I set my hands on his wrists where he held me in place and let the energy I’d been ignoring for a year crescendo inside of me. The water around my feet continued to boil and expand until it licked at my calves and soaked my skirt. Slowly, but in the most satisfying way, it spread around the gigante.
I watched his surprised wince as the supernatural power hit him. I held him in place, keeping him next to me so the water could do its work.
Power gurgled through me. I felt like a fresh spring or an erupting geyser. My blood felt alive with the ancient power, bursting with the intensity of something I still didn’t understand.
The water didn’t reach beyond the man’s ankles, but it was enough. I watched the life drain from his eyes as the primal intensity of my Siren’s curse sunk into his skin and poisoned him. His grip on my shoulders tightened until I grimaced from his strength, but then it loosened until his hands went slack and I finally let go so he could slide to the ground.
His body hit the still-bubbling puddle and sizzled in the rippling surface. He started convulsing, jerking so hard that his legs kicked out wildly and his mouth started foaming and drooling water down his chin.
“Let’s go,” I told Ryder. I had no desire to stick around and watch the rest of this. I glanced up and caught Ryder’s horrified stare. His eyes moved slowly to mine and I flinched from the fear and confusion etched into his expression.
“Ivy?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Then how did you-”
“Lucky guess. Now, please, let’s go. I don’t want to see the rest of this. Or get caught.”
He nodded once, snapping back to survival mode.
“Don’t step in it.” I moved down to the next set of stairs, but I didn’t trust the water to be safe yet. The gigante was still seizing, although his eyes were completely sightless by now.
Ryder edged around the landing as carefully as he could and joined me on the step. He looked down at my dripping feet and back up to my eyes.
“Maybe you should go in front of me,” I suggested.
“I don’t think it will hurt me.” The conviction in his voice surprised me.
“Because you have powers too?”
“Because you don’t want to hurt me.”
He was right about that. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I hadn’t exactly wanted to hurt the gigante either- at least not consciously. I hadn’t meant to kill him. I just wanted to escape.
Murder was a byproduct of using this water-based power. The original Siren myth came back to me: Women luring sailors to their island and sinking their ships before they ever reached land.
My mother had never killed anyone that I was aware of. No Siren in recent history had killed anyone. They hadn’t needed to. They went after the sick and the dying, men already sentenced to their death by the cruelty of disease.
This had been intentional. I had used powers that had never been explained to me. I didn’t know if my mother even had access to something this sinister, or anything other than the lure of her looks.
“We should go,” I suggested. “Who knows how many others are nearby or who else he called.”
“Yeah,” Ryder agreed.
But he didn’t move right away.
Instead, he held out his hand to me. I stared at it, desperately trying to figure out what he wanted me to do.
“Ryder,” I pleaded.
“Ivy, I trust you. Take my hand.” I swallowed against the fierce conviction in his tone. He did trust me. That was indisputable. But I did not trust myself. “Red.” If he had stayed strong, I would have resisted. But his voice cracked over my nickname, the infusion of a plea broke down my willpower.
With trembling fingers, I reached out and let him take my hand. Deep relief washed over me when nothing happened. The power stayed firmly wrapped up inside me and Ryder’s skin remained safe against mine.
He offered me a shaky smile. “See?”
I nodded, “Okay.”
