The Fall (The Siren Series)

by Higginson, Rachel

  Ryder threw up his arms, but the hit connected with his stomach, lifting him up into the air and throwing him across the parking lot. He crashed into the trunk of a sedan in the next row over. The crunch of metal sliced through my skin when he landed.

  I screamed again. Or maybe I hadn’t stopped screaming. I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that I struggled against the impossible hold on my body that kept me from fighting for Ryder’s life. But the Gigante was unrelenting, completely unfazed by all of my efforts and seemingly unharmed from every way I’d tried to gain my release.

  Ryder rolled off the sedan and stumbled to his feet. He teetered there for a moment but righted himself and lifted his fists again. He wanted more? No! Why couldn’t he just pass out? Why couldn’t he pretend to be dead!

  He would be dead if he went up against Nix again!

  Emanating evil energy, Nix sauntered over to him. His gate was casual and relaxed; he was enjoying this.

  When Nix got close enough, Ryder swung out with a decent punch of his own. Nix blocked the hit and jabbed him in the ribs. Ryder grunted at the solid hit but lashed out with another hit and managed to land it on Nix’s jaw.

  Nix’s head reared to the side from the impact but shook it off quickly and went in for the kill. Nix had been playing before… toying with Ryder, letting him feel like he actually had a chance.

  Now it was time to deliver his message.

  David versus Goliath. One man against a god.

  Nix’s arms flew at super-human speed, a pace too fast for Ryder to even register, let alone block. With every fist that made purchase in Ryder’s ribs or gut or face, he bounced back from the impact. Nix’s fist connected and Ryder’s body reacted to the hit. But he refused to go down. He swayed and coughed up blood, he drooped and hunched over, but he never let himself drop.

  Ryder kept his head covered with arms locked together and elbows bent over his face, but that left his body exposed.

  The cracking of a bone made me physically ill and if I had eaten anything today I would have thrown it up all over the giant beast holding me. Ryder bent over, favoring the rib that Nix just split.

  Unfortunately, that left his other side open and Nix repeated the process. Another snap of bone and Ryder dropped to his knees with a shout of anguish.

  I cried harder and screamed louder. “No! Stop it! He’s had enough! Stop Nix! Please! I’ll do anything! I swear, I will do anything! Please stop!”

  I didn’t even register as a blip on his crazed radar. Or if I did, he chose to ignore me. What he did do was pull back some and wait patiently for Ryder to stagger to his feet.

  Ryder did so slowly. His entire body seemed to weigh too much for him to carry. With tremendous effort he reached for the car he had crumpled earlier and pulled himself to standing. His shoulders hunched over his torso and he stood at an awkward angle, but his hands went up and his face shone with pure, feral determination.

  “Kill me,” Ryder growled at Nix. His voice was so low and deep that it was nothing but a primal rumble. “Do it. Kill me if you want. But even if I’m dead, you will never touch her. You will never break beyond what she allows you to have.”

  Nix barked out a cruel laugh. “You stupid boy! Don’t you see that I have her! She is mine! I touch her when I want. I touch her how I want!”

  “You touch this!” Ryder slapped one of his broken ribs with an open palm. He winced and jerked into the movement, but his point was made. “You touch what’s on the outside. You will never see what’s on the inside. You will never taste it or breathe it or touch it. You will never be allowed near it.” He jabbed at his heart with a single finger. “She hides that from you. She protects it because it is hers. It belongs to only her. You control her body, but you do not own her. She is free. She has always been free. You can imprison her body but you will never possess her soul.”

  I stopped screaming when Ryder started speaking. Each of my heart beats was punctuated with his slow, meaningful words. He left me breathless with his speech, almost to the point of confusion. I stared at him with wonder. His own body was broken. His ribs were clearly fractured, his face swollen, his lip bleeding. He wheezed with every breath and stooped forward because he could barely stand. But he had won against Nix. His words defeated the ancient god in front of him.

  And Nix knew it.

  When Nix attacked this time it had been clear he was holding back before. He pummeled Ryder this time. He destroyed him. Nix took him easily to within an inch of his life. Nix’s fists came down one after another in such rapid succession that his movements blurred in front of me.

  I renewed my efforts to escape so strongly that the other Gigante had to jump in and help contain me. Rage and fury poured through my veins like superheated lava. And that’s what it felt like. My blood filled with burning magma, so intense and so alive that my body began to quiver like an active volcano on the verge of eruption.

  Nix took Ryder to the ground and jumped on top of him. Ryder’s hands fell limply to the sides of his body, clearly he had passed out, but Nix did not stop. He kept on and on and on. He kept punching him in the face and the chest and anywhere his fists could find solid flesh. I heard bones break apart and the sick smack of flesh on flesh until it was wet with Ryder’s blood.

  Still, Nix did not give up.

  I heard a distant scream from down the row of cars… a civilian that happened upon our gruesome scene. The clicking of footsteps echoed against the pavement and rivaled the sound of fist hitting bone as the person ran away to get help.

  But what good would that do?

  Could anything stop Nix from killing Ryder?

