Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (8 page)

I still want her to demand I stop at times, though, usually after I get punched in the stomach or a knife is pressed to my throat.

I feel that way right now.

As far as assignments go, I could not have asked for this one to turn out better. Alone with Keanu for the entire ride there, it was exactly what my grandfather wanted.

The charm bracelet suddenly felt very heavy, very solid around my wrist.

I turned to Keanu and caught him unabashedly checking me out. He met my gaze, looking like I caught him at something he did not feel the least bit guilty about.

“I like your…” He raised his eyebrows, “Pants.” His mischievous smile said my jeans were the least of what he liked.

“Well, I like your…” I examined him thoroughly. Keanu looked completely different and yet exactly the same in street clothes. His clothes were never what drew my focus to him, but he looked so approachable in board-shorts and a t-shirt. I finally went with saying, “Shoes.”

“I think they just call them sandals,” he said, swinging his arm around me. It seemed so natural a gesture for him. I had already observed that Keanu was a very physical person, always mock-fighting, hugging or wrestling the people lucky enough to grab his attention.

I touched my bracelet; the ridges of the charms jagged and rough on my fingers. The bottom line, I told myself, is that my grandfather gave me an order. If I disobeyed a direct order from my grandfather and he found out about it, I would end up begging to be only ‘kicked to the curb’.

“What is that?” Keanu said, because my fiddling had drawn his attention to the charm bracelet.

“Just an old bracelet I wear.” I held out my wrist so he could see it.

His fingers played along the little charms. For some reason, whether it was exhaustion or I was just past my capacity for lies for the day, I told Keanu a little of the truth. “My dad was a lawyer when I was little. He used to take me everywhere with him, he called me his mini-legal because I would doodle all over his important papers. Every time he left on a business trip, I used to have panic attacks. So he would order a charm online from where he was going and I would hold it when I felt an attack coming on.”

“Isn’t that backwards? Don’t people usually buy the charms while they’re at the monuments?” He asked as he gave me a sympathetic smile and still played with my bracelet. His fingers paused at the clasp. “May I?”

“Yes,” I said, after a long pause.

His fingers deftly unclasped the little metal clasp and he lifted the chain to see it better. “Did it work? Did your panic attacks stop?”

Keanu’s soul immediately washed around me. His soul was absolutely unique, if I had enough energy to muster amazement, I would feel it. If other people had light waves streaming from them, his soul would be pure liquid, water, like a gentle playful ocean pooling around him and me. His outer emotions were cerulean, warm and rocking me in gentle waves. Remembering that he had asked me a question, I said, “No, I still have them.” I curled in closer to Keanu.

Placing my hand on his arm I probed the first surface emotion layer of his soul, just brushing against it, not pulling anything into me or pushing anything into him. I delved just a little deeper, trying to read his surface emotions…and everything went black.

“Wake up sleepy girl.” An arm squeezed around me.

I looked around, my gaze not quite bringing my surroundings into focus, completely at a loss for where I was. The only two other times I had woken up in unfamiliar surroundings, it had been because I had passed out from blood loss; I half-registered that I should be panicking, but for some reason I could not.

Looking up into Keanu’s face, everything came back. I was wrapped in Keanu’s arms, flying down a highway in a silver metal truck-bed. Thankfully I did not lash out and attack, which should have been my first reaction. I could almost see the cooling soothing waves that spread from Keanu and seeped into me. If he was a ‘bad-guy’- I would have been screwed. My first thought was, ‘he’s not human.’—yet that was impossible. His father was the leader of the shoot non-humans on sight club.’

I knew better than most.

Keanu was just exceptional, his soul abnormal, plain and simple.

I checked his shoulder, my pillow, for any sign of drool, that would be just great; but he was dry. “I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I should be embarrassed, “I guess I’m tired.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, smiling, “Watching you sleep was actually nice.”

“That’s not creepy,” I said with a groggy smile.

He grinned wider.

Seriously, I was supposed to be wrapping him around my proverbial little finger; so-far just touching his soul knocked me out, on top of that I seemed to be seconds from swooning. And I realized, as the truck slowed down and pulled off onto a small paved road leading to a bustling parking lot, I had an hour to complete my mission, and slept through the whole thing.

