What my mother wants me to know is that she’ll never give me the chance to connect without her implicit control.
“What? Are you going to keep me in the middle of the ocean in a siren jail forever?”
“No,” she spits. “This is temporary holding. To weaken you, and strengthen her. We will find you a new home soon.” She winks, and then leans in and kisses me on the cheek. I wince, a grimace not at all hidden from her.
“Soon,” she whispers, before bolting off through the magic whirlpool wall around me.
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I stay in the magical siren prison. I can’t see the sun rise and fall. Nothing changes or shifts around me, expect the methodical swirling of sirens I can’t even see clearly.
I sleep. I think. Then wake to no change. The swirling is dizzying. Maddening.
I close my eyes and think of Whitley. Her incredible smile and haunting eyes. My body and mind relax and I find a calm within my soul.
I’ll see her again soon.
I MUST BE ASLEEP WHEN my mother comes back to get me, because the first thing I know when I wake is her firm grip on my upper arm, dragging me up to the surface.
I gasp for breath as we reach the surface. The urge to breathe is intense, though I don’t technically require it.
I could remain below my whole life, if needed. But my body has only ever been accustomed to human living, so I suppose it makes sense it still longs for the normalcy of breath.
Once my eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, I look around. We are in the middle of the ocean. No land in sight in any direction. But there is a ship, rapidly approaching.
Surprise, surprise. Captain Stede and his shiny new ship and crew. A silver flag with the image of a skull with blood dripping from its fangs flies in the wind. That’s new.
Flaunting his siren connections. Classy.
Shouts sound from the ship as the anchor is dropped, but my mother’s magic simmers in the water, halting the ship with an unnatural jerk. It rocks violently, sending more hollers and shouts in our direction.
My mother crawls over the side of the ship, slithering like a lizard, while pulling me along by the waist. I make sure not to make it any easier on her, keeping my body limp and stiff so she must carry all of my dead weight.
Small victories. Very, very small.
She shoves me over the side of the railing and then magically appears in front of me. Graceful, and proud in front of the whole crew. I roll my eyes. Stupid siren magic.
“Eleuthera,” a bearded, hunched over pirate says. I blink in recognition of Stede, who does not look very put-together. His arm is twisted back and lumped like a nasty injury that hasn’t healed properly. His face is pale.
Apparently these last few weeks have not been kind to him.
He straightens as he meets my eye. “The magical boy,” he says. “You’ve caught him again.”
My mother slithers over to his awkward form, hips swaying so unnecessarily. “Yess,” she hisses.
“I assume this means you also have the girl.”
She smiles, exposing yellowed fangs. “Naturally.”
He nods sharply and then approaches me. He squats down, his hand reaching beneath my chin to jerk my face towards his. “What will be different?” he says calmly. He seems such a different man than before. Beaten and broken. No longer the cocky asshole pirate I’ve come to expect. I fully suspect his cruelty, however, has not changed.
He looks me in the eye, his dark eyes narrowed. His lip curled in disgust.
“Different?” my mother asks sweetly, as if she doesn’t know what he means.
He stands, shoving my face away. “Last time we controlled the boy for minutes before the tides changed in their favor. You said it wouldn’t happen again. I want to know why.”
“You do not trust me any longer?” my mother’s slithering voice turns into a hiss.
“My faith is wavering, yes. I want to know why you failed before,”
Something has changed. My eyes dart between my mother and Stede. She was in control before, he was simply a tool. Now, something in their dynamic has changed. Stede is weaker physically, but seems more powerful in their relationship. How? Why?
She swallows, glancing at me like she doesn’t want to let me in on the secret of her own failure. “Whitley was not fully changed the last time. My...arrogance,” she says it slowly like it pains her to admit it. I can’t help but smirk, “...allowed him the opportunity to connect to her...sensitives shortly after her transformation and manipulate them to his own will. This time, she has been drowned in magic and water for two straight days. She is mine.”
I wince, wondering what kind of pain that must have caused her. My stomach clenches, wondering. How I could have ever considered leaving her like that? The moment she was caught, as she was drowning, I ran. What a coward.
I don’t know what is right anymore. I don’t know what is logical. I don’t care.
My choice is made, and I steel my heart against the inevitable pain that is just around the corner.
“His power is controlled by hers. Her power is controlled by mine. It is done. But we will not let our guard down. I will not fail again.”
I narrow my eyes. They’re going to be very, very careful this time. Meaning I may not have the opportunity to speak to Whitley, let alone express my feelings. She may never know how I feel about her. I came because I had no other choice, I couldn’t leave her behind. But there must be a way to save her.
She won’t remember me, so without opportunity to connect with her on some level—any level—I don’t see how I’ll escape this fate.
Is this it? I ask, mentally calling out to fate. Do I have no other chances at freedom?
I suck in a breath, remembering that I chose this. I could have run. And maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, but regardless I made the choice to come. Just give me a chance. An in. One shot to free her.
If I can lose her with one single slip, maybe my mother can as well.
