The trainee's name was Jericho. He told them that he was fourteen and that he had become a trainee only recently. He had hidden during the battle, had tucked himself away so he wouldn't be part of it, and had managed to evade the fight entirely. He was miraculously blood free. His lip was quivering and shaking so much that they had needed Joel to translate for him, because it had been impossible to try and figure out what he was saying.
'He's terrified,' Rose said, her face devoid of any emotion.
'Joel will stay here with him. We can leave them in the Ensign quarters, away from...' Adam couldn't finish his sentence. His eyes had strayed to the slightly ajar door and stayed there. He was watching Zahara be slain, feeling the barrage of swords knocking into his own. He was watching the light leave Malik's eyes, and Nyree's. He was screaming desperately at Phillipe and trying not to crawl inward into himself as the weapons kept assaulting and the people facing him glared, alight with rage. It was a crawling slide of graphic photos, slithering through his mind and sticking to all the crevices in his brain.
Curtis yanked Adam to his feet roughly. Adam blinked rapidly, moving his gaze far away from the mess hall to focus on the opposite side of the hallway. He couldn't get sucked into that trap. He had to keep it together. He turned to face Joel. Joel was saying something to Jericho, but he wasn't facing Adam.
"Let's go," Adam said. Joel jumped at the sound of his voice. They were like wild animals. They crept down the hallway, their eyes so wide it felt like they would fall out of Adam's eye sockets at any time. Any sudden movement or noise had them all jumping and defensively raising their swords. Adam brought his fingers to his temple and rubbed, harder and harder. He wished he could bore away the strange feeling of startled emptiness. It was like acceptance and panic had melded into another far more awful emotion, one he had never experienced before. Their progress was slow down the hallway.
They left Jericho in Adam's room, staring out the large window at all of the fish. Joel grabbed Adam's stiff sleeve lightly.
'Will you be back?' he asked.
Adam nodded, 'Where else could we go?' The remaining Ensigns could breathe water, but it didn't feel right to leave Joel and Jericho here by themselves. Adam had practically nothing now, but what he did have was in the bunker. Joel, Curtis, Rose, Myles. Even Jericho. This was what Adam had left, what Adam was still responsible for. He couldn't abandon Joel to face the empty sea alone.
'We have something to take care of first. Then, we'll be back. We'll figure it out,' he told Joel. Joel nodded slowly, his eyes flicking to the door.
'Don't go back into the mess hall,' Adam said, 'Stay here. There are some books in my trunk over there. Jericho should probably try to sleep it off or something. Don't leave this room.' He didn't know if it needed to be said, but Joel was the kind of person who might try to go and figure things out in the mess room by himself. Adam didn't want him to go back into that room. Ever.
Adam turned back around to face the others, 'I'm going to go back to Blue, now. Do you... Would any of you want to help me? You can stay here with them, if you want to. I can do it myself.'
'What else would we do, Adam? ' Rose said.
They trudged slowly to the airlock.
They had not released their grips on their swords, he realized, and, as he looked around at the other three Ensigns, he was struck by how... demonic they looked. If he had not been able to understand them being called murderers before, he understood it completely now. This was a group of mindless killers, with unfocused expressions and bloodstained clothing. The water in the airlock turned pink around them as the salt water rushed in to greet them, and when Adam took his first breath of water, his mouth was assaulted by the copper taste of metal. Myles shuddered and turned away from the rest of them, his body forcing him onto his hands and knees as he gagged over the taste of blood. Adam patted his back gently. His eyes slid across the bunker to meet Curtis' gaze. It didn't take words. Curtis cocked his head almost imperceptibly to the side. Was Myles alright? Had he been fatally injured? Adam shook his head. No, he was fine. A disgusting mouth full of blood. Curtis helped Myles to his feet. Adam watched the way Curtis and Rose's eyes quickly ran the length of Myles' body. It was a familiar check. Post-squirmish, mid-war. This was the look they gave each other when there was a brief respite in the fighting, just to preliminarily check that their partner was not gravely injured. How many times had Adam received that look? He had done the same thing countless times, to Curtis, to Fabayo. An unsettling feeling was boiling in Adam's blood, making his palms feel strange, like hundreds of millipedes were crawling across his hands.
The doors of the airlock slid open, the mechanism smooth, and the remaining Ensigns were suddenly face to face with the sirens, a muddy cloud of pink water flowing out of the airlock around them and fading as the rest of the ocean swallowed up all of the blood.
