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My heart slammed against my ribcage as I bundled Hecate into my arms and sprinted toward the exit. I couldn’t even fathom what grandmother would do if she found me in this place and with Hecate. She might lock me in my room for months. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before.
I yanked the secret door closed and ran through the potions room and living room. Just as the door joining the front hall and the living room opened, I slipped into the hallway and dashed toward my room. The majority of me felt as though I had gotten away with it, but there was no way I could be sure. Not yet, anyway.
With the care of a mouse in the crosshairs of a cat, I bolted into my room and closed the door behind me. Hecate jumped out of my arms as I rested my back against the door and slipped down it, hugging my knees to my chest.
“Hide,” I whispered, in low tones as Hecate sprung up to rest her paws on my knees.
But the Grimalkin didn’t budge, nuzzling her face against my kneecap. Didn’t she understand what was at stake here? My freedom? Her safety?
Footsteps and voices made their way down the corridor toward my room, and every muscle froze in place, my jaw aching with the tension. My heart beat so quickly that my breaths struggled to keep up. But if I breathed too loudly, they might hear me.
The footsteps passed by my door, the voices also fading away toward my grandmother’s bedroom, and when her bedroom door shut, I finally exhaled. My chest ached with all the exertion, and a muscle in my calf spasmed as I gradually forced each limb to relax.
Hecate reached out a paw and touched my hand. This place is not safe for you.
“Where else would I be safe?” I whispered. “They’re my family.”
Unease was trickling through cracks in the barrier I had built around myself. There was no room for my real feelings in this place, surrounded by these people. I had to protect myself, and the only way I could do that was by being as small and take up as little room as possible, and certainly show no emotions.
Hecate might have been right in that this place wasn’t comfortable for me, but not safe?
The idea churned my stomach. If I wasn’t safe at home, where was I safe?
* * *
The weight of everything I had discovered that day pressed on me like slabs of stone crushing me inch by inch. I holed myself up in my room until dinner, trying to lose myself in a novel, but even the thrilling adventure of the Emerald Assassin couldn’t distract me. Scents of vegetables and gravy wafted in from the kitchen, and when grandmother called me in for dinner, the tension returned to my limbs.
She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know. I thought to myself as I walked to the dining room and sat down at the table. If she did, she wouldn’t have hesitated to punish me.
The four of us ate dinner in silence, but for the short conversations between the three of them, gossiping about other people in the building and other family members who had moved out. There was no shortage of criticism, but my input was not welcome.
Halfway through dinner, a knock at the door had my aunt’s critique of the lady next door’s new dress cutting short. Grandmother got up and left the room to answer it, but not long after, someone all but burst their way into the dining room.
“Sorry to interrupt.” A man with a beard but no moustache straightened up his black uniform as he stood aside to let his smaller colleague and my grandmother back into the room.
A gold pin badge in the shape of an athamé gleamed on their uniforms. My fork clattered onto my plate, but nobody noticed. What was Nexus, the supernatural police force, doing in our dining room?
“How can we help, officers?” Grandmother clasped her hands together in front of her, the biggest, fakest smile spreading across her face.
In the corner of her eyes, I could see the tension, and the thinly masked fury at having her house barged into would erupt as soon as they left. But grandmother would let nothing taint how the world outside saw her. It was a very different person to the one I knew.
“We have been going house to house asking if anyone has seen a missing siren.” The main officer pulled a photo out of his pocket and showed my grandmother before passing it to my aunt.
The photo made its way around the table to me in no time, with nobody barely looking at the picture for more than a second. I took it in both hands and looked closely.
The picture looked like it had been taken professionally, perhaps at a studio. His jet black hair was styled with product, and he had on a long-sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows, the top two buttons undone. He had the smouldering confidence of someone who knew his worth and wanted everyone to know it. His mouth was set into an unamused line, but his eyes enticed me. Someone like that probably got into all sorts of trouble.
“Has anyone here seen him?” the officer’s colleague asked as I handed him back the photograph.
I shook my head as my aunt, uncle and grandmother answered ‘no’ verbally.
“What’s so important about this siren?” my uncle asked.
Sirens had the ability to coerce people into doing what they wanted with a touch and a word spoken in the right way. In my eyes, they were all special. How glorious it would be to have power like that.
I flexed my fingers in my lap. Or any power at all, really.
The officer with the photograph frowned at my uncle, who lifted his chin and wrinkled his moustache.
