Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (22 page)

The smile he gave me sent a shudder through my whole body.

“Look,” I said, clicking my pen rapidly and turning back to my notes, “Let’s stick to Honua, okay? Her other friend’s names?” I wrote down three, Brian who was in her math club, Rachel who was a hypochondriac and Amy; I knew none of them off hand and Wyvern knew no last names.

“Who is Honua’s father, is he in the picture? Is he human?”

“I know he’s Mabiian and I know he’s a low life that left them when Honua came out bleached white and deformed. He decided that Honua wasn’t his baby and just left,” Wyvern said this with so much anger, much more than he had for me that I was glad I wasn’t Honua’s absentee father.

“His name?” I asked.

“Patrick Dabu.”

I wrote it down. “So, your father does or does not know you’re in contact with your mother and sister?” I asked.

“Does not, he doesn’t even know Honua exists. I’ve hidden her from him,” he answered as a look of pride crossed his face. My guess was he was proud of outsmarting his father, like it was a high-stakes game he was winning.

“What would your father do if he found out about Honua?”

“I’m not going to let him,” He stated, a smug smile on his face.

Lo and behold, my first suspect, Wyvern’s dear old dragon dad. I did not write his name down, I did not know his name or want to. I did not know what aspects the dragon had only that if Wyvern only inherited half of them, he was one powerful dragon. For all I knew, just thinking his name could call him to me or something equally bad. The best way to avoid the notice of the dragon was to avoid anything to do with him. For as long as I could…

“Who suggested this vacation? We only knew Braiden was coming…”

“I don’t ask permission to go anywhere and neither does my father,” Wyvern said, glancing over at me.

Well, isn’t it great to be the master of the universe?

He continued explaining, “My father is a sort of surrogate father to Braiden and his sisters, they were chosen as fit companions for me. My father visits much more often than their father Farris does. Father gave Braiden the vacation home for his eighteenth birthday and came along to show him around. I came along because I wanted to finally meet my mother and Honua.”

The hole in that could swallow a shopping mall. Could Wyvern really be that over-confident that he could conceal his human family from a full-dragon? He led the dragon right to his family.

“Where and when did you meet with Honua?” I asked.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” he said as he pulled up in front of my house. “Honua disappeared from a human house. My father doesn’t even employ anyone who could pass through those wards.”

That he knew of.

“And,” he continued, “We met in places my father would never go to, human movie theaters, the mall, a diner.”

I grabbed the door handle.

Wyvern said, “We will tell everyone we are dating.”

I sunk back into my seat and turned to him. “No,” I said, but what I wanted to say was, ‘no freaking way in this world or any other.’

See, I could be diplomatic.

He met my gaze with a slow, arrogant grin spreading across his face. “It is the best explanation for why we will be spending so much time together,” he said, as if it was obvious.

“How about the truth or some variation of it? That you hired me to find something?”

“You have not been paying attention, Dakota,” he said, “I don’t want anyone to find out about Honua unless they need to know. I’ve thought it through; we will be a couple.”

“No one would believe it,” I said, trying to keep eye contact with him.

He looked me over, just like last night on the dance floor, appraising me. “You’re a bit skinny, not my usual type,” he gave me roguish smile, “But people expect men like me to go slumming on vacation.”

I intertwined my hands, squeezing them together, a technique I employed to stop myself from jabbing my fingers into his eyes. “Thanks,” I said, dryly, knowing he probably thought he just complimented me, “but, I meant my family wouldn’t believe that
I
would go out with
you
.”

“Yeah they would,” he said, completely confident. “I’m rich, powerful and attractive, people will easily believe it.”

“You forgot modest and charming, but no—they won’t. First of all, I don’t
date
, and second—if I did, it wouldn’t be with someone like you.”

“So Keanu isn’t your boyfriend?” he asked.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, he isn’t,” I said.

“Good,” he said, “Don’t kiss him again. It wouldn’t be appropriate if I was dating a dracon that goes around kissing humans.”

