I just hoped that no one started shooting from the ground. Okay, I was probably going to die in a ritual sacrifice ceremony anyway, but I’d rather not go out in a helicopter crash if it’s all the same to everybody.
The helicopter had two benches facing each other in the cabin. Blankenship and Leikala sat opposite me where I sat between the Stupid twins. Leikala was smiling a vicious smile while Blankenship just stared at the statue. The doors on both sides of the cabin were still open, and we were moving quickly across the park toward the ocean.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Leikala said.
“Haven’t we been over this before, Leikala?” I said. “I’ll explain it to you again, and I’ll use small words. You capture me. I try to escape. This is how the game is played. If you don’t tell me where we’re going, then I won’t know how to get home once I escape from you. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Your escaping days are over,” Blankenship said. He reached under his seat and pulled out a metal case with a hinged lid. Inside the case was hollow with padded foam walls. He took something out of his pocket that looked like a fountain pen or engraving tool or something. He touched this to the bottom of the statue and it made a little beeping sound. Then he put the statue carefully inside the case and closed and latched the lid. He placed it in front of him, like he didn’t want it out of his sight.
The chopper was moving fast but staying low to the ground. Probably wanted to stay off any radar or tracking systems. We were getting close to the ocean. I was guessing that Blankenship had a ship out there somewhere. We’d land and the ship would take off and then no one would ever be able to find us. Once I got on that ship, I didn’t think I’d get off it alive.
I looked at the statue case again. Blankenship was sitting right next to the door, with the case between his feet. Dumb and Dumber were no longer holding on to me. Probably daydreaming about their next steroid injections.
“You see, Etherea,” Simon said, and then he started droning on and on again about his plan for world domination. About how he knew that this was his destiny and he’d never felt anything in his life like the Power of Mithras, and on and on. But I wasn’t listening. I was watching. Leikala, since she’d probably heard this speech a million times before, was looking out the other door. Dumb and Dumber were sitting quietly, hands in their laps, trying to outflex each other. I looked at them, then at the statue case. Just a few more seconds.
I waited until the chopper hit open water. Then I did probably the dumbest thing I’ve done since I arrived at Blackthorn Academy.
I rocked forward in my seat, and then, as hard as I could, I drove my elbows back into Dumb and Dumber’s faces. I hit them both square and felt the satisfying crunch of noses beneath my elbows. Before they could even let out a scream, I lurched out of my seat, grabbed the handle of the statue case, and dived through the helicopter door toward the open water below.
CHAPTER TWENTY
All Wet
Though I really hated her, I have to give her credit, because Leikala was quick. She was moving toward me even as I jumped through the door, and she managed to grab my foot. So there I was, hanging upside down out of a helicopter for the second time that night. Only, this time the weight of the statue was pulling me down and Leikala wasn’t about to let go. The doorway wasn’t big enough for Blankenship or the Stupid twins to reach through and help her, though they were trying. The statue kept getting heavier, and I felt like I was going to break in two.
“I’ll drop it!” I screamed.
She still didn’t let go. I tried to kick at her with my free foot but couldn’t get the right angle. I felt like my back was breaking.
I figured I had one shot. The chopper had stopped moving forward and now hovered in place. Blankenship must have told the pilot to go higher, figuring I’d be too scared to jump. No time to mess around now. With a shout, I switched the handle of the case to one hand and at the same time started swinging it back and forth in my right hand. Then, on the swing back, I used the momentum that gave me to rise up at the waist like I was doing a sit-up and grab a handful of Leikala’s long, perfectly styled, coal-black hair and yank as hard as I could. She screamed and let go of my foot, and I thought about how good it felt to yank her hair like that as I let go and fell to the water below.
The helicopter was probably only ten or fifteen feet above the water, but I was still completely unprepared for the force with which I hit. Ten feet is not all that high, not as high as some high divers in swimming competitions. But they know what they are doing, and are ready and going into the water the correct way. I had the statue case in my hand, and luckily that broke the surface of the water first, but it still knocked the wind out of me.
All the air rushed out of my lungs and I sank, sank, sank below the surface of the water. I thought I was going to pass out, but I kept telling myself not to. I let go of the statue case because it was pulling me down. I hoped it wasn’t too deep here so we could find it later. My lungs were killing me and I needed air. I couldn’t tell which way was up and I didn’t know what to do. I needed to breathe. I was going to drown.
Then all of a sudden I felt something grab my robe. The water was dark and I couldn’t see, so I had no idea who it was. Could be a shark, for all I knew. But I was being pulled in a direction I hoped was the surface. I heard somewhere that sharks sometimes toy with their victims before eating them. That would be just my luck. Grabbed by a shark with a sense of humor.
Then suddenly I broke through the surface. I could breathe. I sucked in a huge lungful of air. When I could make sense of what was going on, I noticed that the helicopter was hovering overhead and there was a bright light shining on me. Leikala was treading water next to me. What do you have to do to get rid of this witch?
“You’re coming with us!” she shouted.
