Chapter 24 | The Devil of Siren City

Skylar

“Skylar.”

I wake with a lurch. Immediately, I look for Adrian, ignoring the stiffness in my neck and shoulders. He’s sitting up, his sharp eyes taking in the bandage around his elbow and the ones on his hands and naked torso, his lower half covered with a clean, white bed sheet.

The sun rises, the skies on the horizon turning a bright, fiery orange red. More storms are coming, but for now, the room is bright enough to see clearly. Still no power.

“Adrian,” I say, standing up. “You’re awake.”

He clears his throat. “I am awake.”

“You shouldn’t move…” I place a hand on the table, feeling dizzy from getting up too fast. “You need to rest.”

Adrian looks me over. “You need to rest.”

“I’m fine.” I pinch his chin, drawing his gaze up. “Follow my fingers.”

I move my hand in front of his eyes and he follows my fingertips with ease, showing no sign of drowsiness or confusion. That’s a good sign.

I pick up my stethoscope and fit it into my ears. “Deep breath.”

Adrian takes a deep breath as I listen in. Strong and steady. Even better sign. But he still looks weak. Exhausted.

Bruised and beaten.

“How do you feel?” I ask, setting the stethoscope down and feeling his forehead. He’s cool to the touch. Colder than normal, anyway. “Chills? Anything like that.”

He softly guides my hand away. “Thirsty.”

I nod, my tongue dry. “Start with water,” I say. “I’ll make you something small after if you’re up to eating.”

I grab a drinking glass from the cupboard, foolishly thinking Adrian will stay put while I fill it with water. Before I even turn back from the sink, his legs dangle over the side of the table. “Don’t—” I warn, rushing to stop him — and to stop that sheet from exposing too much of what’s underneath.

“Where are my clothes?” he asks.

“They, uh…” I point to the garbage bag by the couch. “I had to cut off your jeans to clean you up, so I figured you wouldn’t want them back.”

He nods slowly. “You cleaned me up,” he says, remembering.

I’ll never forget, but not for reasons one would expect after sponge-bathing a handsome man like Adrian Price. It was the deep scars on his skin. The fresh dark blue and purple bruises on his body. Whatever happened to him yesterday was awful beyond words, but it’s clearly not the worst bad day he’s ever had.

It took everything in me to swallow my tears.

“Yeah, you…” I pause, searching for the most professional words. “There was a smell.”

“What kind of smell?”

“Sewage-y?”

“Oh.”

“Mostly just the jeans, though.”

“Right.”

“And your boxers.”

“Okay.”

“And the sweater,” I add quickly. “I tossed it, too, because it’d be easier to just buy a new one than it would be to get those stains out of it, so…”

Another nod as he moves to plant his feet on the floor.

“Adrian,” I say. “You need to rest.”

“If I’m going to rest, I’m going to do it in my own bed.”

I avert my gaze. “Fine, just…” I offer the water glass. “Drink this first.”

Adrian takes it and downs a small sip. “You should, too.”

I nod and return to the sink to fill a second glass.

“I meant rest.”

I keep my back turned. I sip my water. I try not to think about the last time we saw each other before last night.

“Skylar.”

I drink.

I don’t think about sleepwalking.

I don’t think about waking up in Adrian’s bed, my limbs akimbo, our bodies entwined—

“Skylar.”

“I’m fine, Adrian.”

“You were up all night. You need to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t—” I nearly turn around, but I stop myself halfway, facing forward and setting my empty glass in the sink. “This is what I do, Adrian. Let me do my job.”

My gut clenches with instant regret. In a minute, I’ll apologize. For fuck’s sake, he’s the only person in this world I have any relationship with at all right now, save for a non-verbal monk who seemingly spends every waking moment praying in a church.

“Skylar,” he says again, his voice so calm. So controlled.

I hear the hidden order in his tone and turn around, my breath held tightly behind my ribs.

Adrian looks at me, still perched on the table’s edge. “You were sleepwalking,” he says. “There’s no shame in that.”