  I fought harder and harder. I scraped my nails up the arms that held me still; they came away covered in the blood I’d drawn. I kicked my heel back until I was certain this ogre would never be able to have children. The other giant tightened his grip on me and I attacked him in the same way.

  I had never felt this level of desperation or insane hysteria. Not ever. Not when Taylor had physically assaulted me and I thought he would kill. Not when Nix had attacked my mother in front of me. Not when he had attacked me with the intention to rape me.

  I had never been so panicked or out of my mind with determination.

  Ryder’s body shook and flailed with each new punch Nix landed, but he stayed limp and unresponsive.

  I felt my emotions expand in my body, spread their wings and consume me. I had so much anger and hatred it had become a living thing inside me, a tangible force of nature that breathed its own oxygen and had a heart that beat all of its own.

  When the golden pulse of energy left my body and knocked the two Gigantes back, I wasn’t surprised. I had felt it coming. I had resigned myself to this new power that seemed to stem from all my feelings for Ryder and I had let it live.

  Once free of their hold I sprinted forward and threw myself on Nix’s back. He jerked with surprise and glanced at me over his shoulder. But then he tucked back in, choosing to ignore whatever insignificant threat he thought I posed.

  I pulled his hair and clawed at his face so that he had to pay attention to me. He had to face me.

  I had become something less than Greek, something even less than human. I was animal in my movements, savage in my actions. My mind had blanked from reality; nothing logical, rational or self-preserving remained. This was me at my most basic.

  He stood up and flung me off him. I flew through the air and for one quiet moment the balmy summer heat rushed against my body and I felt nothing but that… but the warmth of summer and the nothingness of flight. And then I landed.

  I hit the blacktop with every ounce of weight I possessed. My body skidded across the gravel and broken pavement. I felt the burns, scrapes and cuts sear into my skin. My head smacked back against the ground and the impact jarred every bone in my body. Hot liquid ran down my neck and the world blurred around me.

  Nix stalked to me, hovering over my limp body with a presence that wrapped around my skin like a blanket of
darkness. His eyes were wild and lit with a purpose I couldn’t fully understand. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and I had a moment of clarity.

  He would not kill me.

  He couldn’t.

  For whatever reason and in an incomprehensible sickly sadistic way, he could not lose me. I didn’t understand his intentions or his motives. The only thing I could comprehend was that I should feel fear.

  And I did not.

  I had been afraid my entire life and here I was, facing my most violent nightmare to date and yet… there was nothing left to dread.

  This was what had terrorized me for seventeen years. This had been at the core of every action of obedience and attempt to get away. This was it… this was my nightmare culminated into a living, breathing beast in front of me.

  And while I stood before it, while I faced all the haunted, horrible things my life revolved around, there was nothing left to fear. If this was it, then so be it.

  If this meant death, then bring it on.

  If this meant a thousand more years chained to this monster… I would face that, too.

  Because when I released my fear and the life I delicately clung to, I also released my fetters. I freed myself in that moment.

  I had wanted that sweet freedom for as long as I could remember but in my last moment, I knew that Ryder was right.

  I was free inside.

  I wasn’t black-hearted. I wasn’t soulless. I wasn’t devoid of a spirit.

  I had all the things I was supposed to have.

  And they made me free.

  I crawled to my feet and I faced Nix with that new revelation. He towered over me, seething with rage, but he couldn’t touch me. No matter how much he beat me, or whatever else he had planned for me, he could not touch me.

  “I will kill you if you try that again.” He took a menacing step forward. His Gigantes were back at his sides, obviously miffed that I had been able to shake them.

  I felt that same weird energy build inside me again and I dared him to touch me. I dared him to fight me.

  “Not if I kill you first,” I taunted.

  Something hot flashed in his eyes, burning through some of my resolve. There were worse things than death, I reminded myself. There were ways to cage my newly freed soul.

  But even if he hurt me now, even if he spared me from death only to bring it down on in me a thousand different ways, he still couldn’t touch me. Ryder taught me that.

  My Ryder helped me learn that. My Ryder who was now broken and beaten and maybe not even breathing… he set me free.

  I would not go back to prison.

  Never again.

  For the first time in my life, the tattoo on my ribs, the one that said, “My Soul is Free,” became truth for my life… became truth for me.

  I wondered idly if Nix could read minds. He seemed to take in my silent revelation and react with me. His face turned purple with fury and his entire body tensed impossibly harder.

  He let out a battle cry of frenzied purpose and charged me. His huge body moved toward me with brutal grace. He took three leaping steps and launched himself at me.

  I felt that same rocking pulse leave my body as the sky lit up with massive streaks of white lightning. The sun had set sometime during Nix’s revenge and the black sky lit up with the searing streaks of light in crisscrossing brilliancy.

  Nix hit some invisible force field before he touched my body. It was like he ran into an impenetrable wall. Sparks exploded around his frame where he hit the energy field and he was catapulted back to where he started.

  He jumped to his feet, seemingly undisturbed by what just happened.

  I gaped at him, unable to connect what stopped him from reaching me with something I could possibly be responsible for. But at the same time, I knew I hadn’t made that happen. I felt energy, something inside me, but I instinctively knew that I wasn’t capable of that.

