Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  The whole class and Mr. Gallagher turned to me. I’m so off my game today I did the one thing I’ve been trying so hard to avoid for years, calling attention to the fact that I know anything I should not about dracons.

  “…the part about only humans being able to have dracons,” I said, uncertainly, “I’m actually not sure if this is true, but I just heard that dracon women with only a little bit of dragon blood, like one-eighth, or something, can…breed…with other dracons.”

  “Interesting, Dakota, I did not know that.” But thankfully Mr. Gallagher did not delve into my comment and continued with, “So why do humans have so many more rights in the State of Mabi than humans in Mainland New Anglo? What has kept the Mabi state-government predominantly human?”

  “Keanu’s dad,” a jock in the back row said and then shouted, “Yeah, Keanu.”

  Mele elbowed me and winked.

  “I was thinking more: big picture, thank you Michael…”

  “He’s Auli’s dad too,” Ophelia hissed at the jock.

  Yes, Auli and Keanu Hale. Just hearing their names quickened my heart’s pace. Keanu, also known as ‘one of the gods’ or simply as ‘god’ by the female population of Mabi Academy, was our high school quarterback along with being one of two professionally sponsored wave-riders currently enrolled; the other was his best friend Hunter Bryant. Keanu and his sister Auli, who was in my year, were the sole reason I attended Mabi Academy, and proving to be my toughest assignments ever.

  Chapter Three

  The school cafeteria had no assigned seats, but the ‘rules of seating’ were something every high school student knew and lived by or else were humiliated by.

  Because, and only because, Auli was the fifth member to our little dysfunctional clique, we were allowed to sit at the five outside picnic benches that the most popular juniors and seniors held their dominion over. We sat at the fifth table, we were sophomores, even if Auli was the little sister of a god, oh sorry, I meant Keanu.

  Auli sat on our usual painted metal picnic table in front of a plate of what looked like lettuce and just lettuce.

  What, too many calories in a cherry tomato?

  She ignored her leaves and us, talking to some junior boys I did not know, until we stopped to set down our food-laden trays. My tray held three courses, fries for an appetizer, chicken-quesadilla for the main course and chocolate pudding for dessert.

  Ophelia rushed to take the seat across from Auli. She was welcome to it, the only reason I would want to sit within five feet of Auli was to make her smell my fries.

  "Honua’s coming our way,” Mele said to me as we sat.

  I looked up to see that the freshman I tutored was dodging her way through all the popular juniors and seniors, likely to talk to me.

  Ophelia looked over her shoulder at Honua then turned to me. “There's your charity project, Dakota," she said the statement to me but looked at Auli with a poorly suppressed grin.

  Auli turned to me and said overly sweetly, "How do you stay so perfect Dakota?”

  “I eat delicious snacks. Auli, do you want my pudding? I have way too much.” I said as I pushed my tray toward her, "and don't hate because I'm a nicer person than you are, ladies.”

  "Yeah, Ophelia. Since when are you so catty?" Juliette shot at her sister, sounding seriously irritated.

  Ophelia looked to Auli in a not so disguised plea for back-up. When Auli just smirked, Ophelia said, her voice a bit whiny, "Come on. You know Honua is creepy; who is born without ears?"

  "So Ophelia, are you saying Dakota, probably the only person in our school who knows sign language, should not tutor Honua because her tragic birth defect… creeps you out? And why don't you yell it when the girl is right there." Mele said in a voice that had been known to make senior jock-stars want to curl up and cry.

  Instead of quitting when she was behind, Ophelia barreled on in a pouty tone, "Come on, it's not like she can hear me, she doesn't have ears."

  "She reads lips," I said, enunciating each word, "She just needs to see your mouth." I stood up to intercept Honua before she could reach our table.

  As I turned away, I overheard Auli say to Mele, “Remember when we went to that riding camp and…” her words drifted off as I walked away but I heard Mele’s uproarious laughter.

