Broken (The Siren Series #1)

by L. A. Griffiths

  I broke the uncomfortable silence. “Dad?” He looked up from his plate to meet my eyes. “I met a woman outside school today.” I decided to tell him about the creepy, yet, beautiful woman.

  He continued to listen. “She was an older woman and I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  Slowly I watched my Dad as he placed his fork to the side.

  “Tell me a bit about her.” he asked.

  “Um ok, she had long red hair, very attractive, older than me, and she said that she knows me.” I answered. “She was beautiful Dad.”

  “Hm” he mumbled. “I’ve never known anyone like that, but If you ever see this woman again, please tell me.” he asked.

  I was a bit confused but I agreed. “Ok, but I don’t think I’ll see her again.” but deep down I knew somehow I would.

  “Is the first time you’ve seen her?” he asked.

  “Uh huh.” I replied.

  “Was that the reason why you were late?”

  “Yes and no. But Dad, if I see her again I will tell you ok.” I said reassuring him.

  I scraped around my plate to finish the last few bites. With an empty plate, I took it over to the sink.

  My Dad leaned to one side in his chair for his all time favorite, his forehead kiss. I kissed his forehead to say thank you. (You’re never too old to give your Dad a quick kiss, so don’t judge). I headed upstairs to my bedroom and grabbed my laptop from my bedside table. The girls are usually online at this time, and I needed to tell them about that woman. Why did I have such a crappy day today. I doubled clicked on the laptops mouse pad, and I waited for one of them to pick up. Within a few seconds my two best friends were on the screen side by side.

  “Hi girls.” I said first

  “You alright Ellie?” asked Lilly.

  I repositioned my screen so they could see me better. Lilly was looking at some papers and Becky was in the middle of curling her hair.

  “Yeah I’m fine, but my Dad noticed something was up when I walked straight through the door.” I said.

  “God, he must have something like sixth sense or something,” Becky said while trying not to burn her fingers. “Did he say anything?”

  “Well, not really he just gave me that look.” I replied.

  “Oh.” added Lilly.

  “Yeah my Dad gives me that look all the time.” said Becky.

  “Is there something else you’re not telling us? You seem a little quite tonight and a bit agitated.”

  “Ah crap was I really that easy to read” I asked.

  “Yes” they both said together.

  “It’s totally obvious Ellie” said Becky.

  I bit my lip to try to not look guilty. I couldn’t keep anything from these girls.

  I gave a deep sigh. “Fine, when I was on my way home I bumped into this woman, and she was a beautiful looking woman, and I’m talking top model beauty. She said that she

  knows me but I’ve never seen this woman in my life and I told my Dad about her, but he didn’t know her either.”

  “Did she hurt you?” asked Becky.

  “No she didn’t. She just stood there talking, but I really didn’t say anything, I was kinda’ star struck.” I replied.

  “Good, as least she didn’t hurt you.” said Lilly.

  Becky and Lilly started chatting amongst themselves. I was watching them talking, but at the same time I wasn’t. I sat there staring into nothingness, ignoring everything around me. I could hear something calling to me. I couldn’t really make it out. Slowly more voices piled on top of each other, making the voices unbearable. I placed my hands over my ears tightly to try and drown the noise. The loud voices called out my name many times, but I tried to ignore them.

  “Stop, stop it.” I screamed.

  Slowly it started to fade away and a clear voice that I knew came calling out to me. It was my Dad, he was calling my name. The room around me came into focus and I was lying on the floor, arms and legs fully tucked up to my chest.

  I lifted my head to see his worried face staring intensely at me. He bent down and scooped me up from the floor and carried me onto the bed. As soon as I tried to relax a sharp searing pain shot through my head, burning like fire. I tried my best to hide the pain.

  “Are you alright Ellie?” he quickly asked.

  “Yeah I-I’m fine” I lied through gritted teeth.

  My mouth started to feel dry and I didn’t have the energy to speak anymore.

  “What happened?” He asked.

  I turned my head to one side to notice that the girls were still watching me on the laptop. Their eyes were wide open and full of horror. My Dad noticed the laptop, he walked over and said his quick goodbyes and switched it off.

  “Ellie, are you going to tell me what happened or do we have go to the hospital?” he asked again.

  I cleared my dry throat.

  “I don’t know. I was talking to the girls and I felt this pain in my head and that was it,” I said “how long was I out for?”

  “Not long, I heard a bang from your bedroom and when I looked in you were lying on the floor.” he said. “You scared the life out of me when I saw you curled up.”

  “I fell? I didn’t feel it,” I winced when I tried to sit up. “Oh, I’m going to feel that in the morning” I said. “I’m fine though Dad.”

  “Ok I think you need an early night, if something like this happens again you need to tell me right away. Understand?” he finished.

  “Yes.” I answered him.

  “Goodnight.” He kissed me on the forehead and closed the door behind him.

  I slowly climbed out and undressed, ready for bed. I took off my pajama bottoms and got back into bed. What was that about? Was I ill or maybe going crazy? Did I just have a breakdown? How the hell would I know? Anyway time for sleep. I tried to get into comfortable position but couldn’t’. Something was bothering me.

