The Fall (The Siren Series)

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Quiet, Ava,” Nix’s baritone voice cut through whatever she was going to say.

  She obeyed. Without another glance she faced forward again and stared out the windshield with stiff shoulders.

  Nix didn’t remove his hand from my knee for the entire trip.

  I saw Exie and Sloane the minute we walked into the private viewing hall where the ceremony would take place. They were huddled next to their mothers in the front row just a few feet from the closed caskets. I wanted to go to them immediately but Nix stopped me with a hand wrapped around my bicep.

  “Do not leave me, Ivy. That was not a suggestion.” He pulled me along with him while my mother got to offer her condolences to the grieving families.

  Exie looked up at me when my mother approached and offered me a consolingly grim expression. I shrugged one shoulder and looked at her helplessly. She understood. Especially after what happened with her sister, she understood.

  Nix led me around the room so he could greet the community that had come to mourn these unnecessary deaths. Almost everyone I’d met and heard of were here. The room filled to the max and the underlying power that these Greeks hid behind with human masks crackled in the stale air.

  I watched my friends while Nix shared small talk with gods of the underworld and the very men that caused these deaths. Exie and Sloane looked so much like their older sisters before they’d tried to escape that I wanted to scream at my friends to find their strength again, to find their will to survive.

  Sloane stared at the closed caskets and didn’t move in any way. She looked catatonic from here. Exie just cried. I couldn’t see her face from where I stood now, but her shoulders quaked as her grief racked her body. My chest ached at the sight of them so upended by this pain. Tears gathered in my eyes and trailed down my face before I could register them.

  I hated being here. I hated facing these dead bodies, knowing I was the reason they were here.

  Or would we be here anyway?

  I wanted to believe I had done something good for them, but most of the time I acknowledged that I was only making myself feel better for a horrific act of misplaced heroism. Most of the time my actions screamed of delusion and my mistakes clawed and stabbed at my hope. Most of the time the guilt I felt for these two beautiful girls weighed so heavily on me, I thought it would push me through the floor, deep into the earth and all the way to the pits of hell.

  Most of the time I blamed myself.

  In this room, surrounded by all these people, I desperately tried to push the blame where it belonged. Hades and Ares stood laughing quietly in a corner with Aphrodite and Moros. Nix dragged me along to speak with Eros and Thanatos and I could feel the collective evil amass at my feet and stick to my skin. My mother sat with Thalia and Echo, offering them a comforting pat on the back.

  Who was to blame in this room?

  Was it me? Was it me when all I wanted to do was help them escape and breathe fresh air for as long as they could?

  Or was it this gathering of real-life monsters that destroyed them from the moment they were born and sold them into slavery just because they could?

  It didn’t matter today, though. Maybe I could dissect these answers in a few weeks, but today it just was. This was how things were. This was my world. And I didn’t have a say in any part of it.

  Nix continued to make the rounds while I stayed faithfully at his side. My feet started to ache in my low pumps but it wasn’t exactly like I could complain to anyone. These were relatively conservative shoes compared to those worn by the rest of the females in the room.

  I tried to keep my head down. I had started to attract a lot of attention, or at least it seemed as though everyone was staring at me. I kept my gaze focused on a scuff mark on the tip of my right pump and avoided anyone’s eyes.

  Eventually, the Fates arrived and we were called to our seats. Nix led me to the front row on the opposite side of the aisle from the families and sat me between Crete/Hades and himself. I shivered at the cold emanating from Crete’s body. He seemed to radiate death itself. Frigid, hopeless despair floated over my skin and my hands began to tremble in fear of him. This was my reaction to him after just sitting by him. I could only imagine the horrific nights Eva had endured.

  The three Fates launched into a speech about life and death and threads and their responsibility to cut each of ours when the time was right. I tuned out.

  I didn’t want to hear anything those evil wenches had to say.