  Honua met me smiling. She was one of the only people in the school who looked younger than I did; her platinum hair and alabaster skin made her look like a living doll. She was beautiful, stunning even, but most people after they knew could not get past the two tiny uneven ridges of skin which were all she had for ears.

  “I have bad news,” I said and signed at the same time, actually disappointed, “I can’t tutor you after school, a family thing came up.”

  “That’s ok, I don’t really need it,” she said, her voice loud, the tone was that of someone who had never heard their own voice. Her hands moved rapidly as she signed the next part, “And you only tutor me so you can stare at Keanu.”

  My mouth dropped open indignantly. “Not true,” I signed back.

  She grinned mischievously and signed, “If eyes could make babies, you two would have little eyeballs running around right now.”

  I signed, “Okay, okay, I might have signed up for tutoring because he signed up for tutoring, yeah.”

  I said the rest, “But that’s not why I continued for the past year, and you know it. You’re one of the, maybe, five people I can stand to be around for more than ten minutes at this school.”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but the smile creeping across her face told me that she knew I was telling the truth. Her eyebrows rose in an ‘oh-la-la’ gesture, and she said, “I heard something about you.”

  “That I’m awesome, I know, it’s been going around. I can’t do anything about it.” I responded nudging her.

  “No,” she signed, good naturedly rolling her eyes again, “That you went to the Midnight Club last night.”

  I was completely broadsided, so petrified the breath inside of me evaporated and I could not form any of the questions and denials that I needed to. Not that being recognized on one of my jobs wasn’t always a risk, but it was the freaks like Alana that I was afraid would be hanging around the places my grandfather sent me into. Not Honua. And I would swear that I did not see anyone I knew last night and I scanned for it, I always do.

  I just managed to shake my head at her when Keanu himself came up and slung his arm around Honua. He said, “Hello ladies,” And grinned at me. If I had trouble breathing before…

  Honua grinned up at him. She said in her too-loud voice, “Hey, do you know CPR? I think Dakota is turning blue.”

  He looked me over, gods save me. “You ok?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” I managed.

  Keanu Hale made Honua look even tinier, he probably had more than a foot on her and his muscular physique was twice her willowy frame. He looked like he belonged in a mural as an ancient Mabiian god risen from the sea to conquer maidens’ hearts, one at a time. That conquering hearts one-at a-time part was true.

  His smile made the insanity of my life just float away for a second and I smiled back. “How are you, Keanu?” I said, my voice a little high pitched.

  “Good,” he said, “Did Auli invite you to the party we’re having this weekend?”

  I peered back at Auli who was animatedly talking to the girls, probably taking this opportunity while I was away from the table to invite everyone to said party. “Not yet,” I said.

  “I’d love it if you could go,” he said.

  Oh wow.

  “I don’t know,” I said, regaining a little bit of the coy flirtatiousness that usually came so easily to me, “last time I went to a party at your house, I was the only one who showed up in a bikini.”

  “No,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “As I remembered everyone was in suits and half the party ended up in the pool.” He winked and said, “And even though I thought you were way too young for me then, I remember thinking you looked grea
t.”

  I could not keep the goofy grin off my face as I said, “Thank you.”

  I did not correct his false memory, because the real one was bad, like worst teen moments bad. The real story was this: I was in seventh grade and I had been in at the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade side of Mabi Academy for about three months and making no headway with becoming best buddies with Auli. I had, at first, thought that this would be an in-and-out job, like all the rest. Make friends with Auli, get what I needed, then go back to my old school and training with Glacier. No such luck. Auli wouldn’t so much as lend me a spare pencil in an exam, let alone let me paint her toenails at an all-girl slumber party.

  The job was my first big one, and it was really big, one hundred thousand dollars for reconnaissance only — but I would have done it for free. And I was failing. When Auli and the twins came up to me in between classes I thought I had finally caught my break.

