addierose (addierose) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-02-25 14:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-05 |
Teenagers scare the living shit out of me!
Who: Addie and Adelle
Where: The park, Ann Arbor, a cliff in the woods, and roads between.
When: afternoon
Warnings: Violence, and a young character being way too happy about it.
Addie had left the house with the intent to go exploring. Her dad had asked her to keep her phone on and make sure she was home for dinner, but otherwise said to have fun, so she changed out of her pajamas and headed out. Mostly she was just bored, wandering around the park. That is, until she'd spotted a boy just a couple of years older, apparently on his own. He was sitting on the bench of a picnic table when she spotted him, looking out at the park, but now he was staring at Addie. She was perched on the table, singing. Occasionally a passerby would look around with interest, hearing the voice, but the boy she was singing to was entranced. He was listening, slackjawed, staring at Addie, who was staring back into his eyes.
"You always let me down..." She was singing, some pop song she'd heard on MTV this one time. The words, apparently, didn't matter. She brought a hand up slowly, resting it on the boy's cheek. Her eyes flicked downwards, to his throat, and her hand slid down to the side of his neck, cupping it. She brushed her thumb over his adam's apple, suddenly realizing what she meant to do, and finding it natural. "You are my love, my love..." The other hand came up, pressing to the other side of his neck, taking her time, the boy not even apparently noticing, entranced. "Honey, honey, honey, you're the death of me..."
It was a nice song to dance to, and Adelle was doing just that. She'd heard it before, and the memory of the jaunty tune of guitar and piano was enough to keep her spinning in circles for hours if she wanted to. It had been a decent amount of time since she'd last danced, and she could feel her skill and flexibility slip with each day that went by that she didn't go out and stretch, or spin in the sun with the graces of a ballerina fueling her pirouettes. She'd taken off her adorable flats and was enjoying the feeling of gliding over the grass. While she was spinning in her pirouettes, Adelle always tried to keep her head high and lead with the leg and hip that were above the ground. Today, her view dipped down when she caught sight of a boy and girl on one of the nearby benches. She was singing to him, and he was sitting in rapture as the young one hit the song out of the park with an incredible voice.
Young love, how incredibly sweet. The brunette turned to pull the water bottle from her tote, and when she turned back around she was alarmed to see the boy in the girl's hands. Quite literally, too. God, she'd started with heavy petting at a young age but this was something else entirely! That girl couldn't have been older than say, thir-- siren. Tiny siren. With the realization, Adelle dropped the water bottle and ran toward the pair. She couldn't kill him before she even walked there, but she wasn't going to take a chance with the little thing getting caught. There were too many people around, and to make it worse they were paying attention to her because of the song but only he was truly in her trance. She plopped down on the bench behind the girl, placing her hands on her arms and moving them away as slowly as she could. "Not here," she whispered. "There's too many people. Make him run away or he's going to cause a really big scene."
Addie jumped when someone touched her, and the boy blinked, but she quickly sang again, keeping him enthralled, even if the interruption pissed her off. She tugged her arms against Adelle's hold, she had to do this, she'd go crazy if she didn't, but the older woman had a solid hold. So Addie huffed and squirmed once more and made it clear that she was not a happy camper, but suddenly the boy looked terrified and tripped over himself getting off the bench and running away, booking it across the field and running straight into a young woman with a dog, sending both of them flying, but he was out of her influence now, so she turned, glaring at the strange woman. "Who are you? My dad will worry if I'm not home for dinner, so don't try to kidnap me or anything." She huffed again, turning so she was looking straight ahead, back pin-straight as she glared at nothing in particular.
So he ran away in a hurry, quite the hurry, but at least he wasn't here on the bench, dead. In the same situation she would probably be royally pissed, so she rose and walked a little ways from the bench before turning to face the girl. How could she put this without seeming crazy? There wasn't really a way, so she thought of a way to at least start. It wasn't easy to tell somebody that she was a siren, even if they seemed to be one themselves. "Adelle. And I'm the same as you. But luckily when I had my first it wasn't in a park with half the world walking around behind me, listening to me sing." She couldn't believe what was going on, and almost wanted to walk away from it without another word but she felt the pang in her heart that wanted her to help. Well maybe she had enough experience to enlighten the poor thing.
"Has your mother told you what you are yet?"
Addie's expression darkened. "Addie Dawson. I haven't seen my mother since I was three. I live with my dad." She buried her face in her hands, rubbing at her eyes and trying not to tear her hair out. She rocked back and forth slightly. She could feel it like a physical ache now, like something had been ripped away. She needed that boy back, or any boy, wanted a throat under her hands. She stood up off the bench and started walking without even really thinking about it, her purse bouncing off her hip. Her instincts were taking her to where she knew she could find a man who would hold still long enough, even if that man happened to be her father. She didn't even realize the thought was in her head.
