“What?”
“I’m going out and having fun, and you’re jealous?” Liv stepped toward her, and instinctively Harper tried to take a step back, but she had nowhere to go. The desk was right behind her, so she just straightened up.
“What? No.” Harper shook her head. “I’m glad you’re having fun with college. But I was wondering if you could keep it down when you come in at night.” There was no point in making small talk anymore. “You’ve been waking me up, and I can’t sleep.”
“You don’t even want to be my friend, do you?” Liv kept walking toward her, and all the silk in her voice had been replaced with an icy edge. “You just wanted to tell me to shut up.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Harper hurried to correct herself. “I think that you’re a really nice girl—”
Liv cut her off with a laugh that sent an unpleasant chill down Harper’s spine. “Oh, I am not a nice girl.”
She was actually shorter than Harper, but it felt like she towered over her. There was something so imposing about her presence that Harper couldn’t explain, and she swallowed back her fear.
It was at that moment, with Liv staring up at her with her wide, cold eyes, that Harper realized Liv was insane. That was the only way to explain Liv’s dramatic and violent mood changes.
“Whatever. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I need to get to class,” Harper said. “You went from zero to crazy in like three seconds, and I don’t have time for this.”
“I’m not crazy!” Liv shouted in her face, spittle landing on her cheeks. “And I’m not done with you yet.”
“I’ll talk to you later, okay, Liv?” Harper tried to keep her words soothing and even. “I have to go, and if you were smart, you’d get ready and go to class soon. Or else it’s not going to matter if we get along or not because you won’t be here much longer.”
“Was that a threat? Are you threatening me?” Liv demanded.
“No.” Harper leaned over to get her backpack, taking her eyes off Liv for only a second. “If you don’t go to class, you won’t—”
Liv was a flicker of motion in Harper’s peripheral vision, then Harper felt a hand tighten around her throat. Liv slammed Harper back against the wall hard enough to make a mirror fall off and shatter on the floor.
With Liv’s hand clamped around her neck, Harper was pinned to the wall. Liv’s fingers were surprisingly long, and her grip was inescapable. Harper could barely breathe and clawed vainly at Liv’s arm.
“Liv,” Harper croaked out as she continued to struggle.
“Don’t ever mess with me, Harper,” Liv commanded in a low growl. “If you ever threaten or talk down to me again, I will totes destroy you, you dumb bitch.”
She let go of Harper then and stepped back. Harper gasped for breath and rubbed her neck. Her throat burned, and she bent over coughing.
“What the hell, Liv?” Harper asked between coughs. She was still hunched over and looked up at Liv. “I wasn’t threatening you! I was saying that if you want to stay in school, you have to go to class.”
A wide smile spread across Liv’s face. “You’re right. If I want to stay, I’d have to go to class. But I don’t want to stay. And I don’t care what anybody says or thinks. I’m not going to live with a shrew like you any longer than I have to. I’m out of here.”
Liv slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse, and left the room, humming a tune under her breath as she did. Harper couldn’t place the song, but she was certain she’d heard it before.
TWO
Night Call
It was the same dream she’d been having every night since Lexi had been killed. Gemma was out in the ocean. The water was cold, and the waves crashed around her, crushing her.
It was the night Penn had given Gemma the potion to change her into a siren and then tossed her into the ocean wrapped in Persephone’s shawl. Gemma felt like a fish in a net, trying to claw her way out of it before she drowned.
Then she felt the change happening, the siren monster taking hold somewhere deep inside her, filling her with an angry hunger. But her body didn’t shift. Her legs wouldn’t turn into fins, and she couldn’t fight her way to the surface.
Her wings broke painfully through her back and tore through the fabric, freeing Gemma. But they flapped uselessly underwater, and just when Gemma was certain she would drown, she surfaced. The relief at being able to breathe again was short-lived, though.
The dream then shifted, and instead of the night she’d become a siren, she was now in the rainstorm from last week, treading water in the crashing waves below the cliff outside the sirens’ house.
Lexi’s decapitated head was flying at her, the strings of blond hair flowing out behind it. But Lexi was still alive, her eyes wide and aware of everything, and she screamed at Gemma through the razor-sharp teeth that filled her mouth.
That’s when Gemma would wake up, cold sweat on her brow and gasping for breath. She sat up in her bed, hoping that she’d be able to calm herself down enough to go back to sleep again, but she never did.