Bluff
The storm rumbling in the distance is the only evidence that she’s near. The cool air whipping through the unmoving ship, sending the hair on my arms to attention.
I want to see her. I must see her.
And yet, the thought is like a punch to the gut. She appears before me, her dress ripped to shreds, the colors dulled. Her blond hair whips around her. Her power is evident.
It simmers and crackles in the air. She’s incredible.
My mother stands beside her, hand grasping her upper arm tightly. Every muscle in her body is tight. She’s afraid of losing again, scared of her grip slipping from the power in her grasp.
But she won’t. Not right now. I swallow and approach slowly, studying Whitley’s expression. Her eyes glow, but her limbs are limp. I recall the last time she was under my mother’s full influence and the way she could hardly hold her body up. That was only an hour into her transition. She’s sturdier on her feet, but only just so. Her eyes hold power, but no emotion.
Soulless.
I swallow, heart throbbing. Her soul isn’t gone, it’s just hidden beneath the surface. At least that’s what I’m begging to be true. It can’t be over. It can’t be too late.
Whitley must still be there, somewhere.
My fingers tremble as I step closer. My mother puts her hand up, halting me. I keep my head up, shoulders back, but stop feet from them.
“Whitley?” I say.
She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even appear to have heard the words.
“She doesn’t respond to that name any longer,” my mother hisses.
I grit my teeth. “What does she respond to?”
My mother smirks, “Siren.”
My eyebrows pull down but otherwise I don’t react. She wants that to bother me, but it won’t. I once thought that Whitley becoming a siren was me losing her. If I hadn’t spent time with her as one, I probably would have believed it. I still distrust sirens. It still makes my skin crawl the way they devour human flesh.
But the woman in front of me is not Siren. She’s Whitley. Regardless of her savagery, her magic, her lack of memory, my mother’s power over her. All of it. She’s still Whitley.
And I will still love her.
“Try again,” my mother says, low and slow. “Call her by her name. Her true name.”
I narrow my eyes. “Her true name is Whitley,” I say stubbornly. It’s a stupid fight. Not worth it. But I can’t help it.
“Not anymore,” she hisses.
I suck in a breath and look Whitley in her eye, gently. Softly. Trying to send every message to her that she is loved. “Siren,” I say. She whips her head up, sharp eyes meeting mine, cutting through to my soul. She is angry. Harsh. Ready to destroy the world.
My face falls, expression hardening. I’m already failing, and she hasn’t done anything more than look at me.
“Good,” my mother says, enjoying my pain. “Now, let’s have some fun, shall we?”
Whitley
My master commands me: “Hurt him.”
So I do. Magic flies from my fingertips, shooting into the silver-haired boy’s chest and sending him to the floor in a crumbled heap. Weakling.
He cries out as my power strikes. His back arches, face red as he screams.
I watch him curiously. It’s strange how I can make those veins appear on his neck. How his body curls and twists in his agony.
I stop and the boy turns over onto his knees, panting with his forehead to the damp wood of the deck.
“Again,” she tells me.
I look down at my hand. What else can I do to him? I wonder. A claw grows from my fingernail, sharp and black. My feet stay in their place, several feet from the strange boy, but I imagine my claw carving into his soft skin. It splits, where my eyes rove. Starting at the back of his hand. He pulls it in, instinctively. Another groan escaping lips I can’t see.
I want to see them, I realize. I twirl my finger, and his body jerks, spinning him onto his back. I step closer, my imaginary claw cutting through the cloth covering his upper arm, up farther, red seeping into the cloth as I travel up to his neck. Over his shoulder, splitting the soft flesh so easily it’s almost sickening.
How can any being be so incredibly weak?
I continue cutting, a smooth line all the way to those veins at his neck.
“Stop.”
I freeze, my own blood running cold. The power leaves my body in an instant, and he collapses onto the floor.
“We don’t want to kill him,” she tells me gently.
“Why?” I ask, turning to her, tilting my head as I examine my master. She’s beautiful, skin covered in scales the color of a rainbow. Blue shifting to green, shifting to yellow. It changes even as she moves in the light. She’s larger than me, but I find myself wondering how strong she is.
The power flowing through my limbs is massive. Impossibly big. Could she really be stronger than me?
“Because we need him.”
“For what?” I ask.
She smiles, touching my cheek lightly with her fingertips. “You will see. In time.”
She pulls me away from the boy writhing on the ground, holding his bleeding arm with his other. I follow her across the ship, and back into the waves below.
Home.
Bluff
I remain curled on the cold ground for hours and no one bothers me. It takes nearly that long to stop shaking.
I refuse to be angry. I refuse to let my soul dip into that darkness of blame. I chose this.
Tears sting my eyes. Sobs wrack my body. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it was Whitley doing that to me. But it doesn’t matter. Because it wasn’t her. It was my mother.
My sadistic mother that enjoys causing people pain. Dragging them under and drowning them. It’s what she’s been doing to sailors for centuries. Now she’s doing the same to me, just in a new way. I heave in massive breaths, determined to calm myself.
