Elegy

When the wall came down, Daniel took one end, and Gemma the other. But really, she didn’t even need his help, and she ended up carrying it on her own, over to the pile with other scrap wood while he went back to pulling out nails.

“For such a little thing, you’re awfully strong,” Daniel commented, as she walked back over to him.

Harper was on the tall side, taking after their mother that way, but Gemma was fairly short and slender. If she hadn’t been endowed with supernatural strength, she probably would’ve struggled with lifting most of the wood on her own.

She waved it off. “It’s the siren thing.”

“But if I understand this right, you’re not as strong as you can be.” He’d stopped what he was doing, holding a hammer loosely in his hand, and faced her.

“What do you mean?” Gemma asked.

“This form, when you’re human.” He motioned to her. “You’re stronger than the average teenage girl, stronger than the average grown man, too, apparently, but it’s not your full potential. Like when Lexi was that bird thing, she was much stronger than you. Or is that just because she was older?”

“I think it’s a combination of both,” Gemma admitted. “Lexi knew how to use the power she had, and the monster is stronger than our human form.”

“So … why don’t you use it?” Daniel asked.

Gemma shook her head and looked away from him. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is, and I don’t mean to rag on you, but Lexi almost killed us,” he said without any accusation. “She was actually really close to killing me, but if you had been that monster, you would’ve done a hell of a lot better in a fight.”

“I know, and I am so sorry that you were in that situation,” she said, rushing to apologize again.

“Gemma, I’m not trying to make you feel bad.” He stepped closer to her. “I’m just saying that you need to do everything you can to protect yourself and the people you care about. If Harper had been up there instead of me, Penn wouldn’t have killed Lexi to protect her like she did with me. Harper would be dead now.”

Gemma’d already thought of that, and she swallowed hard. “I know. But you don’t know what it was like. When I was the monster, I wasn’t in control of myself at all. It took me over and I couldn’t think straight and…”

“I know that you hurt someone,” he said softly. “But Lexi seemed in control of herself when she was the monster. And if Lexi could do it, and she was a reckless idiot, you can do it.”

“I know that I need to practice, but I’m just afraid of what could happen when I lose control.”

“You’re stronger than this, Gemma,” Daniel said in a confident way that made her look up at him. “You can get ahold of this, you can be in control of your powers. You just have to try.”

“Like … right now?” Gemma asked.

“Why not? We’re alone in an empty theater.” He gestured widely at the stage. “If you rampage, you’ll break a few seats and tear some curtains. Nothing I can’t fix.”

“What if I hurt you?” Gemma asked.

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just am.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know how to.”

“How did you make the wings happen before?”

“I was scared as hell.” Gemma remembered the attack at the sirens’ house with perfect clarity. “I thought Lexi was going to kill you, and it just happened. My fingers and teeth have changed before, too, but it’s only when I feel threatened, or I’m really, really hungry.”

“Okay. So recapture that emotion. I can threaten you if you want,” Daniel offered.

“No,” she said quickly. “That doesn’t seem safe.”

“How about this? Think of Penn or that horrible new siren Liv,” he suggested. “And they’re going after Harper or Alex. Hell, they’re going after both of them. Really picture them hurting the people you care about most.”

Gemma closed her eyes and tried to will herself to feel the terror she’d felt before. In her mind, she pictured Liv’s wicked smile and Penn’s shifting into the bird-monster. And then she imagined them going after Alex and Harper, which wasn’t hard to do since she’d already imagined it a hundred times before.

Normally, she’d try to ease her panic and get the images out of her mind. She’d do something proactive, like researching the scroll or going swimming to clear her mind, but now she let it linger. She made herself feel the absolute terror and rage at the thought of losing the people she loved the most.

And then she began to feel it. The flutter across her skin, radiating all over her body. It was a subtle, pleasurable feeling. It seemed focused in her hands, as an odd, stretching sensation passed over them.

When she opened her eyes, she could visibly see it happening. Her fingers were elongating, the skin stretching unnaturally. Her nails even began to grow, changing color from white to a dark brown as they thickened and began to hook like talons.

“Oh my gosh. My fingers…” Gemma gasped, watching her hands transform.

She’d been afraid that if she stopped focusing her energy on transforming, that it would stop, but now, since she was terrified about losing control, the fear seemed to push it on. Her fingers continued to grow until they were nearly a foot long. The skin stretched tight on her hands and arms, making the bones stand out more sharply.

“Does it hurt?” Daniel asked, peering at her hands.

“No, it tingles … and it feels kinda good, actually,” she admitted.

The flutter continued over her skin and all throughout her. Heat surged through her arm muscles, but even that felt oddly good. Her heart seemed to beat differently, and it felt as if it were expanding her chest, pounding more forcefully and pumping blood more rapidly through her veins.

When her wings had torn through her back during her final encounter with Lexi, that had been incredibly painful. She’d felt the skin ripping. But this was much different.

“That is so weird,” Daniel said, sounding in awe of her transformation as her arms began to stretch and grow.

“My mouth itches,” Gemma said, and the words came out with a lisp when her tongue hit against the sharp points of her new teeth.

The roof of her mouth was burning hot, and she could taste blood, but she wasn’t sure if it was from her gums as new teeth tore through or from her tongue’s hitting against them.

“Ugh.” Gemma groaned. “It’s hard to talk with these teeth.”

Daniel stared at her with wide eyes. “Okay, that is really gross.”

“You’re not helping,” Gemma said dryly.

Thankfully, she couldn’t see herself, but she knew exactly how Lexi and Penn looked when they changed. They had a mouthful of hundreds of razor-sharp teeth poking jaggedly out of their mouths, so their lips were stretched around them in a thin, red line.

Gemma could feel the tightness of her lips, and her vision changed, becoming clearer as her eyes changed into the yellow, birdlike eyes of the monster. She could even hear the bones in her face cracking as they shifted and moved to accommodate a much larger mouth.

“I’m sorry, but…” Daniel shook his head. “That’s just … not pretty at all.”

When the bones stopped cracking, she realized she could hear much clearer than she had before. The sound of Daniel’s breath and even the sound of his heartbeat echoed in her ears.

And the transformation seemed to make her hungrier. Not ravenous like she’d been before, when she’d killed a man, but it was gnawing inside her, spreading out from her stomach with insistent electricity.

“Should I do more?” Gemma asked, and her voice had taken on that slightly demonic tone she heard when Lexi and Penn spoke in this form.

“Can you do more?” Daniel asked.

Her legs hadn’t shifted at all, and her wings hadn’t broken out yet, so she knew she could go further. But she wasn’t sure that she should. “I don’t know.”

“How does it feel? Are you still in control?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not eating you, but I do feel hungrier.” She breathed in deeply, trying to calm the hunger