The Afterlife (Siren Suicides, Book 3)

Chapter 5. Lifeboat

Thoughts course through my head as we fly with incredible speed toward the ladder, bumping into pipes sticking out here and there, and then come to an abrupt stop, draping over the steel bottom rung like three heavy sacks filled with sand, one on top of another. Darkness throbs in the red flickering light. The boat's tilt must be close to a thirty degree angle now. I remember reading somewhere that once it careens past forty-five degrees, sinking is inevitable and happens within minutes.

I find my face pressed into my father's chest, hearing his beating heart, his warmth touching my forehead.

"No!" I weep into his shirt, soaked and smelling faintly of fabric softener. Why Jimmy's death has hit me harder than my father blowing up Raidne on the shore of Seward Park, I can't fathom. I don't even know the guy; he was supposed to help Glen kill me. Why it makes me weep from grief instead of getting mad like it did when my father killed Pisinoe, I can't comprehend. Perhaps because I was so close to it, watching Papa execute him without a purpose; perhaps, it's because a part of me has agreed that sirens are indeed monsters and, hence, deserve death; or, perhaps it's because a woman's lower rank has been so firmly ingrained in my mind by my father's constant lectures, that it's now ruling my emotions?

I swallow.

My father jerks up, attempting to sit.

"Off! Get off me! Get—" he yells over the rumble of the creaking trawler that's about to give up. He pushes his free hand into my left shoulder and shoves me away, like I'm the most disgusting creature that's ever touched him. I remember him dropping me into the trunk of his Maserati Quattroporte. This is as close as we've ever gotten to a hug, and I wish he would drop his gun and drape his arms around me, letting me sob into his shoulder. I need him to tell me that we all will be okay, and everything that's happened in the past will be forgotten. We'll start new, and it will be always sunny, warm, and loving. Only life doesn't work this way, and neither does Papa.

Life has a way of reminding you of its fragile balance, just when the future looks rosy. It sends me that reminder as it dunks the trawler another foot down, digging sharp fingers of panic into me, siren or not.

"Hunter!" I yelp over the rushing water, reaching for him. My father intercepts me and pushes my arm away, yelling in response.

"You touch him, he's dead, understand?" His eyeballs bulge, two white, ethereal spheres of hate amidst the pounding darkness. "Help me get him up. There is a lifeboat on the deck. Move!"

I glance at him. Impulse makes me want to circle my hands around his neck and choke him, choke him to his natural death, yet I know it won't work. Not at my hands, no matter how strong. It's like a cruel joke, a joke on this whole siren hunting thing; we are forever destined to torture each other, both armed with unlikely weapons—sirens with the sound of their voice, siren hunters with the sound of a sonic boom.

I'm helpless, barely detecting the off-key melody of Hunter's soul, but not seeing him in the dark. My quiet rage completes a 180 degree turn. It aims at me, wild, because it can't just evaporate, it has to go somewhere. Tears burn my eyes and my muscles scream for action, yet I hold still. The rubber of my fisherman suit drums to the mad patter of leaking water from the ceiling. My arms hang loose, unsure if they can move or if it's best not to stir. Several feet of swirling water ripple with the momentary agony of disaster, splashing around me.

Hunter's body is slumped against the ladder, hugging its very bottom like a torn rag doll dropped into a puddle by its owner. All I can see in the darkness is that his eyes are closed and his nose is bloody. Half of his face floats in and out of the water.

"I said, move it! Get him up, now!" Papa yells, pressing the gun into my left shoulder. "You want to keep your boyfriend alive, don't you, sweetie?"