I will face more of this pain—so much pain—again very soon. Tomorrow perhaps. But I will face it as strongly as I can. I groan as I force my body upright. The sun is setting, and I should find a place to sleep.
A middle-aged pirate I’ve never seen before approaches me. He squats down beside me. “Here,” he says, his voice soft. He hands me a damp rag. “It’s clean.” He begins dabbing the slices in my arm.
I let him, studying his face. “Who are you?” I ask. Wondering why he’d help and if he’d get in trouble for it.
“Name’s Jasper. Was on a merchant ship before this one.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What made you join a crew like this? That’s a rather large leap.”
He nods. “They took over my ship. It was join or die.”
“What was your position?”
He smiles, sadness in his eyes. “First mate. Captain called me a coward just before they slit his throat. ‘Course, that’s a story told many times. Yours is infinitely more interesting.”
“Interesting,” I mutter with an annoyed tone. But in truth I’m happy for the conversation. It reminds me that life goes on. Mostly, it distracts me of the pain still twirling beneath the surface.
“What makes a Siren Queen so determined to hunt and hurt you, a seemingly normal boy?” he asks under his breath.
“They haven’t told you?”
He shrugs.
I knew this crew was new. It had to be after Whitley destroyed the las ship and most of the crew with it, but it seems strange that they’d know next to nothing.
“She’s my mother,” I say. No longer worried about keeping secrets.
The sailor pauses, then his hands pulls away from my arm quickly “The Siren Queen...”
I nod.
“Then why...”
“Because she’s evil. Sirens...” I clench my jaw. I don’t want to keep lumping them all in together. Sirens are this. Sirens are that.
My mother is emotionless. My mother is evil. That doesn’t make them all that way. She just happens to be their queen. “She doesn’t feel love, or compassion or empathy. She has no maternal bond to me. She only knows the thirst for power.”
His mouth falls open. “So you have power?” he says. Finally that spark I’ve been waiting for. He carries it the same as any pirate. He desires it just the same.
“Power I don’t know how to use.”
“So learn.”
I give him a small smile just as boots stomp across the deck towards us. “Jasper,” Captain Stede shouts. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Jasper scrambles to his feet, facing the captain. “I was cleaning his wounds, Captain.”
He narrows his eyes. “This boy is our captive. He is not to be trusted. Ever.”
“He’s valuable, right?” Jasper asks with a wavering voice. “Those wounds could become infected and I—”
“Hush,” the captain shouts, his voice booming through the ship. “His health is not your concern.”
Jasper lowers his head in submission. “Should we take him to the brig, sir?”
Stede purses his lips. “No. He remains in plain sight. He has power you wouldn’t believe. Do not ever underestimate him.”
Jasper nods and then scurries off. I narrow my eyes as he goes. No punishment? I wonder. For him or for me.
Stede stomps forward, kneeling down beside me. He looks me in the eyes with his cruel stare. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time,” he says low. Only for me.
I swallow.
“I’m going to enjoy every moment.” Then he stands and begins to walk away.
“You’re not going to tie me up?” I ask, voice hoarse. “Or torture me?”
He turns and smiles, cruel joy in his eyes. “Don’t need to. There’s nowhere for you to go that they can’t find you now. And you’ll be getting plenty more torture from that girl of yours. You needn’t worry about that.”
Whitley
Who am I?
What am I?
...Siren
Bluff
Sleeping on the main deck makes for uncomfortable nights. But then, this has become the theme of my reality now.
Torture. Pain. Discomfort.
Torture. Pain. Discomfort.
Torture. Pain. Discomfort.
Whitley comes, experiments with more of her power on me as her play thing. One hour. Two. Three. Only so much as my energy can hold out.
They don’t want to kill me, after all. But I do feel myself fading. Slowly. My bruised soul slipping.
“I will make you hate her,” my mother tells me. I let her believe it will works, but I know who is really behind my pain.
Whitley never speaks. She never shows emotions. But she does look at me. Her eyes translucent, iridescent. While I’m writhing in pain, I see the confusion and curiosity there.
I shield my heart, refusing to hate her. Refusing to become angry.
I’m angry at my mother, but even that emotion is muted. Revenge is now what I seek. Thirst for vengeance will only get in the way of what I need to survive this.
The days pass this way, as Whitley’s power grows and my mother’s grasp on her loosens. I watch as they approach, for the first time, my mother’s hand is not on Whitley’s arm. This has been my plan since the first day. The question is simply how long must I wait? A week? A month? A year?
I don’t know if I can last a year.
Four days in and it’s already begun. Relief washes over me, even though this is only the start of my fight. My mother believes I have given up. With not even the slightest evidence that Whitley recognizes me, or questions her rule, she’s feeling confident. Comfortable.
Good. Now I can start looking for cracks.
Whitley approaches, her face blank. Emotionless. Her eyes sharp as daggers. It hurts, to keep eye contact, but I do.
Treacherous Love Page 16
