Blue

The Strawberry Moon

The girl, however, was very remarkable to Adam. She was younger than Blue and incredibly familiar to Adam, with beautiful dark curls. Her large brown eyes were red and overflowing with tears, and a gag was stretched over her face, marring her expression of fear. She was flailing wildly but futilely, and Adam could practically see the strength leaving her limbs as she beat the air with her body, demanding release and getting only cold silence back. Adam couldn't even imagine the desperate noises she must be making. He knew her, he knew that he knew her, somehow. He couldn't dwell on it; the silver haired man had reached the waves and he was shoving the girl's face into the surf.

Adam tapped his sword against Curtis' shoulder and leapt lithely from their hiding spot, streaking down the beach towards the silver haired man. He watched the silver haired man's head jerk up from the girl, confusion and fear filling his eyes as he watched the Ensigns dash towards them. Adam knew how they must have looked, like a police task force from days of old, all wearing the same dark uniform and steel toed boots, all gripping cutlasses in their hands as they approached from all sides, corralling him. The man froze, the girl's head still beneath the waves. Adam leaped forwards, gripping one of the man's arms and wrenching the man towards the waves. The man stumbled forward and then fell as Myles latched onto his other arm, his grip on the silver haired man's fists tight. The two of them held him steady as Curtis scooped the girl neatly from the surf, placing her onto the beach. He was saying something to her, but Adam didn't catch it; he only had a glimpse of Curtis tugging the gag gently from the girl's mouth before Rose broke through Adam's vision, launching herself right at the silver haired man.

She punched him directly in the face. His head snapped back, crimson blood flying off his face, twirling in beautiful ribbons of liquid to rejoin the ocean.

Adam looked at Myles. Myles nodded. They turned, facing the ocean, and marched the silver haired man into the surf. Adam could feel his body vibrating. He was speaking. Yelling. Adam didn't bother to look at the man's face. He didn't care what he had to say. They dragged him forward, the sea bending pliably to their will as they pulled the struggling man towards the siren. His body shook and jerked. He swallowed water and coughed violently. They paused briefly.

"Take a deep breath," Adam told the man. They waited until the man complied and then dragged him beneath the waves, where the frenzy was waiting. Adam looked at the man's face for the first time as he gazed at the frenzy. Bubbles streamed from his nose and mouth and clung to his wild eyes. He looked terrified. He opened his mouth, letting out an enormous bubble of sound, his jaw stretched so wide it looked like he was trying to swallow the frenzy whole.

"For you," Adam told Blue. Adam and Myles tossed the silver haired man to the frenzy.

They enclosed the silver haired man almost instantly. It was a tornado of sirens, a hurricane of smacking silver tails and sharpened teeth and talons. Adam found himself thinking about barracudas again. The way their eyes were bottomless black. Their sleek silver bodies, darting back and forth in a dangerous cloud. Their sharp teeth. The sirens moved so quickly. So opportunistically.

They tore the silver haired man apart.

Blood filled the water, rising up like steam as the sirens worked off their anger. Adam waited patiently, Myles and Rose and Curtis standing quietly by his side. They watched the blood rise and the body fall. What was formerly the silver haired man fell with a soft thump to the ocean floor, disrupting a soft cloud of sand as it hit. It was a man no longer, ripped apart, torn in pieces, but still whole in all the ways that mattered. Adam turned to Curtis.

'Surprisingly humane of them,' Adam said. Curtis nodded.

Adam looked back at the frenzy, which had slowed to a stop. They were all looking at the dead body on the ground, their faces fluttering between confusion and calm. Blue was looking at Adam, her palms outstretched to him, like she was asking for something from him. There was a wild look in her eyes. The storm in them had not calmed. Behind her, the rest of the sirens wore the same look, though their eyes bounced between each other. Blue's gaze was firmly on Adam.

He could feel it too, the emptiness. There was a crushing, unifying feeling of emptiness. Of loneliness. He knew she was reaching for it, asking why it hadn't been filled. Had she expected it to be filled? He had, somehow.

Blue gazed down at her empty palms. The ocean flowed steadily. A piece of seaweed tumbled gently onto her palm, carried by a current, and glanced off, disappearing back into the depths of the sea.

Her mouth was forming the words. He could read them.

"What do we do now?" she was asking him, trying to fill the space between them with sound.

But Adam heard nothing.

He heard absolutely nothing.