  I glanced beyond Nix to see Ryder awake and propped up on his elbows. More lightning cracked through the sky, a power that he seemed able to control.

  How was that possible?

  It wasn’t.

  None of this was.

  Nix summoned his own power to his hands. Much like the Fates he could hold lightning and use it as a weapon. Maybe he also tried to use water, like he did before, but he seemed unable to penetrate my bubble of protection. He released his own blue lightning at me and it hit the same invisible wall. The force of electrical power bounced off and shot in every direction. Again and again Nix attacked me but no matter how much he increased his power nothing he did could reach me.

  The sky above became a lightning storm of epic proportions. Thousands and thousands of strands of lightning flashed overhead, in constant motion. The blue lightning seemed at war with the white. Thunder echoed in bone-jarring rumbles and thick, heavy black clouds swirled overhead.

  One of the Gigantes looked back and to see that Ryder was semi-awake. He shouted something to Nix who also looked over his shoulder and realized the source of this power.

  Nix turned around, his attention now on the boy that happened to be saving my life.

  The boy that I thought was human this entire time.

  The boy that was so clearly not.

  Nix spun around and used his lightning on Ryder. He lifted Ryder into the air, catching him somehow in a strand of the bright electricity.

  The protective force field disintegrated around Ryder and me; unable to protect himself, he fell prey to Nix’s attack.

  I ran after him but the Gigantes grabbed me again, by the back of my neck. His hand closed around me roughly while the other took my arms and pulled them behind me. I kicked out at them but they kept me out of reach this time. I felt stupid trying to run straight through them but I hadn’t been thinking about them! I’d been worried about Ryder! And now they had me, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that pulse thing again.

  Ryder convulsed inside of the lightning. He hovered in midair, engulfed in supernatural energy and his body jerked and flailed as Nix kept him suspended.

  I could see Ryder’s body seizing more fitfully; I stopped fighting so I could figure out why. Water bubbled out of his mouth and popped into heated bubbles when it hit the lightning. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his appendages jolted out of control.

  “No!” I shouted over and over and over until my voice was a hoarse whisper of nothing but pain and regret. “Stop!” I cried.

  Nix did not.

  Not until enough people came outside to break up the fight. Nix finally took Ryder and swung him into the hospital wall, using his lightning-like-energy as a slingshot. Ryder smashed into the concrete building so hard, his body imprinted into the wall. When he fell to the ground, thick pieces of gravel and rubble fell with him.

  He was motionless.

  I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Every instinct in me wanted to run to Ryder! I needed to see if he was still breathing, if he could possibly still be breathing. A crowd had gathered around him and I could see nurses checking his vitals. They were an entire length of the parking lot away.

  And Nix was right here.

  I made a very irrational decision in that rage-fueled moment.

  I turned back to Nix and I rushed at him. The Gigantes let me go this time and I flung myself at the evil monster that had destroyed my life before it ever began, had stolen every moment of happiness I’d ever experienced and tainted it with his poison. I threw myself at the man that had reached his greedy, disgusting fingers into my future and blackened it forever.

  He leaned toward me as if I would stop and speak to him calmly. I punched him in the jaw. My knuckles hit the bone with a satisfying snap of sound. Pain shot up into my elbow and my fingers felt permanently crushed together, but god, that felt so good.

  His hand clamped around my throat in the very next second. I didn’t even have a chance to suck in a fortifying breath. He squeezed so quickly and harshly that the air in my lungs became trapped and
bloated while nothing else could escape or enter. My eyes bugged out of my head and my hands clawed at his wrist, desperate for relief.

  He kept squeezing, kept tightening his grip. I kicked out hysterically but it did nothing to stop him. His dark, blackened eyes stared into mine. Small fissures of light flashed in their depths, brightening his evil glare into pure, raw power.

  I made shallow, gurgling noises while he choked the life from me. I thought I would die. I knew I would die. Just like Ryder.

  We would die together on this day.

  I hadn’t made it any farther than Anaxandra and Evaleen. And I certainly wasn’t any better off.

  But then he didn’t kill me.

  Instead, he threw me back as hard as he could and since he was a god, it was pretty freaking hard. The entirety of my body hit the pavement in one crushing smash. The back of my head smacked the blacktop with all the force Nix put into his throw.

  I settled into the ground. Every part of me felt broken and unusable. A splitting pain seared through my head. I looked up at the stormy sky and blinked once… twice… and then my eyes didn’t open again because I drifted into a void so thick and heavy, I wondered idly if I would ever resurface.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The beeping came first.

  Familiar. Constant. Incessant. Annoying as hell.

  Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…

  I came out of the cloud so confused that I couldn’t even remember my own name. My eyelids were too heavy to open, so I kept them shut. My limbs were dead at my sides and my brain nearly unresponsive.

  Slowly the events of the night started to come back to me. Sam. Ryder and me. We wanted to leave. And then Nix.

  Nix.

  First, Ryder crashed into the building and did not move and then I had been thrown and knocked out. That would explain the ache in every one of my joints and the unending headache that seemed to reach to my toes.

  But I was in more than just pain. My body was dead. I couldn’t even move a finger if I wanted.

  This had to be drugs.