Текст книги "Drowning in Fire"
Автор книги: Hanna Martine
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
THIRTEEN
Aya broke through the hard, cold crust of earth and rolled herself onto the windswept prairie of southern Alberta. This spot was a few hours from the U.S. border, though that sort of delineation meant little to her kind. What did matter was that the land here had been worked over so much with plow and seed that there were very few purely natural, untouched areas left for her use as travel and entry/exit points. Except for this one spot where a great tree stood twisted like an old soldier standing sentry by the gravel road.
An icy, blustery night out here, where not much lived besides crops and the few farmers who tended them. And the Airs.
Spring ran cold here, and yellowed late-March grass poked up through the remaining patches of snow around the tree. She pushed her human body into being as quickly as the painful, awkward shift allowed. She magically fashioned clothing from the grass and the nearby dead husks of corn: a soft, woven suit that conformed to her body from neck to ankles. It looked strange, she knew, but she had no human clothing of her own yet.
Someday. Soon.
She started walking west under the blue-black sky made in the hours past midnight, the moon casting shadows and the stars guiding her way. On all sides she sensed the great space of central Canada extending out. She felt the unbroken rush of wind as it crossed the land and whipped across her body, and it made her smile to herself. Made her breathe in deeply the sweet scent of fresh air. Made her revel in what she could not get Within.
She’d been here before. Two months ago the premier had summoned her, wanting her counsel, when the Chimerans had been on the verge of declaring war on the Ofarians. And then one month ago, when she’d been informed that Madeline was no longer the Airs’ mind-wiper, and that her position had been filled by her brother.
A similar summons had arrived barely an hour earlier, its urgency just as potent. She’d been sitting in her cave, human eyes closed, trying not to think about the walls closing in, when the little glowing root had pushed through a crack and unfurled the premier’s message, written on a leaf in the way she’d only told him and the Chimeran chief to contact her. My compound. As soon as possible.
Her immediate thought? Griffin. Keko.
Now she trudged through the crunchy, barren aisles of dead corn, heading toward the massive white walls that loomed in the distance. When the crops gave way to the grass of the meadows that surrounded the Air compound, she passed several wooden signs staked into the ground.
HAVE YOU REPENTED?
WALK WITH THE LORD AND YOU’LL NEVER NEED TO RUN FROM ANYTHING AGAIN.
JESUS SAVES.
The white walls were two stories tall, impenetrable except for the iron doors big enough to admit a semitruck and stamped with a giant white cross. Razor wire coiled over the top of the wall. Security cameras covered all angles of the enclosure and the surrounding meadow.
As Aya approached, one side of the iron doors opened and a woman in a parka and hat and mittens appeared. She eyed Aya’s body, tightly clad in the woven suit, unable to disguise her shock and wariness. Peering out into the cold, dark night, and then returning her stare back to Aya, she said, “You can only be . . .”
“I am.” Though the female Air was taller than her by a head, Aya proudly lifted her chin and looked the Air directly in the eye. “Aya, Daughter of Earth. The premier is expecting me.”
The Air shuffled back to admit Aya, and Aya felt the Air’s awe pass over her like the wind. Aya could not wait to blend in better, to not draw such stares.
“This way.” The female hurried ahead, snaking through a vaguely familiar set of dark alleyways between narrowly placed buildings. The whole compound was like that, she remembered, a maze packed tightly with boxy, nondescript structures meant to hold and house the largest density of air elementals.
Aya could not keep track of their path. Just when she was sure she’d seen this particular corner or doorway more than once, and that the female was steering her back out the way they came, they popped out into a small square. Ahead rose a giant, ornate church topped with the massive silver cross she’d glimpsed from the other side of the wall. The other woman pulled open the heavy wood doors of the church and the two of them entered.
The inside looked nothing like the few other churches Aya had wandered into, but the interior didn’t matter, as long as anyone flying over or trying to spy inside the compound thought this place was dedicated to a Primary religion and inhabited by isolationist zealots. Each Secondary race had its own way of hiding in plain sight, so it was rather an important thing to have been invited into another elemental world.
And this marked the third time. This excited her. She needed stronger eyes on the Airs. Aya’s growing friendship with Keko had given her hope that she’d be allowed a peek into the Chimeran culture, and she knew Griffin would openly welcome a chance to meet with her eventually, but had both those opportunities been destroyed now? What then?
