Read Online Dark Siren by Katerina Martinez - Free Book Online Page B

of rain on her windows. The Theater district was quiet this time of night, the old, empty buildings watching her as she passed through. But the closer she got to the beating heart of the city—a trio of districts which were home to Ashwood’s largest, and richest buildings—the more tail-lights and exhaust pipes there were on the road.
    She parked outside a stone building the size of an entire city block. It was all gray walls, marble columns, and gargoyles which seemed to stare at you when you looked at them. Alice sighed when she turned the ignition off and stared at herself in the rear-view. For an instant her eyes flashed a shade of bright blue, but she shut them hard, bit her lip, and waited for the moment to pass. When she looked again, they had returned to their natural hazel brilliance.
    Still hungry , she thought, and she wondered how long she could put eating off before she ran out of time.
    “What the hell am I doing here?” she said to herself.
    That Emily was lost in the Reflection was an undisputed fact, as was the reality that Alice had no way of getting her out without help. But Alice didn’t want help, didn’t need help, and much less Isaac Moreau’s help. She turned her gaze toward the building on the other side of the road—the Ashwood Imperial Museum—and shook her head.
    “I could leave,” she said, “I can find another way.”
    But she was lying to herself. She had, after all, come all this way almost without thinking about what she was doing, hadn’t she? Alice hadn’t tried to call him because she had deleted his phone number a long time ago, an action which had added a sense of finality to their relationship—like a period on a sentence. She could not, however, unlearn the things she knew about him like, for example, where he worked, a place she had come to many times before.
    As much as she disliked the idea of coming to see him, Isaac was the only person she knew who could help, but still she hesitated. Emily’s life was on the line, and she was being picky about the help she needed. As she debated whether to go or stay, an Ashwood PD squad car rolled alongside her and drifted to a stop at the light at the end of the street. Alice watched the car and remembered a time when she had driven one similar to it. Number one hundred and twenty-six had been her squad car, one of the newer models. Powerful, agile, and easy to handle even at high speeds. She remembered it fondly. But memories of her nightly cruises and her time spent wearing a uniform were never far ahead of the sounds of screams, the smell of gasoline, and the taste of blood; Alice’s own introduction to the Reflection.
    Unlike dreams, which were easily forgotten, the horrors she experienced in the Reflection were ingrained into her psyche, carved into the walls of her mind—and the skin of her back—like cave paintings. How long she had spent there herself, she didn’t know. What exactly had happened to her only came back in fractured flashes embedded into nightmares. What she did know was how she had gotten out , the price she had to pay to return to the world of the living.
    “To serve and protect,” Alice said to herself, reciting the police department motto.
    As much as she didn’t like the idea of going to see Isaac, she liked the idea of leaving Emily in the Reflection even less.
    Alice shut the engine off, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and opened the car door. The rain was coming down hard, but it was a short run to the museum staff entrance. She shook droplets of rain out of her hair and buzzed the intercom, hoping the night-guard would be at his desk to receive her. A wave of relief came over her when the intercom droned to life and an electronic voice spoke from the other side.
    “Yeah?” said the guard.
    “I’m here to see Isaac Moreau, the Curator,” Alice said.
    “He’s gone home for the night.”
    Alice pressed her lips together, looked around—thinking of what next to say—and then saw