“We’re not—”

“Even if we don’t tell people that we’re dating, they’ll assume that we are at the very least hooking-up,” he interrupted, “We’ll be spending a lot of time alone together.”

Why did I feel like I was sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand? I needed to do some research on Wyvern and on dragons. I needed to see how badly I had screwed my life up by wheeling and dealing with him.

I opened the car door and said, “Let people think what they want, but I’m not going to pretend we’re anything other than…acquaintances who tolerate each other…barely. I have your phone number now; I’ll call you when I find out something.”

Translation:
don’t call me, I’ll call you.
I shut the car door and walked toward the house.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours, baby,” Wyvern called out of his open window, and he took off before I could manage a response.

Chapter Twelve

The spray of the water as I turned on the faucet in our guest bathroom soaked through my shorts and dripped down my legs. I hated our guest bathroom; it stood for everything I despised about my life. It was cluttered with extravagant, non-functional furnishings, like the wrought-iron towel rack filled with expensive never used white towels that might even collapse if you actually tried to pull a towel out. The worst part was the lotions, some of them had two hundred dollar price tags ‘accidentally’ left on.

I was only using it because Mele and I had raced for my bathroom and I lost. Another three-quarters of the gallon of tea down and I was feeling like an over-used faucet. At least I was not suffering alone.

When I returned from my drive with Wyvern, I found Mele sitting on the couch with her arms crossed. “That was him, wasn’t it?” Anger had emanated from her like smoke.

When I did not respond, she continued with, “So, let me get this straight: that thing beats you until you’re half dead, almost eats you then kidnaps you. Then you decided to go on a Sunday drive with it?”

“Is it Sunday?” I had said, slumping on the couch.

“So not the point,” she said, staring at me as if there was some sort of answer she could drag from my expression; she did not know that I trained to prevent that for years. “What is going on?”

I opened my mouth to lie; lying was usually my first reaction these days. An image flashed in my mind, Mele armed with only a knife, stabbing the dragon, its blood showering her. Mele deserved at least some of the truth, she had earned it.

“He gave me three days to find Honua alive, or he’ll kill Keanu.”

She just stared at me for a prolonged silence. Then she asked, “Do you think he’ll do it?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he will.” I tried to think of a way to explain it to a human and said, “He thinks that if he leaves Keanu alive then it’ll be a sign of weakness; in his eyes it’ll be his responsibility to kill Keanu unless he finds the true culprit of Honua’s kidnapping. My guess is that the only reason he did not already kill Keanu is because he needs my help to find Honua; Wyvern can’t enter the school or the Hale estate, and those are the places with all the clues to her disappearance.”

“You mean he needs
us
to find her,” Mele said.

“No, I didn’t,” I said.

“Um, yes, you do. You need my help.” She re-crossed her arms, stubborn as a house cat when its dominance over the couch was threatened, and about as fragile. “First of all, I know more people than you and most of them are scared of me. Second, my mom has worked for Senator Hale since before I was born, Keanu is like my brother. I know you and Keanu have this thing going, but he means as much or more to me; you’re not leaving me out of this.”

We were both distracted by Mele’s phone ringing and there was not much more that I could think of to say. As much as I balked at the idea of having any human be involved in a ‘mission,’ Mele was right, at school, she was the one with the power and influence.

The phone call was the first in a long stream of responses we received back from our friends. Ophelia reported that everyone who had hidden in the basement had escaped without a scratch. She did not know about Keanu and Hunter who ran out as soon as Keanu came to and recovered from his disorientation.

I had completely forgotten that I knocked out Keanu last night.

Ophelia had not seen him when the fire-crews evacuated the group from the basement and no, she had not talked to anyone this morning. The other people who called were even less helpful.

When I called Honua’s mother’s phone number, an older woman’s voice answered with, “Are you calling on behalf of Honua?”

I said, “No, my name is—”

“Sorry, we’re keeping this line open,” the woman said, interrupting, and then I heard a click.

