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“We need to be closer to the center of the Triangle.”
“Well, it’s clear we’re not getting anywhere else in this ship,” I said, gesturing to the tipping floor below me. “I have to go find it now or we’ll never make it.”
The harsh look in Milo’s eyes dwindled down to one of concern. “It’s too dangerous. It’s the deep sea.”
“Dangerous is the only option we have right now.” I stepped forward, meeting his gaze with an unyielding hold of my own.
He glanced away with tight lips and a creased brow. I knew he was afraid for me. And he was trying to figure out how to be okay with it. He nodded, just barely, then lowered his sword and pulled me to him with his free arm. He crashed his mouth into mine with a burning intensity stronger than the Caribbean sun above. I could taste the blood, sweat, and salt across his lips, but none of it mattered then. I kissed him back, hard and desperately. When he pulled away, he looked me dead in the eye, and he spoke to me as though guarding treasure that no one could ever find.
“You promise me you’ll make it back. Even if it’s a lie. You promise me...” His voice cracked with a hint of a whimper that broke me and filled my heart all at once.
“I promise I’ll find you again,” I uttered softly through the explosions and chaos around us, as the ship dipped lower and lower. “I always do.”
With that, I turned around, racing across the leaning deck, my eyes fixed on the endless ocean. I rushed to the bow of the ship, looking ahead toward the only clear path not surrounded by smoking ships. I pulled my boots off, and next my pants, clothed only by the long tunic that draped down past my hips just barely across the top of my thighs.
With the wind at my back, I risked one more glance behind me at the sight of confused crews from all sides halting their fighting long enough to watch me with curious stares, Bellamy, McKenzie and Noah included. But Milo watched with an unsettling longing in his eyes, knowing full well what I was doing.
And with all the strength I could muster, I took a breath I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold onto for long, and dove in.
37
A Depth So Dark
Katrina
The water here was murky. I braced myself for the excruciating sting of saltwater I knew I’d soon feel blazing in my lungs. I swam down as quickly as my body would allow, diving to the depths like a harpoon. I had to get deep enough that returning to the surface was impossible.
It was different this time. When I’d changed in the lagoon, my siren side wanted to change. She begged to drown Katrina and take her form. But now that I had her under control, every instinct in my body fought against what I knew I had to do. Thrashing, clawing my way back up, I couldn’t find the strength to drown. I couldn’t do it.
The surface was right overhead, glittering above me like an open skylight of hope. I closed my eyes, just begging the siren in me to take hold. She would have no problem pulling me under. I thought of Milo, McKenzie, and Noah. I thought of my parents back home. And the rest of the world. How failing might literally mean the fall of mankind. But none of that overpowered my body’s desire to breathe. To be a siren, I had to be selfish. I had to think like a siren. I had to let out the part of me I’d been hiding all along.
Power. Control. With the trident, there would be no limit to what I could do with it. Think of the things you can make them do with your song. I relented myself to the darkest part of me. Make the world know your name. Defeat Cordelia and take her place. Show your power.
The idea that I might have my vengeance against Cordelia seemed to be the key. I could make her pay for all the hell she put my family through. I could torture her the way she tortured my mother and grandmothers and even me. All of the suicides and depression and nightmares could be turned back around onto her.
Get the trident and destroy her.
With that thought, a wicked grin spread across my face as bubbles floated to the surface as I fought to hold in the last bit of air in my body. I had to let go. Fully.
I opened my eyes, and the water was now nearly crystal clear. The depth still made it difficult to see more than twenty or thirty feet in front of me, but it was easy enough to make out the looming shadows of the ships overhead, thundering and rumbling like crumbling mountaintops above.
Cannons boomed overhead and shook the surface, but the further down I drifted, the more peaceful the world around me became. The last bit of light breaking through danced on the scales of my tail, glittering like thousands of diamonds. My powerful tail swept through the water effortlessly, propelling me forward and farther down to the depths. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to get there as fast as possible.
The pressure beneath the sea would have been much too crushing for me in my human form, but with my siren tail and abilities, I was unstoppable. There was no depth too deep, no current too strong, and no corner of the ocean too dark. The connection between my being and the sea was undeniable and natural as breathing.
I passed sharks and rays of all sizes, schools of fish that glimmered like patterns of mirrors. I’d visited an aquarium in Arkansas once when I was younger, and I remember pressing my face to the glass in fascination at the animals, but that experience paled in comparison to swimming amongst these terrifying, magnificent creatures.
Amazingly, none of them seemed to acknowledge my presence, instead swimming calmly past me as though I belonged there as much as the starfish along the sea floor. I wished for a moment that it might be possible that I could stop and talk to them. I’d ask them if they knew where the trident was and how to get to it.
This isn’t a fairytale, Katrina.
I had to force myself to remember the gravity of the situation. My siren side longed to just take her time, relax, and enjoy the time here. But I fought her desires against my true ones. Find the trident. Fast.
I knew it had to be at the bottom of the ocean. It had to be somewhere so dangerous and unreachable that even the most advanced machine couldn’t reach it. But could a mermaid?
I flicked my tail up and down, pushing myself further down, until finally the white light from the surface faded, and the last echoes of sounds above dwindled. The only thing I could hear now was the soft, silent rush of water as the current and tides snaked their routes all around me.
Down, down, deeper I ventured, my vision in the dark water as clear as my sight on land. Siren night vision certainly wasn’t a bad ability to have right now. For a moment, I chided myself for not having the courage to do this much earlier. If I hadn’t feared this form so much for so long, perhaps I could’ve dove down like this and retrieved the scale before Cordelia was ever able to get her hands on it.