  I found myself migrating towards Nix during the service, just to escape the overpowering misery Crete brought with him. I was already plenty miserable… I didn’t exactly need him adding to my depression.

  Nix noticed and slung his arm over the back of my chair. That felt like the epitome of weakness to me and I couldn’t believe I’d stooped so low as to seek out Nix for comfort. I forced myself to straighten in my seat and split the difference between the two men.

  Crete seemed to lean into me the longer the service droned on. I felt his presence shift to mine as if his interest became increasingly harder to ignore. The longer the Fates talked, the closer he moved. Now I had to retreat into Nix just to get away from him. I crossed my legs toward Nix, and held onto the lapel of his opened jacket.

  The familiar evil was the safer evil again.

  Nix stiffened next to me when he realized what was happening. He glared at Hades as if he could strike him down where he sat. He reached out and put his hand on my knee for the second time today. He let his fingers drift up and slide under the hem of my fitted skirt.

  I started shaking and had to swallow back an onslaught of tears.

  How did I get here? How did I manage to put myself between two insane creatures like these?

  Crete shifted in his chair and reached out to slide his finger on the underside of my thigh. I whimpered pathetically at the ice-cold, slithering touch of death.

  Nix noticed and jerked forward in his seat. Leaning around me he whispered some very harsh words to Crete in a language I didn’t understand. Crete looked down at his hand and back at Nix in complete surprise.

  Was this an act? Or had he really not noticed what he was doing to me?

  Crete responded sufficiently contrite, but Nix did not respond.

  A moment later, Nix leaned down and whispered in my ear, “There’s an office just outside this room. I want you to go wait in there until I come to get you. Lock the door and don’t let anyone in that is not me. Do you understand?”

  I nodded and moved to stand up.

  He stilled me with a tight grip of my forearm. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that your friends and mother are here in my custody. Do not do something foolish to increase your death toll.”

  I nodded again but this time with a trembling chin.

  I stood up as quietly as I could and moved to the back of the room. I felt the gaze of every male in the room watch me leave. A few people near the back of the room stood up after me and made like they were going to follow. I picked up my pace and all but sprinted from the room.

  Something was going on.

  Maybe the residual effects Nix had mentioned before? Could I really have this kind of impact on members of the Pantheon? It seemed impossible.

  Just as I was almost through the doors at the back of the room I met a familiar gaze that struck me curiously. It was a female, though, and not a male that stared back. Her bright blue eyes gathered my attention. I should remember eyes like that, eyes that looked digitally enhanced and almost neon with their vibrancy. No other detail of her face surfaced over her freaky eyes.

  By the time I had run across the short hallway, closed and locked the office door behind me, I had pushed the déjà vu feeling from my head. A soft pound hit the door just after I clicked the lock and I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  I was alone. Blissfully alone.

  So the first thing I did was sit down at the desk and dial Ryder’s number which I had deleted from my phone and then memorized for emergencies. />
  We hadn’t spoken since the night at the Slowdown. Everything was too dangerous. Everything felt like a trap.

  “Hello?” he asked carefully, clearly not recognizing the number.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “Ivy.” His voice sounded stretched thin with pain and ache. I could so easily relate.

  “I miss you.”

  “Where are you? I’ll come get you. I’ve driven by your apartment a thousand times already, but there are always men outside… huge men that I can’t get by. Exie promised you were fine, but I can’t… I want to… This is frustrating. You shouldn’t be there; you should be safe. You should be with me.” He spoke each word with more of a desperate growl than the last.

  “I’m at the funeral.” He didn’t immediately respond and I took his silence as confusion. “Evaleen and Anaxandra’s funeral. Practically all the Pantheon is here and they’re having some weird reaction to me. Nix locked me in an office for the remainder of the service.”

  “Are you…?” He trailed off, unable to find an adequate word that would describe my situation.

  “I’m safe,” I promised him. And I was safe, for now at least.

  “When can I see you? When can we go?”

