Lullaby (15 page)

“If it makes you feel any better, it didn’t hurt,” Thea said.

“How can you say that? I ripped out his heart!”

“Yes, but you’re a siren,” Thea said. “When you feed, you make a kind of purring sound. It’s like a cross between a cat and a lullaby. It has an anesthetizing effect on your prey. So it’s like they’re in a coma almost. They don’t know what happens. They die peacefully.”

“Still.” Gemma settled back down in her blankets, and while she found that fact a bit more comforting, it didn’t erase her guilt. “I still killed a man tonight.”

“That’s the part that’s the hardest to get over,” Thea said. “That we do the actual killing ourselves. You would probably be a wreck if you murdered a cow, too, but you don’t think twice about eating a hamburger.”

“That’s different,” Gemma insisted.

“For you now, it seems that way,” Thea said. “But the longer you live, the more your perception of humans changes. They die all the time, over the simplest things. Life is very, very fleeting for them. The best they can hope for is a painless death, and we provide that for them.”

“You can’t honestly believe that,” Gemma said. “You can’t really think that you’re doing them a service by killing them.”

“Sometimes I can.” Thea sounded sad, staring down at Gemma’s comforter and picking at a stray thread. “What helps me is trying to find people that deserve it.”

“People that deserve to die?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah, pedophiles, rapists, that kinda thing,” Thea said. “We seem to have the strongest effect on them, anyway, so it’s easy to find them.”

“Luke wasn’t a pedophile or a rapist,” Gemma countered. “I bet those other boys that you killed back in Capri weren’t, either.”

Thea shook her head. “That wasn’t me. That was Penn, and even she was feeding more than she normally does. She was collecting human blood to create a new siren.”

“She killed all those boys for one flask?” Gemma asked. “I doubt that.”

“We had two failed attempts before you,” Thea reminded her. “Penn saved Aggie’s blood in a jug, because she knew we only had one siren that we could get blood from. But she was more wasteful with the humans. She knew she could always get more. So she took what she needed, then left them, and when the girls died, she needed more blood and a new boy.”

“So you didn’t eat them?” Gemma asked.

“No, Penn doesn’t like sharing anyway,” Thea said. “And that’s fine by me. I prefer going after people that deserve it, not lovesick teenage boys.”

“You don’t have the right to decide who deserves it, though,” Gemma insisted. “You don’t get to decide who lives and dies. You don’t get to play God.”

“People decide who lives and dies every day,” Thea said flatly. “And in the end, it doesn’t matter if you agree with what we do or whether you think it’s right. I do what I need to do to survive, and you will, too.”

“Am I interrupting girl talk?” Lexi asked, appearing in Gemma’s doorway.

She leaned back against the doorframe, arching her back a little. She’d changed, so she was wearing a white nightie now, and her long blond hair hung down, covering up her chest in a way the fabric didn’t.

“No, Gemma was just getting some rest,” Thea said, and stood up.

“I just thought I’d let you know that you’re in big trouble, Gemma.” Lexi laughed when she said it, a strange flirty giggle.

“I’m in trouble?” Gemma sat up a little, propping herself on her elbows.

“Sawyer just called Penn, and cops are swarming the alley,” Lexi said. “They found the body.”

“What does that mean?” Gemma asked, feeling a new fear at possibly getting caught.

She didn’t exactly want to get away with murder. On one hand, she thought getting arrested might be the best thing to happen to her, because then she couldn’t hurt anybody else. But on the other hand, getting life in prison would be really terrible if she lived forever.

“Nothing.” Thea shook her head. “Penn and Sawyer will take care of it. It’s just more work for them. That’s all.”

“And Penn hates extra work,” Lexi said, smiling down at Gemma. “But that’s not the only reason you’re in trouble. Penn found out about your little make-out session with Sawyer today.”

“Lexi,” Thea groaned, and started pushing Lexi out of the room. “Just leave her alone. She needs to rest.”

“She called me a psycho!” Lexi insisted as Thea forced her out of the room. “She can’t talk to me that way without getting in trouble!”

