by Ian Hiatt
Ensuring that, when I release him, he’ll finally be what I’ve needed him to be since the moment he shuffled to me on cobblestones an eternity and a half ago.
Dead. Very dead.
And when I finally let go of him, the flood of warmth and faintness I had felt melts away like an easily forgotten dream.
And the ghost of acceptance flashes over his eyes, before it, and he, are gone.
t’s a deep haze that I’m in, never having kissed a man before. Never having kissed anyone, actually. Even in the shadowed reality, I feel a twinge of shame for being just like all of those teenage girls I despised, fretting over boys and kissing and popstars. The brief image of myself in too much makeup and a miniskirt wraps me up and chews on me for a moment. A boy kissed me!
Which is a strange sensation to have when you’ve slept with enough men to make a priest balk at the number of Hail Mary’s required to keep from being stoned in the streets. Apparently, whatever god created sirens didn’t think that being a deadly creature meant you would have to be chaste. But trading saliva would be a little too much for them.
As the inky world evaporates around me, I realize my eyes have shuttered against the night, and they crack to open up.
Thomas’s infinite brown eyes peer at me, glassy. Dead.
Then he blinks. A breath, held in his chest for safe keeping, escapes and caresses my cheek, sending shivers through me instead of him.
Shivers?
The sensation is incredible. Uncomfortable, but incredible. The tingling against my cheek chasing itself down to my neck and erupting through my body like I had spilled something frigid over myself. And for the first time, I can actually feel it. More than just my body sending signals to let me know that something has happened.
My hands have tensed on his back and he blinks again, still not speaking as he relaxes against me.
“Well,” he says in a thick, low breath. “That was interesting.”
I nod. It’s the best I can manage as Thomas’s warmth pours from his body into mine pressed so closely to his own. Despite being cut, beaten, near-drowned, and even pumped full of venom once, my heart has never fluttered the way it does now. The alien feeling serves only to make it worse, a wave of nausea and panic sweeping over me. I pull against Thomas’s hold, and he does the one thing no man has been capable of when my sights have been on them. He lets me go.
For a man struck dead, filled with the poison that the siren’s kiss delivers, he looks shockingly okay. Even better than he was mere moments ago, pressed to the wall with such finality that I thought my adventure of having a bounty out on me was done. Hell, the boy looks better than I must as I feel my pulse quicken and I fight to breathe.
Thomas moves toward me, and I push him back as I stumble off the curb and fall into the empty street. He’s catching his own breath, but for all of the wrong reasons. The dumb look of boyish glee is still on his face, but it’s controlled. Deliberate. He’s not charging after me with the need of an addict.
“Layla, I’m sorry.” He’s returned to his stuttering nice-guy self. “I just wanted―”
“You’re supposed to be dead!” I shriek at him as I clutch my chest, my heart threatening to beat my other innocent organs to lifeless pulps.
“I know.”
I scramble backward, certain that the feeling of tumbling filling my body is entirely because of my proximity to the unkillable Thomas Donahue. My hands skitter over the broken glass, the pieces glittering in the streetlight that has decided to stay lit for the moment. Thomas steps off the curb into the street.
“I think you should do it, though,” he says, all violence out of him now. “At least then you’ll be―”
“I did! I did, you idiot! You’re supposed to be dead.” My hand darts to my lips, and I prod them like the answer might be found there.
Thomas kneels down in front of me, keeping his hands visible like he would around a wild animal. He extends his hand toward me, palm up, offering to help me up out of the wet road.
“The… the siren’s kiss. You’re supposed to die from it.” I’d be lying if I said I was not as glad for the turn of events as I was disturbed by them. Thomas had pushed me to the edge. I―the predator half of me, anyway―had wanted him to die. To collect the score even more than the bounty. To finish the job.
Thomas mirrors my hand and feels his own lips. “Those… my dad’s workers… at my house?” He stands up, looking at me with something between pity and disgust, drifting closer and closer to the latter.
