And she seemed unaware or uncaring of this fact as her free hand groped frantically at his groin.
With his lungs already burning, and his pulse radiating down each limb, Grayson knew that if he didn’t do something—anything—to buy himself time, he would die.
He didn’t want to open his eyes in the ocean. The salt would sting his eyes, and blind him. It was also possible that the consuming dark water would be too absolute to help him see anything anyway.
By touch alone, he reached across his chest, brushing the siren’s cold flesh as he went. He found the edge of the blade tucked against his forearm and traced the handle until he felt the place where the sheath unsnapped. Careful to hold the blade with his fingers so he didn’t drop it, he used his thumb to unsnap the blade.
It came free in his hand just as the creature slid his penis inside her. The siren worked herself into a fever pitch at the promise of success.
Red sparks pressed in from the corners of his vision. It was now or never.
He thrust the blade forward into the abdomen of the siren. A wretched screech, which he heard both in the water and inside his head, tore through him. It was felt like a physical blow, like razor sharp nails scraping down the front of his body.
But the ruthless grip released. He slipped out of her.
Without thinking, he shot toward to surface.
As soon as he broke a cresting wave, he sucked in a deep breath. There was the beach. There was the moonlit shore. He just had to make it there.
He managed only four or five propelling steps when a rough tug yanked him under the water again.
No, no, no. He pivoted underwater, and swung the knife outward. It arched slowly through the water but it connected with nothing.
A deep, fierce burning consumed his left leg. He reached for it, knowing the siren must be fighting back. Of course she would. Why did he think stabbing her wouldn’t provoke her? Perhaps she’d bitten him with teeth that crunched through crustacean shells. Or maybe she cut him with her claws. He would inspect the damage once he got to shore.
Right now he just had to get out of the water.
Only, he wasn’t moving. His body took on a strange weakness. He grew heavy.
Confused, he reached for his wounded leg. But his hand swiped through water. He felt nothing. Where his knee or calf should be was nothing.
Oh God. Ohhhh God.
He had to see. He had to. He drew his torso and leg as close as possible before opening his eyes. They burned, but there was enough moonlight cutting the water to highlight the blurry outline of his severed thigh.
Most of his left leg was gone.
His leg was gone.
The weakness in his limbs, the deepening cold—he understood now that it was rapid blood loss. Had it been the shark after all? Had it been drawn to the siren’s spilled blood and bitten him because he was the slower, weaker prey?
Or had the siren torn his leg off?
He supposed he would never be sure.
But he thought he had his answer when twin sets of razor-sharp claws shot forward through the dark.
Create New Story
Remake last choice
Grayson: Stay on rock
Grayson came up onto his hands and knees visually following the trail of bioluminescence. The three shimmering forms had to be sirens. His mind rebelled against the idea, certain it was impossible. Sirens didn’t come into the cove. Heart’s Rock was part of an elaborate underwater rock formation.
They shouldn’t be here.
But they were.
The twin trails of bioluminescence rocketing through the dark water reached Landon in a matter of moments. They circled him like a cyclone beneath the water.
No, no, no, Grayson thought. Get to the shallows. Get to the shallows or they will drown you.
But even from this distance Grayson saw the impossibility of the task. Landon wasn’t a strong swimmer. Even if he had been, that look on his face, the naked desire. He was already drowning in desire.
The appearance of the creatures was entirely dependent upon the telepathic connection between predator and prey.
He wanted to shout at Landon and snap him out of it, tell him to get to shore before it was too late. But shouting would only draw attention to himself and the whole point of staying on this rock and out of the water, was to give himself a chance to escape.
If he got into the water now, the chance was high that he would only be drowned, too. He wouldn’t save Landon, nor himself.
But what about Abigail?
A flash of lightning revealed her in knee deep water. The male siren was only five or six feet away from her and advancing. It was mostly his broad back that Grayson could see from this distance. He couldn’t discern any details of its appearance because of the darkness or because Grayson wasn’t the siren’s intended target.
But Abigail was lying down on the beach. Abigail was—
A crack of thunder made him jump. His hand slipped on the rock, cutting it. Blood bloomed across his palm.
He swore, pulling away from the water’s edge. That was all he needed. If sirens in the water weren’t enough, a gaping bloody wound would sure draw the sharks. A large shark couldn’t get into the cove but a small shark from the reef would be trouble enough.
Bioluminescence illuminated the dark water around him.
This is it, he thought. If the two females were coming for him, they would pull themselves out of the water and onto the rock now. He would do his best to stay on the hard, unforgiving surface because the water on all sides was too deep.
But light split from one to two streams and went around the rock, out to sea. They were headed toward the cliffs holding up the distant castle.
Either they didn’t want him, they were scared off by something else, or had achieved their objective.
Grayson regarded the dark water for a long while. His eyes searched the undulating waves. He didn’t see Landon, nor did he see any shark fins protruding from the waves.
