Siren's Song (30 page)

“I don't know what to do, what to say,” I murmur. I stand as close to him as I can without touching.

His tormented eyes focus on mine. “Tell me…that you hate me. Tell me to go away and never touch you again. Call me a monster.”

His words slice through me with more brutal force than my fear in the dark alley at the stadium. There, I could have lost my life. Here I could live, but be in agony forever. Which is crueler?

“Please,” he says. “Tell me. Make me leave you.”

I sigh and step up until my body is touching his. My decision is made. It really was from the start. I'm in this with my whole self. No running away. That possibility deserted me when a pile of lilacs fell out of my locker, when a towel was left on my porch, when Mica chewed little tidbits of chicken, tail wagging. When Luke Whitmore smiled at me.

I feel his stiff, sculpted muscles beneath my hand as I place it over his heart. I lean in slowly and kiss the edge of his jaw. “I hate you,” I whisper. My fingers thread through his hair to curve around behind his ear with a feather-light caress. I step up on my tiptoes and kiss the corner of his mouth. “Go away.” I grasp his warm hand and move it around to rest at the top of my back jeans pocket. “Don't touch me again.” I cup his face and kiss the small indent in his chin. “You are a monster.” I lean into him and guide his face down. I force him to stare into my eyes. “All. Complete. Lies.”

Luke exhales, shuts his eyes and leans his forehead into mine. His arms engulf me. We hold each other until I feel his tight body loosen. I relish this moment, committing it to memory. A moment without the curse.

After long minutes, he draws back slightly but doesn't release me. His eyes dip to my neck again. “If I could, I would erase every mark, remove it from your soft skin, extract it from your memory.” He bends his head and gingerly kisses along my neck. I stand still, barely breathing. Luke turns my arm slowly and feathers kisses along the fingerprints there.

“No.” He looks up at me with questions in his sad eyes. I try to explain. “The marks show me…how hard you fought against the curse to keep me alive.” I shake my head just a bit. “I won't let you steal those memories from me.”

Luke's eyes close as he groans, pulling me against him, enveloping me completely. It is as if I've crawled inside him, warm and snug and, as crazy as it sounds…safe.

I hear Mom and Dad locking up downstairs. “I'd better go,” he says and relaxes his hold.

“Wait.” My eyes widen as the night's insanity floods back into my Luke-saturated mind. “Eric tracked me down at the stadium.” Luke's eyes harden. “He has this ring. Matt and Taylin saw it. They said that he's a guardian.”

Luke's jaw tightens. His eyes narrow. “What happened?”

“Eric tried to take me away from the game. He said he wanted to take me home. Taylin saw his ring and freaked out a little. Eric warned Matt that if anything happened to me he'd,” I swallow, “kill you all…slowly.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I shake my head no, hoping there aren't any marks on my wrist where we played tug of war. Luke paces to the window and glances out. “So, he knows we're the cursed,” he says more to himself than to me. “I should have known. It's only been two lives since we've seen a guardian.”

“I think…” my mind whirls around the details that I haven't had time to consider, “I think Eric's been watching me all my life. I'm a Siren, right?”

Luke stares at me. “He's been waiting for you to draw one of us with your voice.”

“And now he's going to try to kill you,” I whisper.

“I'm surprised he hasn't already.”

My heart picks up to a gallop. “God, Luke! What are we going to do?” The answer lies in the air between us, a wall that begins to form as I remember Taylin's face, her panic, their hatred of the guards who killed them so viciously. “No, Luke,” I whisper. “You're not a killer.”

“I need to talk to Mathias and Tay,” he says. “They could be in danger.”

I nod but hate to see him turn away. He opens my window and gracefully steps out onto the roof. “Luke, be careful.” I stick my head out the window. He kisses me quickly and runs his thumb along my cheek.

“I love you, Jule.” His eyes flash briefly with an eerie internal light, but he turns before I can focus on it. In a soundless leap, he lands with a gentle thud on the front lawn. The porch light illuminates his bare arms. Black serpents wrap around sculpted biceps. He runs, away from me. He doesn't look back.