  Auli had grinned and said, “Hey,” she then clearly overacted a confused expression, “Dakota, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you like pool parties?” Ophelia asked, giggling.

  “Sure.” I said.

  “My brother is in high school and he’s having a Yule pool party at our house,” Auli said, “Would you like to come?”

  To my credit, I played it cool, just said, “Sure, love to,” and inserted her name and address into my phone.

  If I lived in a mansion, the house the Hales lived in was unclassifiable. Their property took up probably half of the countryside around Kapu town. My grandfather’s collected intelligence had told me the water wards on the Hale estate were three times stronger than the school wards. Still, wearing only my charm bracelet and a green bikini, I crossed the bridge just before the wall circling their estate and the two bridges over the water wards inside their estate without a problem.

  Auli had answered the door wearing a red strappy dress; she released cold indoor air on the warm day and gave me the happiest grin I had ever seen on her, before and after that day. “I’m so glad you made it,” she said, opening the door just wide enough so I could squeeze past her. When I was fully in, she closed it, turned around and yelled, “The entertainment is here!”

  I should have known the moment she opened the door wearing a dress, or when the cold air hit me, she wouldn’t have turned the air conditioning on for a pool party, but walking in I had been so awed by the enormity of the space. I did not connect the dots until I looked down to probably about two hundred of my peers drinking punch and wearing suits and cocktail dresses.

  There was a moment where everything could have been very different; I could have been a joke, a social outcast, as I was sure Auli had gleefully plotted. My grandfather might have un-enrolled me, moved us, given up on me being a soldier, given me to my aunt to train with my sister to be a dracon-wife, in other words a baby making slave.

  But Auli’s then best friend Mele, who I had not said two words to at that point, stripped off her cocktail dress and standing in her bra and underwear screamed, “Yeah, pool party!” Then she threw her dress into some guy’s face, ran through the living room and out of the big glass doors into their courtyard. I, with most of the party, followed her out to see Mele pushing party guests into the pool.

  To this day, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.

  In the end, most of the party ended up missing essential articles of clothing, Mele and I became friends while trying our first sips of vodka, and I was never invited to the Hale estate again.

  Until now.

  Keanu smiled, patiently waiting for my answer. Honua still wrapped in Keanu’s muscular arm, made a comical face at me, obviously entertained rather than annoyed at being left out of our conversation, she signed to me, “I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”

  Of course she did not, Keanu was facing me, and she could only read my lips and my half of the conversation. “Sorry,” I signed.

  Keanu said, “Oh, right,” and then pivoted so Honua could see his face. “Do you want to go to a party at my house on Saturday, Honua?” He did not talk weird or slowly to her like even the people who weren’t making fun of her did.

  Saturday? Saturday! This was my big break-through, the opportunity I had been waiting for a year and a half, and it was the same day we were holding a formal reception welcoming Braiden-freaking-McCormick!

  I had an overwhelming urge to throw a full-blown, kicking and screaming, throw myself to the ground, tantrum. I called upon my years of training and gritted my teeth together.

  And to make matters worse, like tears pricking my eyes-worse, Honua, my little social misfit friend who had probably never been invited to a party in her life, beamed up and said, “I can probably go, but only if I can get a ride with you, Dakota.”

  My voice was small when I answered her, “I can’t go. I have a family thing.”

  She smiled and signed, “That is okay.” But, I could see the disappointment on her face. It was probably the first time she had been invited out by a boy, let alone the school’s resident ‘god.’

  Maybe there was some way that I could arrange a ride for her; but then I would be leaving her alone with the social-buzzards.

  “I’ll drive you,” Keanu said, “I’ll drive you home too, I don’t have to drink.”

  It was a terrible idea, high-school parties were probably more dangerous than receptions at the Dracon High Court, the only way she would have anything that resembled fun was if I could watch out for her. But the beaming smile that lit across Honua’s face stopped me from saying anything more.

