Chapter 9 Stories in the Night #2
Pip gave her a stern look. Riley had to press her lips together to stop from laughing. “I’m not a kid anymore,” he said, crossing his arms.
Gadrielle didn’t bother hiding her amusement, but she lifted her cup in acknowledgment. “My bad.” She squinted her eyes at him. “You might be right, actually. Is that hair growing on your lip–”
The gunner at Riley’s side cleared her throat loudly just as Pip’s cheeks flushed. “So, Pip, you were taken by the sirens?”
The teen pirate perked right up, turning away from Gadrielle, who scoffed a laugh but kept silent.
“They did! And they were so cool. They had scales all over, but like, cool scales, and they all had different colors, and their tails glimmered in the light. And their teeth were sharp! I bet they could tear right through leather with those teeth if they wanted to!” And then his expression soured.
“But they didn’t want me. Told me I was too young, and that they’re sorry their song worked on me and that it wouldn’t have if they could help it.
” His eyebrows furrowed, and he pouted. “They’re actually really nice.
” He looked at the floor then, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he shifted in place.
“I wanted to stay with them, which I know is not cool because you all missed me, but you would’ve understood if you’d been there, so don’t say anything.
” He met each of their gazes with the soft demand, and when they kept silent, Pip nodded at them.
“But they said I’m a…” he shot the group a sheepish grin, “well, a kid, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about, so they brought me to the Gullet and made me promise not to go back. ”
“They talked to you? The sirens?” Venn asked from somewhere on Riley’s right. He was hoisted up on a barrel, fingers playing with a coin, eyes wide in surprise.
Pip grinned. “Yeah! They talk! They have an accent! It’s cute!
But only outside the water. Under they communicate by singing, and some of it I couldn’t even hear but the water rippled and all.
I think they have different vocal cords than we do.
Their words were all… vibrating, but still smooth, and beautiful. ”
“Too young for what?” Venn asked, frowning.
Pip’s face went red all over. “They, uh… They needed… Well, they wanted… You know…”
At his side, Haddock looked like he was going to intervene, and seemed to change his mind.
“Pip?” Riley probed.
“For fucking,” Pip blurted then. A shocked silence fell over the group, and Pip added quickly, “There are no male sirens, so they need the humans for them to keep existing. It’s actually kinda sad, because they don’t want to do it, but if their covens get too small, the other predators would get them, so they have to, and then whoever the song draws doesn’t want to leave anymore, but the humans can’t live underwater with sirens, obviously, so eventually they die, and it’s all tragic, because the sirens sometimes fall in love too, but it’s the sacrifice they need to make to keep the rest of them going.
At least they live a long time, so they don’t need to do it often.
Just when one of them dies.” He shrugged helplessly then as he caught his breath.
His coin entirely forgotten, Venn leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, looking more present than Riley had seen him ever since his brother died. His lips parted to say something, but someone else’s voice drowned him out.
“But women are affected by the song too,” Gadrielle said, tipping her head in consideration.
And she was right. They’d had to tie everyone back when they’d passed siren waters, not just the men. Riley still remembered how the song had felt, thrumming in her veins, and she shuddered.
Pip scratched the back of his neck. “They can’t help that either.”
When the group fell silent again, Pip said loudly, “Anyway! They brought me back among people! Said I should be with my own kind and grow up big and strong and stay out of trouble. So, like I said, they were nice.”
The gunner scoffed an incredulous laugh, laying her elbow against Riley’s shoulder and leaning into her side. She used her other hand to drain her cup of rum. “I’ll be damned. How did you even see that coming?” she asked.
Riley was about to answer. But the words died in her throat as two hands settled over her shoulders. The grip was firm, fingers slightly digging into her skin as if staking a claim. The palms were cool enough for it to seep through Riley’s shirt, making her shiver. She looked up.
From above, dark blue eyes pierced hers, and they did not look happy.
The alcohol in her veins gave Riley a gentle, warm buzz, and the usual thoughts that had been looping through her head for the past days receded. Instead, something else took their place. Something more Riley. Her lips pulled into a small grin. “Hello, captain. Care to join us?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the gunner startling.
Calla didn’t even deign Riley with a reaction. Instead, she looked at the gunner, her fingers tightening on Riley’s shoulders, making her go still. “Sabine.”
If Riley thought Calla’s look to her was cold, then Calla’s greeting to Sabine was pure, biting ice. Sabine flinched, and Riley thought she saw the gunner shiver under that cold gaze. She looked on the verge of bolting out of there.
“Rowe wants a word with you. Something about improper cannon maintenance. I wouldn’t make her wait too long,” Calla said, her words clipped, elegant, cold.
Sabine shot off the bench before Riley had the time to blink. “Aye, captain! Right away.” The drink in her hand splashed as she nearly tripped over her feet in her haste to get away. She didn’t spare Riley a second glance.
Calla watched her as she left, her grip on Riley’s shoulders softening.
Once the gunner was out of sight, Calla’s gaze slowly shifted back down to Riley.
The dark blue of her eyes was more settled than before.
As if a wrong had been righted. Without a word, those cool hands slipped from her shoulders, and then Calla was gone.
Riley just sat there, blinking at the captain’s retreating back.
What?
Her fingers tightened on her cup of rum.
What was that?
In her confusion, she searched the deck, lingering for a moment where she noticed Venn and Pip talking away from everyone else, then her eyes stumbled on Nyxen’s. A faint smirk curled at his lips–the very personification of ‘I told you so’.