When I called again the phone rang until an answering machine picked up. There was a recorded message from Honua’s mother saying that if anyone had information on Honua to call her mother on her cell phone number immediately. Every time I called the number she gave for her cell it went straight to a message.

I gave up calling her as I finished the last of the tea and I was finally allowed to shower off the rubble that still clung to my hair like giant lice.

After my shower, I did a quick internet search on Patrick Dabu, Honua’s biological father. I immediately found a record of him; Patrick Dabu was currently on Waibibi halfway through serving a one-hundred and five month sentence for selling stolen firearms.

Patrick Dabu was definitely a low life and also definitely not our kidnapper.

I had shut down my computer and quickly headed downstairs. Even though I took over an hour upstairs, when I came down Mele still had not heard from Keanu.

Now, I examined myself in the mirror; besides a sallow bruise the size of the big island on my left shoulder, I looked untouched. All the asphalt and lava-rock debris had pushed out of my skin and washed off and the cuts had mended to smooth skin. Magic was like that, it erased every mark of the fact that you had almost died; the horror and beauty of staring death in the face became just a faint echo in your memory.

Perhaps the events, the many times I brushed against death echoed in my soul; but I would never know. The only soul I could not sense was my own; I was limited to just living with my confusing emotions.

I made a haughty face at myself in the mirror and told my reflection in a low voice, “I lied when I said I would be slumming, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, please, be my girlfriend?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” I responded in a normal voice, I made a falsely sympathetic face, “You’re about as appealing as a brain-dead slug.”

In a low voice again, I said, “Please, be with me.”

“Beg all you want—”

“Dakota?” Clara’s voice said from right outside my bathroom door, “Are you okay in there?”

My reflection’s face turned the color of ketchup. “I’m fine,” I called, quickly toweling off my already dry hands.

“Your friend Keanu is here,” Clara said, “Right outside the door.”

I swung the door open, stepped out of the bathroom and was in Keanu’s arms. His embrace wrapped around me as I waded in his whirlpool cerulean soul.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” I asked while squeezing my eyes shut. I was not ready to look up at his face, not wanting to show him what a weak child I had turned into as I was surrounded in his oceanic soul. I was careful not to let any of his soul into me as we touched or to let myself venture into him, this was not the time for passing out.

He tucked my head under his chin so I felt his neck move on my cheek when he chuckled. As I pressed against him I realized he was wearing the same dirty clothes as yesterday, and he smelled like the scene I had just laboriously washed off.

“Maybe I’ll be mad later,” he said, leaning down to whisper in my ear, “But, I was almost positive you were dead, I saw the dragon fly off with you.” He squeezed me tighter to his chest. “I’ve been trying to get to you since you knocked me out, but one thing after another stood in my way. I’m just happy you’re alive.” His arms, which had been tight around my chest, loosened as if he thought he was suffocating me or something. The intensity of his words were a little… surprising.

I had known Keanu liked me, liked flirting and joking around with me. But Keanu liked everyone, joked around with everyone and flirted with most of the girls in our school, in an offhand sort of way. He just had this magnetism about him, this ability to draw everyone’s attention, that and his godly good looks…

As I pulled away to look up into his face, for the first time I entertained the idea that, for some bewildering reason, Keanu actually cared about me.

I had to swallow down how much I wanted it to be true. It was stupid, the slippery smooth emotion that I felt churn in me as I looked into his eyes; the white of his eyes were bloodshot and pupils the color of burnt sienna.

But then a voice inside me, my inner merciless self-honesty, who happened to sound a lot like my grandfather, reminded me that even if Keanu cared, it was not for me it was for a human who did not actually exist. This whole thing between us was a ruse, I was just pretending.

The theme of my life, the motto that I had ingrained in me since birth, played through my head: the only people who matter are those who are related by blood, everyone else is replaceable.

Keanu is expendable, I could not forget that.

The only reason I fought to save him was to preserve my mission. Keanu was the key to infiltrating the Hale compound. For me to complete my mission, Keanu had to be alive. Beyond that, Keanu and I had no possible future. If he even caught wind of what I was…