This story seems to be getting little in the way of readers compared to my other work. Maybe Siren readers just plain don't like darker content, if so this story may be in trouble. I don't know, maybe I'm just searching for something that doesn't exist, wouldn't be the first time.

Enjoy.

"Maddie?" Ben was dumbstruck. He had to be hallucinating, there was no way she was here! And yet she was, Maddie was right there looking exactly how Ben remembered.

It hadn't been that long since Ben had last seen her, but it felt like an eternity.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see y…" Ben was so overcome with joy at seeing his girlfriend, relationship troubles or no, in this bizarre place, that he was rushing forth to embrace her before even thinking about it.

The sharp smack of Maddie's hand making contact with Ben face sent a resounding echo across the quiet streets.

"Don't touch me." Ben stumbled back, not so much from the physical blow, but from the sheer ice in Maddie's voice. "After all you've done, you don't get to touch me."

"Maddie?" Ben absentmindedly rubbed at his stinging cheek. "W… what?"

"Did I say you could talk to me?" Maddie snarled, finger jabbing Ben roughly in the chest repeatedly.

Backing up with each hit, Ben was unable to speak. Granted, he and Maddie hadn't been on the best of terms, there was no reason for her to be this hostile. He'd seen her angry before, but this was an entirely new Maddie Ben had never seen before.

Ben held his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture only to see something red on his hands. In a panic, he scrambled away from Maddie, mindlessly flicking both to dislodge whatever it was. It didn't take Ben long to realize it was paint, fresh, and still dripping from his digits.

Wait… paint wasn't this sticky or this… Ben felt the bile rising in his throat when he figured out what the substance actually was.

Blood.

"Maddie!" Ben felt his alarm swelling, now fueled with terror. "What's… where are you going?"

Ben's fear was replaced with confusion when he saw Maddie walking away.

"Why are you talking to me?" Maddie stopped to look over her shoulder, eyes harder than stone. "Don't you want to go find your precious Ryn? Seeing as how you love her so much more than me."

"Ryn?" Ben was even more confused now, something Ben hadn't thought of as possible. "She's here, too?"

"Why don't you go have a chat with her?" Maddie laughed, a hollow sound that was just so… wrong. "I'm sure she'd just love to see you."

"Maddie, hang on!" Ben called out to his again retreating girlfriend but she simply ignored him.

Enraged or not, Maddie was the only other living thing Ben had encountered besides himself since he could remember. Letting her walk away was not an option. Seeing no other choice, he gave chase.

With her head start, Ben was barely able to make out Maddie's silhouette through the haze. He ran as fast as he could push his legs to take him yet made no progress. With each step he took, Maddie seemed to take three.

Maddie was walking and he was running. So how on earth was she managing to outpace him!

"Maddie!" Ben yelled, already losing her in the fog. "Maddie! Where did you go? Maddie!"

Stopping to catch his breath, Ben strained his ears to hear. With it being so quiet, maybe he could hear her footsteps. Ben had forgotten about the mysterious song that continued to surround him. It dashed any hopes he had of hearing Maddie's movements.

"Huh?" Ben saw that the blood on his hands had vanished, no sign left that it had ever been there. Was that all just in his imagination?

Forcing himself to calm down, he considered what Maddie's presence meant. He definitely wasn't the only one in Bristol Cove, Maddie was here, and god knows who else.

What was it Maddie had said? She didn't say it outright, but the implication was that Ryn was in Bristol Cove right now. Okay, that was something Ben could work with. At least he could, once he figured out where to possibly go now.

"You look a little lost, Ben."

Head turning so fast he almost had whiplash, Ben found none other than Aldon Decker sitting on a nearby bench. He wasn't looking at Ben directly, instead he stared at something far off, occasionally taking a sip from a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Decker?" While one of the last people Ben wanted to see right now, he knew beggars couldn't be choosers. "What are you doing here?"

"That's the first question you ask?" Decker looked up then, chuckling to himself.

"What else would I…" Realization caught up to Ben when his head reminded him about a very important fact. "You're dead. You… you died."

"Did I? Hmm…" Decker looked off in the distance again, as if mulling the idea over in his head. "Yes, that does sound about right."

"Then how are we talking right now?" Ben had a feeling he knew at least one possible answer, but it wasn't exactly one he wanted to consider. "Seeing as how you're dead and I'm not."

"Have you considered the possibility that you're dead, too?"

Enough was enough.

Helen was fine with letting people make their own decisions, such was their right, but there came a point when outside intervention was required. Such as right now, for instance.

"I'm going out for a bit. You need anything from town?" Helen paused to regard Ryn. The mermaid was seated at the large picture window in her living room, eyes staring out at the horizon.

"I am fine." Ryn took her eyes off the landscape for only a fraction of a second. Her tone lacked much of its usual vigor. She sounded so down and defeated, just hearing it made Helen sad on her behalf. If ever there were a depressed mermaid, Ryn was the spitting image.

Since returning to live with Helen, this was where Ryn spent most of her free time. She would help the older woman around the store during the day, but evenings were spent right here. Sitting in a window and watching the horizon.

