The water seemed thinner somehow, as they made their way to the surface. Adam had no idea where they were, but the sirens had no difficulty maneuvering through the waves. Blue led the pack, the flicks of her tail steady. The sirens had hold of the Ensigns, one siren per arm, and they carried the Ensigns through the water. Curtis was the most relaxed with this, even more so than Adam. He was trying to speak to the siren to his right, Adam realized, but Adam could tell by the frustration on his face that he was having a lot of difficulty. It wasn't as though lip reading had really gotten any easier for Adam the more he practiced, but it was certainly easier than the first time he had tried. He understood that blush of anger starting to take over Curtis' face. Myles was having the worst time. His body was stiff, a rigid board in the hands of the sirens, and his teeth were clenched in his mouth, the muscles surrounding his jaw like rubber bands pulled until they were close to snapping. It was surprising, as Adam had always considered Myles to be a particularly calm person, but perhaps Myles was just slightly more afraid than Adam had realized. Adam understood. The feeling of the talons holding gently onto his arms was awful. It was Samara who had volunteered to take hold of him, which felt strange in itself, but the siren he didn't know, with her clear dark eyes and spiraling dark hair, who was holding him so gently and offered him a polite smile when they first began to travel, was almost worse, somehow. He didn't understand. He knew who they were, inside. These were victims of the silver haired man, women like Blue. He knew that. So why couldn't he get over this uncomfortable, shaky feeling that bubbled up inside him and made him want to slash his sword wildly through the air so they would stay far away from him?
The longer it took, the more he thought about the talons digging into his arms, even though they were barely touching him. The more he thought about the talons, the more he wished that he had not volunteered to help Blue.
What a horrible thought.
He shook his head lightly, trying to focus on something else. He focused on Blue's tail, silver and mesmerizing in the way it caught the light. The light was much stronger at the surface and it was playing games with her tail, knocking into it and causing shimmering beads of sunshine to bounce off the hard scales. It was pretty. This tail would keep her in the water forever.
Blue halted, lifting an arm up to stop the rest of the sirens. She turned.
"Are you ready?" she asked Adam. The hands holding him relinquished him and he rubbed his arms. Still attached. Still his own. There wasn't even a mark on them. He beckoned the other Ensigns, and they moved forward in the direction that Blue pointed, towards the beach. He could see the waves churning and swirling in the distance; the movement of the water was so different towards the shore, so tumultuous and round. He couldn't help it. He froze. His head was about to break the surface, to return him back to the open air of the beach he had grown up on.
Was it that he was worried he was going to explode or die, as Rose had said? Somehow, he didn't think that was quite it. He cast a worried look over his shoulder at the sirens, who were waiting expectantly, and then to his Ensigns. Myles and Curtis were looking at him, their eyes wide. They were waiting for him to make the first move. Rose was looking up at the surface, her face perfectly still, not even a ripple of emotion disturbing the placid expression. He couldn't tell what she was thinking.
He didn't want to break the surface. He didn't want to go back. This was his town, his beach, where Blue had died and he had followed soon after. He didn't know what to do.
Rose turned back to face them.
'Ladies first?' she said, and then she was moving forward, her head breaking the surface without hesitation. Myles looked up at her with a conflicted expression for only a few seconds before following her, and then Curtis was moving up and away, headed towards the shore with the others and Adam was all alone.
Adam looked back at Blue, and then the surface. Maybe running away was an option? He could disappear among the fish and seaweed, die a coward's death amongst the coral. He sighed. His head broke the surface.
Tiny droplets of sea spray rained down on him. He licked his lips and tasted salty air. It was disgusting, in the way that only that intense salt breeze of the sea could be. He had missed this feeling. The wind skimmed along the waves with lazy fingers, touching his face and playing with his hair. It was fierce after the cool currents of water for so long. It felt like it was slapping him, though he knew it was probably nothing more than a gentle breeze. He moved forward, his body slicing easily through the water. It was amazing how much control he had over the water because of the siren blood running through his veins. The water seemed to move him, to part for him. There was no fight to it. This was not a battle, just a partnership. He stepped easily from the surf and back onto dry land.
