Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (42 page)

He looked at me straight in the eyes, and said, “We are going to handle this.”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

“Who did we just call?” I asked.

“Your security team,” he said.

“Whatever happened to them?” I asked.

“They’ve been here,” he said.

“Sarah is the human?”

“Yes.”

“We’re just going to send her in there to ask Mele to come out, someone Mele doesn’t know at all? And we do not have fifty-eight minutes.”

“They’re plan B,” he said.

“Do we have a plan A?”

“Not yet,” he said, parking.

We walked two blocks to Mele’s house, staying out of sight a little way up the street.

Mele’s house looked very different than it did last time; there wasn’t a single car or person on the lawn. Her well-manicured lawn looked cheery and homey in the morning light. There were even some little cutesy garden bunny ornaments that I knew Mele detested. Around the yard was the water ward, still running strong.

Wyvern’s sedan was parked in the driveway beside Keanu’s SUV. Auli’s little car was also there, boxed in by the SUV.

“Keanu,” I said, “I can call Keanu.”

Wyvern pursed his lips but he did not say anything as I called.

“Hello?” Keanu’s voice answered on the second ring.

“Hey Keanu, it’s Dakota.”

“Hey there, how are you doing?” he sounded really happy to talk to me.

“Are you in Mele’s house?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “Auli and I are late for school, something came up. Are you there? We could meet at lunch?”

“Can you get a message to Mele for me?” I said.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen her,” he said.

I looked up at Wyvern, tears forming in my eyes.

I was wrong.

Wyvern was right.

I shook my head.

Wyvern only nodded.

“You still there?” Keanu asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, “I’m looking for her, if you see Mele, will you have her call me?”

“No problem,” he said. “Did you want to meet up later?”

“I will if you say my name,” I tried to say it jokingly, “Say Dakota, I miss you.”

“I miss you,” he said, “See you later today.” He hung up.

I stared at the phone for a long minute. I was so wrong. From beginning to end, I was so wrong. All three of them were in there, if we started yelling for her, they might just act. I whispered, “We have no way to get to her. They’re going to kill her.”

Wyvern reached down and picked up a rock.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I have an alarm system on the car,” he said. Then he threw a rock at his own car, it did not just hit the car, it smashed through the rear window and the alarm system immediately gave this high pitched repetitive blaring sound.

It took a minute, but the door to the house opened and Mele’s mother peeked outside. She said something back into the house, but I could not hear her over the alarm.

“Mele’s mother said, ‘Mele, it’s that car you brought, can you click off the alarm?’” Wyvern said.

“She’s alive,” I said.

“Mele just said, ‘is there something wrong with it?’ her mother said, ‘don’t worry about it, just turn off the alarm.’” Wyvern said.

“
Check, Mele
,” I whispered. “
Come out
.”

“Mele said, ‘I’m going to check.’” Wyvern grabbed my hand. “Okay. Get ready to run out.”

We watched as Mele stepped from the house, Keanu directly behind her.

“Holy shit!” she yelled, “That’s not even my car!” Mele ran away from Keanu toward the cars.

“Now!” Wyvern said.

We ran.

“Mele!” I shouted. “Mele!”

She spun and saw us, her jaw falling open. She said, “Dakota?”

“Mele, run!”

She turned in confusion, looking back to the house behind her. Keanu had not advanced on her. He had walked to the side of the house and grabbed the hose, pulling all the loops off the holder.

He turned the water on high, taking his time about it.

“Dakota?” Mele yelled. “What? Why?”

“Just run!” I shouted, because Mele was just standing there watching Keanu.

Then Auli ran out of the house and immediately my head spun, my breath coming faster and faster. Not now, not now. Not a panic attack.

Wyvern grabbed my hand. “Baby, hear me, baby, give it to me. Give me your panic.” He pulled me into his chest.

“Open my ring,” I said, breathing heavily. My heart beat was irregular, faster and faster. I was going to die.

He opened my ring.

I let him hold me while the panic fed own down into my ring. When I was able to look back I saw Auli jumping on Keanu’s back. He leaned and she fell off but immediately she tried to grab the hose from Keanu, while keeping the water spraying away from her.

