take away. “Because of what I do! I destroy lives. That’s my whole purpose. Sam, all the boys before him, Chase, you! The crash was my fault. If he never would have met me, he would have been safe!”
Ryder met my fierce emotion with his own angered conviction, “Why Ivy? What does his crash have to do with you? What does who you are have to do with any of it?”
“It’s crazy,” I let out hysterical laughter that came out rough and course in my winded lungs. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I already think you’re crazy,” he admitted and this time my laughter was less crazed and more genuine.
“Siren. I’m a, uh, I’m a siren,” the words rushed out of me in a waterfall of truth I would never be able to take back. Ryder let go of my arms and took a step back, completely shocked, or stunned, or…. I didn’t know. I couldn’t imagine being told something as crazy as that for the first time. “I told you, I told you you would think I was crazy. And it is crazy! It’s completely f-ing nuts.”
“What do you mean you’re a siren?” Ryder bit through my hysterics with a cold, demanding order.
“Greek mythology? Zeus, Mount Olympus? Gods and goddesses, nymphs, muses…. sirens? I am a siren,” Sanity started to return to me once the truth was out there. And shockingly my breath came easier and my shoulders straightened out. Whether Ryder ever believed me or not, I felt better knowing I came clean to somebody. “It’s all true, Ryder. All of it. Well, Ok, not all of it. Not in the context you read about it at school. And Mount Olympus isn’t like some reference to heaven, it’s just a normal mountain. But the rest of it’s…. somewhat true.”
“I don’t understand, Ivy. Is this like, a, uh, uh, metaphor?” It was like he was begging me to say yes, his entire body bent forward, his eyes pleading…. he needed me to say yes, that this was all just one big giant metaphor for life and I wasn’t completely insane after all.
“No, it’s not a metaphor. Ryder, this is truth. Or at least my truth, what I’ve lived with my whole life. But you have to look at it differently, like it’s not this exaggerated fairy tale that you’re taught in school. The legends are embellished to pander to their egos, but for the most part…. they’re true. And our society, it’s not like it was way back in the day. I mean, there are not that many of us and we all just kind of blend into the rest of humanity now. But, the guys, the attention, Sam’s crash…. It’s because I’m a siren. That’s what I do to men.”
“Explain it to me slower,” Ryder growled out and I couldn’t tell if he was starting to believe me or not.
“Men feel attracted to me because they can’t help it. I’ve been cursed since birth by this…. genealogy. I don’t have a choice about what I do to guys, it just happens. And the more time I spend with any one guy, the deeper the connection for me they feel, the harder it is to get away from. That’s what happened to Sam, he spent too much time with me until I destroyed him and then the crash? That was just like the end of the road with someone like me. The ultimate closure,” I laughed bitterly.
“The crash was on purpose?” Ryder gasped, gripping my forearms in his strong hands.
“No!” I quickly reassured. “No, it wasn’t on purpose, but it wasn’t necessarily avoidable either. I mean, that kind of stuff hasn’t happened in a really long time. We don’t lure sailors to their graves anymore or anything like that. For the most part, whatever elevated evolution we possessed back in the day is mostly gone by now, but then the crash with Sam happened and my circle, um, my little sect of people like myself look at it like a sign, like a good sign of things to come.”
“You want to be able to hurt people?” Ryder’s grip tightened on my arms, and I winced a little. He immediately dropped my arms and turned away like he couldn’t stomach looking at me. I couldn’t let myself hope that he believed me, that he wouldn’t cut off all communication with me after this conversation, but I had to keep talking, I had to make him understand I wasn’t like them.
“No, not me,