  Today was one hell of a day and it pissed me off that crap like this was happening to me, and that weird woman didn’t’ help at all. Who was she? Maybe she’s an escaped mental patient but what about the stuff she was saying to me? If I ever see her again I’ll have to be very careful.

  I just wanted to scream with frustration. I kept on playing what had happened today through my mind. The thing with Mr. Thomas, crying like some idiot in school, the weird woman who says she know me, and collapsing on the floor, It just was not my day at all. All this ran through my mind around and around. I decided to push it to one side and try to get some sleep. I closed off my mind and thought of nothing but sleep.

  Chapter Three

  I woke up to darkness. There was a strange noise outside my window that did not seem to go away. I threw back the blanket and got to my feet. I fumbled my way to the window to check on the noise. It was pitch black outside, not even the street lamps were on which was weird, because they annoyed the hell out of me. The other houses across the street were dark too, not a single light lit the buildings. I opened my bedroom window to try and find where the annoying noise was coming from. I tried to look out into the darkness, but there was no use. Ignoring the noise I turned away from the window and my heart started beating out of my chest.

  Standing in my doorway was something not of this earth. It took the form of a man but it didn’t have any facial features, no eyes, and no nose. The only thing it did have was a mouth with sharp pointed teeth. It faced me, grinning a horrifying smile. I stood there rooted to the spot while the monster faced my direction.

  How can it see me, it has no eyes I thought.

  I tried to scream, or to move, but something was stopping me from doing so. The faceless creature started to glide smoothly towards me. My heart pounded in my chest, was I about to die? The creature was within arm’s length from me. The faceless monster gave off a foul stench, smelling of rotten eggs combined with sewage. It nearly made me gag. My eyes and throat started to burn with the strong stench. He lifted its foul boney arm and tried grab hold of me with his putrid fingers along i
ts black sharp fingernails. The creature finally grabbed my throat, his skeleton claws burned into my flesh. I tried to scream out in pain but couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.

  The disgusting creatures smile grew wider and more terrifying. Tears ran down my face as the pain intensified. It tightened its grip on my throat until I finally screamed. The monster released its hold and disappeared into the darkness. I fell to the floor gasping for air to fill my lungs. My throat began to burn with every new breath I took. I closed my eyes just for a second, when I felt the darkness take me.

  I opened my eyes to the warm bright sun shining on my face. I found myself lying in my bed all tucked up. I shot up from bed throwing the sheets off me and headed straight for the mirror. I began to check for marks around my neck but there wasn’t any. I remembered the agonizing burning pain of last night, but there were no marks, nothing at all.

  I caught a quick glance at my face in the mirror. I had deep dark circles around my green eyes, my face was dead pale and my brown natural wavy hair was a total mess. I jumped in my en suite shower (god I love my en suite) and put the water on full blast. The warm water felt good against my cold skin, I took some of my favorite strawberry body lotion and lathered myself up. I stepped back into the blast of water and washed it all away. I took some silky shine shampoo and massaged it into my hair slowly. Finishing with my hair I stepped out of the shower shivering.

  I quickly took a towel and wrapped it around myself. In my bedroom I opened one of my desk draws, inside was my hair dryer, a girl’s best friend. I made sure my hands were dried as I plugged it into the socket. A blast of warm air shot out through the hair dryer. It was a god send. My wet tangled hair blew playfully around my face as I tried to brush out the tangles. (Ouch, why did I have long hair?) I opened my small wardrobe, taking my clean uniform from the rail. It wasn’t that bad of a uniform, I had seen worse. It was a white blazer with a black skirt along with a light blue t-shirt. I didn’t mind wearing the skirts, but on a windy day it was hell.

  I changed into my uniform quickly then ran back into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I slapped some simple makeup on (not the ho-ish’ type like some people). I put some concealer around my dark bags and a tiny bit of blush around my cheeks to get rid of that grey. I managed to cover my bags without having to make my face orange.

  I grabbed a hair band from the bed side table and quickly tied my hair up into a ponytail. I threw some of my necessary books into my backpack and ran down the stairs. I wanted to grab something easy to eat from the kitchen, when I stopped dead. Sitting in the kitchen eating toast was my favorite Aunty in the whole wide world. I dropped my bag on the kitchen floor and ran over to her and gave her a huge hug.

  Hugging Aunt Kate seemed like the whole world was shut out. I felt safe in her arms. I inhaled her sweet strawberry sent on her clothes that I love so much. Kate slowly stroked my hair (I loved it when she did that). She took a step back and looked at me from top to bottom. Kate looked a lot like my Dad and you could tell they were related. They had the same nose and both had deep emerald eyes. When I was younger Kate could always spot a lie just by staring into your eyes. She had short shoulder dark hair that was perfectly straight. Kate wasn’t a tall woman and she knew it, but she was the kind of woman who would let nothing stop her and I loved her for it.

  “You’ve grown again haven’t you?” Kate turned to look at my Dad and he nodded.

  “Have I?” I smiled. “Kate why are you here?”

  Kate laughed. “I’m here to take you to school.” she finished with a warm hearted smile.