He couldn’t stay on the rock all night or he would freeze to death. The water droplets on his naked skin chilled him. He was already shaking violently from the cold filling his bones. He should’ve been fine on any other June night. But this strange and sudden storm had dropped the temperature unexpectedly.
He needed to get to shore and get his clothes on. He needed to get that bonfire going again.
Landon, his mind begged. Please, please be okay.
He took a deep breath and dove into the water. With every stroke, with every burning breath, his heart pounded in his ear. He kept expecting to see a shark rise up from the depths and swallow him whole. Or perhaps a forest of hands—siren hands, webbed and desperate—snaring him in their ruthless grips and pulling him down into the black depths.
He was nearly hysterical halfway through the swim. When his foot grazed the sandy bottom of the ocean, he did cry out. He was certain the lick of sand scraping his skin was actually the tongue of some enormous beast.
But he was out of the water and he was alive.
When Abigail saw him, she screamed.
“It’s me!” he said, hands out in surrender. “Abby, it’s just me.”
But she kept screaming. He realized her gaze was fixed on something behind him. He whirled, pulling the blade from his forearm sheath.
It was Landon. Or rather, it was Landon’s body. Wave after wave pummeled him into the sand.
“Landon.” Grayson’s voice cracked. He dropped the blade and it stuck into the sand.
Grayson grabbed a slick limb and dragged Landon further onto the beach.
He wanted to turn him over, do CPR, pound on his chest until water spurted from his mouth the way it did in the movies.
But Grayson knew he was dead the moment he grabbed onto the boy. There was something unnatural in his weight. The living had a lightness to their being. Landon’s lightness was gone.
Yet he turned him over on the shore, aware that Abigail was still screaming though the sound
had become a distant annoyance. It was a fly buzzing in the other room.
Grayson was shoving the heel of his hand into Landon’s sternum. He was tilting back the neck so he could pinch the nose closed and blow into the mouth. The lips were so cold. The chest wasn’t moving. The heart wasn’t beating.
Landon was dead.
They dressed before the police arrived. They’d had about fifteen minutes between the moment he’d pulled his cell phone from his pocket until he saw the flashlights first sweep the sandy dunes.
Then the police were calling out their names and Grayson found a way to call back, though his throat was raw and burning.
Abigail’s mother was first on the scene. As an officer at Castle Cove PD, she would’ve heard the call come into the station and would’ve taken it upon herself to drive straight to Hunter’s Beach.
What he hadn’t expected was that his own parents would be a close second.
It was his father that threw a gray wool blanket over his shoulders. It was his mother who squeezed him so hard he couldn’t breathe.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you—Christ, you’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” he managed, yet his teeth were chattering. “But Landon—Landon.”
His voice broke and his father pulled him into his embrace. He wasn’t sure how long they held him. Someone was stroking his wet hair.
When they finally released him, dozens more had arrived. There were officers in jackets, but also paramedics. They wanted to give both Abigail and Grayson full physicals.
One shone a penlight into his eyes.
“I’m fine,” Grayson insisted. But they still sat him and Abigail down against a rock. She hadn’t stopped crying. “Check on Abby.”
“We need to know what happened,” Officer Una O’Reilly said. Una was Abigail’s mom.
“Grayson,” his father said. It was the one-word command he’d heard often in his life, but never delivered with such tenderness.
Grayson told the story. He began with their plan to swim to Heart’s Rock and then go get pizza.
“It’s his eighteenth birthday,” his mother interjected as if defending him.
“Then they came around the rock,” he said. “Three sirens.”
“Onto the rock?” Officer O’Reilly corrected.
“No,” Grayson shook his head and cold water fell from his hair on to his cheek. “Around the rock. They passed me and swam straight into the cove. They were chasing Abigail and Landon. The females split off for Landon and the male went after Abby.”
Officer O’Reilly stiffened. Her face pinched.
“I thought the inlet was safe,” his father said. “I thought this tradition was harmless.”
“If you call the threat of rape harmless,” his mother Lillian countered.
Officer O’Reilly seemed to struggle, but finally found her words. “The sirens have been acting strangely the last few days. There was also an attack further south last Saturday. While they do visit the southern beaches from time to time, they’ve never crossed into the inlet before. We will have to investigate what would drive them this far into the cove.”
“If there was another attack, why haven’t we heard about it? Why didn’t you issue a warning?” his mother demanded.
“There hasn’t been time.”
“It happened last weekend. Why didn’t you let us know they were agitated? The community deserves to know if our children—”
“Lillian,” his father said. He squeezed her arm, and to her credit, she seemed to regain control of herself.
“We thought last weekend’s attack was an isolated incident. We did report it to...the proper authorities. But we haven’t heard any new information on the situation. Frankly, we didn’t know what was going on and therefore weren’t sure what to report.”
“Tell that to them!” Grayson’s mother pointed at the couple further down the beach. Landon’s parents were surrounded by police. It looked like they wanted to come over and talk, but the authorities weren’t allowing them to come any closer.
