Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (12 page)

"Clara and Cora are best at research, and Thessa has been alive for thousands of years. We need them right now. I can't stress that enough." Sirena ran her hands over her blonde hair. "Plus, before we go, you need to learn how to control your powers. And you have to understand how dangerous it will be. I wouldn't even take you if I didn't have to, but you're as unsafe here without me to protect you."

"Fine," Brie huffed. "Let Clara and Cora investigate. Then as soon as I get my powers under control, we're leaving."

"You seem a little too eager." Sirena stared at Brie with a slight curl to her lip. "Eager gets you killed. You need to learn patience."

"I need to find out what happened to my mother, especially if it helps explain what's happening to me."

"Don't follow your mother's footsteps too closely, Brie. Don't make the same mistakes."

Brie hated being talked down to like a child. She changed the subject. "In the meantime, what do I do about Rykken?" she asked. "I don't think that pendant is safe for him."

Sirena thought for a minute. "I changed my mind about Rykken. I want to see this pendant he found,"

Sirena said. "If it's giving you headaches, it might be related to the mystery with your mom."

The thought gave Brie some hope that the time they wasted waiting for her powers to mature might be spent on moving something forward, even if it was something small.

"Cool. So how do we get the pendant?"

"We?" Sirena asked, a small smile on her lips.

"Well, you," Brie said. "Can't you, you know, use magic or whatever to get the pendant?"

"No, that's not how magic works." Sirena twirled her hair through her fingers. "You can't take magical objects by force. They have to be given. Headaches or not, you're the only one close enough to Rykken to pull this off." Her eyes sparkled. "You need to get that pendant."

Pilot sat at his favorite library table, staring out the window into the quad from the second floor. The library was three stories tall, and typically packed with overachieving students during third period, but Pilot had gotten there early enough to get the blue table in the corner, away from prying eyes. He normally spent his study hour hanging out with Justin and some of the other water polo guys, but this week he'd spent it reading
Hawaiian Myths and Legends
and working on his paper, Annie's words ringing in his mind.

He also thought about the girl he saw at the restaurant. Pilot loved a good horror movie; he liked to be scared. But he was still freaked out by the handwritten messages the platinum blonde girl from the Waikiki strip had left him, no matter how hot she was.

Still, he couldn't pretend he didn't want to see her again. Every time he pictured her, she had that mysterious, unnerving grin on her face. He wished that he could talk to her, just once—

"I think you have something that belongs to me."

Pilot jumped out of his chair, spinning around quickly. As if someone had answered his thoughts, it was
her
, standing in front of him.

He wished he could shake the shock off his face and play it cooler, but he messed up the moment he opened his mouth. "What are you doing here?"

She shushed him. She leaned in like she might kiss his cheek, but instead she whispered, "I said I'd find you, didn't I?" The soft purr of her voice tickled his ears. A sweet scent of mint and green apples lingered on her breath.

Pilot had spent the whole week thinking about her, but now all he felt was anger. "Who are you?" he asked.

Her silver eyes bore into his. "Relax," she said, gesturing to his chair. He sat down. "My friends call me Kennedy." She sat on the library table, placing her black boots on the chair next to him and pulling out a pack of Mentos.

"Want one?" she asked. He shook his head. She held the pack to her lips, using her perfectly straight, white teeth to rip the wrapping off a quarter inch from the top. She popped the top piece of candy into her mouth, rolling it with her tongue slightly before biting down.

Pilot gulped. He couldn't figure out this girl in the slightest. "How did you find me?"

Kennedy's coy grin unwound him further. "Magic."

"Tell me the truth," he demanded.

She cocked her head to one side, her eyes never leaving his as she slid neatly into the chair next to him. "Why?" she asked. "The truth isn't as fun."

His expression didn't change. Nearby, the rustling of page-turning and the zipping and unzipping of backpacks distracted him. Students clicked and typed on their laptops like the good little students they were. He needed to be doing the same, and yet here he was, getting engrossed in a mystery of a girl.