  “Dad, do you really need to keep an eye on me? I’m fine really.” I said.

  “Your Father has told me a few things about what’s been going on and to be honest I agree with him.” Kate said.

  “Agree with what?” I asked.

  “That, from now on you will be taken to school and picked up from school. I’m getting worried about you Ellie, are you okay with this?” Dad asked.

  “Fine.” I agreed.

  I took some fruit for the road (Its good for you), and said a quick goodbye to Dad before we headed out the door. We jumped into Kate’s car. It wasn’t a big flashy car but it still did the job. I had no idea what make it was since I have no clue with cars but it had three doors two at the side and the boot. I buckled my seat belt and Kate drove away from the house. As soon as the car was away from the house Kate stated to talk.

  “Right, what’s going on then.” she blurted out

  When it came to problems, Kate didn’t mess about. She liked to get to the root of the problem straight away and when it came to me she wasted no time to sort it out.

  “Don’t know what you mean.” I said shyly.

  “Really Ellie, this is me you are talking to now.” she said.

  “I know, I know. I’ve been having these weird dreams and on top of that this woman just turned up out of nowhere yesterday and started to ask me things. She even knew my name which was weird.”

  “Was she one of your Dad’s friends?” Kate asked.

  “No I asked him,” I replied. “She did freak me out a little though.”

  “Well if you ever see that woman again, tell me and I will sort her out.” Kate laughed.

  Hearing Kate laugh was nice it lifted some of my worries.

  The car came to a complete stop. Kate turned from the wheel and smiled at me.

  “Do you want me to come pick you up later, you’re Dad says I have but...” Kate waited for my answer.

  I took a moment to think it over. “Better had or he’ll will be mad at us.” I said. I opened the car door, and was about to say my goodbyes when Kate leaned her head out of the window.

  “Ellie” Kate started to talk and her face grew very serious. “Please… be careful, ok?” she finally said.

  I just stood staring at Kate. Her face was covered with worry. Why was Kate worried about me all of a sudden? I gave her a quick reassuring smile and walked away from the car. I heard her pull away from the curb and walked into the school grounds. Walking towards the building, I went over in my mind what lessons I had today. Double English, I was not looking forward to that, science, I liked but sometimes it was boring. I could always talk it over it over with the girls. They’d always make me feel better. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was at the schools main entrance and there was no sign of Lilly or Becky.

  They should’ve been here already. We always meet up around here at this time. I checked my phone to see if they left any messages, none. I kept looking around when I heard the vilest voice I’d come to known. Beth.

  She slowly walked her way towards me with her rolled up skirt that showed her thighs and her light blue shirt with a few buttons undone giving us a show of her cleavage. Without knowing, my teeth were clenched tightly like a vice, and, nothing could pry them apart.

  “Where are your girlfriends today then Ellie?” When she spoke my name I felt my sick.

  Beth had on thick mascara and heavy foundation slapped to her face. To finish off her skanky look, she wore her four inch heeled boots.

  “I asked you a question, Ellie.” Her voice was patronizing.

  “Leave me alone Beth.” I asked her.

  “Or what?” Beth waited for her answer.

  My jaw began to ache as I clenched my teeth together. I stayed silent and stared down at the floor.

  “You could at least look at me while saying that,” she waited. “That’s what I thought.” she laughed.

  ‘’Please just go away.’’ I asked her again.

  She ignored me. “I saw your mother drop you off just now, how sweet” Beth smile grew. “Oh wait isn’t your mother DEAD!” Pain shot through my stomach, I had to catch my breath. Beth saw her words slice through me. She loved inflicting pain with her horrible words. Beth walked straight up to me, forcing me up against a wall. My back slammed into the stone wall, I stood there waiting. She stared into my eyes with deep hatred. Something wasn’t right with this girl. She loved to torm
ent people, why? Beth came closer until I could smell her sickly pungent perfume. Her head was next to my ear. For a second I thought she was going to bite it off, then she started to whisper into my ear.

  “Don’t piss me off bitch, your nothing to nobody. Just seeing your face makes me want to deeply hurt you.” Beth’s whispers cut deep as a knife.

  “See ya’.” she said with a wave and a fake smile.

  I wanted to cry, to scream, anything to show my anger towards her, but nothing came out, just stayed silent. I hated Beth. She’d always find an opportunity to bully me. Maybe I’m just an easy target for her. I took in a long deep breath and tried calm myself, as if nothing had happened. I decided to go find the girls. It didn’t take long to find them. Becky and Lilly were talking together in one of the corridors. I quickly waved to both of them hoping that they would see me. Becky was the first to spot me and her face lit up as did Lilly’s.

  “Morning Ellie.” Becky and Lilly said. They seem to be full of vigor today.

  “You seem happy today.” Lilly said sarcastically.

  “I just had a talk with Beth.” I replied.

  “She’s such a bitch, what did she say?” asked Becky.

  “Just the usual crap.” I replied.

  “Anyway, to get your mind off it I’ve got something to tell you.” Becky said.

  Becky and Lilly were giggling to each other. “What, what’s wrong?” I asked the giggling girls.