“You could have reported that there was an attack,” Lillian said stiffly. “At least tell people to stay off the beach.”
“You’re right. Obviously, this isn’t an isolated event,” Officer O’Reilly conceded. “We need to tell people to stay out of the water after dark until this is solved.”
“Landon is dead.” It was Abigail speaking. “Landon is dead.”
“I know, sweetie.” Una stooped and wrapped her arms around Abby. “I’m so sorry.”
Grayson heard the unspoken relief in her voice. At least it wasn’t you. That must be what she was thinking. Someone’s child had died tonight. But it hadn’t been her child. And though both of their parents knew who Landon was to Abby and Grayson, they couldn’t hide their own gratitude. They might have seen Landon grow into a young man, they might’ve had him over for dinners and playdates, but none of that meant they would sacrifice their own children in his place.
A man in a dark blue jacket stood awkwardly to one side, waiting to get Officer O’Reilly attention.
She spotted him. “What is it?”
“We just wanted to let you know that the markings on the body and the water in the respiratory system are consistent with a siren attack. There was no ejaculate present—”
“Christ,” Grayson’s mother swore.
“—because it was likely washed away in the surf.”
Una held up one hand. The other remained on Abby’s shoulder. “That’s enough for now, Darryl. Thank you.”
“Lillian, Wade, I hate to ask but could you take Abigail home, please. I will need to stay here until the scene is completely processed. They’re both cold and—”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Abigail said. She lifted her head and dragged her nose across the blanket draping her arm.
“You can come to our house,” Lillian said. “We’ll be with them.”
“Thank you,” Una said and helped Abby to her feet. “I’ll come get you as soon as I leave here. If it’s too late, I’ll wait until the morning. I’m sure you are all exhausted.”
“Text me either way,” his mother told Officer O’Reilly. “I’ll be awake.”
In silence the four of them climbed the steep ledge to the parking lot above. Grayson and Abby followed his parents, shoulder to shoulder, to the parking lot beside the castle ruins. No one spoke as his father unlocked the car and they climbed in. In the dark back seat, Abigail snuggled close to Grayson’s side, crying quietly.
“Are you hungry?” his father asked.
Grayson met his eyes in the rearview. “I don’t know if I can eat now.”
“We will pick up something anyway,” his mother said, regarding him with one of her stern faces. “You don’t have to eat it. But it will be there if you want it.”
“Not pizza,” Abby said softly from her corner of the car. Her voice was thick with tears. “Anything but pizza.”
They picked up Chinese from the Moodle Noodle shop on the west side of campus. His father went in and paid while his mother stayed in the car.
No one spoke. The radio remained off. But distant music from a closing bar reached them.
It was Abigail who broke the silence first. “When I get to your house, can I please take a shower?”
“Of course,” his mother said, turning in her seat to gaze at her. “Of course you can.”
“Where’s Tanner?” Grayson asked. His parents wouldn’t have brought him to a murder scene, but it couldn’t have been easy finding a sitter at two in the morning.
“He stayed the night with Will.” It was like her face was drinking him in. “We will tell him what happened later.”
Don’t say it, he thought. He could practically see the I’m just so glad you’re okay written on her face. But if she said it, Abby would begin to cry again and she’d finally started to quiet down.
“All right,” his father said, climbing into the car and handing a brown sack to his mother. “We have eno
ugh chicken and lo mien to feed an army. Anything else?”
“A shower,” Abby begged.
“Sleep,” Grayson said.
His father favored him with a weak smile. “Coming right up.”
His father waited for a trio of drunk coeds to cross the street before he pulled away from the curb into the post-bar traffic.
Grayson’s parents had bought a house in historic Midtown. This was a vintage neighborhood with beautiful restored Victorian homes and small shops. There was a coffeeshop and bookstore and it had the feel of a small antiquated town, complete with a local grocer and old-fashioned video store, where people could rent DVDs or video games.
This neighborhood’s insular seclusion was one of the reasons Grayson had been allowed to roam so freely as a child. Everything he could have wanted—candy or ice cream, a park or playground, his friends—were within ten blocks of his home.
The porchlight was on when they pulled into the drive, illuminating freshly stained steps and the railing. The house itself was also a deep cherry red. He and his father had just repainted it the previous summer. It had taken them all three months, and it wasn’t like his family didn’t have the money to hire someone. It was simply one of his father’s “bonding” projects—of which there had been many over the years.
But seeing the house had the effect Grayson suspected his father wanted.
Every time Grayson saw it, he felt proud. Proud of what a good job they’d done and proud of his family.
This was home. He was safe here.
When he threw open the car door, he had tears in his eyes. His father saw them as he was closing his own door.
“I know,” his father murmured quietly. “I know.”
He squeezed Grayson’s shoulder hard, and pulled him toward the house.
His mother got the door open, ushering Abigail over the threshold.
“Honey, get some towels,” she said. “When you get out of the shower, Abigail, I’ll have something clean for you to wear. It’ll be a little big on you.”
Night Tide Page 8
