“I appreciate that, and I’m glad to see you—all of you,” Gemma said. She’d pulled back from Alex enough to comfortably talk to Harper, but his arms remained around her. “I truly am. But you need to get out of here.”

“We’re not leaving without you,” Harper said. “I don’t care if I have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming or stab those horrible she-devils in the eyes, you are coming with me when I leave.”

“You have to go,” Gemma insisted.

“Gemma, I’m not leaving without you,” Alex said, and she turned to look at him, staring up into his deep brown eyes. “Last time you left, I was unconscious and couldn’t stop you. But this time I’m wide awake, and I’m not letting you go.”

“You don’t understand,” Gemma told him plaintively. “They’ll kill you if they find you here.”

“Then we should really get going,” Alex replied.

“No, I can’t go with you,” Gemma said. “They’ll come after me, and then they’ll hurt you and Harper and Daniel to punish me.”

“Gemma, you’re not listening to me,” Alex said. “I am not leaving you. So if you stay, I stay.”

“Alex!” Gemma wanted to push away from him, but his arms felt too good and too strong around her. “They won’t let us be together. If they see you, they will kill you.”

“Come with us,” Alex said. “Leave with us right now, and we’ll find a way to stop them.”

“I don’t know if there is a way to stop them,” Gemma admitted sourly.

“There’s a way to stop everything. We just have to figure it out,” Alex assured her.

“You don’t know what the sirens are like,” Gemma said, but her resistance was wearing down.

“Do you want to stay here?” Alex asked. “Do you want to be a siren?”

“No,” she said emphatically.

“Then let’s get out of here.” He lowered her into the water, and stepped back away from her, toward the shore. “We’ll find a way to get you free, but the first step is leaving here.”

She bit her lip and glanced up at the house. It was dangerous to leave, that was for sure, but it was also probably the only chance she had of ever figuring out how to break the curse. Penn sure as hell was never going to tell her how.

But maybe if Gemma worked with Harper and Alex, the three of them could figure out how to change things. It was the best chance she had to escape this life.

And based on the way both Harper and Alex were looking at her, Gemma wasn’t sure if there was anything she could say or do to get them to stop looking for her. She knew Alex was dead serious when he said he wouldn’t leave without her.