“Wait in here.” The female Air directed Aya into a windowless room in the center of the false church but did not enter herself. She nodded toward a closed door on the opposite wall, set with a mottled glass window that gave the vague impression of bodies moving behind it. “He’ll let you know when he’s ready.”
She left, closing the door, and Aya heard a subsequent click. On her last visit, they hadn’t locked her in. There was no place to sit.
A burst of raised voices, all male, maybe three in number, made her jump, her head swiveling in the direction of the mottled glass door. The voices ramped up to overlapping shouts, their words indistinct but the anger very, very clear. Something crashed to the ground, followed by a heavy thump against a wall. More crashes, more shouts, then the door flew open.
A male Air stomped out, and not just any Air. Him. The one with the curly hair and pale blue eyes. The one she saw last time she’d been called here. The one Nem had mentioned.
Inside the office, the premier and Aaron stood in the middle of a disaster. A bookcase had been overturned and something glass lay in shards on the wood floor.
“Go do your penance, Jase,” the premier growled.
The curly-haired Air halted in the center of the room, his back to the door. Fists balled at his sides, he closed his eyes and snarled back, “The name’s Jason now.”
“Ha. Changing your damn name doesn’t absolve you. You still owe me. You still need to pay for her.”
Jase—Jason’s—eyes opened, the intense stare spearing straight ahead, straight through Aya, even though she stood not three feet away.
“Fuck you.” Razors laced his whisper. Aya felt them slice across her human skin.
“Reno,” said the premier, his cowboy boots crunching on glass as he went to the door and gripped its edge. “Get it done.” The door slammed with such force the entire wall vibrated.
Jason drew a deep breath, his chest rattling as it expanded and collapsed. Then he blinked at Aya, shook his head, blinked again. “Who the hell are you?”
An earthquake of odd sensations shook Aya’s body and mind as she stood under Jason’s powerful scrutiny, anger flushing his skin and a terrible loss clouding his eyes. She did not understand what she was feeling, how to parse the peaks and valleys of the effects of such direct attention.
“We’ve met before,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “No, we haven’t.”
She shook her head as a strange heat crept up from her chest, traveling the length of her neck to settle in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Last time I was here I merely . . . saw you.”
Last time he’d been standing, dead-eyed, just behind the premier, looking like he’d been sentenced to prison. That was when he’d taken over for Madeline, so perhaps that’s exactly what had happened. Aya had never realized before that the Airs used their mind-wipers as a form of punishment.
Jason inched closer, and though most people were larger than her, right then he seemed impossibly tall, as wide as a mountain. His gaze traveled over her face and hair, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Who are you?”
Clearing her throat, she lifted her chin and looked right at him. “I am Aya, Daughter of Earth, here to see the premier on Senatus matters.”
“I see.” He nodded, the back of his teeth making a terrible grinding noise. “You don’t look how I thought you would.”
“What do you mean? What were you expecting?”
He let out a hollow laugh. His eyes made a general sweep of her body. Different than how Nem had looked at her, however. Jason’s study was critical and detached. Still, standing there wrapped in the suit of woven grass that suddenly felt too constrictive, a new kind of warmth spread out to her extremities. Never one to cower, though, confident in her decision to evolve, she stared back.
“A Child of Earth?” he finally said with a faint snort. “Dreadlocks. Hairy legs. Bells on your wrists and ankles.”
None of that made sense to her and she made a mental note to look it up.
“But you’re none of that. Are you?” As his voice turned distant, his wandering gaze settled on her hair—still not entirely human, she knew, with its color, or lack thereof, and the way it tended to move on its own—growing, curling, wrapping around her neck and body.
With another sudden jerk and shake of his head, he threw off whatever ghosts clung to his thoughts and leaned closer. Filling her vision with his face.
“Don’t worry, Senatus,” he spit, “I’ll do what you fucking want me to.”
Aya opened her mouth—to ask what he meant or to defend herself or to deny she had anything to do with whatever it was the premier wanted of him—but Jason kept talking, his tone spiraling into the same ugly one he’d used on the premier.
“I’ll do it,” he said, “but you tell him that after this one, I’m done. This is the last mind I fuck with.” Swerving around her with the force of a gale, Jason lunged for the exterior door, rattling the knob so hard Aya thought he might rip it off. “Nancy.” He pounded on the wood. “Let me the fuck out.”
