yearning ache to inhale.
You’re mine, she whispered. I didn’t so much hear her words but felt them in my faltering heart. Knew them in my every cell, but with the strength of one last life-saving attempt, I kicked free from her hold and breached the surface.
I dragged a breath from the air, which brought as much pain as joy. I heaved, panted, and snorted salt water from my nose and choked throat. She nearly had me, but I knew the siren’s fight was far from over.
“Benedict!” Summer screamed over the sound of my pitiful splashes and ragged gulps as sea fret whipped around. “Hold on! They’re coming. They’re coming.”
But so too was the siren and I could no more hold on than I could breathe.
I could not breathe.
Her insistent pull continued, and I took one last glance at Summer’s face, Summer’s hope, and her haunting expression as she realized the inevitable... that the siren had claimed me. And down I drifted.
The horizon disappeared. The ship forgotten as I sank into the deep.
My muscles froze. My lungs burned. The waves continuing to pound, loud and ferocious all around me. The sea roared with anger, as did my heart pounding against my chest.
I knew my time was up, and I searched for the siren: for a single glimpse of her supposed splendor. But there was no angelic singing. No eyes as deep as the ocean—just the ocean, as deep as it is claimed to be. A memory flooded my mind of regaled tales from sailors singing about the beauty of the siren's call. But I heard no music. I heard the terrifying fast thuds of my heart. I heard my lungs’ distraught scream. I heard the sound of my limbs thrashing underwater as a large