“What happened?” Nathalie asked.
“Nothing, Mom,” Gemma said. “You just had a headache. ”
When Nathalie’s staff came in to make sure she was all right, Gemma got up and went outside. If only she’d been able to do one good thing to help the people she loved, then being a siren would be worth it. But all she’d done—all she’d ever be able to do—was make things even worse.
TWENTY-THREE
Lonely
Daniel didn’t want to fill the Paramount with sawdust, so he was cutting the large planks of wood out back with his circular saw. He had the board spread out across the sawhorses, and he double-checked the measurements.
The sun beat down on his back, and it threatened to be a scorcher today. He’d taken off his shirt an hour ago, and he’d resorted to wrapping a bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat from dripping down his brow.
“They’re making you work on a Saturday?” Penn asked in her sultry voice. Her words couldn’t enchant him, but he could still hear how luxurious her voice sounded. “That’s like slave labor. ”
“It’s my choice to work on Saturdays,” Daniel said, without looking back at her. He stayed focused on the task at hand, using a pencil to mark the wood. “It’s less disruptive to play rehearsal and the businesses around here. ”
“I don’t know. ” Penn walked closer to him so he could see her in his peripheral vision. “I’d find you working without your shirt pretty disruptive. ”
“Good thing you don’t work at the law offices next door. ” He straightened up and finally looked over at Penn. “What can I do for you today?”
Her dress was so short, the hem didn’t even reach the middle of her thigh. Her legs appeared insanely long, bronzed and taut. She wore her long black hair down, and the breeze blew it back from her face. The spectacle of her cleavage was pushed out of her low-cut top. Her full lips were turned into a small, seductive smile, and her dark eyes looked like they could unlock all the tantric mysteries of the world.
Conceptually, Daniel knew she was gorgeous. In fact, he’d venture so far as to say that she was the embodiment of sexual perfection—that no woman had ever been so beautiful or sensual in the history of the world.
And yet, as he knew that, he couldn’t find himself attracted to her. Something about her flawlessness was off-putting to him, but it was more than that. Even subtracting the fact that she was evil, and counting only on physical appearance, he still found something lacking.
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It was like she wasn’t really there. Penn hit all the right notes, but they all rang false. She was merely the façade of a human being, with nothing behind it.
“I was taking a walk around town and I spotted you working, so I thought I would say hello,” Penn said.
“Hello, Penn. ” He smiled at her. “Satisfied?”
“Hardly. ” She laughed. “You never leave me satisfied. Although I know a trick or two I’m sure you’d love. ”
Daniel rolled his eyes and turned away from her. “Charming. ”
“You say that like you don’t mean it, but I think you do. ” Penn hopped on the sawhorse next to him as he bent over to write on the blueprints.
“Do you really?” He glanced up at her in disbelief. “What have I done to give you that impression? Was it that time I punched you in the jaw? Or when you were kicking me repeatedly in the ribs?”
He was referencing their encounter on the Fourth of July, the one and only time he’d ever hit a woman. Though he wasn’t completely certain that Penn could count as a real woman. After all, she was a man-eating monster.
Penn waved it off. “That was just a little fun and games. Nobody got hurt. ”
“So you’ve forgotten how Lexi murdered your boyfriend?” Daniel asked her absently as he made a mark on his papers.
“Gemma told you about that?” Penn clicked her tongue. “I thought she kept murder a secret. Especially after what she did. ”
For a minute Daniel tried to ignore her. He finished checking his measurements against the blueprints, so all he had left to do was the actual sawing. He stood up and looked over at Penn, who’d been watching him with a smirk on her face.
“Okay. I’ll bite,” he said, tapping his pencil against the palm of his hand. “What did Gemma do?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Penn asked with faux surprise. “I thought there weren’t secrets between you and your girlfriend’s kid sister. It’s a bit strange how much time you spend with her, isn’t it?”
“No. But it is a bit strange how much I spend with you. ” He walked a few steps away from her to put the blueprints under a heavy chunk of wood so they wouldn’t blow away as he worked.