Bad, really bad. My only possible way to redeem myself was to ensure that we’re alone on the ride home. I reached out with my power, testing the liquid waves that made up his soul; I did not dare delve again, suddenly almost certain that if I did I would get knocked out again.

I settled next to him, my arm touching his, knowing that if I looked at him, I could not complete my task. Manipulating emotions was much more complicated than depleting emotions from someone’s first three layers of their soul. Draining an emotion is a lot like pulling a plug; whereas what my grandfather wanted me to do was more like scooping out a handful of emotion and then gently pouring it into a different memory.

That was exactly what trying to pull just a surface emotion from Keanu felt like, scooping water from his soul and having it immediately slip right through my fingers. He did not even blink, but I felt something, as though I was fading even after trying only twice with no success.

I released my connection to his soul as the truck lurched into a parking stall.

Showing no sign that he had any awareness of my intrusion, Keanu squeezed my shoulder. He said, “We’ll just make the sunset.”

“Yeah,” I said, seeing double. I blinked rapidly. Was it possible to have natural internal water-wards? Could they be broken? What would happen if I tried to break them?

Something here was—more. I did not even know how to explain it, but every time I advanced a step in this assignment, if it could even be called an assignment at this point, I just obtained a better view of how far I had to go. Would my grandfather at least leave me this when he took everything else away? Or would my failure today shoot in the last nail in my coffin.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Keanu said as his fingers gently lifted my wrist. He smiled as he wrapped my charm around my hand and refastened the clasp.

My dizziness immediately vanished. “Thank you,” I whispered. I touched the one charm my dad did not give me, the water charm, and stared at Keanu.

Hunter Bryant popped out of his truck and asked, “Bumpy ride bra?”

Hunter was a guy I knew by reputation only, but what a reputation. He had a face to launch a thousand waveboards. If Keanu was a god, Hunter was the human that tempted all the goddesses. A blond haired, blue eyed tempter, rake, any way you wanted to put it. The difference between him and his best friend was Hunter paraded it; just looking at him, standing next to the truck-bed, shirtless and stretching, screamed ‘feast your eyes ladies’. Okay, so I guess I did, I’m only human, right?

Well, human enough.

“Could not have been better,” Keanu said. He offered his hand and I took it, not because I needed help getting down from the truck, but because of the message it sent to Auli, who had just emerged wearing a poorly disguised scowl.

“Aren’t we going to the lookout?” I asked.

“You don’t like the ocean?” Auli asked as she stepped up beside me.

“I like the ocean, of course,” I said, heading for the path to the ocean beside Keanu.

“Hey there friend,” Auli said with a scorching smile. Being near her was like standing on a dormant volcano, it looked safe, but right beneath the surface, beneath your feet, was coursing rivers of lava. If she wasn’t who she was I would swear that the girl was a dracon. And some part of me, perhaps my intuition, was sure that Auli’s soul would be as strong and fortified as her brother’s, but my guess was that if I took my charm off the water of her soul would be boiling.

While Hunter and Keanu talked about something I knew and cared little about, wave-riding, Auli ended up standing next to me as we took the path down to the beach.

“Are you going to play volleyball again this year?” I asked her. Joining our school’s volleyball team in the spring session the year before had been another scheme I had to make Auli my friend, it failed.

“Yes,” she said curtly. “Are you?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Are you sure you want to put yourself through another year?” she asked as if I wasn’t the second best player on the team, after her, but still.

“Definitely,” I smiled, “I’m hoping to play middle more next year.” Yeah, she usually played middle hitter.

“Everyone can dream,” she said.

“Some dreams come true,” I said, and then I pointedly looked over at Keanu.

I knew from her scowl that I was just shooting myself in the foot, but I really could not help myself.

Thankfully the walk to the beach was short.

Big beach was just the way it sounded, big. It stretched in a long arch into the horizon, people scattered throughout. The sun glared at us from a still blue sky, but it threatened any minute to dive for Kabikabi, our nearest island neighbor that was deserted except for a few massive estates.