Aya only stood there, knowing she could not reveal herself to this man. Knowing she could not tell him that she was just as abhorred by the Senatus practice of mind scrambling as he was.
Jason glared at her and she had to clamp her lips shut to keep from begging him to give her time. To hold on until Griffin succeeded and the two of them could start to steer Senatus thinking and practices in different, better directions.
Nancy, the Air who’d met her at the gate, unlocked the door and Jason fled the waiting room so fast Aya wondered if he’d used his magic to ride the wind. In his wake, she stared at the space he’d once consumed, still able to see his shape. Still able to sense the force of his emotion. Evolution had brought that to her, that blessing and that curse of being finely in tune with what others—Primary or Secondary—felt. And there was no doubt over what she’d just experienced.
Jason hated her.
• • •
How much time passed before the door to the premier’s office opened, Aya couldn’t say. The hole in her gut had eaten much of her present awareness. Her mind was spinning away, thinking about the human who would suffer so terribly at Jason’s will because they probably inadvertently saw something they shouldn’t have. Hating how, yet again, all she could do was stand here and watch it happen.
Was that what this was about? This midnight summons? Did the premier want to see her about Jason or a new threat coming out of Reno?
“Aya.” The premier’s voice hadn’t lost its snarl.
She turned, giving him a slight inclination of her head and noticing with consternation how his icy eyes pierced her. “Premier.”
Aaron stepped out of the office, beckoning her inside. Too late she remembered how human skin was susceptible to sharp edges. She stepped on a small shard of broken glass and hissed. A sliver of red leaked out from her sole.
The premier didn’t notice. In fact, he stood in front of his desk, arms crossed, hair dented by the cowboy hat now lying upside down in a corner. Staring.
“I know a lot more about you now,” he said, his voice chilly, “don’t I?”
She swept a long look around his office, glancing pointedly at the ceiling where the huge Christian cross sat atop the false church. “And I you.”
He didn’t seem to hear her, or if he did, he chose to ignore her. “How you move about under the earth. How you can change your shape. Quite unusual. Quite fascinating. It’s why you always insisted the Senatus meet outside. In the dark. In remote places.”
There’d been reasons why the Children had kept their true nature and their history secret since the dawn of man: to avoid reactions like this one.
So this was what the summons was about, to confront her about the Children. Maybe to use her indiscretion—done in heat and haste—against her like Nem had done. Worry started to worm its way into her consciousness. Worry that the Father would learn what she’d done, and worry that the premier would feel threatened and cut her loose from the Senatus when she was so close to finally putting her plan into motion.
“Yes, that’s why,” she replied, because it would be disadvantageous to admit otherwise, or to give him any further information.
“But what I don’t get”—he rubbed his forehead in a way that even she knew to be exaggerated—“is why the fuck you would go against your own directive.”
Give away nothing. “Why do you think I did that?”
His hand came away from his face, one finger stabbing into the air between them. “Why make such a grand, dramatic entrance the other night, put massive demands on the Senatus, outline your own terms, and then blow everything to pieces?”
A strange, buzzing sensation filled her head, making her feel dizzy and nauseous. “I think you need to explain yourself.”
“I need to explain?” He was shouting now. “There is one thing the Senatus is about, and that’s solidarity. Consensus. You know this. And yet you rise up out of the ground and declare the Earth in danger if Keko so much as breathes on this Fire Source. You cut a deal to allow us to go after her and hopefully keep the peace with the Chimerans. You know you’ll have a chance at her if Griffin fails. And you attack her anyway.”
Dread and rage twisted through her, but she drew herself up as tall as the diminutive body would allow. “I did no such thing.”
The premier shook his head in disbelief and turned to rest both palms on the edge of his desk. “Trust is a tenuous thing, Aya. Especially among Secondaries.”
All this human emotion warred inside her—fear and anger, concern and confusion—and she didn’t know how to keep them separate. Or even if she should. “You forget. The Children of Earth are the ones who approached the Airs and the Chimerans to begin the Senatus many centuries ago. We are invested in its success and don’t want to compromise it. Now tell me what happened.”
He inhaled long and slow through his nose as he regarded her. “Got a call from Griffin a couple hours ago. Pissed off as all hell. Said a Child of Earth attacked them when they were nowhere near the Source. Something about a tree coming to life.”
“Keko. Is she—”
“Alive.”