The others were sitting solemnly on the sand, shielding their faces from the hot sun. Myles' head was between his knees. Everything seemed bright and harsh. The smell of the open air was overwhelming. He had not had to take such a scented breath in so long. Grass, food, salt, dirt. It was too much. The bunker had smelled like metal and bodies. This was metal and bodies and everything in between. Adam tried to take shallow breaths; the urge to throw up and dislodge all the smells building up into a leaning tower of nausea was strong. It was so hot on land. So hot and bright. How had he lived on the surface for so long when it was like this? He didn't understand.
Curtis tapped his shoulder, 'Imagine if we could hear everything too. Imagine how awful it would be to have to have it all at once.' Adam nodded. He imagined that it was pretty quiet in the water. He didn't know. The bunker had been quiet, except for the metallic creaking, the water dripping, the sword fighting, the voices. To have to listen to the people and the cars, all the different kinds of wildlife, the waves and wind, that would have been immensely overwhelming for them right now. Adam stuck his head between his knees too, using his arms to block out the sun, trying to adjust to the temperature and the feeling of being outside.
When he finally felt less nauseous-he felt like it took forever-he lifted his head cautiously. His beach looked the same as he had left it. The waves suplexing the shore, the crystal yellow sand spilled across the ground in haphazard piles. He intimately recognized the scruffy plant life scattered along the edge of the dunes and the tall fence. Each weathered wooden rung was so beautiful, even down to the thick wire looping them together, a delicate oil painting that had been pulled directly from his heart. There was a strange sensation behind his eyes. He reached down and pulled a handful of hot sand from the ground, rubbing it between his fingers like a handful of yellow diamonds.
He gazed back at the waves. He could see Blue's head poking out of the water distantly, her crowd of sirens gathered behind her. Was she saying something? He took a dizzy step forward, his legs finding it more difficult to carry him across the land than he was expecting. She was staring at him, waiting. Her hand lifted up, her finger pointing beyond him, beyond the beach. 'Go,' he thought she was saying. She was pointing towards his home.
He didn't need to be told twice. He turned, taking off down the beach, feeling his legs burn and wobble. He could close his eyes and still know where to go, but he took everything in, drinking in the sight. This was his last time here, his final goodbye. This was what he would have to clutch close to himself at night. This was it.
He dashed down the street, his heavy Ensign boots on pavement, hoping and praying that there was little to no blood left on his clothes. He couldn't be stopped. They couldn't recognize him. He was a ghost running in the day, some dead remnant of what used to be Adam Halloran come to life, clinging desperately to this last hoorah. He was being selfish right now, he knew that, but he couldn't help it.
He shoved the gate to his Grandmother's house open so hard that the gate toppled from the hinges, landing in a pile on the ground. He had been meaning to fix that gate. He hadn't found the time in his grief. He wished he had fixed it for her. He would do it before he left again. He couldn't stop now, he was too close. He brushed past the feathered reed grass, running his hands along the strands, the fronds kissing his palms. There was that door, that beautiful door, painted a bright, cheery pink. It looked completely out of place next to the beach houses next to it, he noted with appreciation. Just like his Grandmother, it had been here for a lot longer than any of the houses that surrounded it and most of the people. He gazed at the familiar wreath of shells and sea glass hanging from the door.
There were no chalk symbols on the door.
There were no chalk symbols on the door? This close to the full moon? His hand was outstretched, ready to knock, or open the door, but he froze at the empty door. He shouldn't do this. This was selfish. He knew he shouldn't do this. First her son and her daughter in law, then her grandson. He took a step back. None of the windows were covered. He took in a breath of open air, tasting the car exhaust and the fried food, the grass and the leaves. Slowly, he lowered his arm. He couldn't do this to her. Maybe it was enough to have gazed at her door, to have been so very close to seeing her one last time. He didn't have the right to have regrets anymore, not in this half life of his, and this would have to be enough. He was going to have to move. He was going to have to leave.