“Lexi, you
are
a psycho.” Thea shut the door behind her, but Gemma could still hear them talking outside the room. “And Gemma’s one of us now. You’ll just have to learn to get along with her.”

“She shouldn’t be making out with Penn’s boyfriends,” Lexi insisted, her voice getting quieter as she and Thea got farther away.

“Neither should you, but you do it,” Thea reminded her.

“But I get in trouble for it!” Lexi whined.

“I’m sure Gemma will get in trouble,” Thea said. “Just not right now.”

EIGHTEEN

Lost

Their afternoon of trying to summon spirits hadn’t led them any closer to finding Gemma, but it had left Marcy with a nasty sunburn that she kept complaining about at work the next day.

“I hope your sister appreciates what I did for her,” Marcy muttered.

She sat at the desk, resting her head against the cool laminate. Her arms were spread out, looking beet-red against the light color of the faux-wood, and she’d hardly moved since she’d come in this morning.

While Marcy was busy doing nothing, Harper went through the books that had been left in the drop box last night, scanning them back into the system.

“I’m sure she does,” Harper said. “As soon as we find her, I’ll tell her of your heroism in battling the sun. Gemma will be thoroughly impressed and eternally grateful.”

“If it didn’t hurt so much for me to lift my arms right now, I would totally be flicking you off,” Marcy told her.

Instead of replying to that, Harper grabbed the stack of books she’d just scanned, and headed back to the shelves to put them away. If there had been a lot, she would’ve used the cart, but there weren’t that many and they were mostly children’s books, so they were lighter anyway.

“Are you and Alex planning on doing anything tonight?” Marcy asked, raising her voice to be heard as Harper walked away.

“Um, I don’t know.”

She crouched down in front of the kids’ shelves. They were lower, so little kids had easier access to them. The books had been left in a bit of a mess, since they’d left quickly last night and neither Marcy nor Harper had straightened them up.

Harper started organizing them, putting them in the right order and uprighting the books that had slumped or were shoved in the wrong way.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Marcy called from behind Harper.

“That’s what I mean,” she replied tersely.

Harper’s enthusiasm was waning. Everything they had done, all the phone calls, all the searching, it hadn’t led them any closer to finding Gemma. And not only did they not know where she was, they weren’t even completely certain
what
she was.

Yes, Alex had a hunch that Gemma was a siren, and Harper was inclined to think there was something to that, but she didn’t even know what that meant. In her spare time, Harper was still looking up everything she could on sirens and mythology in general, but she hadn’t found anything particularly helpful.

In fact, most of the information she’d read would contradict information she’d read earlier. A lot of the texts seemed to assume that the sirens were already dead, having been killed when a ship sailed past without stopping to hear the siren song.

None of it made sense, and none of it brought her any closer to Gemma. In the end, everything she’d done felt like busywork. The hard truth was that she wasn’t helping her sister, and she had no idea how to.

“So, what?” Marcy asked. “Are you just giving up, then?”

“Of course I’m not giving up.” Harper roughly shoved a book onto the shelf. “I’ll never give up.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Marcy asked.

“Why do you even care?” Harper snapped.

Her legs ached from the way she’d been crouching, so she stood and turned back to face the desk. The bookcases in the kids’ section only came up to Harper’s waist, and she stared over them at Marcy, who blinked at Harper from behind thick-rimmed glasses.

“You’re my friend,” Marcy said, sounding surprised by Harper’s tone. “She’s your sister. I want to help.”

“So your plan to help is to bitch about everything we do all the time?” Harper asked. “Because that’s all I ever see you doing.”

“What’s your problem?” Marcy sat up straighter. “I know I’m not the greatest in these situations, but at least I’m trying to help. I’m doing the best I can.”

“So am I, Marcy!” Harper yelled. The few library patrons turned to look at her, but she didn’t care. “I’m trying and I’m trying, and it doesn’t matter! I’m not doing anything to help anybody!”

“I am sorry that you can’t find her,” Marcy said. “I truly am. But it’s not my fault.”

“I know!” Harper started shouting again, then softened. “I’m sick of all this.” She let out a deep breath to fight back a sob. “I just want to know that she’s okay. I want her to come home.”