Several feet from where a yellow life guard hut perched, an aged old sign read: ‘Swim at your own risk.’ It listed the various dangers: shore break, rip tides and sharks. Below that, was a sign that read: ‘this beach is for human use only, no dracon or infected, please.’

Well, at least they said please. It was only a suggestion, they did not ward the beach, I’m not really sure it was possible to ward a beach. While the ocean was a big moving body of water, a water ward only worked with a fixed perimeter and the ocean was anything but fixed. Most dracons and infected kept their distance from the ocean regardless. A long enough time spent in the ocean would eventually kill a dracon or infected. Swimming in such a giant mass of moving water immediately weakened us.

The moment our group stepped out onto the white sand, Hunter ran past us, scooped up and sprinted off with Auli. From the way her mouth sucker-fished onto his neck, I decided I could rule out Mele’s theory, I am by far more Mabiian than Hunter and Auli seemed to have no problem with him.

“Oh, I don’t want to see that,” Keanu said, turning away and facing the ocean.

“Turn-around is fair play,” I said, then stood on my tiptoes intending to kiss his cheek but I wasn’t tall enough so kissed more his jaw-line.

The smile he turned on me was so radiant that I was literally stupefied for a second. He said, “You are absolutely right.” In one quick move he scooped me into his arms and charged for the ocean.

“Wait, wait! I’m wearing my swimsuit
under
my clothes,” I squealed, actually completely terrified. “Let me down!”

Running full out for the small shore breaking waves he carried me kicking and at some point laughing hysterically. I knew it was too late when I tasted the salty spray from the waves, then we were both plunged underwater. Only for a second, but since I was laughing, I had to spit out ocean water.

The water rushed out and so did we; I had to start swimming to stay above the water. Keanu surfaced next to me, popped up, kissed me hard and fast on the lips, and then dove under.

“Hey!” I said indignantly to no one, but I was smiling. The water was clear enough that I could see Keanu, but when I grabbed for him, he swam away quick and surfaced out of my reach. My stomach clenched as my mind screamed the same thought I had in the truck: ‘he’s not human’. He was too natural in the water, too fluid; my guess was that his soul would merge perfectly into the cerulean ocean.

Even though I could not really sense any bad effects from being in the ocean, thank goodness I had my dampener on, I started swimming for the shore.

He had to be human, didn’t he?

The water rushed back for a wave and I rode the small swell to the shore. Keanu was close behind me, and he wrapped me in his arms before I could wiggle out of my jeans, his hands wrapped around my hips.

When I looked at Keanu an unintelligible mess of emotions traveled from my head directly into my stomach. If you could believe it, the person whose emotions were the most difficult to read were… my own. I knew, irony, that merciless ass struck again.

Glacier’s voice seemed to scream in my head, ‘rule one: always stay in control of your target. If you lose power and cannot regain it within a minute, abort immediately.’ I haven’t had the power since I took off my charm. But, I did not want to abort. I did not even want to take off my bracelet and try to manipulate his soul again.

If there was a tally, all the points would be scrawled after Keanu’s name, none after mine. I wasn’t even naïve enough to believe I was making more than a fleeting impression on him: a pretty underclassman that a god like Keanu rolled around on the beach once with. The saddest part was that I wanted to make an impression on him; I had wanted to make an impression on him for a while now without leaning on my aspect.

As his lips descended, I closed my eyes to submit to my assignment’s ultimate failure. His lips just brushed mine, giving me the faintest taste of salt from the ocean, then he yanked away from me abruptly.

“Whoa, what was that?” he said.

I opened my eyes to see Keanu raise his hand to where a trickle of blood was running down the side of his forehead. At my concerned expression he said, “I think something hit me.”

Then he dodged, moving me back as a small white object hurtled where he had just been.

We both spun around to see two men and a woman approaching. One of the men flicked his wrist and a small shell came hurdling at us.

I knocked the shell out of the way, though it would have missed me anyway and turned to the jerks that were pestering us. Sheer terror gripped me. I recognized the men, how could this happen twice in a row? This assignment was over. I did not need Bobby to tell me this time, it was time to abort and fast.