Chapter Thirty-Five

Steve waited all night, but finally, the siren sunk back into the water and curled up on the sand below him. Steve was cautious as he heaved himself to the edge of the rock and leaned over the edge. The water was right there, just inches away from his dangling fingertips. He had to enter it gently, so the sounds of his splash wouldn't wake the siren. Steve couldn't take another chase and capture. It was too humiliating. And not to mention, it left him stranded here at the siren's mercy again.

Steve pushed himself further a little more until now his whole torso was dangling over the edge and his hands were submerged in ocean water up to his wrists and he pumped his tail desperately to give himself that extra push.

Steve fell back into the water with, luckily, only a minor splash, and he righted himself and took a deep breath of water and slicked his hair back and spared a glance down at the siren, just too close for comfort. His eyes were still closed. His chest still rose and fell evenly. Steve celebrated in his head. He hadn't gotten this far in days!

Steve turned and pumped his tail again, harder, taking off into the water. He was so much smaller than the siren, and so much weaker. The siren's tail was frighteningly powerful and fast and he could cover miles in minutes. Steve could barely catch himself lunch if the fish was too fast and he tried not to let himself feel jealous. It's not that he would want to be a siren. But he sure wouldn't mind the strength that came with it.

Steve expected the siren to catch up with him any second now and he spared another glance behind himself to see nothing but empty, dark water. He was escaping! He was really getting out! Steve twirled through the water gleefully.

He didn't have much time to celebrate, however, because this was the ocean at night time and it was dangerous. All sorts of predators lurked in the darkness, things Steve could never fight off, things that could snap him in two if they wanted. But sirens, they were certainly the worst and he'd already escaped one! Maybe, Steve considered, he was lucky.

He had to find somewhere to duck inside of for the night. A hiding place, a cave, a crevice, something. He didn't recognize anything around him. He'd never been to this part of the ocean before. He could hardly even see through the dark.

It took him what felt like a long time, but finally Steve found a dark, hidden corner of the ocean and stowed himself away, crammed uncomfortably against rock and coral, and waited there until the sun rose.

In the morning, he tried to orient himself and find his way back. He had a nice little slice of ocean all to himself somewhere around here. A cozy hiding spot, easy-to-catch fish nearby. It was safe. But he hardly knew where he was now and he swam in circles trying to figure it out. Should he retrace his steps and risk seeing that siren again to find his way back? Should he keep swimming until something looked familiar? Should he call it quits and try to find another safe spot?

He wasn't allowed much time to make a decision, however, because something was coming out of the depths of the ocean and he could see it out of the corner of his eye and panicked. The shape grew larger and larger and Steve stared, rooted to the spot with a sense of dread clawing in his stomach. As he began to make out the shape of a shark, he began to force himself to move. He turned quickly, the water bubbling around him tumultuously, and began swimming away as fast as he could, blind with fear. He looked behind himself once and he could see the shark clearly now, the tip of it's nose and it's black eyes. He let out a gasp through his mouth and turned back around.

Steve didn't know where he was going, or what he'd do. He couldn't fight a shark! And there was no way he could outswim one. If he could lose it, maybe, or hide from it? But that was only if he could find somewhere to hide before the shark caught up to him.

I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, Steve thought frantically over and over and over as he led the shark as fast as he could in tight circles and around corners. Then, in front of him came another shape, headed straight for him, and Steve's eyes widened and he started frantically trying to backpedal. But behind him, the shark! Steve looked back and forth from the shark to… He squinted. Was that the siren from earlier?

The siren whizzed past him and Steve whirled around, propelled partially by the power of the water parting around the siren, and watched him tackle the shark. Steve stared, horrified, and the shark seemed equally afraid and swam away as soon as it could. Even the shark knew it was outmatched, and when the siren turned back around to face Steve, Steve backed away. Would he be angry that Steve had left? Would he take this opportunity to eat Steve's heart right out of his chest? If Steve couldn't face a shark, he certainly couldn't face a siren.

But he didn't look angry. He was giving Steve an expression Steve recognized from earlier, a pitiful and heartbroken look, like a kicked puppy. Steve stared, still tense and ready at any second to swim away again.

The siren made one miniscule move forward and Steve jumped back. Carefully, the siren lifted his hands up in a peace gesture and Steve looked back and forth from his strange, water hand to his real one. The siren looked at him imploringly.