I shake my head. “No! No, that wasn’t me.” I’ve never denied what I am, but for once I’m being accused of being too good a killer. I don’t want the credit for those.
Thomas nearly leaps back onto the curb and presses against the warehouse, watching me closely. It feels like we’re strangers once again.
Water gurgles along the street, slipping into nearby drains, as I lie sprawled on the pavement and Thomas slumps against the building. He’s staring at me, but he might as well be staring through me as the gears turn. I observe this through thunderous heartbeats that pain me with their energy. Thomas, for all his weakness, seems less affected by my kiss than me.
What the hell am I?
With a strained gait, Thomas stands and walks into the street and extends a hand to me. “If you can forgive me trying to push you to kill me, I think I can forgive you trying to kill me.” The decision pains him, but I take his hand in mine and let him lift me off the ground. I fall against him and sling my arms around his neck to keep from stumbling into the street.
My pulse calms to a relaxed pace in his arms, and I cling to both him and the relief. His graceful returning of my violent affections proves to be as pained as his forgiveness. He pats my shoulder like he might a grieving friend.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, unsure which thing I’m apologizing for specifically, but I let the words sit there and stand for all. Trying to kill him? Being confused and a little upset when he didn’t die? Being happy that he’s alive?
Happy?
The confusion attacks my mind, an aimless swarm of insects buzzing about.
He growls a sigh. “I figure if it had been you at my house, you wouldn’tve been strapped to a chair, huh?”
My head, buried in his shoulder, shakes. His logic makes sense, but the last nineteen years of my life do not. I have my own gears to turn, but unlike Thomas, logic can play no part.
Do you trust Mom?
You mean the same mother who tried to drown you, right?
Did she lie?
Or did she not know?
I never saw her work. Maybe she wasn’t really a siren?
Maybe I’m not either.
But then what the hell am I?
Thomas rubs his hand against me with a little more care than when he returned the embrace out of necessity rather than desire. “Okay, take it easy.” His voice is soft, and in spite of my terror at the spindling shreds of reality gripping at me, he manages to soothe me. “I’m fine, you’re fine. We’ll figure out something, I promise.”
The crush of our situation finds its way back into me, adding on to the fear. I have no idea what I am, what I’m capable of, and all the while there’s a price out on our heads and who knows what hunting us.
I sniffle.
Dear God, what has this guy done to me?
“W-we need to get out of here,” I stammer. My gaze darts around the empty street, and I feel exposed. In Saint Roch, being alone doesn’t ever mean you’re alone.
“Okay.” Thomas talks slowly, more like he’s dealing with a fussy child as opposed to a dangerous animal. “Where do we go?”
But even before he asked, my search landed down the street, peering at the near empty field and the rusted but colorful behemoths that decay all too slowly.
“I have an idea…”
eaving the struggling streetlight behind, Thomas and I duck beneath the haphazardly chained gate and begin the slow walk into darkness toward the structures rising from the
sea of dry grass before us.
“Did you come here as a kid or something?” Thomas asks.
I scoff, still attempting to rebuild my tough exterior in spite of the waves of uncertainty and weakness Thomas has given me. “My mom would never bring me here.”
Thomas doesn’t respond to that, but goes on, his voice getting quieter as we leave the lights of the real city behind for the fairground graveyard before us. “My mom brought me once, I think. It could’ve been a different place, I guess. The Ferris wheel looks a little familiar.”
I can’t believe that, because the beams and curves of the ride barely resemble a wheel, looking more like a flattened football than something that actually moved at any point in time. The slight hints of greens and blues look to be peeking out in between the rust, though, illuminated by the faint glow of the moon.
Thomas looks back toward the still-dark street. I know he’s trying to make sure we’re not being followed, but the likelihood that he would even know what to look for is as slim as the thread of sanity I’m holding on to.
What in the hell are you?