  “I don’t know. I have to talk to Exie and Sloane before I just disappear. And Nix is everywhere now. He’s always at my apartment. He’s always around. I’m going to have to figure something out.”

  “I’ll come pick you up, Ivy. Right now. We’ll just go. We won’t look back. We don’t need all that money. We can make it without.”

  I thought about Ana and Eva and how far they made it. No. We needed money. We had to get far enough away that Nix’s underground watchers couldn’t find us. We had to go to a place remote enough to be completely out of reach of Nix and the rest of this nightmare.

  “I’m not leaving without Exie and Sloane,” I said stubbornly. “I won’t let what happened to their sisters, happen to them too.”

  “I know.” He conceded easily, but I could hear the disappointment screaming in his tone. “I love you, Ivy.”

  “I love you.” My words were a promise, a prayer, an incantation that I would speak until my dying breath. “I should go, but I’ll call again as soon as I can.”

  He didn’t respond right away. I could feel his silence like a palpable force that wanted to reach through the phone and snatch me away from here. “Be safe.”

  And then we clicked off.

  I slunk back in the leather desk chair and banged my head against the high back. Escape had never seemed more impossible.

  I had just resigned myself to ten minutes of self-pity and pathetic wallowing when the air in front of the desk shimmered like the surface of a quiet lake and three figures materialized in front of me.

  Eryn, the Fury, stood between the woman with startling blue eyes and a gorgeous male with golden blonde hair and bulging muscles beneath a light-blue oxford and gray trousers. His eyes were an amber brown and his skin-tone the same deep olive that all the gods claimed.

  Eryn smiled at me and the sight of her twisted face attempting to show emotion was really unsettling.

  “The Siren,” she announced to her friends. And then to me she said, “Hermes and the Oracle of Delphi.”

  Hermes. That made sense. Messenger, transporter, all around communicator. That’s how they were able to appear in here. Hermes had brought them.

  “Call me, Della,” the Oracle entreated.

  “I stood up and backed into the cluttered antique buffet behind me. I tried to think of something to say to them but I couldn’t form words. This felt pre-meditated. This felt dangerous.

  “Relax, Child,” Della soothed. Her bright eyes made it difficult for me to focus on the rest of her face; they seemed to be designed that way. She might have been hideous everywhere else or breathtakingly beautiful, but I knew that the moment she was gone, the only thing I would remember would be her eyes. “We are not here to hurt you.”

  “Quite the contrary,” Hermes added. “We are here to take you from here. We offer refuge.”

  My eyes widened as I looked back and forth among the three of them. “What?”

  Eryn took over. “We are offering you sanctuary, Ivy. We are offering you a place to go. Not like your fallen sisters, but a truly safe place.”

  “Olympus,” I guessed. That was the only truly safe place I could think of.

  They shared a glance and Della nodded. “Yes, to the mountain.”

  “Do you already know my decision?” I asked her. She was the Oracle of Delphi. She already knew the outcome to this encounter. Or she was supposed to. And if she didn’t, there was no way I could trust them to keep me safe.

  “You tell us no,” she answered just as calmly. “You feel as though you can’t leave your broken friends; as though you can’t leave your musician.”

  That sounded exactly right. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I have a message.” She smiled at me a warming, comforting smile. I wanted to relax but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust any Greek. Good guys, bad guys, it didn’t matter. I wanted out of the whole damn circle.

  I looked at Eryn. “If Nix finds you in here, he’ll finish that.” I gestured at her face.

  Her eyes hardened and I saw rage and impatience flash behind her inhuman gaze. “I’m not concerned about Poseidon. And I’m even less concerned with my own life. But you, Cessius of the Nesoi, should be very concerned with what she is about to tell you.”

  “Cessius of the Nesoi?” I asked with a narrowed gaze.

  Della took over. “The Nesoi are the goddesses of the islands. Cessius is their queen. And it is to those islands where you must go when you flee. They will keep you safe. He will not find you until you want to be found.”