Maybe he's not that bad, Steve thought to himself cautiously. I mean, he hasn't done anything really bad so far, except for beaching me. Steve made a face at the thought. He saved me just now, and he even gave me a name. He just seems… Weird.

Slowly, Steve brought himself just a little closer and the siren seemed to take that as a gesture of acceptance. A grin spread across his face and Steve flinched away a little at the sight of his filed teeth, but the siren didn't notice. He was too busy assaulting Steve with excitement, wrapping his arms around him too tightly and spinning him around in the water. Steve's eyes bugged and he thought he might vomit and then the siren started kissing him, pressing fast pecks all over his head and face. Steve sputtered and started trying to push him off.

Quit it! He thought. Geez, what is with you?

The siren answered his thoughts with another kiss right on the tip of his nose and Steve stared. When he pushed again, the siren reluctantly let go and Steve rubbed his nose with his palm spitefully, like he could rub the kiss off.

The siren was still looking at him like he was some sort of angel and then raised his hands. With one, he mimed writing on the palm of the other and Steve rolled his eyes.

The siren raised his hands again, as though to ask, wait here? Steve nodded curtly and the siren burst back out at top speed, leaving Steve in a flurry of bubbles. The bubbles had barely cleared by the time the siren reappeared, his weird writing materials in his hands and he looked like he might write something, but Steve ripped them away first and tore off the cap of his pen with his teeth.

"I didn't need your help," he wrote. He'd meant to say thank you, but he supposed this was pretty much the same thing. He crammed the board back into the siren's hands and the siren fumbled with them for a moment.

"Course not," he wrote back. "You had it totally under control. After all, the shark would have to wear out at some point of time."

Steve tore the board away again, angry about the teasing smile on the siren's stupid face.

"Don't think this means I'm going to forgive you or anything," he wrote next, rubbing out the siren's words with his elbow. He wondered if these pens were supposed to write underwater. The ink was fading, but the siren didn't seem to care.

"Forgive me for what?" The siren asked. With every time Steve had to take the board back out of his hands and write again, the angrier he felt. This was stupid!

"For holding me captive, you-" Steve hesitated when he couldn't seem to think of the perfect insult, and the siren took the board back again.

"Oh," he wrote next and he grinned up at Steve. "Sorry."

Steve ripped the board back again, but he couldn't think of anything extra to say. He just knew he didn't want the siren to have the last word. So instead, he dropped the board and pen and let them sink and the siren looked down, eyes wide, and went to retrieve them, and while he did, Steve began to swim away again.

The siren caught back up to him in minutes, swimming quickly along beside and writing as best as he could.

"Where are you going?" He asked. Steve rolled his eyes.

Away from you, he thought.

But in all reality, he had absolutely no idea where he was going.

"I'll come with you," the siren continued. "I'll protect you."

Steve ignored him.

"I'll be your bodyguard!" The siren wrote and Steve reached over and knocked the board out of his hands again, but the siren fumbled and caught it before it fell. "We could be happy!" He wrote and finally, Steve stopped and took the board again.

"I don't need a bodyguard!" He wrote, pressing the tip of the felt pen into the board with too much fierceness, so ink floated out of it and darkened the water around them. The siren tried to wave the ink away with his hands and only ended up getting the blackness caught in the tips of his water fingers. "Go away!" Steve added.

Although the siren looked hurt, he wasn't deterred. Steve didn't wait to see what he wrote in response, but when he swam away without him, the siren caught up.

Steve led him around the ocean, hoping to lose him and maybe find another good hiding spot, and the siren was annoyingly chipper. He swam circles around Steve, up and down, and once, he swam on his back directly underneath Steve for a good thirty minutes, writing various versions of 'I love you' on his board and sticking them in Steve's face. It was, at best, irritating.

Steve couldn't help but compare this siren to others he'd known and seen and the way he'd always thought he should respond to them. After all, everything else ran from them, so they must be the worst monsters the ocean had to offer, right? The sirens Steve had seen seemed vicious and brutal. They were more animal than anything else and they hissed and growled and spat and clawed. They took malicious pleasure in drowning human beings and hunting other creatures just for the kill. They were each about three hundred pounds of muscle and teeth and hate. They didn't save mermen, or kiss them on the nose, or look up at them from the edge of the water with pleading eyes. They didn't use their hands to write sweet things, they used them to kill.

Steve pressed his mouth together, annoyed, as the siren held up his board again.

"Where are we going?" He wrote and smiled innocently over the words.

There must be something wrong with this one, Steve decided.