A Siren's Choice (Book One in A Siren's Series)

Chapter Thirty: Free Will

"You're important to me. I think if there's anything that will last forever, it's that. Whether we separate, stay in touch or rarely speak again, you will always be that little someone I really do care for, that I would sacrifice everything for to protect and keep safe." ~ Beau Taplin, The Promise

Nate

Its pitch black.

My eyelids refuse to open.

I can feel my body, but I can't move a muscle.

I don't know where I am, all I know is that I am lying on my back, and someone is beside me, holding my hand that refuses to move.

My hand is weirdly warm and tingly in their hold, when the rest of my body feels cold and lifeless.

I focus on that sensation in my right hand. A familiar feeling I can't quite place.

I try to move my hand, my fingers, to move something. But nothing happens.

Inside my head I yell in frustration, come on move damn it, move!

My fingers twitch.

Yes!

The warm and tingly sensation spreads up my arm, through my blood, through my nerves, chasing away the cold. Seemingly bringing my body back to life.

Focusing, I make my fingers twitch again, and I squeeze the small familiar hand that is in mine, and those tingles increase.

"Nathaniel?" Someone whispers my name, the voice soft, but full of such painful hope.

I use that voice as a guide in the dark.

Grasping onto it like a rope that will lead me to safety, and with all my might, I use it to heave myself out of the darkness.

I feel the once frozen muscles in my body tense.

A rough groan sounds in the silence, and I realise that it had come from me.

Open your eyes.

Squeezing the hand in mine, scrunching up my face, I once again try to force my eyelids to open.

And finally, my eyes flutter open, and the unending darkness is replaced by the bright white ceiling that is above me.

My eyes drift tiredly around the unfamiliar room.

One window with only trees beyond it, some brightly coloured flowers in a vase, cream walls, the plain narrow bed I'm on. And then my eyes freeze on the person that sits by my side, the person that is holding my hand.

But I guess she's not really classified as a person, but a Siren.

Callia gazes at me with watery blue eyes that are shining with such a profound relief.

I open my mouth, not sure exactly what I'm even gonna say but it doesn't matter anyway as only an unintelligible sound comes out of my mouth, causing me to go into a coughing fit. My throat is so dry and scratchy like I haven't drunken water in months. I throw my head back as my body rattles uncontrollably with each cough.

I feel small hands quickly pull my body up into a sitting position on the bed as I struggle to breathe. The same hands gently grasp my chin, steadying it as I feel a rim of a plastic cup at my lips.

I hold back the coughing the best I can so I don't choke on the cool liquid as I greedily gulp it down, quenching my dry throat. By the time I drain the cup, my coughs are only a faint rumbles in my chest.

I flick my eyes to the girl I had thought I knew as she stands above me, casting me worried glances as she refills the empty cup from the pitcher of water on the bedside table.