An inhuman roar made my eyes flutter. Sirens’ flesh peeled back to bone. Their hearts exploded inside their exposed ribs. Gone in a blink. Sunlight broke the surface and shined through the red waters like a pink veil. Shimmering fins sank on every side, catching the light in prismatic rainbows. As they died, they flailed, arms and fins propelled in every direction. Hundreds of tails smacked into me, keeping me from the surface. Each hit harder than the next, as the writhing, falling bodies collided into mine.

I tried to swallow my moans, my lungs already aching for air, but a fin caught my face, and I instinctively opened my mouth to shout. But nothing escaped. Instead, seawater flooded into my mouth adding to my struggle. My vision dimmed, blurring the bubbles that erupted around my head, I ignored the copper tang on my tongue. A bloody outline, a gnarled face, and bared fangs drifted down on top of me. I thrashed beneath the weight, kicking, trying to find purchase, but for every body I tossed off, another appeared, shoving me deeper.

My strength waned. The sand and rocks shifted from the ocean floor, making clouds around the crashing bodies. My back hit the bottom, and pressure crushed me from above and below. Each thrash only tired me, slowly sucking away my life.

I wriggled, trying to slip free, but the bulk of overlapping siren corpses offered no clear escape. Hundreds fell to their deaths, taking me down with them. I had little breath left in me, and my chest convulsed. There was nothing more I could do but allow death to come and relish in the knowledge that I had succeeded. The crew of The Freedom was safe.

When I stopped moving, fighting, I watched my hair drifting in brown banners before my eyes, but I saw Lou in my mind. The way she always wore her blond ringlets down her back and over her shoulder. After the first day I’d met her—when it was pinned into her hat—she proudly left it down, as if to never let me forget that she was a woman. I recalled her scrunched, raging face, the sound of her grinding her teeth at me, and the plump look of her reddened lips when she drew back from my kiss. Her eyes wide and bright like sparking flames when I touched her. I’d never forget her for the rest of my days in the Elysian Fields. I’d hold onto each image of her and revisit them over and over, hoping that one day we’d meet again.

I closed my eyes, allowing my body to sink into the cushioned sand, blanketed by dead sirens. The last of the air burned in my chest. My arms and legs grew cold. I rested my hands over my heart and opened my mouth, releasing the oxygen I had left and allowing death to slip in.

Chapter twenty-four

Lou