“No way. Get away from me!”
“Simon is very angry!”
“Get used to it!” I said.
She grabbed hold of a harness that had been lowered from the helicopter. I could see the lights of the shore off in the distance. I twisted away from her and started to swim.
I spent a lot of time on the beach with my friends when I was in California. I’m not a jock and I hate to exercise, but I am a good swimmer and I like the water. Of course, I wasn’t crazy about swimming through dark, scary water, most likely full of sharks, while a supervillain hovered in a helicopter above me, but we have to accept life with all of its shortcomings.
I heard Leikala curse me, and she splashed back in the water to come after me. The spotlight from the chopper swiveled to follow me.
I held my breath and went down under the water. From there I could see the area of light that was outlined by the chopper’s searchlight. I swam away from it until I couldn’t hold my breath anymore and then I hit the surface, about ten yards out of the light circle. The light started to play over the surface of the water like they were trying to find me. I took a quick breath and dived again, kicking with all of my might and staying under as long as I could. This time when I surfaced I was even farther away from the light, moving parallel to the shore. They were moving toward shore, because they thought I’d be heading in that direction.
I watched as the light played along the surface, and when it started to come back in my direction, I dived again and swam away. Under the water, I shucked off the robe. In all the excitement I hadn’t even realized I was still wearing it. But it was white and would make me easier to spot in the water. For as long as I could, I kept diving and swimming, diving and swimming, putting distance between the helicopter and me. Swim. Dive. Swim. Dive. When I was about fifty yards away from the light circle, I started to angle back toward shore. I switched to a backstroke so that I could make progress toward the shore without losing sight of the chopper.
I looked up at the sky, which had gone moonless but was still full of stars. The ocean felt as warm as bath-water. If it weren’t for the fa
ct that a crazy person wanted to kill me—and the fact that I once watched a Discovery Channel documentary about how sharks like to feed at night—it would have been downright enjoyable. It was going to get light soon. I hoped they gave up looking for me before the sun came up and they could spot me in the water.
I kept pushing toward the shore, but it had to be a couple of miles away. I turned to watch the helicopter make an ever-widening arc. They had clearly lost track of me, and I knew that wouldn’t be making Blankenship happy right now.
Then I saw Leikala come up out of the water and the cable that was attached to the harness pull her back into the chopper. The light went out and the helicopter headed out to sea at blistering speed. No statue. No me. They were taking off. I wondered why.
I started swimming in a straight line toward shore—as fast as I could, but quietly, in a way that hopefully would not have me resembling a tasty shark treat.
After a while I stopped to tread water, trying to rest a moment and catch my breath. That’s when I saw three blinking lights coming toward me. More helicopters. More Mithrians? Two of the helicopters went by and one stopped above me. I looked up into the searchlight and waved, hoping like heck it was Mr. Kim.
Right then I felt something hard and scaly brush against my leg, and a few feet away I saw a dark dorsal fin break the surface of the water.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After This, Kitchen Duty Will Be a Vacation
I held still. But I couldn’t hold completely still because then I would sink. I had to tread water or go under. I remembered from the Discovery Channel documentary that if there were sharks around you were supposed to stay calm and not thrash around in the water. Of course, it is very easy for the perfectly safe narrator of a shark documentary to say, “Remain calm and do not thrash around,” because the narrator of the shark documentary is not IN THE WATER WITH THE SHARKS!
I kept my eye on that dorsal fin. It moved around me and around me, circling closer. I was concentrating on the shark so hard that I forgot about the helicopter hovering right over me.
Then something hit me on the shoulder and I thought that was it. A shark was going to eat me. I let out an involuntary scream and started thrashing in the water—exactly what you’re not supposed to do. But it wasn’t a shark. It was a harness attached to a cable from the helicopter. I shot into that harness like my hair was on fire, and it pulled me up and out of the water. I looked down and saw the dorsal fin cut through the water right where I had been just moments before.
A few seconds later I was in the cabin, and there were Alex, Pilar, Brent, and Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim waved to the pilot and the chopper turned to head back to shore.
“Well, it is about time,” I said. “I had to jump out of a stupid helicopter and there was a shark! What took you so long?”
“Rachel, are you injured?” Mr. Kim said.
“No. Apart from the fact that I was just about to be shark food!” Mr. Kim pulled a blanket from under his seat and I wrapped myself in it.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Your watch,” said Brent, smiling as he held up the small GPS that he had used to track the signal from my watch. He had LoJacked me all the way to the middle of the ocean!
“Thanks for coming to get me, guys,” I said. Brent and his beautiful watches.
All of a sudden I was exhausted. All of the adrenaline and everything left me all at once and I felt like I could sleep for days.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mr. Kim asked.
“Well, if you don’t count being waterlogged, almost killed, captured by a really bad guy, and the fact that I haven’t seen Gilmore Girls in months, I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Kim. “Gilmore girls? Are they friends of yours?”
