Adam drove forward with ruthless efficiency, arms spearing through the lake in long, controlled strokes. Each pull displaced more water than it should have, his shoulders rolling with mechanical precision, his kick snapping in tight bursts that carved a narrow wake behind him. If an Olympic swimmer had seen it, they might have called it impossible, the way he maintained acceleration without visible strain. To Adam, it felt less like effort and more like alignment. His muscles were awake now, properly awake, oxygen moving cleanly through him after the blood he had taken from Amber earlier. Every contraction landed exactly where it needed to.
The rowboat loomed ahead, its wooden hull dark against the fractured silver of the lake's surface. Morris's silhouette moved in steady repetition, oars dipping and rising, dipping and rising, as though he were part of a machine wound too tightly to stop.
Adam closed the distance in a handful of powerful strides.
He surfaced beside the boat without breaking rhythm, one hand shooting out to clamp around the edge of the hull. The wood groaned faintly beneath the sudden force of his grip. He pulled himself upward in a single, fluid motion.
Too easily.
His body cleared the side of the boat as if gravity had briefly forgotten him. He landed in a crouch near the stern, water streaming from his skin, the vessel rocking violently under the shift in weight. The oars faltered for half a second.
Then resumed.
"Morris."
His voice came out low and urgent, threaded tight with restraint.
Hakeem Morris did not turn.
His eyes remained fixed ahead, pupils wide and unfocused, reflecting nothing but distant moonlight and the dark outline of the wreck. His face was slack, not relaxed but vacant. The muscles along his jaw hung loose. His breathing was steady, almost peaceful.
The wreck waited perhaps fifty meters ahead, its torn hull rising like a broken rib cage from the water. Rust streaked down its sides in deep veins. The metal looked swollen from years of exposure, edges curled and jagged where rock had split it open. Sections of railing dipped beneath the surface, reemerging in crooked arcs like skeletal fingers clawing at the air.
And beside it, half obscured by shadow and angle, two jade lights hovered.
The sirens did not move closer.
They remained near the ruptured edge of the hull, shoulders barely visible above the waterline, watching.
That detail lodged itself somewhere in the back of Adam's mind.
Why are they waiting?
The thought flashed and was buried immediately by urgency.
He lunged forward and grabbed Morris by the shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his compression shirt. The material was damp with spray. Beneath it, muscle felt rigid but unresponsive.
"Morris, snap out of it."
No reaction.
The oars continued their mechanical rhythm, scraping softly against the rowlocks before slicing back into the lake.
Adam shook him harder.
Nothing.
Up close, he could see it clearly now. Morris's eyes were open, he's pupils dilated, but they were not seeing. The singing, faint to human ears, pressed against Adam's skull like a blade. He could feel its direction. He could feel its intent. It was threaded straight through Morris's mind.
Negotiation would not work.
Adam moved without further hesitation. He reached up and clamped both hands over Morris's ears.
The effect was immediate.
Morris inhaled sharply as if surfacing from deep water. His entire body jolted. The oars slipped from his hands and clattered against the sides of the boat. For a fraction of a second, clarity flickered across his features.
Then instinct took over.
Morris twisted violently, driving his elbow backward toward Adam's ribs. The strike would have fractured bone in a normal body. It landed against Adam with a dull thud that barely registered as pain but disrupted his balance enough to force him to shift his footing. Morris followed with a wild backhand, then a desperate punch that clipped Adam's jaw.
It didn't hurt.
But it surprised him.
Morris fought like a man being dragged from a dream he did not want to leave. Panic layered over confusion, hands striking blindly, breath ragged. Adam kept one hand clamped over Morris's ear and tried to restrain him with the other, but the confined space of the rowboat turned every movement into a precarious calculation.
The boat rocked dangerously.
In that sliver of imbalance, Morris wrenched free.
He scrambled toward the bow with sudden, frantic purpose and threw himself over the side.
The splash split the night open.
"Morris!"
Adam lunged forward, but he was a heartbeat too late.
He scanned the boat in one rapid sweep, searching for rope, for netting, for anything he could use to anchor his friend back to wood and safety. The interior was sparse. A coiled line lay near the stern, but it was tangled and wedged beneath a seat plank. By the time he freed it, Morris would already be halfway to the wreck.
No time.
He vaulted over the side again.
Midair, suspended between boat and black water, his vision sharpened with ruthless clarity.