He tried to look menacing, but Kennedy laughed at him. "Will you lighten up? I asked one of those cute water polo boys if they'd seen you, and they led me right here."

Pilot breathed a sigh of relief, turning her perfectly reasonable explanation around in his mind.

"What about the number thing, and the note...?"

"The number was written in invisible ink. I figured you'd find the second note after the ink had already faded." She smoothed her black skirt with her hands, but it still barely covered the top quarter of her thighs. "It was a little prank, that's all." Her eyes landed on the black leather notebook sitting at his table. She picked it up. "Pilot—"

"How do you know my name?"

Kennedy raised her eyebrows, tugging at the Mentos wrapper with her teeth again. "Everybody in the
entire country
knows your name." Pilot said nothing. She reached into her purse, pulling out a magazine and thrusting it across the table toward him.

Pilot looked down. On the cover, there was a picture of Brie in a blazing blue dress placing a single red hibiscus on his mother's coffin. He was there, too, in the background of the image, standing tall with a stoic expression of support. The headline was about the siblings' recent free ride with James' car.

Pilot opened the magazine and flipped to the article. "Under pressure from Milena van Rossum's death, Pilot and Gabriella van Rossum lash out by stealing James van Rossum's Aston Martin Volante," he read out loud. "There's a lot of 'van Rossum' in that sentence."

"A car accident
is
the first stop on the path to ultimate destruction," Kennedy said mischievously.

Pilot tried to settle down. Everything she'd told him so far made sense; her story checked out.

Besides, she was a gorgeous girl who had gone out of her way to get his attention. He could tell he was blowing it with her by being defensive.

He shook his head. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm such an idiot. Paranoid."

She batted her eyes at him. Did girls still do that? She did.

She popped another Mentos into her mouth. "I didn't realize my little joke would freak you out so much."

Great. Now she thought he was a wimp. He cleared his throat, wishing he could start the conversation over. "Thanks for finding me. I wanted to meet you at the tonkatsu place, but I didn't have the nerve to introduce myself." Pilot shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Do you go to Punahou?"

Kennedy laughed. "I graduated from Iolani last year."

Pilot's eyes widened. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I skipped two grades in elementary school." She bit off more of the wrapper from her Mentos pack. Pilot wasn't sure where the paper was going; he didn't see any wrappers lying on the table, or a trash can nearby where she could throw them.

"Impressive. You must be smart." Pilot tried to stop staring at her mouth with great difficultly.

"Or persuasive." She laughed again. Pilot wondered if she was subtly making fun of him. Why else would she be laughing every other sentence?

"So we're close to the same age."

She grinned. "Sort of." She held her notebook up. "Now that you don't think I'm some nut job stalker, tell me something. Why did you take my notebook?"

"Why did you leave it for me?" he asked.

She peeked out from behind the curtain of pale tresses that fell across her face. "Because I knew you'd take it."

Pilot tapped his pen against the table. "I took it because I wanted to know who you were." He pointed the pen cap at Kennedy. "Your turn now."

She tucked the black notebook into her purse. "I already answered your question." She rested her elbow on the table and twirled her hair around one of her fingers.

Pilot frowned. "I'm not going to get another answer out of you, am I?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Nope."

He stared at her. Kennedy's cat-and-mouse game was unraveling him in a way he didn't expect. He had never met a girl who oozed with confidence the way she did. She wasn't afraid to be assertive around him, not like other girls his age.

Her eyes flickered around his table, like she was taking in every little detail about his workspace.

She nodded to the tattered book sitting in front of him. "How's your book treating you?"

"This? It's pretty cool." He grimaced as soon as the words came out of his mouth. What a lame response.

She picked up the book, flipping through it as if she were looking for a particular page. "Do you read Greek?" she asked.

"Uh, no." Was she serious?

"Then you missed the best part," she said, laughing again.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Your faces," she said, smirking. "You make lots of faces. I bet you don't even realize it."

He puckered his lips involuntarily, and she laughed again. He started to bite his lip, then stopped himself.

