The silence pressed down heavier than the sound ever had.
Adam's spine stiffened.
Why?
He held up a hand, palm outward, motioning for Morris to stay calm and quiet. Morris frowned, reaching automatically for one ear plug.
Adam caught his wrist and shook his head firmly.
Keep them in.
Morris hesitated, confused, but finally nodded.
Adam rose slowly and stepped out of the cockpit enclosure onto the open funnel deck. From that vantage point, the lake stretched wide and dark in every direction, moonlight fractured across its surface.
Their rowboat drifted several yards away now, slowly turning as it caught a gentle current back toward the island.
"Ah fuck." Adam muttered under his breath.
We're Stranded.
He scanned the water again.
Movement?
To the starboard side of the wreck, a pale shape sliced silently through the lake. One of the sirens.
She circled at a measured distance, no longer singing, her luminescent patterns faint beneath the surface like submerged constellations. The water parted around her with smooth, predatory grace.
Watching.
Waiting.
Adam's jaw tightened.
They were sitting on a rusted corpse in open water.
And the lake was not done with them yet.
They were exposed.
Adam turned away from the railing, jaw tight.
He needed the boat.
Now.
He stepped back into the cockpit enclosure where Morris stood rubbing warmth into his arms, confusion and frustration wrestling across his face. Adam reached out and pulled one of the orange plugs from Morris's ear.
Instantly, the night rushed back into him. The lapping water. The distant groan of metal. The low whistle of wind through fractured beams.
"What's going on?" Morris demanded, his voice edged with lingering adrenaline. "Why are we on a wreck? And why were you—"
"I'm going to scout the ship for supplies," Adam cut in, keeping his tone level despite the throb still pulsing in his skull. "Whatever you do, don't take the plugs off. Stay here."
Morris stared at him. "Why?"
Adam held his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
"The sirens are trying to kill us," he said plainly.
The words landed heavy.
Morris blinked once, twice, as if weighing whether this was a joke delivered too dry. Adam's expression offered no relief.
Before Morris could press further, Adam pushed the plug back into his ear and sealed it firmly. The second plug remained in place. Morris's confusion did not fade, but he did not argue. He took in Adam's soaked body and pants, the tremor still ghosting through his shoulders as the adrenaline burned out, the irritation simmering just beneath his skin.
He nodded reluctantly.
Adam left him there.
The interior of the wreck swallowed him quickly.
He descended into the lower deck through a slanted corridor that had once been a narrow staircase. The steps were half torn away, forcing him to grip the railing and lower himself down carefully. The metal was slick with condensation and coated in a fine grit of rust that stained his palms reddish brown.
The air below deck was different.
Heavier.
It carried the thick scent of oxidized iron, stagnant water, and something faintly organic, like seaweed left too long in the sun. Every breath tasted metallic.
The hull creaked as the lake shifted around it. Somewhere deeper inside, a slow drip echoed at irregular intervals, each drop striking water below with a soft, patient plink.
He moved cautiously, boots thudding softly against warped flooring. His eyes required no adjustment; darkness parted easily for him. He saw the peeling paint on bulkheads, the way moisture had bubbled it outward in blistered patches. He saw handprints fossilized in rust where someone had once steadied themselves years ago.
Nothing useful.
Broken crates.
Rotten rope too brittle to bear weight.
A collapsed locker spilling out mildewed life vests that would disintegrate under strain.
He exhaled through his nose.
Think.
His gaze drifted toward the stern through a jagged split in the wall where moonlight spilled in at an angle.
The anchor.
If the anchor line was still intact, if it had not rusted clean through, he could haul it. He could use its weight. Hook the drifting rowboat. Pull it in before the current carried it out of reach.
He would worry about explaining that feat of strength to Morris later.
He turned toward the rear of the ship and navigated the narrowing passageway that led deeper into the stern. The floor slanted subtly downward as the hull dipped into the water. The further he went, the louder the lake became. Water slapped rhythmically against the submerged plating below, each impact sending a dull vibration through the metal beneath his feet.
The ship's midsection had split cleanly at some point in the past.