Ryn's body might be in Helen's apartment, but her mind was in a certain houseboat down by the water. She desperately wanted to go back, but stubbornly clung to the belief she was doing Ben a favor by staying away.

Ryn didn't tell Helen any of this, she didn't have to. Helen had been around long enough to know when someone was pining for someone. Though what actually ran through the mermaid's mind at these times was a mystery to even Helen. She clearly missed Ben dearly, Maddie too, but there was something else that went beyond missing a dear friend.

This had been strike one. Strike two came when Maddie arrived at the shop a couple days into Ryn's new living arrangements. She'd pretended to look around the store before approaching Helen to ask how Ryn was doing. When Helen offered to go get her so woman and mermaid could talk, Maddie was quick to refuse. She didn't want to see Ryn but wanted to know if she was doing alright.

Even now, Helen wasn't sure how Maddie was feeling at the mention of the mermaid. Ryn did accidentally destroy Ben and Maddie's relationship, though describing it in such a way was unfair to Ryn. Regardless, Ryn wasn't Maddie's favorite person right now, and she had no desire to even see her, let alone talk.

The true strike two was when Maddie let slip she hadn't seen Ben since their separation. While this was understandable, it was a huge red flag for Helen. Neither Ryn nor Maddie had been looking after Ben, whom at this point was no doubt suffering withdrawals from the siren song. The effects of which could be unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

It was not hopeless, though. From what Helen had been able to gather, Ben and Xander managed to patch things up and were on good terms again. As long as Ben had at least one person somewhat looking after him, he'd be fine.

Strike three was running into Xander at the store and finding out he hadn't seen Ben for several days. Ben had become withdrawn and distant when Xander last saw him, his calls were going unanswered, and Xander was unable to go see him in person because of troubles with his ship's crew.

What began as red flags became full blaring alarm bells.

The proverbial last straw had broken the camel's back. If nobody else was going to check on Ben, then Helen would have to do it herself.

Helen didn't have much in the way of living relatives these days, at least not close ones. She'd always known about her family connection to the Pownalls but it hadn't meant that much for a long time. Now that the secret was out in the open, Helen almost felt a familial obligation to look after Ben. No matter how small the percentage, they were family.

"Ben?" Helen arrived at Ben's houseboat at record time. The man's car was out front, but the door was locked. The former a good sign he was present, the latter a bad sign because he never locked the door when he was home.

Knocking on the door again yielded no results. Fishing out her spare key, grateful Ben had given her one sometime back just before he and Maddie split, Helen unlocked the door and stepped inside.

"Ben, you home?" The place was quiet, unnervingly so.

The first sign of wrongness was the shattered glass on the carpet nearby. Checking the back of the door, Helen saw the fresh scarring. Was somebody throwing kitchenware at the door?

Before Helen could look further, she caught sight of the body.

"Ben!" Rushing as fast as her older bones would allow, Helen crossed the distance into the bedroom area where Ben lay sprawled across the floor.

Ben's chest was moving with a slow intake of breath, but only barely. Cuts and bruises marred his hands, with a particularly nasty gash crossing his forehead and temple. None of the wounds looked particularly fresh, the blood having dried and crusted upon his far too pale skin.

Scrambling for her phone, Helen dialed 911. "911? I need an ambulance…"

Decker burst into laughter at Ben's horrified expression. "Relax, Ben. You're not dead. Not yet, at least."

"Then care to explain what's going on? Where am I? And why are you here?" Ben was desperate for answers, far too many questions swam within his thoughts.

'We're in Bristol Cove, your home town." Decker held his arms up to indicate their surroundings.

"Yeah, thanks captain obvious." Ben deadpanned.

"You're welcome." Decker ignored the barb, taking another drink of his coffee. "As for why I am here, I'm sure you noticed I'm not the only one."

"Yeah, I already ran into Maddie." Ben still didn't know what to think of his meeting with Maddie. Sure, he'd made a number of mistakes, but did he really deserve such venom?

"Yes, I saw." Decker nodded. "But there is one in particular you need to be on the lookout for."

"Who's that?"

Decker's head jerked, as if hearing something he only now noticed. "Looks like you're out of time, she's coming."

Something in Decker's voice put Ben on edge. "Who? Who's coming?"

"Can't you hear it?" Decker closed his eyes, swaying back and forth.

The song? What did that have to do with…

This whole time it was the same volume no matter where Ben went or how hard he tried to block it out. Now, it was growing steadily louder and louder. Ben hadn't caught on until Decker pointed it out. Now that he was paying attention to it, the melody was nearly deafening.

To Ben's horror, he recognized it now.

"Decker." Ben swallowed hard, insides twisting into knots as he raised his voice so that the other man could hear him over the song. "Who is coming?"

"She's coming, Ben. I suggest you start running."

"Who is coming, Decker?" Ben felt like the sound was boring a hole straight through his skull. Another lance of pain shot through his head, much like whenever he tried to remember how he got here. His forehead and temple took the brunt of it.

Decker's lips raised in a maniacal grin, the sight of which was every bit as unnatural as Maddie's laugh from earlier. Both left Ben feeling sick to his stomach.

"Death."

Let me know what you all think, comments/reviews help my work move along more than I can explain. Especially since my last two didn't go over so well.