“I’m not ashamed of sleepwalking. I’m… ashamed of where I sleepwalked to…”

“There’s no shame in that, either.” With just as much control, Adrian slides off the table, easily planting his feet on the floor as he adjusts the bed sheet to stay around his waist.

I tense, my trained eyes watching for any sign of buckling knees in case I need to catch him before he falls, but he stands tall with only mild discomfort in his stance. “I’m sorry for snapping at you just now,” I say. “Just tired, that’s all.”

He merely nods. “Was your window open?” he asks.

I make a face. “What?”

“The night before last,” he says. “When you went to bed, was your window open?”

It takes a moment, but I push through my exhaustion to remember. “Yes,” I answer. “I think so. Why?”

“Come with me.”

Adrian walks into the hallway. Again, I start, my stomach leaping with dread at his sudden movements. Catching up, I keep a close eye on him as he travels down the corridor and stops in front of my bedroom door.

“May I?” he asks.

“Of course.”

He enters my room, thankfully ignoring the clutter of dirty laundry on the path to the still open window. “Sleepwalking,” he explains, his eyes on the view of the harbor outside, “is a common affliction in Siren City.”

I stand beside him. “It is?”

He checks the latch on my window, locking it. “Like altitude sickness in the mountains.”

“Why is that?”

“I told you.” Adrian regards me with a raised brow. “There are sirens in these waters.”

I scoff. “You’re saying there are literal sirens calling out into the night, making people sleepwalk?”

As if it were the most normal thing in the world, he answers, “Yes.”

I study his expression. Tired, but I sense no jest. No lies. “You’re serious.”

“If you have a better theory, I’m sure the mayor and city council would love to hear it,” he says. “Most of us are used to it. Our minds can resist the call just fine, but we’ll have the occasional tourist walk into the sea… never to be seen again.”

I look through the windows, the horizon so bright now. Morning is here. “That’s… a little unbelievable,” I say.

“And yet.” Adrian shifts on his bare feet. “It’s a problem with teenage boys as well.”

“Oh, yeah?”

His lips twitch with a smirk. “Candy would sleepwalk almost every night for a few years there. Usually, we’d catch him before he wandered off and hurt himself, but once or twice we found him on the beach the next morning with sand up to his ankles, completely delirious.”

Somehow, I find this information more comforting than unnerving. I’m willing to believe in monsters if it meant this… affliction in me wasn’t merely just me possibly going insane.

The voice says nothing.

“Other than keeping my window shut, how can I resist the call if it happens again?” I ask.

Adrian turns to look at me. “You’ll develop natural resistance to it over time, but until then… well, shackles worked with Candy.”

Yes, please.

Oh. Now she speaks up.

“I’d rather not be…” I say, ignoring it, “shackled.”

Prude.

Adrian nods. “Then, if it happens again, do you want me to wake you?”

“If…” I pause, lost in a tired fog beneath his sharp eyes. “You mean, if what happened the other night were to…”

“Happen again. Yes.”

I swallow hard, my cheeks burning. “Well, I… I don’t know. They say you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, right?”

“I’ll make sure you get through the night untouched and unharmed,” he says.

“You will?”

“You take care of me, I’ll take care of you. That was the deal. Remember?”

“Yes,” I say, my heart pounding now. “In that case, then… no. You don’t have to wake me.”

“Okay,” Adrian says. “I won’t.” He turns to leave. “I’m going to get some rest. You should, too.”

“I will. But I’ll be in later to check your bandages — if that’s okay, I mean.”

“That’s okay.”

I watch him go, not as worried about him buckling. He’s probably stronger than I am right now. “Adrian.”

He pauses in the hallway between our doors.

“Thank you,” I say. “For being straight with me, I mean. This conversation could have been… a lot more awkward than it was.”

“I will always try to be straight with you, Skylar,” he says. “Just know that if I withhold anything from you, it’s for your safety.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Get some rest. You did well tonight.”

He says nothing more, entering his bedroom and closing the door behind him.

Pensive and exhausted, I close my door as well.

I leave it unlocked.