Page 63 of Wicked Tides
“You are a monster! I freed you!”
“You are all devils! I will hunt you all down if it’s the last thing I do!”
She snarled like an animal at that, turning her head just as I was pushing up against her chin to get her off of me. I watched her teeth close over my fingers and felt a horrible pop in my joints. My knuckles splintered and I watched as she tore her head away, taking my fingers with it.
The worst of it was that she didn’t spit them out. She crunched once. Twice. Then she swallowed, opening her mouth to let me see her bloodied fangs when she screamed again.
For a moment, her agony was my agony. She was a reflection of me in my anguish and grief and my body stilled, unwilling to accept it. Never could I have anything in common with a monster like her. The only victory in it was that now she knew my pain.
“Vidar!” a voice called.
Gus. The girl looked up, teeth sharp and nails even sharper. Little as she was, she was strong. She’d pinned me with ease and as I struggled, Gus came limping up the beach with a pistol. He fired a shot at the girl and she ducked to the side. I rolled to my feet, using the last of my strength to get off the ground. I ran for my father’s cutlass and heard the girl charging after me. She was ready to kill me. I had to be ready, too. I grabbed the blade and spun around just as she was lunging. The sharp metal met her cheek. Blood splattered the already stained sand and she spun, hitting the ground with a shrill cry.
I should have finished it then. I should have run her through. I couldn’t. I was a coward. A fool. I ran for Gus as fast as my skinny legs could carry me as the girl struggled to her feet, one hand clutching her face. We ran down the beach to the boat the girl had indicated and jumped in. Inside was a weapon belt and by the luck of the gods, there was another pistol in it. Gus tore it out of the leathers and fired on the girl as she sprinted toward us, hitting her in the shoulder. She hit the ground, shrieking.
We’d made it. We were rowing out to sea. To safety, I hoped, but perhaps to our death. It didn’t matter. As we distanced ourselves from that wretched island, her voice filled the air like poison.
“I will remember your name, Vidar!” she screamed. “I will remember your name! I will destroy you and everything you love! I will destroy you, Vidar! I swear to the gods, I will destroy you!”
Present day
I ambled down into the hold, a lantern in hand. The moment the firelight cast its orange hue over Dahlia’s colorless skin, my breathcaught in my throat. But of all the sirens I’d ever met, there was a human quality to her that hinted she could still be reasoned with.
Or perhaps that was her supernatural charms. Or I was just being a fool…
Her eyes slowly lifted to look at me, dark and endless. Her friend was curled up against the other wall, fast asleep. Or pretending to be at the very least.
“Are you ready to talk?” I said in a near whisper.
She gave it some thought, her face giving nothing away. Finally, I watched her sigh quietly as if in mild defeat. She was tired. I was tired. One of us had to give in.
I held up the key ring and slowly unlocked the gate, watching Dahlia lazily unfold from the floor. She walked over to me, watching me with the same vigilance that I watched her. When she reached the open gate, she held out her still-cuffed wrists as if in a silent bargain.
I grabbed the chain, tugging her out of the cell only to lock the gate behind her. The cuffs would come off when I said they could.
We walked to my quarters where I hung the lantern up on a ceiling hook and then shut the door behind us, latching it. Then I unlocked the irons from Dahlia’s wrists, tossing them on the table. The keys I slid onto my belt, buckling them in place so they could not easily be snatched away, and she watched that as if tempted to bisect me just to get them.
The tension between us was like a stressed tendon ready to snap. The way the lantern rocked over Dahlia’s head created dancing shadows on her already eerily appealing face. She was a wraith in the dark. A beautiful, venomous thing.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I began. “I know you understand it better than I do.”
She was hesitant to answer. She veiled her fear like it was a sin to show it, but it was there. It was subtle, but it was there. She’d been spooked by that island and sirens weren’t often spooked.
“The xhoth,” she finally spoke. “They are hungry. And someone is feeding them. Likely to dissuade them from feeding on us.”
“I need more than that.”
“People like the crew of the Cornwallis. They were marked, just like the men on that island. My theory is the men on that ship were under a sister’s influence. The girls were to be sacrificed to appease the sons’ abhorrent appetites or to feed a hungry clan. Who can know?”
“And the men on the island?”
“They were simply there to die. They’d been forced to wait there for something and they knew not what it was. It drove them mad. I’m sure hunger drove them to eat one another. In truth, the sons have likely been visiting that place, devouring one or two at a time just to stay satiated and the marks are simply so they know who gifted those men to them. A pathetic attempt to stay in their good graces, I suspect.”
“Tell me about the xhoth. I need more if I’m to sail us through these waters.”
“They are the sons of Akareth.”
I slumped into the leather chair at the far end of the room, regarding Dahlia in her oversized clothes. “Mind telling me what the fuck that means?”
