Izzy stopped short at the top of the stairs.  Tyrese was coming up them, something wrapped in a blanket in his arms.

His heart stopped for a moment.  “Oh no.”

He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw Anna follow Tyrese up the stairs, followed by Macy.  He held on to hope for a second until Ellen didn’t follow behind, and he knew who was in the sheet.

Nobody spoke on the way back, Izzy driving, Tyrese riding shotgun, with Anna and Macy crammed into the back with Ellen’s body between them.  Tyrese had given Macy his sleeveless sweatshirt; it was like a tent on her.  There were no words.  Even Tyrese, who lived in a silent world, could feel the tension in the air.

Lightning flashed on the horizon, and thunder pealed across the sky.  A minute later, it began to rain, a heavy downpour.

Izzy pulled into a gas station.  No one noticed or mentioned that the gage read that the tank was still nearly half full.  

“I’m gonna get gas.  Someone run inside and get some first aid supplies,” he said, breaking the silence.

“I’ll go,” Anna said.  Izzy gave Tyrese a glance, and he followed her into the convenience store.

Macy stared at the figure in the sheet, alone in the car with the body of her girlfriend.  She’d stopped crying, but now, the tears started to flow again.

She gasped and jumped in her seat as Izzy knocked on the window.  “Stop torturing yourself.”  He opened the door and put the front seat down for her, and she climbed out.  

“Thanks,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, jamming the gas nozzle into his truck.

She raised an eyebrow.  “I don’t blame you,” she said.

He sighed, rubbing his temple.  “I’m about to be a real dick here, but I have to be the bad guy because I need you to be the good guy.”

She raised her eyebrow higher, opening her mouth to speak, but he kept going.

“What happened to you sucks.  What happened to your girlfriend shouldn’t have happened, to anyone.  But you need to hold off your grief for a moment.”

Macy’s eyes narrowed.  “I don’t blame Anna either.”

“I never thought you did.  But you need to support her.  She needs a push, and she needs it from you.”

“I, I can’t.”

“Too bad.  You’re going to have to put all of your problems on hold.  After this is all over, you can mourn your loss, and I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure Ursula pays for what she’s done.  Until then, she needs your help.”

“I can’t lose her too Izzy.”

“You could lose her either way.  If she doesn’t get back on the horse now, she never will.”

“She doesn’t have any power.”

“And it won’t matter if she gets it back or not if she’s not-” he stopped short as Anna and Tyrese came running back through the rain to the truck.  He finished pumping gas and opened the door for Macy.

“Here,” Anna said, tossing a shirt to Izzy and clothes to Macy.

“Thanks,” Macy said, pulling the sweatpants up her legs before she climbed back into the cab.  They all got back in the truck and continued on, the awkward silence pervading the cab once more.



They had to stage Ellen’s death.  Macy hadn’t been on board, but Izzy had sold the idea by pointing out that she couldn’t keep the body at her apartment.  When everything was over, they could see about giving her death the honor it deserved.  Izzy didn’t know if he could even still throw his weight around with law enforcement as a member of the LC, but even if he could, it would likely draw attention he couldn’t afford at the moment.

So he left while they called they cops and pretended she had choked while she was home and they’d found her that way.  The coroner would find inconsistencies with the story, but not right away, buying them some time.

“I’ll be with you, if you want, when you tell her family,” Anna told Macy after the cops had left.

“No,” Macy said.  

“Oh.  I, understand.”

“No,” Macy shook her head.  “It’s not that.  Here, I need to show you something.”

Macy dragged a storage container out of her closet.  “Grandma’s junk” was written across the side of the opaque blue container.  “So Ellen never looked,” Macy explained.

“Yeah, your grandma was a bitch.  She hated Ellen.”

“She hated you more,” Macy said, pulling out a couple of her grandmother’s sweaters off the top.  “She probably would have liked Ellen apart from the fact that she blamed her for her granddaughter turning into a carpet muncher,” she said with a wry smile.  She pulled out a black binder, setting it on the bed.

Anna flipped open the cover.  It was a scrapbook.  A scrapbook of her.  “This is…”

“The first time Siren was ever in the paper,” Macy finished.  “You told that guy who was beating his wife to turn himself in, and the wife told a reporter about you.”

Anna nodded slowly, turning the pages.  More articles, arrest logs of criminals she’d had a hand in stopping, her joining the Legendary Consortium, and then her “retiring” from said group.  There were even a couple of speculation articles on heroes who’d disappeared from the spotlight.  And then came the recent articles about her return to the scene in Bristol.

“You saved all this?”

“Not just that.  Here.”  Macy handed her a small box.

“Holy shit.  I didn’t even get one of these.”

“It cost me a pretty penny.”

Anna looked at the small plastic replica of her behind the plastic.  It wasn’t the only action figure made in her likeness while she was in the LC, but it was the best and most realistic, and also the rarest, having been produced in a very limited release shortly before her forced retirement.

“I’m not going to think any less of you if you’re done with all this.  I need you to understand that, and know that I’ll always love Annabelle Carillon.  But if you’re still Siren too, I’m still your biggest fan.”

Anna was crying again.  “Macy, you almost died because of me.  Ellen-” she choked.  “Because of me.”

“And Ellen might still be here if you’d just stayed retired,” Macy said, doing her best to keep her voice calm and level.  “But all of this,” she pointed at the scrap book, running her finger across all the articles.  “Would have never happened.  What’s done is done, and I’m proud of you for it.  I’m proud you’re my sister.  I’ll still be proud of you no matter what you do next, but whatever you do, don’t not do it because of me.”  

Macy’s speech had kind of lost focus at the end, but it didn’t matter.  “I saved something else,” she said, pulling something else from her box of Siren stuff.

“I threw this away,” Anna said, catching it.

“Callie really hated your first costume.  But I thought it was worth saving.”

Anna held up the red bikini she’d worn when she first started crime fighting.  It was incredibly impractical, but she’d been young, and thought she looked hot.  It was a reminder of a simpler time.

“Maybe you can wear it until you get your armor back?” Macy said.  Anna cracked a smile.  It was an unfamiliar feeling.



“Come on, come on, pick up,” Izzy said as his phone rang and rang.

He hung up finally and got back behind the wheel of his truck.  He looked at the phone, flipping through his contacts.  There were only two members of the LC he was sure couldn’t be under the Sea Witch’s influence, and neither were answering their phone.  It was troubling enough that no one had tried to reach out to him.

The phone vibrated as he put it back in his pocket, and he yanked it back out, answering it.  “Hello?”

“Izzy, it’s Anna.”

“Hey.  How did things go there?”

“She warned me.  She warned me what would happen if I crossed her.”

Izzy held his phone away from his head while he let out a long sigh.

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t get it,” she interrupted him.  “She had me right where she wanted.  And she still took the time to give me a warning.”

A smile crept across Izzy’s face.  “She’s afraid of you.”

“You’re damn right she is.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“What do we do next?” she asked.

“Still working on that, but I have a good idea of where she is, or where she’s going next.”

“Can you come get me?”

“I’m on my way,” he said, dropping the phone into his lap as he put the truck in gear.

Anna hung up, slowly lowering the phone.  She’d told Macy to get some sleep.  She was in her living room, sitting in her big armchair, dressed in her old bikini, her original Siren costume.

Tyrese sat across from her on the couch.  He gave her a reassuring nod, and she returned the gesture.  She leaned forward, picking up the small box.  She opened it, the faint smell of blood wafting out.  The orb that had stolen her power sat in the box, sitting atop the blood soaked cloth.  

She’d kept them.  If she couldn’t get her power back with them, she was going to make sure Ursula choked on them.