One of the sirens had risen higher from the lake.
Her arm lifted slowly, palm open, fingers elongated and webbed, claws catching faint moonlight. The movement was not frantic. It was welcoming.
Her smile stretched wide across a face that would have been breathtaking under any other circumstance. Pale skin, almost luminous beneath the night, smooth and unblemished. Ginger hair floated around her shoulders in thick, silky strands, drifting with the subtle pull of current. Her eyes burned jade, not reflective but radiant from within.
Her teeth gleamed as she smiled.
Not flat human enamel.
Serrated.
Row upon row of narrow, triangular fangs layered like a shark's, each one catching light in delicate glints.
Beside her, the second siren remained lower in the water, lips parted as she sang. The sound did not ripple across the surface like normal music. It seemed to pulse outward in invisible waves, bending the air, bending thought.
Their skin bore faint patterns that shimmered beneath the surface, luminescent lines tracing along collarbone and shoulder, faintly reminiscent of something bioluminescent deep in ocean trenches. The designs shifted subtly with movement, glowing softly as though alive.
They were beautiful.
And utterly wrong.
Adam hit the water.
He sliced downward at an angle, cutting through the surface tension without splash, arms already extending forward. Two strokes. Three.
He saw Morris ahead, body moving with unnatural speed toward the raised arm of the waiting siren. His motions were frantic now, not smooth rowing but violent swimming, limbs churning as though desperate to reach her.
Adam surged forward.
The lake around the wreck was deeper than the shoreline. The bottom dropped away into dark green nothingness. The water here felt colder, denser, as if it had not been disturbed in years.
He extended his arm fully and his fingers closed around Morris's ankle.
Relief flared for half a second.
Then everything shifted.
The tug came from below.
Not lateral.
Down.
It was not a jerk, not sudden. It was steady and impossibly strong, a deliberate pull from beneath the surface. Morris's body angled sharply downward, and the force traveled through him into Adam's grip.
Adam tightened his hold instinctively.
The second siren's song shifted pitch.
Lower.
The first siren's smile widened as she pulled Morris' down by his arm.
Water rushed past Adam's ears as he was dragged forward and down with the weight of Morris. He kicked hard, attempting to counter the downward vector, but the pull was anchored somewhere beneath the wreck, somewhere deep.
The world above fractured into silver shards as the surface receded.
Cold enveloped him completely now, pressing in from all sides. The light from the moon thinned into pale ribbons that stretched and distorted as they penetrated deeper. The wreck's shadow swallowed them quickly.
Morris's leg strained in Adam's grip. The muscles beneath his fingers were rigid, no longer fighting, simply surrendering to the direction of the song.
Adam's lungs compressed slightly under the pressure change, but he did not release.
Not this time.
The jade glow intensified below them.
And together, locked in that descending pull, they began to go under.
Too fast.
If they went much deeper, Morris's eardrums would rupture. The human body was not built for sudden descent like this. Adam could compensate. Morris could not.
Think.
He could not overpower the pull from below while clinging to Morris's ankle. The leverage was wrong. The angle favored whatever held him. Adam released his grip for half a second, surged upward along Morris's body, and wrapped his legs around his waist to anchor himself.
The downward force tried to wrench them apart.
He tightened.
His fingers crawled up Morris's torso, sliding over soaked fabric and muscle until he reached the source.
The siren's hand.
It was latched around Morris's forearm, claws embedded deep enough to anchor but not yet tear. Her skin glowed faintly in the dark water, luminescent patterns tracing across her shoulder and down her side. The lines pulsed in rhythm with the song still vibrating through the lake.
Up close, she was even more unreal.
Her face hovered inches away, hair fanning outward in thick ginger strands that drifted like fire beneath the surface. Jade eyes burned brighter here, no longer soft but sharp and predatory. Her lips curved upward in a slow, satisfied smile.
Rows of serrated teeth flashed between them.
Her other arm angled downward, pulling with effortless strength.
Adam's lungs compressed slightly more. The surface was already a dim shimmer far above.
He did not hesitate.
He released Morris with one hand and shot both arms forward, fingers locking around the siren's wrist and forearm. Her skin felt cool and unnaturally smooth beneath his grip, but there was muscle there. Dense. Coiled.
She reacted instantly.