Samara's mouth fell open as she stared at them. Blue rushed forward, her tail sending currents through the air as it propelled her to Adam. Her hands danced worriedly across his face, across his torso. They combed through his hair, gliding carefully along his skull, probing gently.
"It's not mine," he said dumbly. It was such a strange feeling, to have her fret over him like this. She found the wound on torso, the one from Malik's sword, and fussed over it. She turned her head away from him, shouting something he couldn't comprehend over her shoulder to the others. The sirens looked at each other, mouths moving with syllables that were unintelligible to him, and began to move towards the Ensigns.
There was a vice-like grip on his shoulder. He turned to look at Rose, who was gripping both Myles and Adam so tightly that her fingers were changing shades, her face terrified. She was mouthing something he couldn't understand, not even bothering to sign to him. Over and over.
'What are they doing? What are they doing?'
He could see it now. The other Ensigns were tucked in behind him, hiding from the approach of the sirens, gripping onto him like he was their only anchor from the currents emanating from their flicking silver tails. His blood pumped in his ears, the sound of his own heartbeat pervading through his head, knocking out any other senses. He took a shallow, unfulfilling breath. He felt the overwhelming urge to take a step back away from the sirens, to protect his comrades from the onslaught.
But they weren't trying to hurt them.
There was something in their hands. Seaweed, maybe. Cloth? Blue was waving at him trying to get his attention.
"Adam? We're trying to help. Do you understand me? We're trying to help you. Can we help you?" she said. It took her repeating herself several times for him to understand her. He wished Joel was here with him. He wished that Jericho and Joel both were tucked behind him with the rest of them, instead of waiting at the bunker by themselves.
"Help?" he asked. Blue nodded readily. They wanted to help. Of course they wanted to help. They weren't coming to hurt them. He didn't know why he thought they might. He turned around, gently breaking the grip of the hands on him. Their shoulders were so tight, their eyes so wide. They were reluctant to break their eye contact with the sirens.
'They're going to help us. They're trying to help us. It's ok. Just... try to relax. I'm right here,' he said. He tried to keep the shaking in his hands to a minimum.
The sirens were careful in their ministrations. They looked over their bodies, wrapping up their various injuries with careful bandages of ocean plants. They chatted softly to each other, their faces turned away from the Ensigns. It was impossible to figure out what they were saying to each other and Adam didn't even try. He watched the muscles jump and somersault in the siren's jaws as they spoke and tried to hold as still as he could. The tight grip of his three remaining Ensigns were tight on Adam's body as they let the sirens care for them.
When they were satisfied, the knot of sirens moved away from the Ensigns.
"Are you all that's left?" Blue asked Adam. He shook his head. He looked away from her, refusing to match her eye contact.
"There are two more in the bunker," he said. He knitted his fingers in front of him, forcing his gaze back up to greet her, in case she had something to say. She nodded slowly. He couldn't figure out what that expression on her face was.
"I see. I see."
He waited for her to say something else, to say those empty words that people usually said, but she didn't. They just looked at each other for a while.
Finally, she sighed, "The silver haired man will be back soon. We were talking while you were.... Uh. We were talking about it and we're almost certain that he's going to be at the beach in a few days or so. He comes back to that same beach, like clockwork. We can always kind of... feel it when we're going to get a new sister."
Adam froze. A few days?
"How close are we to the full moon?" he asked. She looked confused. He whirled around to face the Ensigns.
'How close are we to the full moon?' he asked them. Rose shrugged.
'A few days, I think,' Myles said.
Curtis looked like he had been struck with lightning.
'That's it, isn't it. The guy. The murderer guy. He's been killing these women on the full moon on purpose,' Curtis said.
It was too strange of a coincidence.
Adam turned back to Blue, "The full moon. Curtis said he thinks the silver haired man has been killing these women on the full moon on purpose.'
It was the one thing that they all had in common. That large, pale eye, lording over them, controlling the tides and the rage in their blood. Just as these women had been sacrificed to the full moon, the Ensigns had been sacrificed on the full moon too.
Samara started. There was a faraway look in her dark eyes and a downturned expression tugging at the corner of her mouth. Adam had to work extra hard to read her lips; she was speaking hesitantly and slowly, her mouth contorted strangely.
