Restrain (Siren Book 3) Read Free

friends, the wreckage of my world. Still, the favorite part of my days are those few moments, right after I wake up, when I could swear I smell Milla's musky, feminine aroma, as though her arms were wrapped around me.
    I know it's all in my head. That I shouldn't obsess over it. That I shouldn't close my eyes, over and over again, praying she'll be there when I wake up and clinging to any imaginary trace of her as though she is .
    Milla's dead . If any bit of her is with me, it's her ghost, punishing me for letting her die. Punishing me for letting my feelings for her get in the way of my promises to watch out for her.
    I never wanted to say I had feelings for her; she had her own issues, and though she never told me what her situation back home was, it obviously held her with iron chains. I told myself, over and over again, that it was about comforting her this time, even as the chemistry between us veered frighteningly sexual. Still, I told myself—and her—that it was a momentary loss of restraint, from the forced intimacy.
    But I never told her that I watched her while she slept, even though she rarely let me lay with her. I never told her that I wanted to do away with the excuses, and kiss her just to kiss her.
    I never told her that I wanted to love her, that I would have tried to love her if she'd let me.
    No wonder her ghost hates me. No wonder I lust after any reminder. No wonder I need to peel the scabbing off the wound, over and over again, because anything's better than letting it close up, letting myself forget all that could have been—all that I naively believed I had the time to pursue with her later.
    I never told her anything. Maybe because I never really told myself.
    Shit . I had feelings for her.
    How fucked up is that?
     
     

Chapter Two
    Camilla “Milla” Greenwich
     
    After spending so long penned with the animals, it's strange trying to return to daily life. Where I once found myself lost in my work, admiring the cold beauty of the ships I help repair, now the metal's pale and lifeless. My senses are dulled, having only recently come alive doing the work I was meant to be doing. After years of watching them bleed us dry, I'm helping the parasites who've done their damndest to kill my community and my family get a taste of their own medicine, dying in neglect and preventable accidents.
    When I'm aboard the Siren , watching their struggles, I am alive . I am powerful . I am vengeance.
    When I'm in the Roane Industries' Shipyards, I'm an ant, following the trail without question, even when I know it leads to my death. You can't really call it living.
    After decades of disuse, my active imagination finally earns its keep, reminding me of every sensation, every stimulus burning their deaths in my mind. The wet crack as George Roane's head crashed against the side of the ballast tank I lured him into. The metallic clang and snap of impact when Denise fell. The soft give as I stabbed Calder's driver, to keep my secret safe. I still smell the corpses when I shut my eyes. Whether they're burning, or rotting in water, who can say what's the nastiest one? And I've smelled them all . Not just the metallic tang of a child's blood and stomach and intestines, a pungent odor that haunted my dreams for years after my sister Mara's death.
    No one knows what my secret smile hides, but they like the change. At least, they did before I informed my manager I had mono, and was going to be at home for a matter of weeks, unable to work. Grudgingly, he agreed to accept the doctor's note once I'm better, since I said they didn't want to risk me infecting other patients in the office. By the time my lie catches up with me, it won't matter.
    I haven't spent any time at home; the Siren is my home. Even if the parasites I've trapped there are just stewing, it's still better to be watching, waiting for the moment they crack.
    Calder seems to have lost his will to go on. Certainly, he's lost the fight he once had; you'd never