Imagine that, another girl with the same nickname as herself. She watched as the need for the kill worked its way through the girl, and when she popped up, walking past Adelle, the older girl didn't place her hands on her again. Addie was going hunting. "Well, for one thing, you need to try and control yourself for at least five minutes so we can come up with a better plan than assaulting the first person you see." How could she help the little bird if she was going to dive head first into getting herself caught. She'd at least had the little bit of control to not be seen her first time, even if everybody knew that the last person the boy had been with was herself. "If all else fails, I have a car. Scarlet Oak is literally surrounded by woods. I know you can't hold out longer than that, but I can get you somewhere safe at least." With a light jog, she caught up with the teenager and stood in front of her. "Sirens need to stick together. And I'm sorry about your mother."
Addie stopped when Adelle stood in front of her, having to concentrate on not moving her feet, but she nodded. The need for it was still strong, but she took a deep breath and looked up at Adelle, as composed as she could manage. "I have to be home for dinner." She knew that there was no possible way she should be trusting this strange woman she'd just met, but she seemed to know what was happening, understand what she was feeling right now, and maybe she could help. Maybe this awful feeling would go away. Then what the older woman had said caught up to her. "Wait, sirens? Like they were talking about on the news?"
There were sirens in the news? She hadn't been watching recently but that didn't bode well for any of the two-- well now three, that she knew resided in the town. But then it hit her, her mother had been gone since she was little and maybe her father didn't know what her mother was, or was quite oblivious, like her own. The poor girl had no clue what she was getting herself wrapped up in, and Adelle was along for an even greater ride. "Mm-hmm. Sorry to be the one to break it to you. I don't think any other race sings to somebody before they attempt to strangle them. Your voice is beautiful too, and you were affecting everyone around. I'd be a fool if I didn't think you were like me. I-I don't know if you'd want to tell your father, because we usually have our mothers around." It was a serious conundrum. She'd never let a word slip to her own father, but that was because she kind of assumed that her mother had told him, or that he knew, simply.
"I just wouldn't want to take you, because that's ridiculous and I'm going to look and feel like a creepy kidnapper. It's really up to you, but I think there are some questions that you'll have that I might be able to answer. If not, then we're definitely both in deeper trouble than we thought." But how could she get such a young girl to trust her so quickly? "Do whatever you have to to make sure that you'll be safe with me, take my picture on your phone, send your dad my number, anything. But I want you to feel like you're going to be safe, because God totally knows whoever we find isn't going to be."
"I tell my dad everything," was her instinctive answer, but then she bit her lip. Maybe...maybe this was a secret she could keep for a little while. They'd been together watching TV when they'd seen a story on sirens being one of the threats the supernaturals wanted to warn about. She felt like she'd let him down if she told him she was one of them. He'd talked about feeling pity for sirens, feeling bad for them that they had to kill people to retain their own sanity. She didn't want his pity, or his disappointment, even though logically she knew that it wasn't her fault she was a siren, nor was her father likely to blame her for being so, in his mind. In his heart, though...
Addie listened to Adelle speak, head tilted a little, blonde hair with the few crazy streaks falling over her shoulders. She considered those options -- she wasn't going to tell her father she was wandering off with a strange woman, because he'd come charging out swinging his metaphorical sword to protect his baby. She thought about it, then pulled out her phone, squinting at the glare off the screen as she took a picture of Adelle, then sent the picture to one of her cousins back in Boston, a much younger female cousin of her father's who had been something of an older sister figure for Addie, a place she could go and person she could talk to for things she didn't want to discuss with her dad. She added the text you've been replaced :p so the cousin would recognize this as a person Addie was trusting, then tucked her phone away again. "Okay. So what's a better plan than first person I see?" She glanced at a man passing behind Adelle and felt her hands itch, but looked back down at the woman.
"I was once told to pick somebody that wouldn't be missed. Wait, wait, we can't talk about this in public. Come on." Well, for one thing, her car was still going to be in public, but if they spoke low enough and didn't do any crazy hand movements or look generally suspicious, no harm would come to them. Adelle walked back to her tote bag and picked the thing up, and was displeased to see that her water bottle had rolled away and entirely given up its contents. Sighing, she picked up the spent plastic and shoved it into the bag. She took out her keys and the headlights of the nearby G37 blinked to life and the doors audibly unlocked.