17

“Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”
~Benjamin Franklin

“Is Carly sick?” Mom asks the next morning when I grab my book bag, ready to head out early for the bus. I have a lavender turtleneck sweater on to hide the trail of hickeys and bruises along my neck and arms. I plan to fake being sick to get out of putting on my gym uniform. All I need is for Richard Ashe to call my mom about the marks.

“I don't think so, but she isn't driving me this morning.” As I think about Carly, my stomach twists like a kite whose string is caught in a tree. So much has happened since yesterday, when she deposited me on Luke's front lawn. Carly feels miles away, farther even than when we moved down here without her. I didn't try to call her again last night. If she'd answered I don't know what I would have said.

Mom looks closer at me. “You two are fighting.” She points back and forth between my eyes. “Your eyes look glassy. Either you're sick,” she plants a kiss on my forehead, then shakes her head, “or you are upset and trying to pretend you're not.”

Part of me is relieved that my normal, extremely perceptive mom is back. The rest of me is annoyed that she can read me so easily. “Yeah, she's mad.”

Mom nods and glances out the window. “Maybe she's ready to talk about it.”

I follow her gaze to the driveway, where Carly sits staring straight ahead over her steering wheel.

I slide into the familiar passenger seat and close the door. Carly doesn't say anything so I don't, either. She pulls out of the driveway. We ride in silence. At the one traffic light between home and school I glance at her. Carly's face is pinched, her features so different that she looks almost like a stranger. Then I notice a tear snaking down her cheek.

“Carly, I'm sorry.”

She looks at me and the pain in her eyes makes me nauseous. “Mom was at her garden club meeting and Dad was at the school working on football plays last night. Eric was home but left. So…” she takes a big breath. “I started hunting around the den, pulling out books and stuff.” She pauses so long, I wonder if she'll continue. The car behind us honks to let us know the light is green. Carly's foot hits the gas, jerking us forward. She pulls awkwardly over to the side of the road. Her hands grip the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles blanch white. She stares out over them. “When I pulled out one of the books on a higher shelf, the bookcase moved.” She turns to look at me. “There
is
a secret closet.”

“Did you go in?” I whisper.

She shakes her head. “No. I was,” her voice dips, “too creeped out. I kept thinking that Eric was going to walk in and catch me. But I could see lots of pictures and something that looked like a family tree.” She breathes in and out through her nose. “And, yeah, most of the pictures looked like they were of you and your mom.”

I blink several times, sighing. Mom isn't insane. Relief pours over me like a waterfall, bringing tears almost to the surface. I squeeze Carly's hand. “There might be an explanation.”

Tears roll down Carly's cheeks. “Apart from my brother being a crazed stalker?”

I tip my head side to side. “Yeah.” Is being a guardian an excuse for stalking? I don't know if my information will make Carly feel better, but at least she'll know the truth.

“Eric is something called a guardian.”

“A guardian? That doesn't sound bad.” She sniffs and wipes at her nose.

“Well, that depends on your perspective.”

“Did you get this from them?”

Of course she's talking about Luke, Matt, and Taylin. I nod. “But also from Eric, last night.”

“Shit,” she curses softly. “What happened last night?”

I fill her in on the confrontation with Eric.

“Where was Luke?” she asks.

“Outside, trying to get himself under control after I sang.”

“So, you
did
sing in front of all those people?” Carly sounds slightly awed.

“You were watching?”

“Eric turned on the game and we heard you announced. We watched you walk up to the microphone and then the channel went out.”

“Taylin, Matt, and Luke knocked out the satellites so I wouldn't entrance the whole frickin' world.”

Carly rolls her eyes. “God, Jule, you're like a lethal weapon. If you're not careful, some government is going to kidnap you.”

“Luke's curse is making it worse. It makes sense that my voice would paralyze anyone who could help me while Luke goes crazy and tears me apart.”

“Shit,” Carly says again, but at least she doesn't sound so sad. “So Eric's just trying to protect you?”

I shrug. “I don't know, but that makes sense. But I'm worried he's going to try to kill Luke.”

