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I reached for the trident, leaving Cordelia below, but as I began to swim away with it in my hand, a clawed hand gripped my tail. Cordelia raked her manicured fingernails through the webbing of my tail fin, tearing through it and forcing an agonizing scream from me that sent bubbles churning to the surface.
She clawed her way upward, kicking and swimming with an ability far better than a human’s. That explained how she’d survived after cutting off her tail and jumping overboard with her new legs so many years ago. But this time, I couldn’t let her return to the surface.
I fought back, losing the trident from my grip as the raging tides yanked it from me. I’d find it later. But right now, I couldn’t risk Cordelia getting close to it.
She swam up, her blue eyes burning viciously as she took hold of my shirt and ripped it over my head in attempt to pull me to her. As I fought the winding fabric floating around my head, she slammed her knee into my ribs. I thrashed, trying to distinguish up from down. And once I regained my equilibrium, I refocused on the venomous woman trying to kill me in this black sea.
Something darkened in me. A heavy understanding that saturated me to the core, making my bones and skin wane cold. Cordelia was never going to stop. Never. Her endless hunt for vengeance and power would never end. Until someone stopped her. And this was my last chance to do it.
I worried about the stain that what I was about to do would leave on my soul. But then I remembered I didn’t have one.
41
Mutiny
Katrina
Iturned on her. I knew she expected me to swim upwards, to pull back toward the surface to get away from her attacks. But instead, I swam down toward her, the blood from my tattered fins swirling around us in ghostly crimson streams.
I clutched her shoulders, digging my fingernails into her skin so that losing my grip became nearly impossible. Against the water’s pull, I swept my tail up and down in a rapid wave-like rhythm. It was a movement that still felt foreign, as my waist and core moved to maintain the force needed to drive myself down into the rising swell of the ocean that only wanted to spit us back up. But the strength of my tail surprised me and reminded me of the advantage I had.
Doing my best to dodge the scratches and hits Cordelia dealt out, I focused on holding her down, pushing her further into the ocean’s belly. She fought against me like a wild animal, ripping my skin with her nails and pulling my hair so hard I felt tears stinging my eyes underwater. The raging and tossing of the ocean above grew still as it faded behind us. Our surroundings darkened into near blackness, and the crushing weight of the water grew heavier, so much that even I could feel its pressure on my chest.
I knew Cordelia was afraid. I felt it in the way she thrashed and writhed against my grip, screaming at me in threats and curses that only came out in muted bursts of bubbles. I felt the way her kicks and flails grew more desperate and tense. And whenever I began to feel sorry for her, I let an inkling of my siren side take hold so that I could harden myself to whatever empathy tried to creep its way in. I wanted to be selfish. I had to be, right now. I’d have to go to the darkest part of the ocean—and the darkest part of myself—to do it.
I can’t do it. I can’t.
I inwardly begged the siren in me to silence my conscience. I needed her compassionless essence to take over. Though I was afraid that once I willingly gave in, I might not be able to get myself back.
Yes, you can. She must die. I smiled coldly when I heard her voice. My own voice. You must be more powerful. You must conquer her. You can take her place and rule the seas with the trident. After all, you’ve given up more than she did. You deserve to take this power. The voice entranced me like a song, controlling my desires, and feeding the dark need in me to end Cordelia for all the wrong reasons. But perhaps that’s what I needed, since I’d failed to do it for the right reasons.
With a vicious rage burning in me, a desire for power too strong to ignore, I overpowered Cordelia in our underwater struggle. I didn’t know how long it would take to drown an ex-mermaid, but I would ensure this was the day I’d find out. And I couldn’t have stopped myself if I wanted to.
As I swam faster and faster, forcing Cordelia down to the abyss, my true self broke through the siren’s hold for just a second. And even she didn’t hold back. The sinister memory of each suicide in my family and the nightmares that caused them rushed to my mind. Fueled by the aching thoughts, I fought Cordelia harder each time she braced against me and dared to try escaping my grip. Marina. Sarah. Martha. Edith. Alma. Esther. Nelda. Lydia. Mom. They—we—suffered the same nightmares that brought us the same torment Cordelia was feeling now. Terrified, desperate, and drowning. I decided it was time for her to finally experience it fully for herself.
She reached up, clawing at me one last time as she convulsed beneath my weight. Her fingertips grated across my cheek and along my jaw, tearing open the cut on my face that had just barely begun to close. I grimaced and squeezed her shoulders harder, digging my own fingers into the meat of her flesh, and I felt as though in that moment I could’ve killed her with my bare hands. But I didn’t have to. She stopped resisting right before she jerked violently, uncontrollably. Once. Twice. And then her hands fell away from me. Her head rolled back, and her body became as weightless as the microscopic bubbles seeping from between her red lips.
And it was over. Even in these murky depths so far below, my siren eyesight stayed sharp enough that I could see her fall away, her beautiful face unmarked by time or death. Her hair had fallen loose in our scuffle, and it floated around her now, allowing me a glimpse of what she once might’ve looked like as a young, carefree mermaid in centuries past. She drifted down, like a feather on a breeze, farther and farther until the darkness of the sea swallowed her whole. A part of me wondered what happened to her now, if there was anything more to her fate than becoming seafoam. I supposed it didn’t matter. Because after all, we were soulless creatures anyway.
With one last glance over my shoulder at the black abyss beneath, I turned my sights toward the surface and swam back, gliding through the water as my own blood trailed behind me. I suddenly felt the sting of my wounds. The fresh bruises on my flesh throbbed, and the guilt of killing my great grandmother settled under my skin and seeped into my being. I knew I’d bear the weight of it forever, as ever present as the crushing pressure of the deep ocean.
42
Watery Grave
Katrina
When I broke through the surface, the sky still swirled in ominous billows. I drew in a breath, not out of necessity, but just an instinctual reaction from my human side. Underwater, my skin somehow absorbed oxygen from the water molecules around me. It was still a strange sensation I hadn’t quite gotten used to.
But this breath was more than just breathing. It was freeing. Like reclaiming the side of myself I had to lose in order to embrace the strength I’d found in darkness. Now that darkness rested below me, left behind miles beneath the surface. At least that’s what I told myself.
But my job wasn’t done, because the waves still riled and tossed about, and the trident had slipped from my hands to be carried away somewhere in all this. It was probably miles away by now.
“Katrina!” I could hardly make out Bellamy’s voice amongst the waves crashing. I swiveled in the water, my long, wet hair plastered to my bare chest, trying to catch sight of where I heard him call.
He dangled dangerously from the railing of the yacht, held in place by a rope tied to his waist that Noah and McKenzie were straining to keep taut against the pull of the ocean. In his grasp, veiled by misty sea spray, he held the trident. It still pulsed with blue and white electricity, sending waves of light rippling through the waves.
I watched him, thinking of how this fight was every much his fight as mine. His family had been ruined by Cordelia, even if his father certainly was just as much to blame. But Bellamy wasn’t to blame. Not even a little bit. All he’d ever wanted was to belong to the sea. All he’d ever loved was cut short. Every time.