The fight had gone out of her, and she leaned back against the shelf behind her. She fought back tears, and wiped at the few that managed to fall.

“I feel like this is the time I’m supposed to come over and hug you,” Marcy said from where she sat behind the desk. “But I’m not really the hugging type. Plus, the sunburn.”

“It’s okay.” Harper sniffled and forced a smile at her. “I think I just needed to let off some steam.”

A couple of patrons were still staring suspiciously at her, so Harper offered them an apologetic smile.

“Sorry about my outburst, folks,” she told them, and straightened up. “It won’t happen again. You can go back to your browsing.”

She crouched down to pick up the books she’d left on the floor, the ones she still had left to put away. She’d honestly meant to pick them up and go about her work, but as soon as she was safely hidden behind the shelves, it hit her.

Gemma might never come back, and even if she did, Harper had no idea if Gemma would even still be her sister. No matter what happened from here on out, the little sister Harper had always known and loved was gone. And nothing Harper could do would bring her back.

She put one hand over her mouth to keep quiet as tears spilled down her cheeks, and she put her other hand on the shelf to steady herself. Her whole body shook as she cried, but she managed to stay relatively silent.

“Hello?” a voice said behind her.

She turned her head to the side, hiding her face as best she could from whoever stood behind her.

“Um, Marcy’s at the desk,” Harper said, swallowing back tears. “If you need help finding a book, check with her.”

“Harper, I don’t need help finding a book,” he said. She glanced back over her shoulder to see Daniel.

“Daniel.” She turned away from him and rushed to wipe her face as inconspicuously as possible. “Of course you would come here now.” He didn’t need to see her all snot-nosed and sobbing.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” She sniffled, grabbed the books, and stood up, realizing that she probably looked the best she could hope for, and turned to face him. “What can I do for you?”

“Were you crying?” he asked, his voice warm with concern.

She lowered her eyes, refusing to look up at him, but she could feel his eyes searching her. He moved even closer to her, so he was mere inches away, but Harper just hugged the books to her chest and stared down at her feet.

“I’m working, Daniel, so if you don’t need anything from me, I should probably get back to it,” she said.

“I know you’re working, and I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important,” Daniel said. “Can you take, like, five minutes to go somewhere and talk with me?”

On her list of wants, being with Daniel right now only came second to finding Gemma. What Harper really wanted to do was go someplace dark and quiet with him, to give in to the warmth of his voice and the strength of his arms. To have him hold her and kiss her until she couldn’t feel anything but him, until she’d forgotten about the ache inside, all the pain she felt about losing her sister and disappointing her family.

And that was exactly why she shook her head. She wanted to use Daniel as an escape, and that wasn’t fair to him or to her. She needed to deal with the mess of her life instead of hiding from it, even if hiding sounded far more pleasant.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Harper said.

She wanted to lift her head, to steal a look at his expression, but she settled for looking up from his battered Converse shoes to his torso. He wore a T-shirt today, the dark black lines of his tattoo traveling out from underneath his sleeve down to his elbow.

Ever since he’d helped her at Bernie’s house on Sunday, Harper had a weird urge to trace her fingers along the dark lines of that tattoo. Last night, she’d even dreamt about it.

She and Daniel were lying in a bed, probably the largest bed she’d ever seen. It nearly took up the whole room. The room itself was white. Everything was pure, stark white.

Harper could hear the ocean outside, and she could smell it in the breeze. French doors that presumably led out to the beach were wide open, and sheer curtains billowed in the wind.

Daniel was lying next to her in the bed, shirtless, with the sheets up to his waist. He wasn’t facing her, but instead had his head turned toward the ocean. Harper rested her head on his bare shoulder and ran her fingers along his tattoo, tracing the dark lines that ran along the scars. He said nothing, but Harper sang him a sweet lullaby.

Then she heard her sister’s voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere at all. Gemma simply said, “Wake up,” and then she did. Harper had opened her eyes to find herself lying in her own bed, alone.

Maybe that was why everything was hitting her so hard today. It was as if Gemma were telling her that she was running out of time, and that Harper needed to stop wasting her time on a silly crush and get back to what mattered.