I Chose to Die (Siren Suicides, Book 1)

Chapter 20. Ship Canal

I hold Canosa's gaze and think of love, of what it is and what it means to me. I think about how it reminds me of a shiny lure at the end of a fishing line, iridescent and sparkly. How clever it is, making you bite, only to discover that it has a hook. A treble hook in my case. The first sharp point is for mom, who left me; the second one is for Papa, who never loved me; and the third one is for Hunter, who fell victim to my siren voice. All three are big, fat lies that I bit into, desperate. I'm stuck under a layer of self-pity, wanting to get out, no matter what it takes. Just wanting to belong. Barely a second passes as I think through this. Images flash through my mind, and I'm trying to make sense of them, hoping an answer will come to me. The courage to make a decision.

I study Canosa and somehow I think she's the angler, the one hunting me, the one who threw in the fishing line and is now pulling me out. What's it gonna be, catch and release, or sell? Or will you eat me, gut and sinew and all? But I know she'll only giggle, together with her sirens. They'll all laugh in my face. Poor Ailen Bright, they'll say, you still believe in love? Oh, you naïve little girl, grow up already. How stupid of you, how pathetic. Silly almost. People were not made to be loved, they're food. And they're right. I'm a siren now, I belong with them. They're my family, whether I want it or not.

I stand straight, determined.

"Where are you going?" Hunter asks, alarmed, as if he read my mind. He props himself up and stands.

I breathe in and breathe out, then I make myself do it. "You picked the wrong girl, okay? Go find somebody else. Somebody normal. Living." I throw out each word through pressed lips, breathing hard, gagging on self-hatred.

For a moment, the whizzing through the door stops, and I know I have minutes left before my father makes his final attempt and breaks in. The door is only so thick, it shouldn't take him long to cut through.

"What do you mean, picked? I don't want somebody else. I don't—"

"You're full of shit," I say quietly. "Stop painting a rosy picture in your head and look at me, look at who I am. I want out of these walls, I want out of this skin. I want out! Don't you understand?" I wail. "I have no choice!"

"Ailen Bright—" Canosa begins.

And I yell, "Shut up!"

She continues mocking me. Hunter continues his plea for me to stay. My father starts up his whizzing again and now there is a gap in the door, rotating chainsaw blades poking through it. He's cutting a circular hole.

"Leave me alone, all of you!" I holler, backing away from Hunter who comes at me with outstretched arms. I break into hysteric sobs, looking up at the ceiling, into the hole above me. I see a little bit of the cloudy sky peeking through.

"Mom, if you hear me, answer me! Why did you leave me? Why? Was I that ugly? That unlovable? Did you love me at all? Tell me, did you love me?" I wait, but there is no answer. Not even an echo in this stupid, soundproof place. I regret that I never asked her this flat out, now I'll never know for sure. She was not the type who said "I love you" at every bedtime; she never said it at all, that I remember. Still, I don't believe what Papa always tells me, I know he's lying. I wasn't an accident. My mother wanted me. She did! Didn't she? Was I simply an inconvenience? An unwanted blue stripe on a cheap, drugstore pregnancy test?

"Was I, mom? Is it true?" I ask, looking up.

"Kill the siren hunter, and I'll tell you," Canosa says, steps closer, and with inhuman strength rips off the metal rope from my wrists and feet. There is mockery in her voice again, like she knows. She knows that I'll probably never muster enough courage to kill my own father. My typical instinct kicks in, to run, to run away from it all.