Aya held in the massive sigh she desperately wanted to release.
The premier pushed off the desk. “Griffin wants assurances he’ll have his chance. Then you can have yours. As you originally agreed.”
She raised her voice, indignant. “Absolutely. I gave no other orders to contradict what was said around the bonfire. I’ve kept my word.”
The premier eyed her hard. “Then which one of you diggers didn’t?”
She was just starting to get a hold on the concept of Aboveground insults, but she was pretty sure the premier had just handed her one. There was no time to dwell on it now. Fix the problem in Hawaii first, or else smoothing over a little name-calling would be the least of her issues.
There were two possibilities behind the attack on Griffin and Keko. The Father, who could have given an order to another Child of Earth behind her back. Or Nem, guardian of the Source, who’d been so clearly angry with her on the Aran Islands.
The Father wasn’t that crafty.
She had to find Nem. Fast.
FOURTEEN
An hour later and Keko still hadn’t come back. It was all the time Griffin was willing to allow before he knew he had to go after her. Before he began to think that maybe she actually had memorized enough of the star map to try to find her own way. Before he started to fear that the Son of Earth had found a way to come back.
Which scared him more? Her trying to give him the slip again? Or another threat to her safety?
Locking up the room, he pounded down the porch steps and headed for the row of connected shops a quarter mile up the road. The rain had transformed into giant drops that hit him like bombs.
At home in San Francisco, when he listened to Ofarian issues, he had to be prudent about which emotions he displayed, and when and how. But here, alone and worrying about Keko after all that had happened between them—and all that had shifted and changed in the last few days—he threw away his guards and let himself feel.
She tended to do that to him.
The row of shops were lined with a boardwalk out front, a closed ice cream parlor capping one end, a long-shuttered theater in the middle, and a bar at the far end. A tourist trinket shop and an artist’s studio were dark for the evening. The pub was open, however, acoustic guitar music trickling out to mix with the rain, and Griffin headed toward it.
A blast of heat and fire and magic assaulted his mind and took over his senses.
The whole front and one side of the bar were windows, all thrown open to the salty air, the eaves long and deep enough to keep out the wet. The place was small, the short bar to the right with a glaringly lit kitchen just behind it, a ledge and stools lining the two walls of windows. Three old men sat at the bar with glasses of beer.
Keko sat at the ledge overlooking the ocean, bare feet hooked over the rungs of her stool, one finger toying with the straw in her can of ginger ale, and two wrapped hamburgers sitting untouched at her elbow.
She’d told him once, sitting in that hotel room bed, that she didn’t drink. She didn’t like how it stole her awareness. That said a great deal about her, now that he thought about it. The watchful warrior, always at the ready.
She hadn’t ditched him again. And she was safe.
Keko didn’t even notice him until he slid a hand onto the ledge near the burgers and said, “Hey.”
She blinked up at him in surprise. “Hey.” Peering into the corner where a neon clock hung above a faded, curling nineties-era beer poster, she asked, “What time is it?”
“Not that late. But you left over an hour ago. I didn’t know what to think.”
“Sorry.” She nudged the hamburger closer to him.
He pulled out the stool next to her and perched on the edge, not taking the food. The wind off the ocean felt nice. Fragrant flowering bushes just outside filled the bar with a sweet scent. Beyond the ever-present line of clouds that clung to the shoreline, he could see the stars trying to inch closer to land.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“You thought I’d taken off.”
“I worried you might try.”
She turned her face to the ocean and the breeze pushed her hair in a long stream behind her. “I’ve been sitting here considering it. Considering a lot of things.”
He was dumbstruck by her profile, how so fucking beautiful and so completely strong it was. “Like?”
“How I don’t like this.”
“Don’t like what?”
“This . . . this . . .” Her hand hovered over her chest, her fingers wiggling. “Doubt. Wondering. Questioning.”
“Ah, I see. That’s what most people call ‘thinking things through.’”
“It sucks.”
“You’re used to just acting. Making a quick decision and going for it. Balls out. All in. No turning back.”
Her almond eyes assessed him but she did not deny any of that, because she knew he was right.
“The stars are out,” she said, still looking only at his face.
“They are.”
“Does your vow still hold?”
He tried not to let his—trepidation? Curiosity?—show. “Always.”
She inhaled but it wasn’t of the Chimeran kind. She ran the heels of her hands up and down her thighs. “None of this is about my honor. At least, not anymore.”
