“Won’t you kiss me?” Cadence says.
Bubbles don’t stream out from her mouth. Because she isn’t human.
I’m cradling a monster.
I yank my arms down and away, but she doesn’t fall into the dark pit. She just hovers there in front of me, one hand locked on the back of my neck. Her throat’s so thin and breakable. I look for the flutter of a pulse, but her skin doesn’t vibrate.
She isn’t real.
“You let me go,” she murmurs. “Look at me.”
I shut my eyes and reach for the dagger strapped to my thigh.
Something sharp slashes the skin on the nape of my neck through the thick neoprene. I snap my eyes open and bounce away from her before she claws through a vital organ. Cold seeps into my skin, followed by warmth. The water between my mask and her face turns red.
That’s when I’m jerked upward. What the hell?
The rope . . .Adrien, no!I didn’t give the signal. If he pulls me up now, it’s over. I twist around and grip the taut cord, giving it a good yank. Instead of stopping, he reels me in even faster.
Shit.
The siren stares up at me, annoyance marring her borrowed face. She looks so much like real-Cadence again. Real-Cadence who’s now screeching into my earphones, “Slate? Can you hear me? Oh, God, Adrien, get him up. Get him back up . . .” In the background, I hear Rainier’s voice growl something. He’s probably telling Adrien not to listen to his daughter. “We can’t leave him in there, Papa!” Cadence’s cry lends me the strength for what I’m about to do.
I raise the dagger and saw through the rope, back and forth, back and forth. The siren’s eyes light up, and her sternness dissolves into a look of pure bliss. She thinks I’m choosing her.
The rope snaps. The frayed end rises in the water.
Yelling pounds against my eardrums. Yelling and crying. Cadence cares about me, and fuck if I don’t feel like I’m flying rather than sinking.
As my body drifts lower, the noise from above crackles, then buzzes, before vanishing completely.
The water fairy’s ruby lips arch up and up, and her pale eyes blaze into mine, pupils wide and full of desire. “You came back for me, Slate.”
I slide my fingers through the tendrils of hair waving around her porcelain face and anchor them to the back of her skull with my gloved hand. The ring burns hot and radiates into my veins, filling my body with exquisite warmth.
Cadence parts her lips, and every cell in my body buoys as though my air tank’s hooked to my veins. She eases the regulator from my mouth and tilts her head in invitation.
I tighten the fingers that span her skull and tug her head closer.
And closer.
Just before our lips connect, I thrust the dagger into her side, just beneath the ribs.
Her scream nearly rips my eardrums.
The water churns and the walls of the well shudder as if an earthquake has hit Brume. Fake-Cadence’s blue irises morph to blazing orange, and her pupils stretch to vertical slits. The creature lunges at me and screeches, revealing a mouth full of yellow, curved, needle-like teeth.
I don’t expect its strength, and it must sense it because it takes advantage of my lapse of attention, cutting clean through the straps of my BCD with its sharpened nails. The jacket flaps open like stubby wings. The creature bellows out another scream before coming at me again, sending me farther and farther down the well. Sealing my lips to conserve my supply of air, I yank the dagger out and jab it in again. The thing’s jaw gapes, then clenches, then gapes again, like a piranha in a ski cap.
It writhes, breaking my grip on the dagger.
I shoot my hand back down to my thigh for my second weapon. My fingers close around the iron pick just as the siren shoves me into the mound of coins. My hand skitters off my weapon and bangs against the coins, which rise and float around us like glimmering snowflakes. My lungs squeeze as the creature flings itself down on me. I wring my body from side to side, expending precious energy and air, but what choice do I have? I refuse to be slurped down like fish food.
I punch it, the ring making the inhuman thing’s face snap to the side, and it wails like a banshee, its orange eyes flaring with rage. As it lunges at me, I reach for the iron pick again. The siren’s teeth graze my jaw, setting my whole face aflame. I gasp, releasing my meek supply of oxygen. Icy water floods my throat. With one last burst of adrenaline, I snatch the pick and yank it out of the holster, then plunge it over and over into the monster’s neck, chest, waist.
Its mouth pops in a soundless scream, or maybe I can’t hear it anymore. My vision dots, then darkens.
I blink, my lids sluggish.