“Stop!” Auli shouted.

“Lani!” Keanu shouted a little strained, “Help me, Auli escaped!”

Looking at Auli’s waterfall soul sent a new pulse of panic into me and I grabbed onto Wyvern tighter and fed my panic into the ring. I needed to stay, I could not go hide.

“Lani!” Keanu shouted. “Help me.”

“No Lani!” Auli shouted, “Mele is infected! He’s going to kill your daughter! Run, Mele!”

Out of breath, Mele’s mom shouted, “I’m sorry, Keanu, she must have broken the door…Come on Auli.” Mele’s mother ran over and pulled Auli off Keanu.

“Stop Lani! No! He’s going to kill your daughter!” Auli shouted.

“Mom?” Mele shouted, “What’s going on?”

Mele’s mother shouted, “My daughter is already dead!” She easily overpowered Auli then dragged Auli inside.

Mele just stood there, staring at the closed door.

“Mele!” I shouted, “Run, go, stop standing there!”

Mele finally understood what was going on and she took off running toward us.

Keanu just stood there, the hose in his hand pouring water onto the lawn, staring at Mele. When Mele started running, Keanu walked slowly after her.

Did he really think just running water would hurt her or any of us? The only way water could kill an infected is if they were somehow forced into a water ward. And that wouldn’t even hurt her because she’s wearing the water charm; unless it had something to do with the water charm malfunctioning…

Mele ran over the water ward and came barreling into Wyvern and me.

“Take the charm bracelet off,” I said, quickly. I moved out of Wyvern’s arms, to grab at Mele’s wrist.

“I’m sorry, Dakota,” she said breathlessly, “I should not have taken it—”

“No, I’m sorry! I lied to you! I should have told you that all those girls died with that charm on, take it off!”

She unclasped it and dropped it to the ground.

When I turned back I saw that Keanu had just stopped on the other side of the water ward, hose pointing down feeding further into the water ward.

“Where’s my sister?” Wyvern said in a loud but cold voice.

“Safe,” Keanu said.

“Where?” Wyvern growled.

“Where you and your father can’t get her,” Keanu said.

“I can’t believe I’ve been protecting you,” I said.

“I never asked you to,” Keanu said, shrugging. He looked so normal; it was even creepier that he still looked like any gorgeous, popular high-school God. He did not even look angry when he said, “I’m looking forward to killing that dragon.”

I stepped in front of Wyvern. Wyvern grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back behind him.

In the second I was behind him, I reached into the little eastern-print purse pinned to my jeans at the small of my back. The moment my hand passed through the portal into the Dragon Kingdoms to get my gun, Contingency, a realization smashed into my mind. It was the problem that my mind had been working on for days and the answer had been pinned to me the whole time.

When Mele told us about what had happened when Honua vanished she said the water had been left on after Honua disappeared. Mele also said that someone went into the restroom to check that the water worked before Honua went in, I bet that someone was Keanu.

Full dragon’s used portals all the time, it was how they entered our world but if a dracon disappeared into thin air, one thing I would rarely consider would be a portal. There were different types of dracon portals but they were rare and always led to the dragon world, either to the dragon kingdoms or like the emotions portal on my ring, to a dracon himself. My grandfather would not send his most hated-business adversaries to the dragon kingdoms.

If Mabiians’ had water power equivalent to dracon fire power, then if a human created a portal it would be made of water, not fire, and it would just lead to somewhere on the world’s surface. And just like humans could not survive passing a dracon fire portal because they had water in their blood, infected and dracons wouldn’t be able to survive passing through a water portal. It would be exactly like passing through a water ward. The dampeners just had not been enough protection, their blood had just died.

Hiding my gun behind my back, I moved to the side of Wyvern.

Wyvern and I had been thinking that Keanu wouldn’t come past the water ward because he was afraid of us, thinking we were safe here. But Keanu did not have to pass the water line; he just needed to spray us with the hose. And he was in shooting range of us.