“That’s what you said before, that it wasn’t about you.”
“It started out that way, partly. I wanted to restore my status and rise above the ali’i. I thought I could get back at Chief. But there’s another reason—a bigger reason—and it’s become the only thing that matters to me now. If I tell you, it’s because I want what you can give me. If I tell you, it’s because you can help me help my people.”
“Your people?”
She ignored him. “I don’t know how to sort this all out on my own, so I’m asking my faith to carry one hell of a burden.”
“Faith means a lot to you. It won’t let you down.”
Neither will I, he longed to say but didn’t. Because how could he be sure that he wouldn’t? How could he finally learn her true goal, give her the location of the Source as he’d vowed, and then prevent her from reaching it?
He had to physically bite back his anguish, the burn of it making his chest feel hot and tight.
Tell me, he silently begged. Don’t tell me.
Keko inhaled again. “Chief has lost his magic.”
The words blurted out of her mouth and hit the ledge between them, leaving him as cold as the hamburger sitting there. The rain stopped suddenly, as if someone had turned off a faucet.
“What?” he finally managed to sputter out.
As she chewed her lip, he realized he’d never seen her struggle with words this much. Like her actions, she’d always just . . . spoken. “It’s some sort of disease. It stole his magic. He can feel it inside but he can’t bring it out. And I guess he’s not alone. Apparently it’s hit other Chimerans, too. I don’t know who exactly, but it doesn’t matter. Our magic is everything. Fire means honor and life. You know that.”
“Jesus, Keko—”
“If I can get to the Source, if I can tap into the pure, raw magic there and bring it back to the valley, I can cure them. I know I can.”
Griffin had to hold fast to the ledge to keep from tipping sideways. The whole island seemed like it was flipping end over end.
“So you see,” she was saying, “it truly isn’t about me. I almost brought them to war, Griffin. Over my own stupid fucking broken heart. I shamed them when I shamed myself. I made a mess, and I need to clean it up. I owe this to them, to bring back what they’ve lost. And if I die trying, well, then that’s what the Queen wills. At least I tried. At least I tried to make it right with them.”
He just sat there, feeling carved hollow, pulled inside out. This changed . . . everything.
He rubbed his chin. “You made me think—”
“I had to,” she said. “If it were just Chief, I would have shouted his weakness across the valley and challenged him right then and there. But this disease is affecting others, innocents. I couldn’t tell anyone else in the clan where I was going or why, or it would’ve compromised the infected and brought them dishonor when they’ve been so good at hiding their disability.” She shook her head. “When I left the valley I had power on my mind. I wanted to be followed and respected again, and the only way to do that was to become ali’i. Bigger than the Queen, even. Now . . .”
He edged closer. “You still want that, Keko. You’ve always wanted it, but now your motives are truly honorable. Before, it was just a name.”
She searched his face for a long moment, and he heard her unspoken question.
“Yes.” He nodded ardently. “Yes. Your purpose, what you just told me, is honorable. It might be the most honorable thing I’ve ever heard.”
It hurt to say, because barely an hour ago he’d reassured the premier he’d still bring Keko in.
So much of what had happened at the Senatus and later in the chief’s house now clicked into place. And so little of it he could actually tell her. With a growl of frustration, he shoved his hands into his hair. “I thought that the chief was acting weird. Like his mouth was telling me one thing—to go after you and stop you—but his eyes were saying just the opposite. I couldn’t figure it out.”
Her laugh was tinged with disgust. “I don’t think he’s figured it out either. He wants desperately to be cured, but he also doesn’t want to be shamed and deposed, which he thinks will happen if I return to the valley with the Source. He knows he can’t have his magic back and still be ali’i. He’s constantly looking over his shoulder, I bet, wondering when and how he’ll be called out.”
Griffin had seen all of that in the chief’s demeanor.
“If I go back with the Source,” Keko continued, “he’s cured but I’ve also proved myself above him. There’s a greater chance I won’t make it, but he knows me too well, knows what kind of Chimeran I am. That I don’t accept failure. He’s more scared of my success, so that’s why he’s having me stopped. Because he also knows I won’t say anything about the disease if it compromises innocents. This is his way of winning, of holding me down and keeping his own lying ass out of the Common House.”