"The man. The silver haired man. I remember waking up. Nothing was as it should be. I was empty. I was missing my legs. The tail was huge and I didn't understand how to move it. I... I saw the silver haired man. He was waiting for me. He called me over. I didn't remember that he was the one who had killed me; I could only feel this strange sense of loss. I went over to him. He told me... He told me that I had been betrayed, that I had been killed. It was my duty, he said, to get revenge. Every time the moon was full, I should rise up from the waves and kill them all. I should beg the moon, as loud as I could, to kill them all," she said. Her face took on a look of disgust.
"He was holding my hand. He was holding my hand while he talked to me. Oh, ugh," her face twisted. The memory was sour, disgusting.
Blue looked past Adam at another one of the Ensigns. Adam turned to see Myles, his mouth and hands moving in unison.
"He's killing them on purpose. He's making a siren army," Myles said.
For a moment, everything was still, and then Adam's arms were being gripped so tightly he thought his bones might snap. The change in the sirens was almost instantaneous. He watched that dull look creep back into some of their eyes, the way their hands and teeth started to look deviously sharp. This was the bloodlust, he realized. They pulled away from the Ensigns, circling back around each other in that tangled frenzy. This time, Adam did take a step back.
"Blue?" he said. Blue emerged briefly from the knot, her hands raised out to him, as if she meant no harm. She was saying something but he couldn't really make it out. He realized that his sword was outstretched towards the group, his grip strong. He forced his arms down, the sword still gripped in his hands.
The sirens swirled around for a few more minutes, their faces blank, and then they seemed to settle back down. The ferocious look that had crept onto their features seemed to dull down until they were themselves again. There was still an edge to them, a sharpness, but they were clearly back to how they had been before. Adam forced himself to think about the sirens who had so carefully patched the Ensigns up. They were the same women. The women who had been so careful with their wounds, so worried about them, were the same people as these sharp, angry creatures in front of him. He took a large gulp of water, feeling it settle down into his lungs like a handful of aquarium pebbles. He turned to look at his comrades, breaking their tight grips. He took in the way they were gripping their swords the same way he was. They had that fierce, resigned, battle-ready expression on. Their bodies leaned forward, a panther ready to spring.
'Are you ok?' he asked them, unclenching one of his hands from his sword to speak.
'Are they ok?' Rose asked. Her eyes flicked rapidly between Adam, Myles, Curtis, and the frenzy.
'I think it's the bloodlust,' Myles said.
Curtis reached out, placing a gentle hand on Rose's arm, pushing her hand until her sword was lowered completely.
'It's just the bloodlust,' Curtis said, 'We're too close to the full moon. They've snapped out of it, though, I think. It was hard for them to hear. '
'I can't believe someone would do that,' Myles agreed.
'What do you think we should do? Should we find him? Do you think that we should ask them what they remember and try to track him down before he kills another girl?' Rose asked.
Adam looked over his shoulder to look at the mass of sirens. Blue's back was to him, her scapulas poking out from under her skin like the bones of angel wings. In all of his life, he had never seen them look quite so pronounced. She was speaking to the sirens, he figured, as their expressions were earnest and attentive. There was a grimness started to creep onto their faces, a look that he recognized from the trainees. They had never been to battle before, he realized, at least not consciously.. This was the look of a group of soldiers getting ready for their first fight. He turned back to the Ensigns. They were off kilter right now, but as they looked steadily back at him, he knew. They were going to have to try to handle this for the sirens.
'Is it possible for us to get onto the beach?' he asked them. Myles shrugged.
'I don't see why we couldn't breathe the air, but I've read almost everything in the bunker's library and there are no reports of returning to the surface,' Curtis said.
'We won't like... explode, will we?' Rose asked. Again, Myles shrugged.
'Say we can get on the beach. What then?' Curtis said.
'Camp out. Let's wait for him. We'll make some kind of shelter, something that can blend in with the beach, and then, when he shows up with his next girl, we'll get him first. It's a classic blitz,' Adam said.
Slowly, Rose nodded, 'Ok. I think that will work. He won't kill the girl before we can get to him, right?'
'The girls said he kills them in the water. I would assume he'd take them right up to the waves. The ocean is loud. I don't think he would be able to hear us until it's too late,' Adam said.
'We just need to time it right," Myles agreed, 'because we can't hear ourselves. I don't know how loud we'll be on the sand. It'll have to be timed perfectly.'
Adam turned back to the sirens. They were facing the Ensigns, waiting.
"We have a plan, but we need to get to the surface. Let's take them home, Blue," he said. Blue nodded. They would return to their beach, where it all had begun. The silver haired man was going to die.