  Her entire explanation sounded ridiculous. I wasn’t a queen. I wasn’t a goddess. And I sure as hell would never want Nix to find me.

  “Olympus will wait for you,” Della finished.

  I cleared my throat. I had a question burning in my throat but I wasn’t sure if I could ask it or not.

  Seeming to read my mind, or maybe she had already seen this entire conversation, she said, “He will be safe when you leave him behind. His music is his shield. And his love for you will be yours. After you leave, Poseidon cannot touch him or you until you wish it so.”

  My chest seemed to cave in on itself at the same time relief swept through me. The Oracle of Delphi didn’t believe I would take Ryder with me. She was wrong, but at least she had promised me his safety. Not that I could trust these people.

  My mother’s warning rang out in my head. Eryn is as bad as Nix.

  So why were they here now? Why were they trying to help me?

  A knock at the door made me jump but all three of them kept their cool.

  Eryn regarded me coldly before saying, “We will be in touch.”

  And then they just disappeared.

  I understood Nix’s frustration with Hermes. That could be a really annoying trick.

  “Ivy! Open up, it’s us!”

  I practically jumped over the desk and ran to the door. Flicking the lock, I let Exie and Sloane push their way in and then I slammed it shut behind them.

  We fell into a group hug and clung to each other while we sobbed hysterically. I told them I was sorry, over and over and over again but they brushed it off as we shared our grief.

  “We don’t have much time,” Exie whispered. “Nix was right behind us but he’s dealing with the crowd of men outside.”

  I shivered with the feeling of a thousand spiders crawling over my skin.

  “What’s that about?” Sloane asked in a soul-deflated voice.

  “He said there would be residual effects from when I sung the other night. I’m guessing that’s what he meant.” I jerked my thumb at the door. They nodded like that explanation made perfect sense. “How are you guys? Have you been okay? I hate that I haven’t been able to be there for you.”
r />   “We get it,” Exie said immediately. “My mom told me about Nix and his new rules for you.”

  “It sounds horrible,” Sloane sympathized.

  “It is.” I wouldn’t lie to them. It was horrible. “But we’re almost free. Just a little bit longer.”

  They both took a step back like I was poisonous. Their faces fell with a stricken expression and whatever light had been in their eyes dimmed completely until it was nothing but a flickering flame that would soon blow out.

  “No, Ivy,” Sloane whispered brokenly. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am serious, Sloane. We have to. We have to try.”

  “Ivy, he will kill us. Just like he killed Anaxandra. Just like he killed Evaleen. We were stupid to think we could get away before. It’s not going to happen. He will never let us go.” Exie trembled with rage and conviction.

  “Don’t say that,” I hissed at her. “You don’t know that we won’t make it. And if we don’t try, we’re going to end up just like your sisters. You know that. It’s a death sentence either way.”

  “You don’t know that!” Sloane screamed at me. “That’s not going to happen to me! I’m not going to bleed out in a filthy airport bathroom because I’m too afraid of the consequences of my actions!”

  No. No no no no no no.

  “Don’t do this, Sloane. Don’t give in just because you’re scared. Don’t let him win.” My voice was a bare whisper of pleading, scraped raw with desperation. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t just give up and give in to Nix.

  “Stop it, Ivy!” Exie lashed out next. “Stop this foolishness. Give it up. It doesn’t matter what we do because there’s no other way. You saw what happened to Ana… and Eva. You saw what he does when we don’t obey! Don’t make this harder for us. We’re already there. We’ve already reached our limit.”

  Except they hadn’t. They hadn’t been almost raped by Nix. They hadn’t felt the evil in Crete’s touch. Or watched the violence of Ky’s every movement. They didn’t understand what waited for them if they stayed. They forgot that even in death we would be freer than what we were now.

  “Ivy!” Nix called through the door. “We need to go.”