The nagging voice inside me that continually pokes. Continually prods. It plucks at that string of sanity with the same bravado as a rock star slamming his guitar strings. Certain that it can hit a note never before found.
You’re not a siren.
That’s always been a constant, and if that’s not true, then what are you? In the back of my mind, I’ve always been able to justify what I do for a living. Sirens naturally kill. It’s the purpose behind their existence. So, if I’m not a siren―
Then you’re just a common murderer.
I shrug the concern off. Mulling on it won’t save my life.
We pass a building more weed than ticket booth and a bright sign with cheery―if not a little creepy―lettering that is surrounded by lightbulbs, a few still intact but likely dead. We walk in, granted full admission for free. Buildings stand as empty reminders of the carnival’s once proud life. Game booths sit with bits and pieces of their cons still lying about. Shattered milk jugs, a few targets dangling from the roofs inside, swaying with each breeze. Crickets chirp and animals rustle as we walk past.
The rides look even less recognizable. Metal tracks and cars collapsing under their own weight with at least a decade of rust and decay pulling them to the earth. The Ferris wheel looms over us now. It’s as dead up close as it was from afar, but it looks far more imposing now. Even the slightest breeze makes the whole skeleton creak, a promise that sooner or later it’s going to finish its slow-motion fall, not a care in the world as to who might be beneath it.
Thomas points up ahead, and I chuckle softly. A hundred feet or so from the wheel sits an old carousel. Apart from some plant growth and eroded paint, it looks to be in decent shape. But what’s got my attention is the center. Thomas and I trudge toward it, and I peer about in the milky darkness, praying not to see anyone following or ahead of us. Even the graveyards―actually, especially the graveyards―are rarely empty in Saint Roch. But apart from bug life and the bountiful population of rats and rabbits scuttling about as we move, I can’t get a sense of anyone near us. We step over a fallen barrier and hop up onto the floor of the carousel, the metal groaning loudly, echoing and scattering birds or bats from the far side. They fly off, and I look around frantically to see if the noise finally woke something. But the only movement now is Thomas who lightly walks among the impaled animals ready to be ridden. Horses, seals, a tiger, a unicorn. All shedding their former painted selves for the much less impressive cream color beneath. I follow Thomas with lighter steps as we reach the center, and I start searching.
“What’re you looking for?” Thomas asks in a light whisper.
“Some of these carousels have the controls in a small room in the center. It tends to blend in pretty well to the rest.” Apart from a cracked mirror, I’m having trouble finding any sort of door, and Thomas goes off on his own to search. I make note of a lion with a snarl that looks more painful than fearsome staring at me as I start walking along the inner wall.
My legs ache beneath me, my palms and arms scraped. I have rarely felt exhausted in my life, but I can’t remember the last time I closed my eyes without the belief I would die before I was able to open them again. My current plan, my only plan really, is to find a place semi-safe and collapse. The questions of my continuation of life can go to Hell.
I run my hands over mold-spotted mirrors and panels, leaning against them, hoping to find the one that might be willing to open to me. I make a full circuit and reach the creepy lion grinning at me like it wanted me to fail.
Pop.
A panel several feet from me loosens and swings free, revealing a dark cavern beyond. I look around and find Thomas standing near a control panel beside the ride. He smirks and comes back up to join me. I reach out and open the door farther, revealing a room that seems otherwise untouched by time and abandonment. In the faint light of the waking morning, I see what looks to be a very simple control panel with a small display and an old desk chair toppled sideways. The room is no bigger than a bathroom, but I’m grateful anyway. With a final glance around, I step inside and look back to Thomas.
“We’ll get a few hours’ sleep.”
“Here?”
I shrug. “As good a place as any, Tommy.” My eyes look past him, still searching the fair ground for any sign of pursuers.
He sighs and steps through, pulling the door behind him. It clicks and we’re plunged into darkness. I grumble at the inconvenience until I hear Thomas shifting and a light clicks on. He’s holding a set of keys in his pocket with a small metallic flashlight attached. He grins.
