“Gemma?” Alex asked, sounding confused. “Oh, my God, Gemma, what have I done?”

“You didn’t do anything.” With tears in her eyes, she laughed a little. “I love you.”

She stood on her tiptoes and stretched up to kiss him. His mouth felt cold and wonderful, and the kiss shot through her like lightning, spreading heat all over body. It was real and true, and nothing the sirens could say or do would ever change that.

“Enough of this!” Penn roared, and suddenly Alex flew away from Gemma.

Penn had come up and grabbed him, then threw him so hard into the wall behind them, he fell unconscious on the floor. Gemma wanted to run to him, but Penn stood in front of her. The rage burned so brightly in her eyes that Gemma didn’t dare cross her without a serious plan, lest Penn destroy everyone in the cabin.

“You’ve only seen two forms of the siren,” Penn said, and as she spoke, her voice began to change from the silky baby-talk to something distorted and monstrous. “I think it’s time you see our true form.”

Her arms began to change first, growing longer. Her fingers stretched out several inches, ending in sharp hooked talons. The skin on her legs shifted from smooth, tanned flesh to something appearing dull gray and scaly. It wasn’t until the feet changed into bird’s feet with long claws that Gemma realized Penn had grown the legs of an emu.

Penn arched her back and let out a scream that was more like that of a dying bird than a human. The sound of tearing flesh and rustling feathers filled the room as two wings tore out from her shoulder blades. When they unfurled, they were nearly the length of the room. The feathers were big and black, shimmering in the light.

She flapped them once, and they created a gust so strong it knocked Gemma down. She crawled back on the floor toward the wall, and stared up at Penn as the transformation went from bad to horrid.

Penn’s face was still shifting. Her eyes first, from their usual black to the golden yellow of an eagle. Her full mouth lengthened and stretched out, so her lips were pulled back, like a bloodred line around her teeth. Her teeth not only grew but multiplied, going from a single row of flat teeth to row after row of razor-sharp daggers, so her mouth resembled that of an anglerfish.

Her skull seemed to expand, growing larger. The silken black hair remained, billowing out from her head like a dark halo, but it appeared thinner and stringier, since her scalp had gotten bigger.

The only thing about her that remained mostly unchanged was her torso. It lengthened and thinned out, becoming more skeletal, so her ribs and spine protruded grotesquely. But her human breasts remained the same, the bikini top barely concealing them, since the growth of her body had stretched out the fabric.

With the transformation apparently complete, Penn stepped closer to Gemma. She tilted her head back and forth, looking like some sort of human-sparrow hybrid, and blinked at Gemma.

“Now,” Penn said, her voice a distorted version of her normal one. “The real lesson begins.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Helpless

While Daniel untied the boat, Harper stood at the bow, staring in the direction where the song was coming from. She kept her hands pressed to her ears, afraid of what would happen to her if she listened to the song.

Her hands weren’t completely soundproof, though, and some of the music still got in. It would be impossible for her to ever explain the way it made her feel, but the easiest way was that it dulled her senses.

Her panic over Gemma’s disappearance or even Alex diving into the choppy water almost completely stopped when she listened to the music. If Daniel hadn’t been there, trying to talk sense into her, she might have stayed in the cove forever, or at least as long as the song kept going.

“Oh, shit,” Daniel said, loud enough that Harper could hear him clearly, and she turned back to face him. He stood in front of the wheel, his expression grim. “No, come on, baby, please don’t do this.”

“Daniel?” Harper went closer to the cabin and stared up at him. “What’s wrong?”

“The boat.” He grimaced. “She won’t start.”

“What do you mean, she won’t start?” Harper asked, her voice getting shrill. “Why did you even turn it off?”

“To conserve gas, but she’ll start. She just needs a little loving.”

Daniel hopped down and went around the back of the boat. Harper followed him, wondering if she should just dive in the water like Alex had. He flipped open the hatch over the engine, and while she didn’t understand what he was doing, she heard a few loud bangs as he attempted to fix something. Based on the expletives he shouted, she didn’t think it was going well.

“Daniel!” Harper shouted, her ears still plugged. “I think I should go in after Alex. I can’t wait here like this. Gemma needs me.”

“Harper!” Daniel stopped what he was doing and looked around.

“No, I need to—”

“No, Harper, listen!” He held up his hand, which was covered with black grease from the engine. “The song stopped.”

“It did?” She lowered her hands, and all she could hear was the ocean around her. No more music. “Why? Do you think Alex did something?”

“I don’t know.” Daniel shut the hatch and stood up. “But hopefully I fixed the problem.”

Wiping his hands on his jeans, he ran around to the front of the boat. He climbed up to the captain’s seat, and Harper followed right behind. When he turned the ignition, it made the same chugging noise it’d made back at the dock, but it didn’t start.