ready for it.
I love her. And I won’t deny it anymore. I don’t care what she is.
So I’m going to face it. Just for the chance to look in her eyes and see Whitley again. One kiss, one real touch, would be enough to be worth it.
I swallow. The chances of even that, of even one moment where she isn’t controlled by my mother, are so astronomically small. My mind spins considering this.
Perhaps I am stupid. Perhaps this is the wrong choice.
I squeeze Rosemera in closer.
The night reigns in earnest as we approach the water’s edge, dark shadows scattered across the surface. Rosemera stops nearly a hundred yards from the waves, irritated by the coming storm.
“Choose me,” she whispers. I blink, unsure if I heard her correctly. “Bluff,” she says her voice scared. She looks me in the eye, so much pain deep in their brown depths.
“What?” I ask in a whisper, searching her expression.
She doesn’t repeat it, though. And I don’t ask again, because I’m afraid of the implications. I...
I shake my head and turn towards the water. She lets go of my hand, and I step forward, approaching the steep dip into the water.
Knick, Bingo, Robert and Rosemera stand back and watch as I walk forward. I turn back one last time to see Robert holding Rosemera, her bloodshot eyes staring at me, unblinking.
God, why must everything be so hard? Staying with them would be impossible. Leaving them is almost as inconceivable.
I swallow and look back at the water, holding back tears of my own. Then her form appears over the water. Nearly a hundred feet out into the harbor, gleaming eyes look back at me.
My mother smiles. “I didn’t need to come find you after all.”
Bluff
I stand at the river’s edge watching her skirt billow in the sloshing waves. The sky is a dim blue, storm clouds teasing the edge of the horizon.
I’ve been here before. This moment. Facing the reality that I’ve lost.
Hope has slipped into the current, pulled beneath the waves. Drowning. That’s what this feels like, I realize.
Panic sets in at first, as water surrounds you. There is no way to escape the wave’s grip. You helplessly twist and turn, struggling for any way to release yourself from the inevitable. You have to breathe, but can’t. Must swim, but the water will not submit. Must reach the surface, but the harder to you try the farther it gets.
Your body twists and arches as the pressure builds. Your hands shake. A scream is trapped in your mind, because even that requires breath. Your vision blinks. Mind goes fuzzy until you can’t even think.
Water rushes into your lungs, filling everything you once were, and with it comes calm. Release. Your muscles unclench as you give in. Death is here, staring you in eyes longingly, and all you can do is stare back as your body is broken. Crushed.
The game is over. You lost.
Just like me.
Hopelessness has filled my lungs as I stare out at the woman I love, floating in the waves of this little, unknown harbor. My mother towers over her, powerful tail swishing to keep her up. She turns to me, black eyes full of a sadistic joy. All energy evaporates from my body until all that’s left is cold.
I don’t react.
“We’ve been here before,” my mother’s voice slithers, her head tilting innocently. Her slitted eyes narrow even further, and her gills flutter in the open air. “How long will you resist?”
No longer, Mother. Because it’s clear. There is nothing I can do.
“I will make it easy on you, if you let me.” She says it so sweetly. Like she’s doing me a favor. She’s going to use the magic flowing through the veins of the woman floating in the water to enslave me. To physically force me to do her bidding. But she’s doing me a favor by inviting me to stop fighting.
You’re so very giving, Mother. I don’t have the energy to speak the words, but she smiles like she heard them nonetheless. Perhaps she does.
She flicks an eyebrow at me, inviting me to enter the water. Come, she whispers, and then her form evaporates, leaving Whitley floating alone. Her red satin skirt billows in waves like blood.
I don’t intend to resist. I know what my future holds. Always have. Only this time, I know there is nothing left but to accept it.
She was my wings. And now she’ll be my shackles.
I thought I could best fate. Thought if I was clever enough, if I fought hard enough, I could win. I could find a way out of this terrible destiny. The slave of a slave.
I tried. So hard. And I almost succeeded. I had her in my grip, until it slipped.
That was all it took was a slip, and she was gone.
I wade into the water, feet sinking into the muck, slugging through to meet with the woman of my dreams. Now the source of my nightmares.
Whitley stares at me, her iridescent eyes empty of life but full of violent desire. A shadow passes over her face, and then she dips beneath the surface. As water covers her face, her eyes stay locked on mine.
I’m sorry, I say in my mind. I loved you, I still do, I want to tell her. Even though she won’t believe me. She doesn’t remember. Doesn’t even know who I am. My heart crumbles into ash. I tried to save us both. I’m sorry I failed.
Come, her voice lifts from the rippling water.
I obey.
Whitley
I dip below the water, pulled like my body is made of lead.
Until he joins me beneath the surface.
He did this to you. That’s what she told me. The pain, the fear—it all came from him. And yet, he calmly follows me down, down, beneath the waves. His eyes latch onto mine. Bluish gray. His hair silver rippling in the current.
I drift down, and he follows gently. I like the way it feels. Warmth drips off of him and onto me, and I just watch. This doesn’t feel like pain. I’m not afraid.
Perhaps the voice was wrong.
Our bodies spin and twist in the water like we are preforming a strange dance, but we never touch. My hair drifts and lingers, twisting around his neck, then releasing like a gentle caress.
If he is what she says he is, why isn’t he fighting? Though there is longing in his eyes, they are clear. He isn’t under any spell. He’s just letting himself be pulled below. He’s letting my magic curl around him like this is what he’s always wanted.
We drift farther out to sea, still dancing to the sound of a siren chorus. They welcome him.
I feel his pain. His hope.
And I like it.
I reach out, my long fingers aching to touch him. The moment I feel the skin of his cheek, he’s suddenly ripped away. I jerk back, panic rising, bubbles covering everything but the sound. Gurgling, a hiss, followed by painful gru
nting.
What’s happening?
Finally, the bubbles clear, and a beautiful siren appears before me, holding the boy by his silver hair, one clawed finger pointed at his neck. “You do not touch her,” she says to him without moving her lips.
I swallow, studying the Siren Queen—my master—and the boy who’s supposed to be my enemy. What happened? She looks at me, her eyes softening.
“Remember, he’ll hurt you. Do not trust him.”
I tilt my head. Then why not kill him now? I want to ask, but I don’t because I don’t want him to die. Maybe that is what makes him dangerous. Maybe he hypnotized me without me even realizing.
Enemy, the siren chorus resounds behind us.
I blink as the Siren Queen curls her finger, beckoning me to follow her farther out to sea. She pulls the boy with her, but his eyes never leave me.
My heart pounds harder, confusion filling me. I follow my master into the depths of the sea.
Bluff
Whitley disappears from sight. My mother pulls me down into the depths of the sea, but we stop when the light is extinguished from above. Shadows of creatures surround us, moving like a tornado.
He shall not pass, they chant around me.
Not to be trusted.
Farther below, there is a glowing light. Dim green, still in the distance.
The siren city. Likely the place I was born, but definitely a place I haven’t been since. I have never been allowed. And apparently, I still am not.
The sirens create a wall around me, magic hissing and sputtering. The defensive magic splatters and spits. I jerk as it hits my skin, burning. That’s unnecessary.
“You will never touch her again,” my mother hisses in my ear. “And you do not belong to us.”
My stomach clenches, but it doesn’t surprise me. She knows our magic calls to each other. More and more I’m starting to believe my aunt’s story—or at least parts of it. Whitley and I are a twin pairing. I’ve always known our power was connected—we were connected. So I suppose it shouldn’t be too much of a shock that it was meant to be that way.
Treacherous Love Page 15