"In we go." And once they were inside, she turned the vehicle on to give them some cool air. The doors remained unlocked, so Addie knew that she was free to go at anytime. "Okay, I was taught that you should pick somebody that won't be missed. I'm sure that boy had parents around they would come looking. And a lot of people saw you with him. It's easier when you're older. Second is to leave as little evidence behind as possible. You don't look like you've ever been in trouble so I don't think you'd have a problem with being linked to anything. What else is there. Oh! OH! We can turn into birds. But I'm pretty sure you're just itching to kill, so the big question is, do you want to, or do you want to fight the feeling?"
Addie blinked a few times, because that "oh and by the way we can turn into birds" seemed like it might have been given a little more screen time, but she shook her head a little, moving on as Adelle did. "I...I want it to go away, I don't think I can fight it," she said, shaking her head and biting her lip. She knew the idea of killing someone should probably give her a lot more pause, but at this moment, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world that she should kill someone. Someone male, specifically. There would be time to struggle with the morality later, her head was starting to pound, everything in her wanting it, there was no other way to describe this. "Someone who won't be missed," she repeated, shaking her head and trying to focus, but it wasn't easy, and she turned to glance out the window on her side, looking longingly at every man that passed by. "But if it's just a random guy on the street there's no way to trace it back to me, is there?" she asked, watching as a group of boys her age approached on skateboards, joking and laughing.
It was with pity and wonder that Adelle watched the girl's head dart too and fro, seeking a target, seeking a male to kill. "Right, but Scarlet Oak is so small that if we were to kill here, the cops would be all over the town. Trust me, it happened to me. We kill men, it's just our instinct. Like the old Greek legends. We sing our song, pull them in, end their lives. Then we get to be sane for however long it is our minds decide to be sane." Adelle let the little one soak in the information, and it helped her reflect on everything she had said and would need to say. She took a deep breath, looked at Addie, and just couldn't imagine her being a siren, doing the things that the brunette did on a regular basis. "I don't know how to explain this next part. We're like... highly sexual. But I guess it might be more of your upbringing than being a siren. Sex leaves a man vulnerable to your whims, but oh God, I am so not condoning you go out and seduce people. Please don't do that. I think step one is for us to find somebody for you. Find somebody potentially out of Scarlet Oak, and then you can gouge his eyes out for all I care."
Addie looked mildly grossed out. "My parents were sixteen when they had me. Sex is not worth the drama," she said, shaking her head to emphasize the point. She was curious, yeah, but her dad had explained masturbation so really she was set thanks. She sighed and sat up a little more, gaze still flicking between the men she saw. "So, someone who's not from Scarlet Oak. Like a tourist?" Being from a big city, Addie could pretty much spot a tourist at fifty paces, and she started keeping an eye out for anyone who looked particularly like they were from out of town. Scarlet Oak was not exactly a tourism mecca, though. It occurred to her she might have missed the meaning entirely and glanced around at Adelle again, awaiting any further instruction.
Adelle put the car into reverse, her flats working against the clutch to bring the car out of the parking space, and then both feet were used as she shifted into first and rolled toward the exit. "I kinda meant that we're going to find somebody, and that somebody is probably walking around in Ann Arbor right now. I'll have you home before dinner, I promise." The street had a different speed limit than the park and Adelle shifted into second to bring them to speed with traffic quickly, and then third and fourth were passed as she neared fifty. "I'd tell you to call me Adi, but it's going to be confusing for both of us." And probably anybody else we talk to or if somebody were keeping track of us, reading our every thought and movement. Within minutes they were speeding out of the town on their way to Ann Arbor. Adelle was no Roxy, but she could hold her own in a car, totally. "Questions, I know you have them. I still freaking have them."
Addie nodded a little, buckling her seatbelt as the car started moving, and then curling her knees up to her chest. She pushed her skirt up so her knees were covered and rested her forehead against them, hair falling in her face, because it was just getting more painful every minute she went. "My real name is Addison," she said, sniffing once and looking up to peer out the window again as they got into traffic. "My dad calls me Addie Rose sometimes, Rose is my middle name." She rubbed a hand over her face. "Yeah, question. We can turn into birds?" she asked, looking over at Adelle with a Deeply Weirded Out expression.
"Okay, so I'll just be Adelle. And Addie Rose is a very cute name. Wow just calling myself Adi Ryn would've been such an improvement on my middle name. Leave it to you showing up to make me realize that." The brunette took them faster, as fast as she dared. She could see the pain on Addie's face, and she didn't want to see it get worse. When a child was in pain you took them to the hospital, when a siren child was in pain you took her to stab somebody in the face. Semantics, really. Adelle hit the sixth gear and they were virtually flying through woodland. She prayed that no families with children, or beavers, or deer, or even were deer popped out before they reached their destination. Although hitting a man would be interesting at this speed. "Yeah, if anybody suspects you're not entirely human, we easily pass for weres. My bird form is some kind of African bird, totally odd, I know. Good thing for us, we can shift into the bird form without pain, but if you gotta ditch your clothes or they're going to end up choking you or you'll rip them. Shifting came naturally for me my first time, but I don't know how you'll go about it." At this rate, she was going to be blazing in Ann Arbor in minutes. "Just hold on. Ask me another question."