Ever so slowly, something shifted in Riley’s chest. Something warm. Like anger. Her jaw clenched in irritation. Calla had joined Gadrielle and Merrow on the main deck now, and she seemed to have forgotten all about Riley. Again. Which was not fair.
Riley hadn’t cared about the gunner. But she was company. And Calla relieved her of that company, but didn’t see it fit to linger. To stop and just sit with her and maybe at least fucking greet her.
What did Calla think she was doing?
It was fine for her to be angry at Riley. It was more than fine. But she should say something. She should tell her about it. Tell her what she could do to fix it. Instead of this stupid game where she cared one moment, and then the next proceeded to act like Riley didn’t exist.
In a huff, Riley stood from the bench, grabbed a pitcher of rum, and joined Nyxen at a game of cards with more pirates she didn’t care to learn the names of. She drank, and she played, and she did not look at Calla.
And then, she saw Maren again.
Riley let out a choked sound in the back of her throat, so quiet no one turned to look at her. No one turned to look at Maren, either. All the blood left her face as she stared at him.
He was… different from the first time she’d seen him, back at the Gullet.
She’d dismissed that one as a fucked-up dream. That whole night in the Gullet was blurry. She remembered feeling sorry for herself, and drinking, and the heat of anger. Snapping at someone. But now, with Maren looking at her, Riley remembered that first vision, clear as day.
It hadn’t been real.
This wasn’t real.
But she stayed nailed in her seat, studying the Maren sitting across from her in an attempt to pinpoint why he looked different.
It was all small things.
His hair was longer, gathered haphazardly at the nape of his neck. He’d let his mustache grow out, a dirty blond like the rest of his hair. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his mouth, and that was when it hit her.
Maren was older. A decade, maybe.
“I know you’ll hate me for saying this,” Maren said, and Riley flinched at the sound of his voice. It was deeper than she remembered it to be, roughened as if by smoke. And there it was, between his fingers, a lit cigar. “But drowning yourself in alcohol is not the way to deal with this.”
“What’s it to you?” a voice from right next to her slurred, and Riley snapped her head to her left to see herself. Older, too. Halfway through her own pitcher of rum.
The reply seemed to hurt Maren, pain seeping deep into his features. The look on his face was akin to pity. “I’m worried about you.”
“Go be worried about someone else.”
Maren frowned. “It’s been months.”
A fist struck the surface of the barrel, accompanied by a growled reply. “She was my friend.”
Maren adjusted in his seat, blowing out a deep sigh as he scratched at his stubbled cheek. “Kittredge was my friend too, and she wouldn’t want to see you like this. I would know. I was like this, all those years back when we first joined the Moonshadow. Do you remember?”
The older Riley scoffed. “Of course I remember. You were awful. Your only saving grace was that you were entertaining. And that Gadrielle never caught you slouching.”
“And your only saving grace right now is that I care about you.” His lips tilted in a sour smile. “Cut it out, Riley. Nothing will ever get better if you run away from your feelings. Grieve, for fuck’s sake, not whatever it is you’ve been doing to yourself.”
“Fuck off, Maren. You can’t tell me what to do.”
Suddenly, Riley stood, and the vision vanished into the night. Her heart beat rabbit-fast under her ribs as she gripped the edge of the barrel, staring at where Maren had been sitting a moment ago.
Kittredge was dead?
Or… she was going to die?
Was that the future?
She shook her head, taking several steps back from what she’d seen, closing her eyes tight.
“You okay, Riley?” Nyxen asked from somewhere near, but Riley just kept stumbling back.
Her chest felt funny. Her head, too.
“It’s not real,” she mumbled to herself, searching the deck for somewhere to run away to. But there was no running from her own mind. That couldn’t have been the future. Maren was dead. He died saving her life.
Then what the fuck was it?
A choked sob lodged in her throat, and then the ship tilted under her feet–no, she was falling, darkness crowding her vision. She didn’t feel it when she hit the floor.
Everything was dark, and too hot. Her skin was burning.
The heat nearly suffocated her, and she wanted to tear her clothes off, tear everything off, but her limbs wouldn’t move, heavy as lead, as if someone else was sitting on them, on her chest, keeping her down, keeping her trapped.
And noise. So much noise. Too much. Everything was too much, and she wanted to beg for it to stop, but her mouth wouldn’t open.
There was a pained groan that might’ve come from her own throat, and her head was pounding, and would someone just make everything stop–
“Wake up,” a voice demanded, and cool hands cupped her cheeks, soothing the burning heat.
“Riley,” the voice insisted. The panic in it made her frown.
It was a beautiful voice, smooth, elegant, with a lilt that made Riley’s chest ache for something lost. It shouldn’t be panicked. Not for the likes of her. “Look at me.”
Riley whimpered, because that was asking too much of her, but those cool hands were still on her cheeks, caressing, coaxing her out slowly, gently. Riley’s eyelids fluttered, because she wanted to see her, needed to know–
Everything was blurry, but for the eyes peering at her. Blue. Piercing. Worried.
Riley could feel the thud of her own heart, so loud in her ears. So loud.
“Are you real?” Riley croaked, because she needed to know, but the darkness was back again, taking everything away, muffling that lovely voice that made her chest ache.
But she still felt those cool, gentle hands on her cheeks, and Riley sighed, because she knew she was safe. She abandoned herself to the darkness.