"Oh," she said. "Don't be embarrassed. I like your expressions. They're cute." There was a flash of vulnerability in her eyes, but it was short-lived. "Just like you are," she said, "though, I think with that spiky brown hair and those emerald eyes, 'sexy' is a much better descriptor." She grinned at him.

The oxygen from Pilot's lungs vaporized.
She likes me
. Pilot sucked in air slowly, trying not to show any signs of nervousness. She was nothing like any girl he'd ever met. He felt excited about the possibilities, but also nervous. His emotions had been through the ringer in five minutes with her.

"Here," she said, pushing the book in front of him. She traced some old script with her fingers.

"This is an enchantment."

He looked at the foreign words. "You can read that?"

She stared at him intensely. He tried to hold her stare, but her eyes were like liquid metal and he could feel himself sinking into them. He looked away first.

"Not really." She laughed again. "There's a translation scribbled in the margin." She leaned in closer. "It's a recipe, of sorts. It brings the myths in this legend to life."

Pilot looked down at the story. "
The Selkies and the Shark Men
," he read out loud. It was one of the stories he hadn't read yet.

"I remember it from grade school. It's the tale of two families that are forever feuding over the land and people of Oahu." Kennedy's eyes gleamed. "It says here that the only thing we need to cast the spell is the gem from the cover of this book."

Pilot flipped the book shut. "But it's missing," he said.

"Of course it is," Kennedy laughed. "Do you think they want just anyone to awaken an ancient feud that's been dormant for nearly a century?"

"Who are they?"

"Oh, you know.
Them
."

Kennedy wasn't making any sense. "Do you mean the writer of the book?"

"Writer, or writers." Kennedy waved her hands dismissively. "Or whoever stopped the feud in the first place."

Pilot nodded thoughtfully. "Do you really believe in this stuff?" he asked, gesturing to the book.

She trapped him again with her eyes. "Sure," she said. "Do you?"

"Not really." He was determined not to break her stare this time.

"Why not?"

"It's all for fun, right? Fairy tales, legends, urban myths... they're all imaginary."

"And are God and Hell imaginary, too?" she asked.

"Those are different," he said, looking away.
Damn it
, he thought. She got him again.

"What makes them different?"

"I don't know. They just are." Pilot wasn't sure how he'd gone from ancient, mythological feuds to philosophical religious questions with this girl he'd just met.

Kennedy tapped her fingers against the table, eating another Mentos. "All the stories of gods and myths have been woven together throughout history. How do we separate myth from truth?"

"I don't know." The look she gave him was smoldering; it made it hard for him to remember what they were talking about. "Maybe I don't believe in God then, either."

Her expression turned sultry, a wicked smile spreading across her face. "You have to believe in something, Pilot."

He liked the way she said his name.

"So this is what, like a religion to some people?" he asked, gesturing to
Hawaiian Myths and
Legends
.

"Of course it is," she said, "to some people. To me, it's just a hobby. I like things that go bump in the night."

She gave him a playful, teasing look. Pilot bit his tongue; he couldn't tell if she meant something more.

The bell rang; it was time for him to go to lunch. Kennedy stood up and grabbed her purse.

Pilot felt a burning heat rising up out of his chest. "Are you leaving?"

Kennedy glanced past Pilot's head. Around them, people were packing their bags. She leaned in close to him. "I'm not supposed to be here," she murmured. "I don't go to this school, remember?" She brushed her lips against his cheek. "I'll find you again, I promise."

"Kennedy, wait," he said grabbing her hand. He took a deep breath. "Can I take you out? On a date?"

"Maybe," she said. She leaned in, licking the bottom of his lip lightly. She pressed her lips to his mouth. Just as he began to kiss her back, she pulled away.

"Can you handle a date with me?" she asked, laughing.

"I can try," Pilot said, taking in the way her silky blouse hung from her shoulders.

She bit her upper lip with those perfect white teeth. "Okay then," she said mischievously. "But I should warn you; it will be a first date you'll never forget."