I Chose to Die (Siren Suicides, Book 1)

Chapter 6. Lake's Bottom

An emergency flare drops into the water about fifty feet above. A tiny dot, it glows pink. I'm amazed I can see it sparkle and hear it fizz so clearly. Police uses flares like these to mark the spot where a suicide jumper landed, so they can locate the body. That means they think I'm dead. They must've dropped it from the bridge, because Seattle Police Harbor Patrol arrives on the scene barely a minute later. The jittering whop-whop-whop of a boat's engine threatens to puncture my eardrums. I curse my heightened siren senses, it's as if I'm raw all over. I cower and raise my arms in an attempt to somehow hide from it all. The created motion propels me down. Before I have time to react, my butt hits the sand and my hands shoot out to arrest the fall. Instead, as soon as they touch the ground, I jet in the opposite direction with ten times the strength! My body is not a weak bag of flesh anymore, it's a powerful machine. Ailen Bright, reborn. It's what I wanted, right? I beam.

My new siren sisters are clapping, giggling, talking to me all at once.

"One at a time, guys, please, you're too loud! I can't stand it, it hurts my brain!" I shriek, flinching at the sound of my voice, afraid to raise it again. Talking seems fine, but yelling promises to shatter my skull. Yet deep inside, something sinister is grinning. That something tells me, Try it out. That something nags at me, This is so cool. I bet you can do all kinds of stuff now. I bet you can crush bones between fingers, scream at a level of 130 decibels and watch windows burst, swim anywhere you want, chase submarines, siphon entire oceans through your gills, charm people with your song, and kill, kill, kill. Just think what you can do to your father.

I grit my teeth, ball up my hands in fists, and spread my legs wide, imitating a warrior stance. The sirens watch me silently; Pisinoe throws two thumbs up and Raidne winks at me, chewing on a strand of her hair. I wish there was a mirror. I wish Hunter could see me right now. His face would light up and split into that crooked grin that I love so much. He'd ask me how the hell I did it, and I'd tell him. I'd tell him all about it and we'd share a joint.

Two divers leap over the boat's side and plunge into the lake. They begin descending, trailing two streams of bubbles. Their souls make a racket of noises, amplified by water and my heightened hearing. One is a mix of baseball hits, beer bottle clinks, and what sounds like cracking crab shells, with a touch of ukulele on top. All together it sounds...acidic. The other one emits something close to a breaking of potted plants, gun shots, and a whizzing electric shaver, all on a base of bad shower singing. Rubbery. No, oily. Just like Canosa said. Sensing a soul's taste based on its sound is indescribably cool. Forgetting everything, I crouch to push off toward the surface.

Canosa grabs my arm. "Hang on. Where do you think you're going?"

"Um, I don't know. I just..." I frown, trying to understand why I wanted to go up. "To eat?"

The sirens laugh, Canosa hushes them.

"Not so fast, silly girl, we're not done here. Not yet. If you want to be a part of our family, you've got to earn it," Canosa says. The sirens huddle away and whisper to each other, Ligeia slightly apart from them, in her own thoughts.

"But you said—" I begin.

"Hush!" She raises her right index finger. "I promised you will be one us. And by one, I mean a siren. So there are you. But I didn't say you'd be part of our family, sharing our hiding places, using our hunting grounds, things like that." She purses her lips, which she seems to be doing a lot. "And you're welcome."

"Sorry. Thank you! I thought...Well, if I wanted to be accepted into your family, how would I earn it then?" I say, sensing divers coming closer without even looking. Acidic and oily. I don't care that he's oily, sounds pretty good to me. My chest grumbles.