Carly shakes her head. “I can't see Eric killing someone. He doesn't hunt or watch boxing or anything like that. How would he kill him, anyway? Luke's, like, superhuman right now.”

“Luke said that he could still be killed if shot in the wrong place.”

“How the hell did Eric find out about all this?” Carly wonders out loud. “Am I a descendant of those killer guards, too, then?”

“I don't know. Maybe he found out about it at State, a fraternity or something.”

“So there could be more guardians around?”

I nod slowly. “Maybe not here, but I think it's a pretty organized group if Eric has a book on it.”

“They might try to kill Matt,” Carly breathes. “And Taylin.”

I think of the panic in Taylin's eyes, how small and scared she looked. “Maybe if we talk to Eric,” I suggest, “he'll help us break the curse instead.”

“I should talk to him, Jule.”

“Yeah, I don't think Luke will let me near him.”

Carly pauses and her eyes widen. “You don't think that Luke would…that they would hurt him, do you?”

I open my mouth but the denial is anchored to my tongue. “They were all murdered pretty brutally by guardians.” My voice is low, choppy.

“That was two hundred years ago!”

“And one of the guardians, two lifetimes ago, tried to kill Taylin.”

“What happened to him?” Carly asks.

“It was a girl. I don't know what happened.”

“Don't you think we should ask?” Carly whips her hands around as she talks.

“It was a different situation. She was on the verge of slicing Taylin open or something.”

“But what if they misinterpret what Eric's doing?”

I shake my head slowly, sadly. I'm so confused about Eric. He's always seemed like a brother growing up, but all along he's been watching me. But is it because he's part of this weird organization that guards Sirens? And where did he get all those pictures, if he just joined? “I don't know, Carly. Let's talk to them at school.”

Carly races the rest of the way to Cougar Creek. Taylin's car is parked in the lot and my stomach relaxes a notch. One quick scan and I don't see Luke's bike.

“What happened to Taylin's roof?” Carly asks as we traipse by.

“Uh…Luke was controlling his temper.”

“Holy frickin' shit,” Carly huffs in a whisper and starts to jog toward the doors. We head toward my locker. “Where are they?” Carly asks. I stow my bag and we head to my homeroom. No Luke.

“Maybe we're just early,” I suggest.

“Taylin's car's out there.”

“Luke's bike wasn't, though.”

“I'll check out Matt's homeroom,” Carly says. “I'll see you at lunch.”

Luke doesn't show up for homeroom. I rush to chemistry. Taylin's in the back as usual. I bypass my seat and Kiara and head to the back. “Where's Luke?”

“Doing some research this morning. He'll be in later and then out again for your rehearsal,” she whispers.

“Where are we meeting after school?” I'm assuming we need to meet.

“The creek behind Luke's subdivision. We don't need Jake overhearing anything.”

“He's not…” I glance around as the kids file in, “doing anything about Eric this morning is he?”

“It's not in the plan,” she says, but stares straight ahead. She glances up at me. “Now, if Eric's plan today involves murder, then Luke's will change.”

I swallow hard and shake my head. “God, Taylin, this is crazy.”

“Welcome to my world,” she grumbles and props her black combat boots up on the seat in front of her.

The rest of the day plays like a slow, drawn-out dirge. Luke never shows. I walk toward drama slowly, scanning the animated and frenetic faces of the kids around me. The contrast between them and me makes me feel completely isolated. Lindsey and Madison chatter about how they plan to wear their hair to homecoming next week. I'd forgotten all about homecoming. Will Luke ask me to the dance? Will I be alive for the dance? A high-pitched laugh escapes me, making Madison and Lindsey turn. I shrug. “No one's asked me, so I guess I'm not going.”

Pity pout from Lindsey.

“I thought you and Luke Whitmore were…” Madison trails off and lifts her eyebrows suggestively. “Aren't you two going together?”

“Really?” Lindsey says with a huge smile, her eyes dancing. “He's massively hot, Jule. That bike, that bod, that bad-ass stare. Dish, sister.” She leans forward.

“Well…there's not much to tell.” Not much I
can
tell.