“I was a Boy Scout once.”
He shines it around the room, the metal floor looking as though it might be the cleanest thing in the park. I’ve never seen a more inviting floor, and I promptly sit down and lie back. My feet burn at the sudden freedom, and a sigh escapes me. Thomas explores the small room while I watch his small flashlight moving around like a superpowered firefly. He shuffles some papers as I peer up at him.
“You should get some rest while you can,” I tell him. He turns the flashlight toward me. I hold up my hand to block it.
“Why am I not going crazy over you anymore? Throwing myself after you like a love-sick zombie freak?”
It’s a fair question, and one I’ve been wondering myself. I shrug, but more because I don’t want to venture a guess. “When I was a kid, like really young, Mom told me that I could never kiss anyone.”
Thomas moves, the room going dark around him as he drops the flashlight to point to the floor as he makes his way to me. He sits across from me, leaning against the metal sheet of a wall that protects us from all the hitmen of the city.
“She said it would kill them, and it would be obvious it was me. What happened to your parents? To Mal? That’s what she said would happen.”
He passes the flashlight from hand to hand absently, trying not to grip the situation as fully as he could. “So. That girl was a siren?”
“If you had asked me that half an hour ago, I would’ve said definitely.” I slip off my hoodie as the small room starts to warm up from our bodies alone, the stuffiness descending. I sweep the sandy blond hair back. “Now? I don’t know. I can’t say it was a siren because I might not be.” The words don’t make much sense to me. Too many people besides my mother confirmed what I was.
Or maybe, they just saw you for what you are.
An ice-blooded bitch. A murderer by choice, not nature. A thing that could be decent, but decided not to.
“Well… either way, it sounds like your mom lied.”
I roll my eyes more at the obviousness of the statement than the guy who’s said it. “Yeah. Well, Mom wasn’t a model parent.”
“Something definitely happened when you… you know.” He dabs fingers to his lips, and even in the pale glow of his flashlight, I can see a face reddening.
“For a guy who tried to beat me into killing him,
you’re soft.” I roll on my side and rest my cheek on my hand as I stare at him.
“I was drunk,” he mutters. “Still am, if truth be told.” He opens his eyes wide like it might release the inebriation he’s feeling. While the lingering tendrils of alcohol still cling to me as well, they come as more of a dull haze than full-on drunkenness. “Just… didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
I smile and immediately grimace at the feeling of warmth flitting through me. I catch my breath a moment later. “Yeah, something definitely happened.”
Thomas looks at the door and sighs. “So how does this work? Sleep in shifts?”
The concept makes sense to me, but I know that if it’s Thomas’s shift, he’ll fall asleep. In spite of my self-confidence, I’m certain I will, too. I shake my head.
“No point. If someone knew we were in here, they’d probably just blast through the walls. Or blow up the carousel.”
Thomas flits his flashlight to the door for a moment. “You’ve got a sunny disposition, Layla. Anyone ever tell you that?”
I chuckle, grabbing my sweatshirt to stuff beneath my head as I lie back and close my eyes. “Just a few hours, okay?”
Thomas doesn’t speak, but I hear him adjusting and spreading out on the floor beside me, only a few inches away. Far enough that he doesn’t have to touch me but close enough that I can feel his breath drift over my cheek when he exhales. Both possibilities set my heart racing before I can rein it in. After the loud click of his flashlight, my lidded eyes no longer have the slight bit of light to keep them awake. Despite his vague shifting on the metal floor, I feel myself falling… falling… falling…
My body is a machine, but when I awake, even I can tell only that some time has passed. Not how long. Sealed up in the dark room with only a slight hint of an outline of the door beyond, I can’t tell what time it is. Or even what day it is. My eyelids, heavy with exhaustion, try to convince me to keep them closed. But after a few seconds, the reality of where I am starts to fall into place like so many puzzle pieces.