Why wouldn't his feet listen to him?
Suddenly, the door was swinging open. He froze, looking at her. Her mouth dropped open. She was going to the grocery store, he could tell by the way the reusable bags, the ones decorated with little fruits, tumbled out of her hands and hit the ground upon seeing him.
There was a momentary panic-would she recognize him? Maybe he didn't look like himself at all. Maybe he was some new person now, one that she wouldn't recognize at all.
"Adam?" Her mouth was forming his name. Her hand lifted up, the skin of them wrinkled and gathered, like crepe fabric on an expensive fan, and her fingers ran softly down his cheeks. She was tracing his tattoos, he realized. He had forgotten they were there.
He hoped his voice would not betray him, "Grandmother? It's me. I'm Adam."
She nodded slowly. Her hands moved away from his face so she could tap her ear. She was asking if he was deaf. He nodded slowly.
"You've killed that many?" she asked him. He didn't think he read her right.
"What?"
"You've killed that many?" she repeated. He looked at her in wonder. She knew. She knew what it meant, what he was. He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face into her neck, the way he had done when he was little. It had taken him a few months to trust her. He could still remember the way he had hugged her for the first time, how her body had shaken as she started to cry. She was crying now, her arms wrapped tightly around him. He was five again, inviting in the love of this adult again, though he knew that he would never be that five year old again.
It was strange. He had thought he had lost everything as a child, that he couldn't keep losing things over and over. Then, Blue had died. The loss kept piling on, pushing him deeper and deeper into a dirt hole. He had no fight to try and get out. There was already so much dirt under his fingernails from trying and failing.
He pulled back, reluctantly breaking the hug.
"I have to go," he told her. She shook her head. Her eyes were large and pleading him to stay.
"I have to go. You know I have to go. I can't stay here," he said. She was crying so hard. He patted the tears from her cheeks.
"Is Chase alright?" he asked. There was no way that Chase was anything close to alright. He needed her to lie to him.
His Grandmother nodded, "He's been doing fine. He's come to sit with me a few days a week. It's been nice to see him. He helped me a lot with the funeral."
Ah, the funeral. That was right, he was dead; they had found him washed up on the beach, his lips blue and his eyes vacant.
"Good," he said. The sun was getting low. He knew that if he stayed any longer that he would never leave. He would callously abandon Blue and the sirens, and he would live with his Grandmother, an undead ghost of her grandson, stuck in his room. The town would spread rumors that the little Victorian beach house was haunted, because people would swear up and down that they had seen the disfigured face of Adam Halloran peeking out of the windows of the top floor, especially on the night of a full moon.
"I have to go," he said, and he pulled from her grasp. She reached out for him, her open arms begging him to return to her, but there was nothing he could do.
"I'll fix the gate before I go," he said. He walked down the steps to the tool box. This was his final act of service. It took an infuriatingly quick amount of time to set the gate back on its hinges. Too soon, he was waving his Grandmother one last goodbye, and walking down the road.
To tear himself away from her was awful. She was begging, crying, her arms stretched out towards him, but he just couldn't stay. He couldn't. She knew, probably better than anybody else, that he couldn't stay for much longer.
The sun was being pulled slowly down the sky, beckoned with invisible strings to retire and let the moon reflect its light. The path was familiar, dusted softly with sand and incredibly smooth. He passed the houses and mailboxes he had grown up with, the trees dripping with flowers, the sun beaten signs. A tabby cat skittered away from him, its fur tinged with the soft halo of the setting sun. He wished he could chase after it. His town was quaint and beautiful, and as he headed back to the beach, to his Ensigns and the sirens, Adam couldn't help but feel that he was going the wrong way.