Addie swallowed hard and nodded, absorbing. "So, if someone thinks I'm a siren, I can just say I'm a were...whatever." That sounded like a good deal -- sirens were being almost universally painted as evil. Attitudes to weres were...lukewarm at best, but better than the evil siren threat. There was a bolt of pain through her head that made her wince, and brought a wave of nausea with it. "Does it always feel like this?" she asked, every fiber of her yearning and needy and deprived, an ugly feeling she hated. She tried to think of other questions, grateful for the distraction, as flimsy as it was.
"When I go for a while I know that I get desperate, like a crack fiend. I start snooping in places I'm not supposed to be, like I'm just jonesing for a hit. I went one time in high school for I think 6 months, and then I found a homeless guy wanting a fix. I wanted a fix too, and when you're emaciated from hunger I think that a siren has a pretty good chance against you. Ooh, I cracked his head open like a cantaloupe. It felt so good." It wasn't really the answer that she supposed the young siren wanted, but she had a tendency to ramble when provoked. Or you know, even when not provoked. She could see the lust driving Addie crazy. If she didn't find somebody soon she was going to go and do something stupid. Adelle didn't want to die that night, so she drove faster. If they were flying before, they were almost teleporting now. She could see the buildings come into view and she slowed. No use pulling into the city driving like a bat out of hell. After she downshifted to accommodate their new speed she turned off the air and rolled down the windows, and then hit play on her iPhone. Drum and bass turned rather low wafted from the speakers. She could attribute the astounding amount she had on the phone to Graham. It was better to look inconspicuous, like a girl and her cousin out for a drive. "Find the one you want. Work your song, we'll hightail it back into the woods."
She listened as Adelle described the kill. Yeah, that sounded really nice right about now. Addie bit her lip, scanning the street hungrily as they drove along. Ann Arbor was pretty sleepy in the summer, but not exactly deserted, so there was a good balance between plenty of men and few witnesses. "There, pull over," she said quickly, turning briefly to look at Adelle, then looking back. There was a boy, not quite child and not quite adult, rocking some kind of skater boy look. She gravitated towards boys closer to her own age rather than men, for many reasons she could explore later, and maybe it was more risky this way, but he was alone. "Hey!" she called out, a little smile on her face, falling easily into the role, the seductress, just getting him to come close enough for her song to work. "Hey, come here a minute! We're really lost, can you help us?" Well, she was always told not to trust anyone who said that, so it fit, really. The boy fell for it, ambling over with his hands in his pockets. As soon as he was within a few feet, Addie started singing, the song she'd been using on the other boy earlier.
"Honey, honey, honey..." Adelle couldn't help but sing along for more reasons than one. She leaned over to Addie and whispered for her to get him in the car. No sooner had she spoke that he literally crawled in through the window, on top of the young siren. Panicking, Adelle's eyes darted from the boy to in front of them, outside the windshield. Deserted. Ann Arbor had a knack for not having anybody around when you needed to not have anybody around. Just in case, Adelle put the car in neutral and leaned out of her own window. "HONEY, HONEY, HONEY, YOU'RE THE DEATH OF ME." She slipped into first and made an illegal U-turn in the deserted outskirts of the city, then barreled down the road. "Keep him alive until we're at least halfway back. I know you want to just break his sweet, sweet neck right now, but hold on. You know what, fuck that. Kill him. Kill him right fucking now. Oh God, Addie do it."
Addie was startled when he crawled on top of her, because whoa, awkward, and her song paused briefly, but Adelle's singing acted as enough of a band-aid for it that she could start singing again and he was still under her spell. She thought about getting him into the backseat, just for the trip, but then Adelle's tune was changing and she grinned, still singing, but quieter, just enough to keep him docile. There was a bubbly giggle, for all the world like any thirteen-year-old facing a cute boy, and she kept singing, shifting forward so he was laying back against the dashboard and reaching for his neck. "You've got a dark heart..." She wrapped her hands around but his neck was too thick, frustrating her. Her heart was pounding, and the terrible feeling was transformed now, not terrible anymore but rapturous, and driving, pushing her actions forward. She pushed him back further, so he couldn't slip or slide anywhere, and pushed her forearm up against his throat, leaning down to sing directly in his ear. "You've got a cold kiss..."
