Elegy

FOURTEEN Taming

Gemma wiped the powder from her face and stared at her reflection underneath the bright bulbs that lined the mirror. The dressing room smelled overpoweringly of roses since Thea had gotten half a dozen bouquets after the last three performances.

They’d just finished up the evening show, so everyone was free for the night. The hallway outside was alive with noise and the excited chatter of all the cast and crew preparing to go out and celebrate. There seemed to be some kind of euphoria that they were all experiencing, a high from a production well done.

But Gemma didn’t feel any of that. In the early show, she had a little bit, when she saw her mother sitting in the front of the theater with Harper, applauding every time Gemma came out onstage. She’d felt an exuberance and pride then, but it hadn’t lasted long.

Now, with everyone bustling around, changing into street clothes, cleaning up, and making plans, Gemma felt like she was moving in slow motion. The world seemed to rush around her, and all she could do was stare ahead vacantly.

She barely even recognized herself anymore, and it wasn’t just the glow of her skin or glisten of her hair from the sirens’ curse. There was a hardness in her expression, and a blankness in her eyes. It was that look—the emptiness that had edged its way into her golden eyes—that she saw reflected back in Thea’s emerald eyes.

And Gemma realized that’s what resignation must look like. And compromise. And loneliness. It was all the small things she had given up, all the little parts of herself that she’d let Penn take away from her, so she could survive, so her family and friends could survive.

If she didn’t break free from this curse soon, then she never really would. If she gave enough of herself away, eventually she’d never be able to get herself back.

“So are you coming or not?” Thea asked, and Gemma became aware that she’d been talking for a while. Gemma had just tuned her out.

“What?” Gemma asked, and turned away from the mirror to look back at Thea.

She’d changed out of her Renaissance costume and slipped into a formfitting dress. Her red hair had been pulled up, and her heavy stage makeup washed off. Then Gemma noticed that it was nearly silent, meaning that most everyone had gone, and she wondered how long she’d been staring off into space.

“What is going on with you?” Thea asked in her low rasp, and narrowed her eyes.

“Nothing.” Gemma glanced down at her costume, the fabric suddenly feeling heavy and stiff, and she pushed back her chair. “I need to get changed.”

“I know. I asked you why you hadn’t changed yet like ten minutes ago, and you never answered me,” Thea said.

“Sorry.” Gemma ran her hand through her tangles of hair and lowered her eyes. “My head was a million miles away, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Thea agreed.

“Will you help me?” Gemma asked, and turned her back to Thea, so she could unhook the many fasteners of the gown.

“So where was your head?” Thea asked as she began to undo the costume.

“I don’t know.” Gemma lowered her eyes, so Thea couldn’t meet her gaze in the mirror. “Just elsewhere.”

“Were you thinking about the scroll?” Thea asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“No,” Gemma answered honestly.

She probably should’ve been thinking about it, but she’d been driving herself insane trying to analyze the scroll and now the journal.

There had been a setback with the journal, too, and that helped account for Gemma’s current listlessness. She didn’t want to tell Thea about that, though. Thea’d already gone out on a limb to help, and she didn’t need to burden her with added worry and frustration.

Besides, it gave her plausible deniability. If Penn ever cornered Thea and demanded to know about Gemma’s activities, Thea could answer honestly that she didn’t know.

Since Gemma was busy with the play, and Harper was with Nathalie, Marcy had agreed to take the journal out to Lydia’s so she could try to translate the back parts. When Marcy had stopped by to pick it up, Harper had asked her if she knew anything about one of their big leads on being able to find Diana—Audra Panning.

Marcy did know something about Lydia’s great-grandmother Audra, but it wasn’t good news. She had died years ago.

One of their biggest hopes of finding the goddess was dead. It seemed like anytime Gemma thought she’d be able to break the curse, something happened that would make it more difficult.

“Have you found out anything more?” Thea asked.

“I don’t think there’s anything more to find out,” Gemma said, admitting her greatest fear.

“I told you that,” Thea said, but she sounded apologetic.

“Thea!” Liv’s voice wafted down the hall, her song seeming to penetrate through everything.

It should have been a lovely sound. Liv wasn’t quite the enchantress that Lexi had been with her song, but her voice was on a par with Penn’s, which even Gemma found seductive when Penn was really giving it her all.

But for some reason, when Liv sang, it sent chills down Gemma’s spine. Her words had a beautiful velvet layer, but beneath it, there was a supernatural quality that felt like nails on a chalkboard.

