The Siren's Curse ✓

08. Kitten

It was early dawn, and the sky was still dark. The violent wind blew my hair across my face and tugged at my dress so that it hugged my frame. The tears on my cheeks quickly dried from the harsh air, and my teeth began chattering. I shivered, both from the cold temperature and from all the emotions that plagued my heart.

Why did I have to do it? Why did I have to kill him? Mom and Anna will never forgive me, I thought as my mind was attacked with flashes of the two people I cared most about screaming at me and telling me to leave them.

I looked down at the rushing water below me, wiping the tears from my eyes. It was a long and steep drop with a mess of jagged rocks at the bottom, jutting out of the sea. There was this strange attraction I felt toward the ocean like it was calling out to me, coaxing me forward as if singing a lullaby. I didn't have the strength to resist its pull any longer.

Without letting myself think further, I stepped off the edge and then I was falling, falling, until I felt the impact and everything went black and I was freezing. I was only vaguely aware of my lungs constricting as I ran out of oxygen. My chest burned and it felt like a ton of bricks were weighing me down. The sound of my heartbeat pounded in my ears, but aside from that, I remembered nothing else.

The next thing I knew, I was coughing and spitting up water. When I could finally catch my breath, my eyes opened to see five men standing over me with curiosity and concern. The sixth man was on the floor, holding my head in his lap and staring down at me with wide eyes. He looked relieved.

"W-who are you?" I gasped out, my voice raspy.

"I'm Min Yoongi, the captain of this ship. And this is my crew." He gestured to the five men circled around us.

"What am I doing here?" I asked. I was supposed to be dead.

He frowned. "We saw you jump from that cliff. You were...drowning. I couldn't just let you die."

His explanation was vague but I didn't ask any questions. These men saved me from myself. But did I really want to be saved?

"Thanks," I muttered numbly.

"Do you want us to bring you back home now? Just tell us where to take you," the man named Min Yoongi said. He helped me slowly sit up. I looked from him to the other five males and shook my head. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes.

"I have no home."

When I finished speaking, Jimin looked at me with furrowed brows.

"So you killed someone, you were shunned from your family, and then you tried to end your life, but the pirates saved you and you decided to stay with them because you had no home to go back to?" Jimin summed up what I'd just told him.

"Yes," I said neutrally. It wasn't an easy thing to talk about, but I wasn't about to show him how much it truly affected me, so I held my composure.

"Who did you kill?" Jimin asked.

I shook my head and started walking faster so that I was ahead of him. "Is that really all you care about? You're not going to ask me if I got better, if I'm still suicidal or not?" I looked over at him curiously. I wasn't too offended by his response, it was just an unexpected one.

"Sorry, but I'm a siren. We aren't able to feel compassion. My curiosity, however, is still going strong. So who did you kill?" he asked as he jogged to catch up with me.

"That's a story for another time."

"Oh, come on! You can't just tell me you killed someone and not explain who or why," Jimin nearly whined. It was a stark contrast to the usual cocky tone he used.