Page 75 of Mama Si's Paradise

How had I so readily believed that this woman, thisstrangerwould really treat me the way she did,careabout me when she didn’t even know me, and have my best interest at heart? Had I learned nothing from being kicked in the balls by life just a month ago—or wasthatthe reason why I’d been such easy prey?

A traumatized, naive, helpless, hopeless girl with no roof over her head and no place to go.Nobody who cares about me. Nobody I care about.

“Don’t you remember, Fall Doll?Power,” she said, straightening up on the boat again. “You wanted to pay me back, and I told you that you would. If you get chosen, my Burrow gets more power than all the other Isles for a whole year. We get more magic.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” Who gave her more power if I was chosen?!

“Each year, all the Isles make offerings in the form of human women to the rulers of the Evernight Court, and whichever offering they choose, they endorse that Isle with more magic and power. Does that make sense yet? No?”

My mouth opened and closed and opened and closed…

“Oh, well.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter, Fall Doll. With this attitude, you’ll be dead if they don’t choose you, and if they do…” Her eyes lit up again as she looked ahead at the Whispering Woods. “You’ll find out just how much magic costs, very, very soon.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to thrash and slam my fists on that boat over and over again, but I couldn’t. I’d drown first.

“You’re fucking rotten,” I whispered, and Mama Si actually flinched like I’d insulted her. Like she didn’t know exactly how rotten she was.

“I will do everything possible for my land and for my people, as is my duty,” she told me, raising her chin and looking down at me, as if she couldn’t see me struggling just to keep my head above water.

“You will do everythingfor power.” Her words no longer fooled me. I saw right through her tricks.

Turning my back to her and the boat was hard, but I was going to probably die soon anyway, so what did it matter whether I stayed alive for a few more minutes? Mama Si was going to go back to the Paradise, and she was going to leave me here in the middle of the ocean all alone. In the water.

Withsirens.

The memory of the true face of Sedelis, her skin grey and the strands of her hair like wire made my stomach twist and turn. And the next second, she came out of the water barely five feet away as if she’d heard the thoughts in my head.

A small scream escaped my lips because she wasn’t the only one. Another four sirens slowly came out of the water, peeking out only half their heads, hiding their mouths, showing me just their eyes—as blue as the ocean, same as Sedelis’s.

My chest squeezed tightly as Mama Si gasped behind me.

“Oh, by the Burrow…” she whispered, and she sounded like she wascrying.“By the Burrow—is it her?!”

No, no, no, no…

A loud banging sound suddenly came from the dark cloud of the Whispering Woods. Sedelis came out of the water completely, grinning at me ear to ear, and she said, “It is.”

Mama Si laughed.

People from the other boats screamed.

A dragon shot out of the darkness of the Whispering Woods for the sky just like the first time, except it was just him now. Just the small dragon that had bitten me.

And it was coming straight for me.

I turned around and tried to swim away. No way in hell was I going to just sit tight and wait for that thing to come bite me again—no way. I was going to swim until my arms fell off my body, and then I’d keep going with my legs alone.

Except my legs were no longer mine to control, it seemed. Slippery scales were wrapped around them just like before, and I couldn’t fucking move a single inch.

All I could do was look at Mama Si on her boat, laughing and crying at the same time, not bothered in the least by the sight of me struggling to free myself.

Then the small dragon was right in front of me, that sound coming out of his jaws like glass breaking and tires screeching against the asphalt.

I screamed, too. I screamed at him, and if he thought he was going to bite me again, he had another think coming. I was going to tear those thin-looking wings apart with my bare fucking hands.

“Don’t!” I shouted at him at the top of my voice. “Don’t you dare come near me!”

Like I really hoped that that was going to make a difference.

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