Yeah, all that seemed correct. There was something else, of course, something Griffin couldn’t tell Keko: that the chief had been all but forced to agree with the Senatus. There was no way Chief could’ve gone against Aya when she’d burst from the ground spouting doomsday predictions. There was no way he could’ve gone against the premier either. Revealing his illness and Keko’s true cause would have compromised his position within his clan and also around the bonfire.
Griffin suspected that deep down the chief really did want Keko to succeed because she would cure him and because she wouldn’t ever expose the blameless Chimerans or him. He thought he would win either way.
No longer, though. Not with the Senatus behind her retrieval. That had been the origin of the anguish Griffin had detected.
Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.
Then he remembered a certain detail. “You know, I thought the chief’s signature felt weak, but I just assumed it was because he was standing next to Bane. Your brother and you, I think you both have some serious power.”
She eyed him strangely. “Why do you say that?”
“Because Bane was with this other Chimeran—a shorter guy with a tattoo covering one shoulder?—and Bane’s signature almost knocked me out, but the other guy’s was barely more than a whisper.”
One hand covered her mouth. Her obsidian eyes went wide as she, too, realized what he’d just inadvertently revealed. “Ikaika. Holy shit. Ikaika, too.”
“Yeah, that was his name. He’s one of the sick ones?”
She shoved off the stool and it clattered to the tile behind her. One thumb went into her mouth and she chewed on the nail, her eyes on the floor. “He’s got to be. And Bane must know about it.”
Griffin rubbed his forehead. “But if Bane doesn’t know about the chief—”
Keko waved a frustrated hand. “Bane doesn’t give a shit about Chief. He’s general. He’s Chimeran and he’s like me. He wants to be ali’i so he wants our uncle gone.”
“So that’s why he told me to help you.”
Her head snapped up. “He . . . what?”
Griffin leaned down and righted her stool, patting the seat, though she didn’t take it. “I told you the truth, that he wanted me to come after you, but there’s more. He pulled me aside separately, told me he didn’t care what the chief or the Senatus said, that he wanted me to help you get to the Source and bring back the magic. I get it now. He wanted me to help him throw over your ali’i.”
“No.” She sat slowly, her eyes dancing back and forth in thought. “He’s doing it for Ikaika. He wants me to cure Ikaika.”
“Why—oh.”
The embrace of the two men, the way they’d touched, witnessed through the grimy window of that convenience store, came back to Griffin.
“I think he wanted me to do it for you, too,” Griffin added. “To make sure you’re safe.”
Keko shook her head at the ceiling. “That’s not how the Chimeran world works, Griffin. I’m a threat to him. I always have been.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look how you’ve changed.”
She recoiled at that, like personal change was evil.
“You have,” he asserted. “And yeah, maybe Bane wants his lover cured and maybe he wants to see the chief go down in the process, but he’s still your brother. I saw his face. He wants you to succeed and he wants you back in the valley alive.”
Hands on her knees, she took a breath and leaned forward. “Now do you understand what I have to do? And why?”
He did. Oh, how he did. Because it was exactly the same thing he would have done for his own people. And she wasn’t even their leader.
A surge of emotion washed over him, took him under. He was helpless against it, flailing, gasping for air. Drowning in her.
He must have been wearing an odd expression, because Keko suddenly flared with rage, a wave of heat exploding out of her. “You gave me your word, Griffin. You use this against me or the Chimerans and this time I will come after you.”
Reaching out, he took her face in his hands. She tried to fight him off at first, but he dug into her hair, finding the back of her skull, and brought her to him for a kiss. A tender, swift meeting of the lips that had less to do with passion and more with promise. She stiffened, understanding.
When he drew back, a profound look of shock transformed her face.
“You are amazing,” he whispered.
Not a day ago, he’d thought her foolish and suicidal and selfish. Beautiful and desirable and . . . his . . . but still all of those things.
She blinked under the shadow of those words, then cleared her throat. “And you have something I need.”
He did, didn’t he? Going to the bar, he asked the bartender for a piece of paper and pen, and a map of Hawaii. The silver-haired, leather-faced man handed him a ratty tourist map marred by brown coffee cup circles.
“Come with me,” he told Keko. “And bring those burgers. I’m starving.”
They walked in silence away from the lights of the bar and the tiny town center, chowing on the cold burgers that tasted like ambrosia, heading down to the edge of the land where a rickety fence half-heartedly kept people from falling over the side. He could hear the ocean far below but could not see it.
