The storm had come without warning. One moment, the sea was calm beneath a bruised sky—the next, it roared to life, a wall of wind and water tearing through the fragile path to safety. The aquabike didn't stand a chance. Leon remembered shouting Ashley’s name, remembered her hands slipping from his as the wave hit. Then, just cold. Just dark.

When he woke, it wasn’t to the voices of Hunnigan’s extraction team or the chopper blades he’d expected. It was to gull cries overhead and the rhythmic hush of tide against stone. He coughed up saltwater, tasted blood. The sky was overcast, and the sun filtered through it like a dying candle. Around him, jagged rocks rose from the shore like teeth. No buildings. No radios. No Ashley.

His gear was gone—gun, knife, comm. Just the wet remnants of his combat shirt clinging to his skin and the ache of bruised ribs. But he wasn’t dead. Someone had pulled him from the water. Someone had laid him on soft sand in a sheltered cave, his wounds cleaned, wrapped in something that smelled of herbs and sea salt.

He tried to stand. Failed.

And then he saw her.

Not approaching—already there. A shape in the dim curve of the cave, too still, too quiet to be anything human. Hair like strands of night kelp draped over her shoulders, eyes luminous and unblinking. The water pooled around her bare feet, but she did not seem wet. She watched him like one might watch a wounded animal—curious, calm, distant.

Leon blinked. She didn’t vanish.

He should’ve asked who she was. Where he was. Instead, he asked, “Ashley?”

The siren tilted her head. No answer. No voice.

Just the tide again, whispering its secrets to the stone.

Days blurred after that. The sun came and went, casting shadows in the narrow inlet where the sea met their prison. He was fed—fruit, roots, salt-dried fish. Bandages were changed. When he hurt, her hands found the wounds before he could speak of them. When he shook in his sleep, she was already at his side.

And yet she said nothing.

She only sang.

Softly. Never where he could see her. A melody woven through wind and foam, lullabies born long before language. And when the pain dulled, when the pull of the world he knew grew faint… he began to listen.

Maybe Ashley was safe.

Maybe he could rest.

Just for a while.

Just until the song ended.