The upper half remained attached to the bow, twisted but elevated above the waterline. The lower half sagged downward, still clinging stubbornly but angled into the lake at a sharp incline. The seam where the vessel had torn apart gaped open like a wound, edges jagged and curled outward.
Through that open seam, he could see black water shifting just below.
It licked at the lower deck, sliding in and out with patient persistence. The surface was opaque, swallowing moonlight whole.
He stopped at the break.
Going further meant stepping onto the angled lower section, where one wrong shift in balance could send him sliding into the water between hull fragments.
He was not about to test what waited beneath.
He turned slightly, scanning for anything else that might serve his purpose.
That was when he noticed it.
A rope.
Thick. Darkened with age. Stretched taut.
It emerged from the water on the stern side, disappearing over the broken edge of the hull and running upward along the interior wall. It fed through a metal pulley bolted near the ceiling and then vanished through a doorway further forward.
It was under tension.
He stepped beneath it and reached up, fingers closing around the coarse fibers. They felt swollen with years of moisture, stiff yet unbroken.
He tugged.
The rope resisted for a fraction of a second.
Then something shifted.
Metal clanked from the adjacent room, a hollow ringing sound that bounced sharply through the corridor.
He stilled.
The lake continued its slow breathing outside.
Then he heard it.
A voice.
Faint. Hoarse. Human.
Not singing.
Not melodic.
A strained exhale that carried the shape of a word he could not quite make out.
Every muscle in his body tightened.
He followed the rope toward the doorway, steps slow now, deliberate. The metal wheel on the door was rusted nearly solid. He gripped it and turned.
It resisted at first, then gave with a sharp screech that grated along his nerves.
The door swung inward.
The room beyond was dark, windowless except for a fractured porthole near the ceiling where thin moonlight filtered in. The beam cut through suspended dust and moisture, illuminating particles that drifted lazily in the stale air.
He stepped inside.
And stopped.
A cage hung from the ceiling.
It was suspended by the very rope he had tugged, secured through the pulley and anchored toward the stern. The cage itself was iron, bars thick but corroded, flakes of rust collecting on the floor beneath it like red snow.
It swayed slightly from his earlier pull.
Inside was a girl.
She was naked.
Her wrists were bound tightly behind her back, rope looped not only around them but cinched across her torso, pinning her arms flush against her sides. The rope cut into her skin in places, leaving angry red impressions. Her legs were free, though bruised along the shins and knees as if she had been kicking against the bars for some time.
Her skin caught the dim light in a way that unsettled him.
It was pale, but not the pallor of illness. It had an undertone to it, faintly greenish beneath the surface, as if something aquatic lay just below the dermis. Patches along her thighs and ribs looked dry, almost peeling, like skin deprived of water for too long.
Her hair hung in thick strands down her back and over one shoulder.
Dark burgundy.
Long. Tangled. Dried stiff in places as though it had once been soaked and left to crust in salt.
Her face was what held him.
Delicate features. A small, upturned nose. Full lips parted slightly as she breathed. High cheekbones that caught the faint moonlight.
Cute.
That was the first word that intruded unbidden.
The kind of face that could ask you to jump off a cliff in the gentlest voice imaginable and make you believe it was your idea.
Her eyes lifted to meet his.
Green.
Not the luminous jade of the sirens outside.
These were deeper. Earthier.
Human in color.
Not human in feeling.
There was something behind them. Something layered. A stillness that did not match the obvious strain in her bound body.
Shock flared across her expression the same instant it mirrored across his.
For a suspended second, neither of them moved.
The cage creaked softly as it swayed.
The rope above groaned faintly against the pulley.
Water struck the hull outside in a steady, patient rhythm.
Adam felt his heartbeat slow and sharpen simultaneously, senses locking onto the details with ruthless clarity. The faint tremor in her calf where muscle strained against confinement. The way her fingers flexed uselessly behind her back. The dryness at the edges of her lips.
And her eyes.
They did not leave his.
Not in relief.
Not In recognition.
But in fear.
The air between them felt charged, as if the lake itself had drawn in a breath and was waiting to see which of them would exhale first.
The ship creaked again.
Somewhere beyond the hull, something moved in the water.
Adam did not look away.
Neither did she.