“You do have a point there,” Penn said. She hopped off the sawhorse, but she didn’t follow him.
“So … did Gemma do something?” He faced her. “Or was that all a lie to get my attention?”
“Oh, no, she did something. ” Penn smiled widely. “She killed and fed on a young man when we were staying in the beach house. I can’t remember his name, but I probably never knew it. Gemma did it on her own. ”
Daniel shoved his pencil behind his ear and tried to remember what he’d heard about that. It had been over a month ago, and Gemma had never really spoken much about it, at least not to him.
The only thing he really knew was what he read in the paper. There had been something about a guy named Jason Way, who was in his thirties and had been convicted of rape and domestic assault. That was how Daniel and Harper had been able to find Gemma after she’d run off with the sirens. They’d been staying in a beach house about an hour from Myrtle Beach. Harper had been searching everywhere for Gemma, until Daniel found the article about Jason Way’s murder.
He’d been eviscerated the same way the other sirens’ victims had been, so Daniel and Harper assumed that Penn or Lexi or Thea had done it. But now Penn was implying Gemma had.
“The body they found?” Daniel asked. “The rapist?”
“Maybe. ” She lowered her eyes, seeming disappointed by Daniel’s calm reaction. “I don’t know the details. ”
“Well, whatever Gemma did, if she even did anything, I’m sure she did it to protect herself,” he said.
Penn scoffed. “So that’s it? She gets away with murder, literally? But I endure the cold shoulder?”
“I give you the warmest shoulder I can, Penn,” Daniel said honestly.
He went on to continue what he’d been working on. He brushed past her to get his tools together.
“What is it that you’re doing?” Penn asked as he made sure the extension cord was plugged into the back of the theater.
“Building the sets for the play. Thea must’ve told you something about it. ”
“She’s told me too much about it. ” Penn groaned. “She won’t stop quoting Shakespeare. It’s obnoxious. ”
“I thought you would like that kinda thing. Isn’t it from your heyday?” He came back to where she stood, since she was standing next to his saw. He crouched down next to the machine, checking the cords and blades.
“It’s still my heyday. I’ll never go out of style,” she told him confidently.
He smirked at that. “I stand corrected. ”
“What’s on your back?”
“My tattoo?”
Daniel’s tattoo took up most of his back. It was a thick black tree, with the roots growing below the waist of his jeans. The trunk grew upward, over his spine, then went to the side so the branches extended out over his shoulder and down his right arm.
The branches appeared to be shaded, but they were twisted along the scars that covered his upper back and shoulder. The shadows were real, and the tattoo was meant to cover up the scars that he’d gotten when a boat propeller ran him over.
“Not the tattoo,” Penn said. “The scars. ”
He was still crouched down, adjusting the blade on the saw, and he wasn’t paying that much atte
ntion to her. Then he felt her fingertips gently touching the outline of his tattoo, and he jerked his shoulder back, pushing her hand off him.
“Whoa, easy there, Penn. ” Daniel turned back to her and held his hand out. “I don’t touch you, and I’d appreciate it if you did me the same favor. ”
“The difference is that I wouldn’t mind if you touched me. ” Penn smiled, and he stood up to face her. “And you don’t know it yet, but you’d love it if you let me run my hands all over you. ”
She reached out, meaning to run her hand along the contours of his stomach, but he grabbed her wrist just before she could. He gripped hard enough that it would be painful for a human, but she only smiled up at him.
“This is your last warning,” Daniel said, his voice low and threatening. “Okay?”
She licked her lips, undeterred by his apparent anger. “What will you do next time?”
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Daniel didn’t say anything because he didn’t really know what he’d do. He didn’t have that much he could hold over her head. He let go of her and walked away, wanting to put distance between the two of them.
“I was in an accident,” he said finally.
“What?” Penn asked as she absently rubbed her wrist.
He motioned to his back. “That’s what the scars are from. It’s the same one that screwed up my hearing. ”
“What?” Penn asked, and something in her tone made him look back at her. “What did you say?”