“Thea,” Liv called again, and Thea groaned, making Gemma wonder if Liv’s voice had the same effect on Thea as it did on her.

“I’m in the dressing room!” Thea shouted.

“Penn sent me down to get you because you’re taking forever.” Liv leaned against the doorframe and tousled her blond hair. “And I want to get out of here.”

“You guys have big plans for this evening?” Gemma asked.

She slid back to the corner of the dressing room, where she planned to do a kind of dressing gymnastics. There was no divider or privacy in the room, and Gemma had to attempt to pull on her T-shirt and jean shorts around the costume, so Liv didn’t get a peek at more than Gemma wanted to show.

It was strange because Gemma had changed in front of Thea and the other actresses in the play several times today, not to mention all the times she’d gone swimming with the sirens, and they’d seen her in various stages of undress.

So it wasn’t the being seminude part that bothered her. It was Liv, and her large, hungry eyes, and the way Gemma would be able to feel them searching her. Just thinking about it made Gemma feel violated, and she hastily pulled her shirt on over the dress.

“You didn’t tell her about our plans?” Liv shook her head and made a clicking sound with her tongue. “That’s not very sisterly, Thea.”

Thea leaned back against the makeup counter, folded her arms over her chest, and rested her weary gaze on Gemma. “I didn’t think you’d want to join us. We’re going out of town.”

“To a club filled with tasty boys,” Liv added with an excited giggle.

Gemma knew exactly what that meant—they were going to feed.

“I think I’ll pass,” she said as she fumbled with her shorts, but she could already feel her stomach rumbling at the thought.

Over the past week or so, she’d been shoveling down as much human food as she possibly could. But none of that did anything to satiate the more primal appetite that was growing inside her. It had been exactly two months since she’d last eaten, as the hunger pains reminded her every day.

Soon, it would be the autumnal equinox, and Thea warned Gemma that she would need to feed by then. Her siren’s charms and power grew weaker the longer she went. Her voice wasn’t throaty like Thea’s, but it didn’t have the same silky edge that Penn’s or even Liv’s had.

Thea had once gone so long without feeding that she caused irreparable damage, making her sultry voice huskier and deeper for the rest of eternity. Thea refused to say much about the months she’d gone without eating other than telling Gemma that it had been excruciating, and she’d gone absolutely mad with hunger.

But Gemma didn’t need any of those warnings. She could feel it in her stomach, in her bones, in her very being gnawing at her day in and day out. A constant reminder that her body would make her feed whether she wanted to or not.

The dress was sliding down as she tried to pull the shorts up under it, and she almost fell over before successfully getting them up around her waist. When she’d finished, she stepped out of her dress and exhaled deeply, blowing back the hair that had fallen in her face.

“But isn’t that kinda dangerous?” Gemma asked, which was about as close as she could get to talking them out of it. She hated the idea of their feeding, of killing people, but she didn’t know how to stop them.

“Why would it be dangerous? We’re the most dangerous predator in the club,” Liv pointed out.

“But you’re new,” Gemma told her. “You’re still not completely in control.”

“I’m always in control.” A sly smile spread out across Liv’s face, and her words began to sound like a veiled threat. “You think you’d know that by now, Gemma.”

“So do you want to join us?” Thea asked with exaggerated enthusiasm that meant she’d rather be doing just about anything other than going out with Liv.

“It sounds like a blast, but I think I’ll have to pass this time,” Gemma said, denying her hunger for as long as she possibly could.

“It’s your loss,” Thea said, but she sounded envious that she didn’t get to skip it herself.

“See you around, Gemma.” Liv wagged her fingers as she departed, and Thea followed her reluctantly.

Gemma waited until after they’d left before she hung up her costume and straightened up the dressing room. Harper was home this weekend, so maybe after the last performance tomorrow, Gemma could convince her to go out for a swim with her. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as feeding, but it might help take the edge off the pangs that jabbed into her stomach.

By the time she’d finished getting everything put away, Gemma was completely alone in the theater. The last crew member had dropped by on his way out, reminding her to turn out the lights before she left.

Daniel was usually the last one out, or at the very least, he’d wait around for Gemma. But with the set built, he didn’t have much work to do except get it reset for the next day’s show. Besides that, with Harper in town, he was eager to spend as much time with her as he could.

As Gemma flicked off the lights by the back door, watching the theater go black behind her, she was suddenly struck by how lonely she was. When she went home, Brian would be asleep in his recliner in the living room, with a Saturday Night Live rerun playing on the TV. Harper would be out with Daniel, and Gemma would go into the house by herself.