If I was right, Keanu could make water portals and he had made a portal out of the hose’s running water in the same way that dragons make running lava portals. If we were shot at with that water for more than thirty seconds, the water portal would pull us through and would kill us. He had waited for us all to be together, not attacking, because after one of us died the others would be onto him and escape.

But Keanu did not spray us yet. He shouted at me, “You’re one of them too, aren’t you? I noticed Mele was wearing your charm bracelet. That’s how you impersonate us?”

“You’re killing people,” I said.

“You’re not people,” he said, “You’re dragons and infected. You’re all murderers.”

That sounded personal.

“Wyvern have you ever murdered anyone?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Mele?”

“No,” she said, quietly in a hoarse voice.

“That makes you the only murderer here Keanu,” I said, “Unless your father’s here.”

“You don’t know anything about my father,” he said.

“I know why your sister Lena had a closed casket funeral,” I said.

He stared at me, narrowing his eyes. “How do you…?” he trailed off, his brow furrowed and eyes’ squinted. After a few long seconds Keanu’s eyes widened and then he laughed. “You were there…You’re my father’s business partner’s daughter, aren’t you? You changed your last name.”

“Your father murdered my father,” I said.

“Your father was infected by the dragon. Dad thought you might have been too, but he let you go.” He laughed. “That is just too rich. It makes so much sense. That was why she was working so hard to keep me away from you.”

“Lena?” I asked completely confused.

“Auli,” Keanu said. “I always wondered why she was trying to keep you away from me. She thinks she’s so smart but it’s actually why I noticed you in the first place.”

I was completely confused.

“Auli probably even saw you get infected that day, didn’t she? Auli was there in my father’s office that day too. After my father let you go he was going to track you down to make sure you had not turned into some
thing
; but Auli watched the entire fight play out from under my father’s desk and convinced him you weren’t infected. She lied to him and I bet she recognized you the moment you came to our school. She knew an infected had infiltrated our school and tried to keep it from us.” He shook his head. “The funny thing is the only reason I noticed you at all was because she was trying so hard to keep you from my notice.”

Auli was protecting me? Honua was one thing, she was my friend. The idea had never, ever occurred to me. Auli had made every attempt to make me feel rejected and ostracized. She had watched her own father murder her sister and my father; and even at eleven, she had lied to her father to protect me? Under her father’s desk she would have had a perfect view of when I put my hand on the dragon and scared it away, she must have known this entire time I wasn’t human.

In the weirdest way, it all fit, she was one of only a few people who knew about the lapse in the office security. She had come to our house and warned Mele away. She might have been protecting her family too but she had been willing to betray them to protect me and, maybe, help Honua. Obviously even though I could see souls, I wasn’t very good at reading people.

“I actually thought I liked you,” Keanu said, with a shiver. “I kissed you. I feel like up-chucking.”

“Ditto,” I said. “And guess what, Keanu. You did not just kiss an infected, I’m a dracon. So was my father.”

“Well, then I’m even more proud of my father for killing him,” Keanu said.

“Do you know what an aspect is? We inherit magical qualities from our dragon ancestors. I have two,” I said as I moved Contingency to my side, “One of my aspects is that I can shoot a falling coconut into perfect halves from a hundred yards away—”

He lifted the hose.

“Drop the hose,” I said.

“You scared of getting your clothes wet?” he said with a lazy grin.

“I know it’s a water portal, Keanu,” I said. “You obviously can make them. You’re sending the human’s through and killing infected people with it.”

Wyvern grabbed me by my hips, immediately grasping the situation.

Afraid that Wyvern was going to carry me out of there, leaving Mele, I shouted, “Wait! You might have killed those women, Keanu, but you did not mean to, did you? You did not look them in the eye like you’re looking me in the eye. You did not care about them the way you care about Mele, did you? This is a different kind of murder. Isn’t it?”

His gaze flitted to Mele, and then narrowed on me.

“I’m not like you Keanu, I have no problem becoming your murderer if it will save Mele and Wyvern,” I lied. “I can shoot you before you raise that hose. Back off!”

Keanu smiled at me, “You might be one of them, but I know you Dakota, you’re not going to shoot.”

With one quick movement I shot Keanu in his hand.