“It’s why I’m immune to your song. ” He turned to face her fully. “I know you thought it was because I was related to some ex-boyfriend of yours, but I’m not. I’m just an ordinary human with a hearing problem. ”
“You’re certain of this?” Penn asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, pretty certain. ” He nodded. “So now maybe you can move on, put your interest in some other guy that’s up to your immortal standards. ”
For a moment he thought she might take the bait. Penn even seemed to consider it, but then she just shrugged and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“It’s better that you’re not related to Bastian anyway,” Penn said. “He was a jerk. ”
“Lucky me. ” He turned his attention back down to the outline he’d been making on the wood.
“You could have a surgery to fix it. ” Penn leaned forward on the boards, purposely accentuating her cleavage, but Daniel barely noticed.
“I’ve had surgeries, and it’s fine. ” He looked up at her, his hazel eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. “Besides, if we’re being honest here, would you enjoy me even half as much if I was just another zombie under your love spell?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“So why do you do it?” Daniel asked her directly. “Why don’t you just stop and let people act the way they want?”
“I can’t help myself. ” She lifted up one shoulder in a small shrug. “Everyone grovels at my feet, and I’m not even trying. ”
“That actually sounds like a pretty horrible way to live. ”
“It can be,” Penn said, her voice sounding oddly small and far away. Then she shook off the mood and smiled brightly at him. “But most of the time life is exactly the way I want it. ”
“How old are you?”
“It’s hard to know exactly. ” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “We had different calendars back then. But the closest estimate is that I was born in 24 B. C. ”
“And almost that entire time you were a siren, with everyone doing anything you wanted?” Daniel asked.
“Pretty much,” she replied cheerily.
He rested his hands on the sawhorse and shook his head. “That sounds lonely. ”
Her smile faltered for a split second, a solitary flash of a moment when Daniel realized that he’d gotten it right. This big show that Penn put on about being happy and everything being perfect, that was all it was—a big show. She was lonely.
“I had my sisters,” she said, but she lowered her eyes. “And I was in love. Once. ”
“Bastian?” Daniel asked, sincerely intrigued by the idea of Penn feeling anything real for anybody. “The immortal that was immune to you?”
“He was also a jerk,” Penn reminded him.
“You couldn’t control him,” he said, and she nodded. “Did he leave you?”
She licked her lips and breathed deeply before answering. “It was a long time ago. ”
“Why don’t you spend more time with immortals? Maybe you could fall in love again,” Daniel suggested.
“I doubt that. ” Penn brushed off the idea without really considering it. “Besides, there’s hardly any of us left. Eventually, everything dies. ”
“Except you. ”
“Except me,” she agreed.
“Well, if you’re gonna be hanging around, I’m putting you to work. ” Daniel walked back over to her and picked up his saw.
“What?” Penn sounded distressed by the idea. “I don’t work. ”
“If you don’t work, I don’t talk,” he said. “Now hold that board. ”
Penn didn’t look happy about it, but she did as she was told. He grabbed his safety goggles out of his back pocket, and then he went to work cutting out the set. The saw had the added bonus of being so loud he wouldn’t have to talk to Penn.
TWENTY-FOUR
Allies
After the visit with their mother, Harper needed to clear her head. The ride back home had been suffocating, with Gemma seeming particularly shaken up. Both Brian and Gemma refused to talk about it, and they retired to their separate quarters to come to terms with their own emotions.
Harper decided that the fresh air would do her good, even though it was rapidly approaching ninety degrees outside. She put on the shortest shorts she felt comfortable in and a tank top, and headed out for a walk.
When she’d talked to Daniel the night before, he said he’d be working at the theater on the sets, so she decided to go downtown to see him. Maybe they could grab lunch together, but even if they didn’t, it would be nice to see him after the morning she’d had.
But as she approached the Paramount and heard Penn’s unmistakable laugh, she realized dourly that her day was only going to get worse.
“I told you it’s not that hard,” Daniel was saying as Harper rounded the corner.
His back was to her, his bare skin glistening with sweat, and Penn stood next to him. They were both leaning over a piece of wood, but Penn was leaning much too close to him for Harper’s comfort.
