My Sisters in Death (Siren Suicides, Book 2)

Chapter 8. Union Bay

The air shakes from a multitude of noises, crashing on my ears with a deafening force. A helicopter cruises right above us, the annoying chop-chop-chop of its blades cutting through the white drone of traffic, sending down waves of gasoline-stinking wind. Police cars whiz by on their way to the scene of the tsunami aftermath. Adding to that are the usual cacophony of human souls spiked with fright and extremes of emotion that are typical during times of distress. In contrast, the lake is calm, as if it never erupted. The only evidence of the storm are the brown leaves, twigs, and other floating trash. I look around. We seem to have drifted a good distance away and are now close to Union Bay, which opens up into Lake Washington.

"He stuck his filthy fingers in my gills! The bastard!" Canosa fumes, spitting water from her mouth. She combs her hair with her fingers, pulling it nervously out of the water and wringing it like long off-white cotton sheets that have started graying with age. Her lips quiver with hurt. I decide that she's clearly very upset and it's best not to talk to her right now. I mentally note that a siren's gills must be a very vulnerable spot. Involuntarily, I raise my arm and touch mine gently, feeling their rough edges; I don't dare stick a finger inside to discover how it feels.

"You've had your fun, now can we go?" Canosa says, finally.

"I'm not holding you back; you can go anywhere you want," I say, bemused, not fully understanding why she's asking.

"We are going together." She pulls me closer. "Now, tell me, your father..." she begins, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger, glancing up at me and then back at her hair. "Did you really hear his soul?"

Her voice reaches me from far away, as if it's been spoken into one end of a tunnel, and I'm hiding at the other. "Yeah," I say, moving my tongue with difficulty, watching algae float around me as if in a trance. "Yeah, I did. I thought it would sound...different."

She purses her lips, clearly disappointed. "What did it sound like?"

"Oh...You didn't hear it?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "It sounds different when it's reborn. It's very weak at first. It was too weak for me to hear. So, I'm just curious."

"Ah," I say, catching her forceful stare. "Well, it sounded like a flute. A flute and butterfly wings, flapping. I didn't expect it to be so...pretty. And there was something else. I don't know what. I didn't hear it very clearly," I say, afraid to dig deeper into the memory of the sound, afraid to discover what I think it might have been.

"Butterflies." Canosa looks into the sky, as if hoping to see one. "Butterflies and a flute?"

"Yeah, it was like their wings were whispering, you know? Like they were brushing against each other."

"That is fascinating," she says with fake dreaminess in her voice.

"Wait!" An idea pierces my mind. "What did it sound like before? When you..." I catch myself mid-sentence, terrified I'll make her angry again by asking about her past, and frightened by my own curiosity. I should hate her. She was, after all, my father's lover. His only true love. How can I even think this right now, when my mother is dead, when...

Mechanical wailing breaks up the flow of my thoughts. A Harbor Patrol boat closes in on us and we duck underwater, to avoid it.

When we surface again, a few minutes later, I look around, realizing I'm searching for any sign that Papa made it back to land. He's nowhere in sight, of course; we're too far away from where we fought. Still, I fear the worst. My heart sinks, and I promptly hate myself.

"I'm sorry," I say, perhaps to my mother, perhaps to nobody in particular. Or, perhaps to all those people I killed, hoping that this simple declaration will change things for the better. How naïve.