Her eyes flared wider, pupils narrowing to slits. The song from the second siren shifted again, vibrating through the water in a sharp, dissonant chord.
Adam planted his feet against Morris's ribs and pulled.
Not with human strength.
With everything.
His back muscles contracted in a violent chain reaction, shoulders driving backward, forearms tightening until the tendons stood out like cables. The water around them churned from the force. Bubbles tore loose from Morris's hair and streamed upward in frantic trails.
The siren resisted.
Her grip tightened reflexively, claws digging deeper into Morris's arm. For a fraction of a second, they were locked in a silent tug of war suspended in dark water, muscles straining against muscles.
Adam snarled underwater, a burst of sound swallowed instantly by the lake.
He twisted.
Not straight back, but rotational, leveraging his core and hips, turning her wrist outward at an angle that no joint was meant to follow. There was a split second of resistance, a tautness like metal bending.
Then it gave.
The sensation was visceral.
Bone tore free with a muted, underwater crack that Adam felt more than heard. Flesh separated in a sudden bloom of dark red that unfurled like ink between them. The water warmed instantly around his hands.
The siren's arm came away in his grip.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Her eyes widened in shock, mouth opening into a scream that detonated through the water like a pressure wave. It was not melodic now. It was raw, jagged sound, vibrating through Adam's skull so violently that his vision flickered white at the edges.
The severed limb drifted for half a second before sinking.
The second siren lunged toward her, abandoning the song mid note. Her body moved with terrifying speed, tail undulating beneath the surface, webbed hands reaching to cradle the wounded one.
The glow from their skin flared brighter in panic, patterns flashing erratically beneath the water.
Adam did not wait.
He wrapped one arm around Morris's chest, securing him under the armpits in a tight hold, and kicked.
Up.
His legs drove downward with explosive force, carving through the lake in brutal strokes. The sudden absence of downward pull sent them surging upward faster than they had descended.
But Morris was dead weight now.
Unconscious.
His body sagged against Adam, limbs loose, head lolling back. Blood from the siren's claws trailed faintly from his arm, dissolving into thin ribbons behind them.
Adam's lungs began to burn.
He had not taken a full breath before diving.
The surface glimmered far above, a distorted mirror trembling with moonlight. It looked close. It always looked close underwater. Distance became deceptive when filtered through pressure and panic.
He kicked harder.
The wreck's shadow loomed beneath them, jagged metal edges receding as they rose. He felt the sirens moving below, agitation rippling through the water like the wake of large bodies circling.
The scream of the wounded one still reverberated faintly through his skull, echoing in bone.
His hearing was too sharp for this.
He felt everything.
The subtle drag of Morris's soaked clothing. The weight of his friend's body pressing against his forearm. The way the water thickened as his speed increased, forming resistance along his thighs and chest.
His lungs convulsed.
The first involuntary spasm hit like a punch.
Air.
His body demanded it with primitive urgency.
He forced the reflex down.
Not yet.
He adjusted his angle slightly, calculating the shortest vertical path. He kicked again, harder, muscles firing in synchronized bursts. The distance to the surface shortened. He could see the underside of it now, the way moonlight fractured into trembling ribbons across the ceiling of water.
Closer.
His vision narrowed at the edges.
He tried to draw a breath and caught only water pressing against his closed mouth. His diaphragm spasmed again, more violently this time. The instinct to inhale became unbearable, clawing at his throat from the inside.
Hold.
He tightened his grip around Morris and pushed.
His shoulders felt heavier suddenly, as though the lake itself had grown hands and was pressing down on them. The cold deepened into something biting. Tiny flashes of light sparked behind his eyelids.
The surface was right there.
He could see individual ripples now. Tiny distortions dancing across it. It was no more than a few meters above.
Three.
Two.
His chest seized.
A sharp, blinding ache exploded through his ribs as his body tried to inhale on reflex. He swallowed hard to suppress it, throat burning.
The edges of his vision darkened further.
He kicked again.
The motion felt slower now. Thicker. As though the water had turned to syrup.
The surface shimmered overhead, tantalizingly close, yet it seemed to stretch away with each desperate thrust of his legs.
His muscles trembled.
Morris remained limp in his hold.
One more kick.
His lungs convulsed violently, forcing a small burst of air from his nose in a stream of frantic bubbles that raced upward ahead of him.
The surface trembled just beyond reach.
And Adam's vision began to fade.