She made herself sit perfectly still because she knew he didn’t want to be touched. “How many?”
“Twelve.” His voice was utterly flat. “Twelve Primaries.”
Her eyes widened, even more pieces completing the picture of this man. “Why them?”
“Because it used to be my . . . job.”
She thought back to what he’d told her in the Utah hotel room. “I thought you were Gwen’s protector.”
“I was. But when her dad, the former Chairman, wanted a Primary taken out—a Primary who found out about us who wasn’t supposed to know, or a Primary who violated terms of our contracts—he used me.”
She couldn’t breathe. For all her body was made for, she couldn’t take even a simple breath to power the human lungs of her existence. Suddenly she was back around a bonfire in the Utah mountains surrounded by anxiety and threats.
“That’s what that was about,” she was finally able to say. “When the premier ordered that Primary scholar’s mind scrambled and you got upset. Because that’s what you had to do once.”
His expression hardened. “I had to kill. What they’ve been doing is worse.”
“But that’s what put you on edge. What might have made you mistake Makaha—” She cut herself off when his glare turned to blades, because she was more than aware that part of the blame belonged to her. “I mean, I understand now why you were so angry. You’d been poked hard in a wound, and then rubbed raw. It didn’t make sense to me before. Now it does.”
He didn’t like her knowing this, she could tell. He wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed by having her witness the nightmare, but he was pissed off he’d had to reveal it at all. He’d been trying to bury it for all these years, keeping himself behind a desk and surrounding himself with politics so he wouldn’t have to go out into the field and risk resurrecting old ghosts.
“I’ve killed, too.” When he looked at her in a silent way that said he was listening, she added, “More than twelve.”
“When. Who.”
“About five years ago the Chimeran clan from Molokai came over. They invaded our valley, wanted to take down our ali’i. Wanted to raise themselves up and make us all their lesser.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “We destroyed them. They had small numbers. Their clan was dwindling and that was their last effort to make a name for themselves.”
“Did they kill a lot of your clan?”
“Yes. My parents among them. They were excellent fighters but they were older. A lot of our younger, untried warriors died, too.”
He took a deep breath she recognized as one meant to calm himself. The mark of a leader trying to keep his head. “The difference is, Keko, you were protecting your people against a clear threat. Someone tries to kill you or your family, take your home, you fight back. I get that. But that secretary in Toronto who walked in on her boss as he was using Mendacia, just as the illusionary magic was kicking in? That completely innocent woman who opened the door at the one wrong second out of the entire day? She deserved to die because of that?”
Keko sat there, transfixed, listening to this from an entirely new perspective, one she hadn’t ever considered because her training had never allowed her to think that way.
“The Chairman sent me after her,” Griffin went on bitterly, his face nearly unrecognizable, “and I went because I fucking had to. I had a clean kill planned out, but I must have made a noise she didn’t recognize because she turned and saw me. Saw a strange man coming after her in her own house. I saw her fear. I saw her awful confusion. She had absolutely no idea who I was or why I was there. Only that I was there to kill her.”
He popped to his feet and she had to tilt her head back to look at him. The muscle in his jaw did that clenching thing again, the thing that made him look mean even as his eyes softened. “When the Son of Earth came after you and I knew you were having trouble accessing your fire, that you were probably seconds away from dying, I went after him. I attacked and went for the kill even though I knew it would trigger the nightmare. I just have to deal with what I’ve done.” He bent down, snatched his vest from the ground, stuffed the knife into the back holder, and zipped the thing over his chest.
She got the signal. He was done talking and they were moving out. She rose, a little unsteady from the shock.
“You know what?”
It was his tender tone, completely flipped around from what she’d just heard, that stopped her, made her look up. “What?”
“Fuck the nightmare. If the Son of Earth comes after you, I’ll do it all over again.”
• • •
Another couple hours’ hiking to get out of the green tangle and across the main highway, and then they turned down a long, winding road high above the ocean. It was right at the line when day started to curve toward dusk, and the light had a golden quality to it.
A row of modest one-story homes with overflowing garages and rusting cars in their driveways stretched up ahead, their front doors opening to one hell of a view of sparkling blue water. A hand-painted sign out on Route 19 pointed to a B and B and Griffin steered them toward it. Keko had tried to protest—she’d refused to hitch a ride, too—but they both needed food and a good rest. And he needed a phone.
Even in their dirty states, they didn’t stand out. The island was crawling with people walking along the roadsides, thumbs jutting out, their whole lives contained in their backpacks. He didn’t worry about being noticed as they trudged down the road—not from Primaries who puttered around their front yards and not from the Children of Earth. If their theory was correct, they’d left the Children’s territory the moment they’d left the wild.
The B and B was a Victorian-era house with a wraparound front porch, moist from the humidity. The owners lived in the mid-twentieth-century home set farther back on the slope, and they accepted cash from Griffin, no ID required.
Griffin and Keko were the only guests, but he only booked one room.
Key in hand, he unlocked the heavy wooden door and let it swing inward. The room was clean but basic, done in faux bamboo furniture and draped in tropical prints. He stepped inside, noting the single queen bed, and didn’t hear Keko’s footsteps following. When he turned around, she’d backed up against the porch railing, her face slightly pale as she peered into the room. It had started to rain. Again.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Are you? I’ll find us some food.”
He didn’t know what she’d brought with her when she’d set out from the valley. “Need money?”
She patted her pack awkwardly. “I’ve got a little.” She backed down the porch, avoiding his eyes. Before bounding down the steps, she added, “I’ll be back.”
Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t even sure that was true. Two things kept him from going after her right then and there: One, she didn’t know how to read the star map; and two, he was finally alone.
Propping open the door with his boot, he snatched the phone sitting on the table by the bed, dialed quickly, and stretched the curling, tangled cord toward the porch. Standing in the open doorway, watching Keko walk barefoot in the rain toward a dense row of connected shops done in the same old Victorian style, he listened impatiently to the ringing on the other end of the line.
A man picked up, sounding skeptical. “Yes?”
“This is Griffin Aames. Get me the premier.” The Air’s hesitation pissed him off. “Don’t even think about giving me the runaround. If he’s there and alive, I need to speak with him.”
“One moment.” There was shuffling, and muffled voices.
Keko disappeared from view, taking the awareness of her signature with it. He tried not to let it worry or bother him, but he found himself mumbling into the receiver, “Come on. Come on.”