The car slowed as Adelle watched, but not enough that anybody would catch up with them easily. The brunette could barely keep her eyes on the road, and one hand lingered on the radio to turn the music off. There was no way she'd let something like that interrupt what was going on before her. She felt like she was almost entranced by the young siren's song, compelled to watch, but she knew that just couldn't be true. It was the act of murder that was keeping her eyes glued to what was happening, but she tore her eyes away and pushed the car away from Ann Arbor faster. Her screaming song before they'd left was to make sure that any male in vicinity turn and flee, but for reasons that they couldn't comprehend. That at least would give them a good start unless there were other women around. The thought of having to deal with a female police officer drove him once again the need to find something else to protect herself. The song didn't work on everything, and one day another woman was going to be there to prove that.
The car came to a stop, and even though she didn't exactly realize how they'd gotten there, she knew where they were. Graham had taken her here weeks ago. They were on a hill overlooking a good amount of land below. The cliff she'd been so afraid of when they'd first come. Getting high had certainly changed that view of things, and the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through her at the moment bounced the idea of falling off of a cliff out of her mind. They'd dump him here, off the cliff. It was genius in her own eyes. She doubted that anybody would try climbing down, and the area was so dense with trees they'd have a hell of a time navigating without a helicopter. The car turned off, the parking brake was set in place and the older girl got out to survey just what she'd have to do to make sure the body was actually in the trees below once they flung him down.
He started to twitch and squirm, his body fighting as it realized what was happening independent of his enthralled mind, but Addie just sang a little louder and he was still. She leaned her weight into her forearm as much as she could, but the positioning was awkward and even after the few minutes of driving, he wasn't quite dead. That was alright though. Dragging it out like this was fun. Addie stayed like this in the car with him until he was barely conscious, eyes slipping shut, then let up. He gasped, but she was still singing, keeping him under her control. She opened the door without looking, letting him stumble out first, then following. Find a rock. She gave the thought as much direction as she could, and apparently it worked, because he started stumbling around like a monkey, from lack of oxygen, searching the ground. A big rock. He came back a minute later with something that had once been a large brick, but was chipped and eroded at the edges. She smiled. She was getting bored of this song, so she switched to a different one.
"If I should die before I wake, it's cause you took my breath away. Losing you is like living in a world with no air..." And she launched the brick at his sternum, undoubtedly making it very hard to breathe. He went down, and judging by the sickening crack, bones definitely broke. It was the sweetest sound in the world to Addie right now. She took her purse off and set it inside the car, pausing only long enough to grab a hairtie from within and pull her hair back. Then she grabbed the brick again and dropped down on top of him with a girlish little grunt, straddling his ribs. She gathered her skirt up and pushed it behind herself, to minimize mess, and lifted the brick high, then dropped it on his skull. It took hair and skin with it to the ground and crushed bone, and she realized suddenly that she had a sense of his mind when she sang to him, only noticing it when it was suddenly much simpler, emotion without thought, because she'd done enough damage to his brain, even though his eyes were open and he still twitched, not quite dead yet. She decided it was probably safe to stop singing, which was good because her mouth was dry. "Stay turned around!" she called out to Adelle, a few feet away. "I have to take my skirt off so I don't get blood on it!"
Adelle laughed to herself as she settled herself against the hood of her car. She reached up to untie the scarf in her hair and pull it out of the ponytail it was in. She'd just decided that she'd be the one to check and make sure the body wasn't visible from air, and that involved shifting. She moved from the side of the vehicle to reach through the window for her bag. The hair accessories went into it, and her shirt and shorts followed. The flats were strewn to the side of the door, and she stood on her side of the car in her undergarments, waiting for Addie to finish the boy off. "You get used to being naked pretty quickly. It's one of the best ways to make sure you can still wear the outfit in the future." Which made her curse to herself. She'd lost a dress after being so careless, and there wasn't anything but waiting to be done to get another sent out.
Addie's shirt was black, so she wasn't as worried about that, but the skirt would show even the tinist bloodstains and be a bitch to get out. So once confident Adelle was looking elsewhere, she took it off and set it aside, then went back to her previous position, more careful so she didn't scrape her knees or anything. She leaned over her prey, cupping his cheek. "I could just leave you alone and you'd die," she said quietly, thumb brushing over his cheekbone as he started to cough blood. "You're dead already, technically. Braindead. I'm just putting you out of your misery." And she planted her forearm against his throat again, biting her lip, and her necklace fell to hit him in the nose. That was some nice irony, being strangled to death by a thirteen-year-old while her crucifix dangled in your face. She felt the bone in his throat crack under her weight, and his eyes were distant, but not quite blank, and afraid. Something was still in there, and knew it was dying. The thought just spurred Addie on, shifting more weight onto her arm.
