Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  Chapter Five

  “He’s here!” my youngest sister, Stacy, lisped out, pulling her face off my window and leaving an impression of her nose and forehead behind. Stacy was playing my self-appointed look-out, more excited about my date than I was.

  “Finally,” I said.

  The silver truck ripping up our driveway appeared bleary through the pane, either my window was really dirty or I was exhausted.

  “Do me one more favor?” I asked Stacy. “Make sure the coast is clear for me?”

  Stacy, who was ten, looked so excited her pigtails were threatening to stand on end. “Yeah, I’ll do a really good job!” she said.

  She ran off before I maneuvered off my bed. There was only one person I was avoiding, my mother. When I had arrived home, I was stuffed with the pizza I had purchased and I was covered in multi-colored paint.

  A second after I closed the front door, my mother rushed into the spacious wood-walled foyer of our stolen mansion. The house smelled like lemon and bleach, probably my older sister Clara’s doing.

  Mom had a shuffle walk, her platform shoes wearing in the well defined scuffed lines on the hardwood.

  Having five dracon babies was hard on my mother, even diluted as our dracon blood was. She was once a staggering beauty, that’s how she attracted Lorien, Deagan and Clara’s birth-father’s attention; but as she often reminds us, “Every baby added five pounds and five wrinkles.” But my guess was that the gin added even more than that. Sometimes I thought the only remnant of her past unsurpassed beauty was reflected in how devotedly she groomed and dressed herself.

  “Sweetheart, you’re home!” she said, tilting her head and slightly pouting out her lower lip. “You must be exhausted.” Her large brown eyes, full dimpled cheeks and fifty thousand dollar smile were so familiar; I wanted so much to be comforted.

  “Yeah,” I said, gently setting down my bag to avoid getting paint on it. “But I can’t pass out, I have another assignment tonight.”

  Would that be the last time I said that? I felt… what was beyond disheartened? Everything was shattering.

  “Oh, baby,” she said, “Do you want me to fix you something?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and to my horror, there were suppressed tears in my voice. Rubbing at my eyes, I wondered why I suddenly did want her to fix me something so much; I wanted her to fix me anything. “Can I have some tea?”

  “Yeah love, come on into the kitchen.”

  Careful not to touch anything, I followed her, the weight on my shoulders amazingly feeling less with my mother fixing me tea; and I almost reeled back when I saw a werewolf in her human form sitting at a barstool at our counter. Her two-piece suit and folder screamed professional, as clearly as her double-soul clued me that deep in her was a moderately strong she-werewolf; not an alpha, but far from an omega.

  I stopped dead as I saw what covered the counter, cloth samples.

  No. Just no.

  My mother’s smile grew and locked on her face as she bustled around the kitchen pretending she knew where everything was. The house was all windows and wood, the light from the western windows made me squint in the afternoon sun as I watched her. She mumbled something about maids moving the kettle from its usual spot.

  I resisted the urge to show her where we kept it.

  “This is the daughter that I was telling you about, Gina,” my mother said, finally finding the kettle and filling it at the tap; she forgot to switch on the filter. She looked over at me with a weighty glance. “Did you remember to go by the bank on the way home angel?”

  For a moment, what she was saying did not compute, and when it did the hot tears feeling returned. But I would not cry. She knew I was getting paid today, and she already spent the money. And, I did not have it.

  Gina swiveled in the bar-stool to give me a tight smile; her voice was low, raspy. “Yes, we’ve been expecting you.” The look she pointed my way was professional and detached.

  I locked my gaze with my mother’s, saying, “They wouldn’t let me withdraw at the teller, since my name isn’t on your account.”

  Her words were spoken through a tense smile, “How much did they let you get out?”

  “Fifteen hundred,” I said. Then, because my lie sounded so stupid I added, “It was the ATM limit. I’ll go get it.”

  “No, honey, you’re exhausted, I’ll get it.” And she was shuffling to the foyer before I could stop her. She returned a minute later with the remainder of my money. “Gina, I can only pay you close to four thousand now. Could I reserve the date for that?”

  Gina had no touch of sympathy in her voice, “We could do this Stephanie one of two ways: you can pay in full now and receive a ten percent discount, reducing your budget of twenty-five thousand to twenty-two thousand five hundred or you could pay a nonrefundable deposit of twenty percent then the remainder in full on the morning of the event, but you will not receive the discount.”

  “Great, I’ll do the second,” my mother said. She handed over my cash and pulled out her checkbook. “Can I write a check for the remainder of the deposit?”

  I walked out, the tap-water tea completely unappetizing.

  When my older sister Clara appeared at the top of the stairs, her inhuman beauty seemed to shine down on me. She rushed down and embraced me completely ignoring the paint on every inch of me. “Hey goofy girl, how was your day?” My sister’s soul was like morning sunshine, as warm and pure as a sunrise.

  I had to fight myself from pushing her off of me.

  The grocery money I had promised her was gone, and my belly was full of pizza. The worst part was the cash was still in the house, still within my reach, and I was too pathetic to take it from Gina’s grasp.

  “I have to shower,” I grumbled, shrugging off her embrace and dodging Stacy as she ran for me.

  After the shower, I locked myself and Stacy, when she wouldn’t stop knocking, in my room which had been enough to keep my mom from barging in.

  My luck did not hold when I descended the stairs, busy trying to redo the clasp on my dampener charm bracelet, I looked up to find my mother leaning against the front door.

  “It doesn’t look like an assignment to me,” she said.

  “It is.” I did not really feel the need to explain myself so I reached for the doorknob willing to push her aside if I had to.

  Her hand took the bracelet I had not managed to put on, and she clasped it around my arm, and did not take her hand away. “Sweetheart, I know that you are angry at me, but you need to understand, what I do, I do for all of us. I am only ever thinking of our family.”

  It took all of my energy to tolerate her touch I was so angry with her, knowing if I knocked her hand away, I would more than likely use too much force. “Mom,” I said, “Let go of my hand or I can’t make you any money.” Right before I opened the door, I said, “Oh yeah, it’ll be one hell of a party with no electricity.”

  I did not wait for a response, just ran up the driveway and climbed into the bed of the pick-up where Keanu was reclining and settled in next to him. The outside of the truck was dirty, but the bed was spotless.

  “Hey beautiful,” Keanu said smiling. Then he asked, “Does your mom care you’re back here?”

  He nodded toward my mom as she was still standing in the doorway, arms crossed and gaze disapproving.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Alright,” he said, tapping the back window of the truck with his knuckles. As we drove away my mother just stood there, watching.

  The truth was: I was positive that my mother hated that I was lying in the bed of a truck with a boy, but she would never object.

  The first time I came home with a split lip from a job, some stupid little girl part of me really wanted to believe that my mother would throw a fit and demand I stop. She had taken one look at my face and then turned and poured herself a glass of vodka with shaking hands. It was actually really stupid that I was disappointed in her reaction, because even at twelve I would no
t have stopped or wanted her to get in my way.

  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.

&nb
sp; “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.