Up in her room, she’d scour the computer or texts in hopes of being able to translate the scroll until her eyes were bloodshot and aching. Only then would she lie down, hoping for a dreamless sleep.

But first it would elude her, no matter how tired she was, and she’d lie awake, thinking of Alex, replaying every moment with him until she missed him so much she thought her heart would break. And when she did finally succumb to sleep, it would be filled with the nightmares of being trapped underwater and of Lexi dying.

This was her life, and it had never felt so desolate before.

When she pushed open the back door, she’d decided that she would go against Harper’s and her dad’s wishes and sneak off for a night swim alone. She had to do something if she wanted to keep her sanity.

“Gemma,” a voice said from behind her, and a figure stepped out from the wall.

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, but Alex emerged from the shadows into the illumination from the streetlight that lit up the parking lot behind the theater. He’d been waiting by the back door, and he’d stopped her on her way to her bike.

“Alex?” Gemma asked, and hoped she didn’t appear as disarmed as she felt. She’d just been thinking about how much she missed him, and he’d materialized before her.

His broad shoulders etched a shadow on the ground. When his dark eyes landed on her, the same eyes she’d fallen in love with, she found it hard to breathe. The very nearness of him made her heart swell, and, for once, she found something that blotted out her appetite.

“I was just about to head out.” A relieved smile crossed his face. “I thought I’d missed you.”

“I just took a while cleaning up.” She motioned back to the theater behind them.

“How was the show tonight?” Alex asked.

“It was good. Everyone clapped at the end, so it must not have been too terrible,” Gemma said, and she was pleased when he laughed at her lame attempt at a joke. “Did you see it?”

“No, I wanted to.” He shook his head. “I thought about it, but I was afraid you’d get mad if you saw me.”

“Why would I be mad?” Gemma asked.

“I don’t know. I guess…” He paused, gathering his thoughts, before looking down into her eyes. “I have no idea how you feel about me anymore.”

“Alex. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I’ve never stopped…” She wanted to say loving you, but it seemed too intense, too real, so she lowered her eyes, and continued, “… caring about you. I only ended things with you because it was dangerous, and I didn’t want you getting hurt.”

“I know, but I acted like an ass for a while, and I haven’t been there for you like I should’ve been,” Alex said, sounding angry with himself.

“You weren’t there for me because I wouldn’t let you be,” Gemma said.

“But I should’ve…” He turned his gaze to the sky and took a deep breath. “It’s so dumb because I’ve been standing out here, practicing what I wanted to say to you over and over again, then it’s like every time I see you, all my words just disappear. You make rational thought so impossible.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“No, don’t be sorry.” He looked back at her, and there was something smoldering in his dark eyes that caused a heat to grow in her belly and her breath to catch in her throat. “What I want to say, what I really want to say is…”

He put a hand on either side of her face, then he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. All she could do was kiss him back and relish the warmth of his mouth against hers, and the way his fingers tangled in her hair.

When he stopped kissing her, breathing roughly, as he looked at her, Gemma saw her whole world in his eyes. For a moment, he was the only thing that existed in her life, and there was an exhilarating simplicity in that. If only she could just love him, then everything else would be all right.

“I want to be with you,” Alex said, his voice low as his eyes searched hers. “I don’t know if that’s what you want or what’s best for you. And I don’t care if it’s dangerous or what might happen to me. I just want to be whatever you need me to be, whether it’s your friend or your boyfriend or a total stranger. Whatever you need, whatever you want from me, I’ll give it to you.”

Gemma wanted nothing more than to accept his offer, to throw her arms around him and say that as long as they had each other, everything would be okay.

But she knew that wasn’t true. The cold reality of her life, of the monsters she had allowed to take over everything she held dear, wouldn’t let that be true.

Tears formed in her eyes, and she struggled to find the words. “Alex, you know I want to be with you, but—”

“Then nothing else matters, Gemma,” he said firmly. “Not the sirens, not your curse, not even your sister. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you.”

“Are you sure?” Gemma asked, and she felt her resistance fading.

“Gemma, I’m in love with you, and I have been for … years, probably,” Alex admitted with a rueful smile. “I never stopped, not even when you put a spell on me. Nothing can ever make me stop loving you.”

“I love you, too.” She smiled. “And I promise never to try to make you stop loving me again.”

Gemma stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He leaned down, kissing her, and she tried to let herself enjoy the moment with him instead of thinking about the hundreds of ways this could all end badly.

She loved Alex, but more than that, she needed him, and she wasn’t ready to give him up again.