Siren - Hazel Grace Page 0,98
air in his lungs. I’m aware of how he’s fading from me the more I beg him to reconsider this with every caress of my mouth. He’s dying in my midst, and he won’t stop until he knows he’s gone and I’m safe.
I break from the kiss, a loud wail breaking through the water as bubbles float toward the surface. Dagen’s arms faintly pull me closer, his forehead resting into mine with his eyes still closed.
“Dagen,” I beg. “Please don’t leave me.”
His lids open slightly, telling me that he has to for now. That one day we’ll be together. That this isn’t the end for us.
Another weak kiss, and a few seconds later, he’s gone.
Everything is still, deathly quiet as his body starts to float toward the top of the lagoon, and I pull him up with me.
Emerging from the water, I yank him along as I swim to shore, where Isolde is waiting for me.
Helping me pull him to the dry land, his face has gone blue as I collapse beside him.
“Isolde,” I wail, my hands curling to my mouth. “Oh my—what did I do?” Her arms wrap around me, holding me as my body violently shakes in heartache, shock, and grief.
My sister squeezes me to her side. “You saved us all.”
Davina is wrapped in a gray blanket, rocking back and forth in the short grass along the lagoon. Her red hair is still slightly damp, droplets of water falling to the ground as she mindlessly stares over the water.
Even though I can’t see her face, I know that it’s blank. That she looks beautiful as she ponders over what she had to do to save her kingdom and family.
That she hates herself.
I’ve known her for enough time to know that she’ll carry it with her and that no one or anything will make her feel any different. The revelation of Dagen and I being brothers, the woman that is our mother, it’ll never bring her world back on its axis.
I just hope she tries to live after this.
“You’re going to need to find someone else to do it,” Davina croons before I can utter a word. “I’m not doing it for you.”
“Aw, now that’s not very nice, Princess,” I reply, trying to keep my tone light and airy. “I thought we were friends.”
“Exactly.” Her tone is ice, emotionless, something that sounds dead and empty inside. “You all had a conversation about this and didn’t include me.”
Because she would’ve said no. Had a royal fit about not having this happen, and as shady as it was, we had to ambush her about it.
What Dagen and I wanted was beyond the word selfish. Beyond the words “fucked up,” but it was the only way we wanted to die—for the both of us. Not in a malicious and hateful way but because we both loved her, and it’d be the last thing we’d see before going off to Zeus knows where afterward.
I’m already on edge, as I stand off to the side, knowing that I only have a few more moments to breathe on this Earth. Only a few more minutes with the woman I’d give anything for—which I will. I’m starting to realize in swift thoughts that maybe this was what I was here for, to save her from my own mother. That I was supposed to be on that ship that day to protect Rohana, Kali, and her from my uncle’s men.
“Maybe we were always supposed to be here,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s because of me that this all happened.”
“You?” My brows furrow. “How?”
“If I hadn’t gone to Coral Cove, you wouldn’t be in my life. You wouldn’t have needed to save my sisters and I.”
“That would’ve been a boring life.”
She peers over her shoulder at me. “I’m sure you’d be married by now with kids and—”
“No reminiscing on the what-ifs,” I convey. “That’s not what people do.”
“They do it all the time.” Returning her attention back to the lagoon, she tugs her legs underneath her and continues to stare.
“Davina,” I utter. “I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d still cut down that rope and free you.”
“I would,” she whispers. “I’d change everything.”
“You know that I came up with this idea, right?” She twists her body to take me in, brows snapped together like I have literally gone off the deep end.
I did, with her.
And I’d fucking relive it again and again with the same outcome if I still got the many years of happiness that