“No, they’re not…they’re on TV…it’s a…Oh, never mind. Anyway, I managed to pull the statue out of the chopper with me. It can’t be too far from here.”
“Brent?” said Mr. Kim.
Brent was looking at some other gizmo he’d pulled from his backpack. It started beeping.
“Got it,” Brent said. He gave Mr. Kim some numbers that didn’t mean anything to me.
“What the…,” I said.
Mr. Kim whipped out a handheld radio and spoke into it for a few minutes. He was giving someone coordinates on where to look for the statue. I heard someone answer back that they had lost sight of the Mithrian helicopter and would fly back and retrieve the statue while the other chopper continued the search for Blankenship.
Mr. Kim finished his conversation and returned the radio to his pocket.
“I’m relieved that you are okay,” he said.
I nodded.
“Of course, there are a few things we need to discuss. Such as your unexcused absences from school. But first you should rest.” He said it in a nice way, but what he really meant was “You are in so much trouble you can’t begin to comprehend how many extra push-ups this will add up to.”
The chopper finally touched down in a large parking lot near the harbor back in Hilo. It wasn’t too long before another helicopter flew up and landed next to us. An FBI agent in a wet suit hopped out of the chopper holding the statue case, which he handed off to Mr. Kim.
“It was right there waiting,” he said. “Water was only about thirty feet deep. We got it up in no time.”
Mr. Kim thanked him and took the statue case.
“How were you able to find it so fast?” I asked.
“We have Brent to thank,” he said. “While you were flying to the meeting with Simon, he attached the tracking chip from his watch to the statue so we were able to track it with his GPS unit. Those chips are the newest technology, and they hadn’t been in the water long enough to damage them yet.” I looked at Brent, and he just kind of shrugged. The guy was definitely a quick thinker.
“We must move the statue to a safe place,” Mr. Kim said. “I have made arrangements to use the vault at the Bank of Hilo until we can move it safely off the island. I would like you all to accompany me there.”
“Mr. Kim,” I said, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go back to the hotel now. I’m just really, really beat.” Mr. Kim looked like he was going to argue with me, but when he saw how tired I was he relented.
“Of course, Rachel, you’ve been through a lot. We will drop you at the hotel and the others can accompany me to the bank. I’ll fill in the others over dinner, and we’ll talk when you’re rested.” Oh man. The dreaded “we’ll talk” speech.
We loaded into a nearby van. In twenty minutes we were back at the Royal Hawaiian. I hopped out, they drove off, and I staggered up to my room. There I emptied my pockets and set everything on the dresser. I took off my watch and set it on the nightstand by the bed. I really wanted a shower.
I let the glorious hot water flow over me for what seemed like an hour. It wasn’t until I was finished and starting to dress that something started to bother me. Something about Blankenship and that statue.
As I brushed my teeth, it hit me. I remembered Simon taking that little penlike thing out of his pocket and marking the bottom of the statue. But I didn’t think that was a pen. I think he attached something to the statue so he could find it in case he was ever separated from it. And nobody else knew about it, except me.
I was walking back into the room to get my watch and beep the others when I heard a soft knock on the door. I thought it was probably housekeeping.
So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the door and ran right into Leikala.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Like a Bad Penny, She Keeps Turning Up
She wasn’t expecting me, and I think I actually startled her. I shrieked in surprise, and she lunged for me. I jumped back into my room and slammed the door. I could hear her pounding, but she couldn’t make too much noise because that would attract attention.
“Come out here!” she shouted.
“Don’t you know we voted you off the island?” I yelled through the door
. “I’m calling security!”
I ran to the phone and punched the button for the front desk. Nothing happened. No dial tone. They must have shut off the hotel’s phone system somehow. They probably sent Leikala up alone, figuring she could take me out without attracting attention. What to do?
My only option was the balcony outside our room. I grabbed my cash and Swiss Army knife off the dresser and ran to the balcony door. Looking down, I didn’t see anyone that looked like they were watching my room. We were on the second floor, so it wasn’t that much of a drop. Our room faced the parking lot, but there was a little area of landscaping with plants and bushes down below. If I climbed over and hung from the side, I could probably land safely. Of course, the smart thing might be to stay where I was and holler for help, but there could have been more Mithrians about and I didn’t want to attract any unwanted company.
I swung up and over the railing, then let go and dropped to the ground.
I had to think for a minute. I needed to get out of here quickly. Once Leikala let them know that I was still free, they’d come looking for me around the back.
I lifted my wrist to call the others with my watch, then realized I’d left it on the nightstand in the room. Dang! I’d never make it to the beach in time. I was sure Leikala or the Stupid twins would be coming around the side of the hotel any minute. My best option was to hide in plain sight.
I ran quickly down the sidewalk to the first door that led back into the hotel, toward the lobby. I didn’t see anyone that looked like a Mithrian—just a bunch of hotel employees and tourists milling about doing hotel employee and tourist stuff. Of course, any one of them could be a Mithrian, but I was going to have to take a chance.
To Hawaii, with Love Page 12