  Before running off, Honua gave her info to Keanu and said, “Text only.” Then she signed to me that she had to get to the cafeteria before everything worth eating was gone.

  “Let me give you my number too,” I said, before thinking how weird and forward it sounded. But for once, I did not mean it that way, and I explained, “In case you need me. She’s really important to me.”

  His ever present smile disappeared and Keanu was completely serious when he said to me, “I won’t let her leave my sight. And yeah, I would love your number.”

  I gave it to him and he programmed it into his phone.

  “Actually,” he said, smiling sheepishly, “I’m really disappointed you can’t go. Don’t think I’m a stalker or anything, but, part of the reason I’m throwing a party is I want to get to know you outside of school.”

  Oh. My. Gods.

  Literally.

  Maybe I should just throw in the towel and join his horde of fan-girls who spend their days live-messaging about who he’s maybe dating, who he’s talking to, everything he says, and writing hashtags on everything #keanuisagod.

  Yeah, right.

  But his words did cause something inside me to stir so intensely that just to make it stop, I said, “That’s odd, that’s exactly what all the other girls told me you said to them.” I softened the verbal-jab with a smile.

  “No, they did not,” he said, returning my smile and stepping in closer. “And now I have your number so I can call you anytime I want: five in the morning, in the middle of class… lots of possibilities.”

  “Give me that.” I said, reaching out to grab his phone.

  He raised his phone out of my reach. “I don’t think so.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” a voice said directly behind me. It was a mark of how much Keanu was claiming all my attention that Auli surprised me by coming up from behind. Honestly, if I did not have my dampener on it would probably be painful to be this close to her; it only took one look to know that loathing shot out of her every pore all aimed directly at me.

  Completely oblivious to Auli’s hatred, Keanu said, “Hey Shorty. I was just talking to your friend here.”

  “Yeah, we’re just best friends,” she said, tonelessly.

  “Hey,” Keanu said, “I have an idea, Auli, Hunter and I are going out to Big Beach tonight, to watch the sunset and see if we can spot any dolphins. Do you want to come w
ith us, Dakota?”

  Auli turned to me, her expression clearly said, ‘accept and die.’

  “I would love to.” Then I raised my eyebrows to Auli and said, “Do you want to put my address in your phone too, Keanu?”

  “I know where you live,” Auli said then swung her long silky black hair over her shoulder as she stalked back to our table.

  “Great,” Keanu said.

  I put my hand to my face and said, “Sorry, I just remembered, I have to ask Honua something. I’ll… I’ll see you later.”

  I rushed back to our table without waiting for a goodbye, but glanced over as I gathered up my backpack. Keanu was still standing there, his friends already gathering around, but he was looking at me, smiling.

  “Hello?” Mele said. “What just happened? Sit down and tell me now.”

  “Can’t, I have to run,” I shot over my shoulder. “I’ll tell you seventh period, I swear.”

  “You better!” She shouted as I walked as fast as I could without losing all dignity.

  I could not find Honua though, and I realized: I had no idea where she ate lunch, or who with. I roamed the halls for ten minutes until the lunch bell rang and scanned the crowds as people swarmed past into classrooms. And as the seconds ticked away, I realized the seriousness of the situation I was in, my cover could very well have been blown.

  If Honua found out about the Midnight Club from someone, anyone, at school, it would be huge news. If Auli even caught wind of the possibility, it would all be over. She would have her father force the school board to throw me out of school faster than rotten fruit, and with less care.

  As the second bell rang, when there were only a couple people left in the halls, I finally spotted Honua as she was completely across the courtyard. I shouted her name, and then mentally kicked myself for how stupid that was. By the time I crossed the grassy yard, she was in the class, out of my reach.

  I stood at an angle in the open door, just able to see her powering up her desk.

  Hesitating only a minute, I waved to get her attention, but her gaze was fixed on the screen and her hands flying across the touch screen. Screw it, getting detention for being late was the least of my worries, I jumped up and down waving.