She felt it the moment he died, like a knot soothing somewhere inside her, and she sighed, sitting back. She started giggling, burying her face in her hands, giddy with the sensation, and soon she was laughing hysterically, holding her stomach as she straddled a corpse, and it took her a minute to be able to move, still laughing as she picked up her skirt and pulled it back on.
As soon as Adelle saw Addie stand up to pull her skirt back on, she walked around the car and past the little siren. The boy was definitely dead, and the sight of the gore made her smile. She bent to grab his legs, and pulled the body along to the front of her car. She wouldn't ask this of Addie, seeing as she could barely do it herself, and she was ten years older, though she didn't actually know that. The dead weight of the boy caused her to grunt with effort, but finally she got him to the edge of the cliff, and sat to brace herself. She pushed with both feet and he went over. The first sickening crack as the body collided with a rock worried her that he might be stuck, but there were more. As she stood, she started to peel her sports bra off, and turned back to Addie with her hand and arm covering both breasts. "I'm gonna go make sure that he's hidden. You can do something about the blood." With that she turned around, pushed her panties down her legs and walked to the edge of the cliff. The shifting came easily and she was spreading her wings and in the air in a few seconds. She landed near the girl and chirped at her, hopping along, wagging her tail. Then she was off.
Adelle landed amidst the trees where she thought the body would've landed, and was relieved to see that had actually hit the ground. The boy's corpse had broken several branches on the way down, and she was sure that his arms weren't broken before she shoved him over, but what was done was done. She returned to her human form and grabbing him by the legs again, she pulled him away from the sheer hill's face and into the undergrowth. It wasn't long before there was a decent clump of trees and dead leaves littering the ground that she could shove the body among and have it be slightly hidden from view. She left the thick, dense vegetation for a clearer patch and shifted, flying up and out. After a few minutes of checking the trees to make sure the body was hidden, she finally flew back up to the car and faced away from the girl as she found her undergarments.
Addie let Adelle handle the body, and she observed the big splotch of blood with a tilted head. She had a big smear of blood on her arm, but it could be rinsed off easily enough so she didn't worry about that, instead kicking dirt around until the blood was diffuse enough that you wouldn't see it unless you were looking. Then she picked up the brick, carrying it away to the cliff. She rubbed at where she'd touched it, just in case it was smooth enough for fingerprints (it didn't seem like it, but you never knew) and heaved the thing over the edge, careful to aim away from where she'd seen Adelle shove the body. She was back over where she'd killed him when Adelle got back, dropping branches and leaves over the spots of blood that couldn't really be kicked around. She glanced up and then looked back down quickly, blushing, because yeah, Adelle was naked over there. She supposed they were both girls but still. She stared at a rock that had a big blotch of blood, head tilted and hands full of leaves, and started giggling again, still giddy and high.
"So I'm guessing that you're satisfied." She was pulling her shorts back on, and found her flats near the car door. The older girl had started sweating from the heat and physical labor, and was excited to be close to leaving. She popped her head into her shirt and then pushed her hands into it hastily, wanting her hair off of her neck. She tied it up into a ponytail, but left the scarf in her bag. Unnecessary, and impractical, and she wanted to leave. She'd never done her killing in daylight, and it was unnerving to think that somebody could have seen them. They needed to be back in Scarlet Oak, in that park, now. At least they'd taken as little time as possible to get to Ann Arbor, and Adelle would speed back. Any normal person wouldn't be able to link the crime to them if they thought they were driving at normal speeds. Perfect, in her own eyes. "Make sure you have everything and we'll get going."
Addie nodded and hastily spread the last of her leaves, then got back in the car, careful not to let the arm with blood on it touch anything. "Do you have any napkins?" she asked, making sure she had her purse, and digging through it and oh, she had never been so happy for her father's neat freak phase he'd had a few months ago, because she found, hidden away in a forgotten pocket, a little bottle of hand sanitizer. She squeezed a little out onto her hand and rubbed at the splotches of blood the boy had coughed onto her, taking them off nicely. She took the little towel things Adelle had, realizing the sanitizer had been unnecessary but oh well. She wiped her arm clean, making sure her hands were clean too then flipped the mirror down to check that there was nothing on her face or chest or in her hair. She wiped a spot away from just under her eye, then tugged her hair out of the ponytail so she'd look the same as when they'd left the park. She took the towels to her bracelets then, making sure they were clean too, which was an involved process given there were like twenty and they were on the same arm as the big smear had been.