“I’ve never worked a day in my life. ” Penn laughed again. “How was I supposed to know?”
“It’s just holding a board,” Daniel said. “Anyone can handle it. Even a pampered princess like you. ”
“You think I’m a princess?” Penn teased.
“Working hard, I see,” Harper said loudly, interrupting their conversation.
Penn glared back at her, her dark eyes looking even more menacing than normal. Daniel turned around more slowly, but he broke out in a broad grin when he saw her.
“Hey, Harper,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you today. I thought you were visiting your mom. ”
“I was. ” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I thought I would stop by and say hello, but I can see you’re busy, so I’ll go. ”
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“Good, ’bye!” Penn said happily and waved to her.
“She’s not going anywhere. ” Daniel shot Penn a look, then walked to where Harper stood at the edge of the lawn. “What’s going on? Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” Harper asked. “Just because I had one of the worst days of my entire life and you’re flirting with my mortal enemy? And she is literally a monster that wants to kill you and me and everyone we know, and you’re just chatting with her like old friends?”
Daniel shook his head. “That’s not at all what’s happenin
g here, and you know it. You’re too smart to be jealous over something like this. ”
“I’m not jealous,” Harper scoffed, and Penn snickered from where she stood by the sawhorses. “I’d feel about the same right now if I saw you helping Hitler redecorate. She is pure evil, and you shouldn’t be nice to her or hang out with her. ”
“I hope you’d be a little more freaked out if I was helping Hitler, because he’d be a zombie,” Daniel said.
“Just never mind. ” Harper turned and walked away from him.
“Harper, wait. ” Daniel went after her, but she didn’t stop until she thought they were too far away for Penn to eavesdrop. Even then she only stopped because he took her arm. “Harper. ”
“I told you to stay away from her,” Harper said. “And I did it for your own good. She’s going to kill you if you spend too much time with her. And you know it. Is it so wrong that I don’t want to see you end up dead?”
“No, but is it so wrong that I want to keep her happy so she doesn’t hurt you or Gemma?” Daniel asked. “Because that’s all I’m trying to do. I’m just keeping the peace, Harper. ”
“I know, but…” Harper pushed back her hair. “Maybe it was a bad idea getting involved with you. ”
“No. ” Daniel shook his head. “I absolutely refuse to do this. Not today. Not ever. You can’t just go into that mode again. ”
“What mode?” Harper asked.
“The one where you say you can’t see me to protect me or some crap like that. ” He waved it off. “We discussed it before, remember? You don’t have the right to tell me what I choose to do. ”
“What am I supposed to do?” Harper asked. “I’m supposed to let you flirt with the devil?”
“I’m not flirting,” Daniel corrected her. “And yes, you’re supposed to let me do what I need to do to keep us all safe. And I let you do the same. ”
“I don’t know if I can do that, Daniel,” Harper admitted.
“Look, it’s really hot out,” Daniel said. “Why don’t you go to Pearl’s, get yourself something to drink, and cool off? I’ll be down in a little bit, and you can tell me about your awful morning. ”
“What about Penn?” Harper asked.
“What about her?” Daniel asked. “We’re out in broad daylight. She’s not going to eat my heart today. ”
“Okay,” Harper relented. “I’ll meet you at Pearl’s in a few minutes. ”
“Fifteen minutes, tops. ” Daniel was already backing away. “I just have to put my tools away. ”
Sighing, she took his advice and walked the few blocks down to Pearl’s. Part of her wanted to go back and help Daniel clean up his tools, but that was just to be sure that Penn left him alone.
Harper hadn’t really thought Penn would hurt Daniel, not in the middle of the afternoon in public, nor did she think that Daniel had any attraction to Penn.
He was right, and in the long term it would be good to stay in Penn’s good graces. But Harper just couldn’t believe that any good could come from being friends with Penn.
As soon as she pushed the door open to Pearl’s, the air-conditioning sent a refreshing chill over her, and she already felt a bit better. The idea to take a walk in the suffocating heat had been a bad one, but the cooler temperature of the diner was well on its way to correcting her mistake.