Adelle turned the car on, backed away from the edge and promptly performed a three point turn that lead them back onto the road. She quickly brought the car into sixth and they were blazing away from Ann Arbor and back home. She closed the windows and put the air back on, because she wasn't doing that windblown look for the rest of the day. The drum and bass started playing softly again and she turned to look at Addie one a straight section of road. "Any other questions now that we're back in the right state of mind?" The brunette had one of her own, but she'd leave that for another day. She could see Miranda when she had more time on her hands. The centuries old siren would be able to inform her better than Adelle herself could, and it would do good to speak with somebody that didn't have the tendency to ramble on about things or veer off on different tangents. She lifted her phone from in front of the stick and tossed it into the girl's lap. "Call yourself with mine so if you ever need me again you'll have the number. Slide the bar across the screen with your finger to unlock it, and go to phone." Adelle looked up to make a subtle turn, and then back at the phone to make sure she was doing it right. "Let's get you home before dinner."
Addie listened to the instructions and nodded, getting her number into Adelle's phone as instructed, then pulling out her own phone to program it in. "The song works on any guy?" she asked, just clarifying things. "And killing someone is the only way to make it feel better. How did I get this way? Why are you helping me?" She looked up as she asked the last one. Apparently she had a good many questions, some related to being a siren and some not so much. It seemed odd to her, though. She'd killed someone, ended a life, and this woman had made it as easy and smooth for Addie as possible, probably enough to be charged with the murder too, should the cops find out. Plus, Addie had watched enough cop shows to know that accessory to murder was a serous crime as well.
"Almost any guy. There are some definite limitations. Some of them can resist us, just like some of us can resist killing if we try hard enough. I wouldn't try to sing to any gay guys, and it helps to keep eye contact. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you were born a siren. Your mother was one, and hers, and her mother's mother. I know this much, if our moms have a baby boy, they dump the kid and move on. If it's a girl then she sticks around to raise her. If you have like, a weird mom, she doesn't teach you anything and then you have sirens like us that have to learn from other sirens and then we're creating messes for yourselves and whacking people off that lead police straight to us. Fudge." Adelle ran a hand over her smoothed hair as a stress reflex, and sighed. "I'm just like you, pretty much, except my mom chose not to teach me. I met another siren recently and she's kind of a mentor. So why not help you? I wouldn't want another of our kind dying when I could've helped."
Addie considered that. "They told me..." She bit her lip. "They told me she was being arrested for murder, and she somehow killed the cops who came to arrest her. It makes more sense if she was a siren. Is. If she's alive. I haven't heard from her if she is." She squirmed a little in her seat, staring out the window. She supposed all that made sense. Her arms were crossed over her stomach and she felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. The high had worn off and she felt alone and scared now, in the wake of this revelation, head spinning a little. There were definitely things that made more sense now, though. She took a deep breath. This was nothing she couldn't handle, with some help. "A mentor?" she asked, looking around at Adelle. "Can I meet her?"
"I'm sure she'd love to meet you." Adelle leaned forward to look into the cloudy sky, and dually noted that the upcoming road was slick with moisture. It had been dry when they left, and she supposed that the light rain promised in the area that afternoon had fallen while they were gone. The eighty that they had been cruising at became forty as they approached Scarlet Oak, and Adelle kept her eyes open for any standing water that might send them into a fishtail.
"Your mother was arrested for murder? I'm sorry to hear that." More because she knew what it was like to murder to live and that resonated with her. A human would've been fairly disgusted, and even though she had been raised as one and lead to believe that was how she should have lived, recent events in her life, i.e. vampires had her thinking otherwise. The more creatures of the night that were thrown into her path, the further she got from being the rather human siren that was best friends with Fina and Roxy. She was changing. Probably not in a good way either. "She's lived a pretty long time, I think something like half a century. She knows a lot more than I do, like, a lot more."
Addie nodded, looking out the window again. "I'd like to meet her. You said we have to stick together, right?" Addie was sure any support she found would only be a boon, and she didn't really expect it from her father. She took a deep breath. Born this way. Your mother was a siren. "You would think a siren wouldn't be stupid enough to get pregnant when she was sixteen," she mused out loud, squinting out the window again.
Sixteen was a very, very young age to be pregnant, siren or not. Adelle kept her thoughts to herself as she concentrated on the road, but she could see the worried look on the girl's face. In any other circumstance she would have pulled over to have a heart to heart, but they had just finished dumping a body. They needed to be away from that hill, now. The brunette was just glad that the rain hadn't moved fast enough to keep her from flying. Water and oils were repelled by her feathers easily enough, but the cold of the water and the impact of the drops on her wings would've made it rather hard to balance.
"I think that some of us need the sex. Like, not that we need it to survive, but like I said, we're pretty sexual. And it's a good way to get in close for a kill if you can strangle him while he's under you." The last thing she needed the little thing to be thinking was that her mother was trying to in fact, kill her father, but the explanation was what it was. Miranda didn't seem to actually have a problem with men, so maybe it was intentional. "I'm sure we fall in love like humans do."
Addie entertained the idea briefly that her mother had just been out to kill her father, then dismissed it. She'd had ample opportunity if that was her goal, and if she'd ever tried it her dad would probably have noticed something like that. She blew out a sigh through her nose, running a hand through her hair again. She looked stressed-out and scared, running through emotions pretty quickly and kind of feeling like a freak now. She tried to push it from her mind, knowing she'd have to put on a brave face for her dad or he was liable to freak right out and move them all the way back to Boston. She sniffed, shifting so she was sitting up in her seat a little. "Where are we going? Back to the park?" she asked.
"Yeah," Adelle took a second to look at Addison. Poor thing, seriously. Having to find out what you are from a complete stranger, and then your afternoon turns into murder. What did her mother do when she was that age? Oh that's right, write a best selling coming of age novel featuring your daughter's fears, regrets, and awkwardness with the opposite sex. Now what was her daughter going to do? Adelle's first kid had resulted in her being consoled by her mother, naked, covered in blood and dirt. When you raised your child human, she reacted as a human would. But before her mother had sat down that night to write that novel, they had gone out after Ryndana dragged her whimpering daughter into the shower to scrub her clean. There was something she had said, "'Alright Adi, how about we go get you some ice cream. Chocolate will solve your problems.'"
Addie fiddled with her hair some and sat up straighter in the seat, trying to think of something else to talk about but there was pretty much nothing else she could muster any interest in. "Is there anything else I should know? I always liked reading the old stories about sirens and stuff, like the ancient Greeks wrote. I think they got some stuff wrong, though, there's nothing about turning into birds, usually."
"Well we're not half birds either, and I know I've seen vampires walk in the sun. When you've been raised your entire life believe that there aren't vampires, and if there were they die in the sunlight, seeing a somebody you know for sure is a vampire walk in the sun? Yeah, that's a mindscrew right there." Like being told that you were a being from a mythological race only existing in legends wasn't a mindscrew. Adelle already knew that this would be a long day for the newly-bloodied siren, and it wouldn't get any better when she got home. Carrying the burden on her own was enough of a weight on her shoulders, and she had a mother she could talk to about it, and one of her friends knew. Although there was the part of that friend not knowing that she actually went through with what a being of her race did. "If I were you I'd shift and look in a mirror. It helps to know what your form is. Mine comes from Africa, so I'm totally screwed if I'm just flying in the day with people around. If you're lucky you'll get something that isn't so suspicious."
"People notice that?" Addie asked, a little nonplussed, and now she was nervous. What if her form was something crazy. "Can you teach me how to shift sometime?" she asked, shifting around, then looking out the window again. "Are we close to the park yet? I don't really know my way around or anything cause we just moved." She pushed her hair back from her forehead, still watching out the window as they got back into Scarlet Oak and not random country highway.
Oh, that's right, she'd had to be explained to about the dangers of simply being one of their kind, it was only reasonable that she should tell this young one. "People notice, and it's totally bad if they do. At first glance, a weird bird is a were, but if people start linking bodies to birds flying by than they'll pick out the really unusual ones first. Our worse problem is hunters. I've never met one, and like, I'm totally glad for that, but they are out there and they do hunt supernaturals. If you haven't noticed, we like, kill people, innocent humans. Hunters want us bad because of what we do."
Adelle had never thought about it herself. 'The threat we pose', as a race of sirens. They could easily be referred to as a sorority of death. Hunters were to be stayed away from at all costs, Miranda's voice inside of her head reminded her, hunters would kill you or worse. The brunette was glad that she hadn't come across anyone like that during her weeks in town, but the population seemed to be growing so you never knew who you'd bump into at the grocery or even the little shop she worked at herself. "I was told that they'll kill us or worse. I'm totally not into 'or worse' so I just try to mind my own business." Except today. "Except today."
"What's worse? Actually I don't wanna know. Don't tell me. Oh, I know where we are now." They'd driven this way going to a Denny's for dinner for a few nights in a row, which meant they were near the house she lived in. And sure enough, they rounded the corner and she saw her house. "Can you let me out here? This is where I live," she said, pointing to her house out the window. She'd wanted to stay and learn more from Adelle, as much as she could, but suddenly, she just wanted to go home and hug her dad. "I'll text you tomorrow or something, or you can text me, okay?"