• • •
Griffin dragged his feet away from the B and B. Hilo. He had to get to Hilo. That’s where she’d try to get a boat, but with what money? What was she thinking? If he could get there quickly, he could try to reason with her once she’d cooled off.
Except that she’d made it pretty damn clear that reasoning with her would be like slamming his head against a wall.
She hadn’t killed him, but she’d thrown some serious, scary magic at him. Knocked him out so good he still heard the bells, and he was still trying to get his vision to realign.
He jogged as fast as he was able, but already he needed a bit of rest. Using his own magic was out of the question, at least until it had some time to regenerate. That heat she’d blasted at him had boiled his water to uselessness. Time. He just needed a little more time to recover, then he could hunt again.
Ahead stood a one-pump gas station that looked like it had been caught in a 1975 time warp. He snuck around to the back of it and collapsed against a cracked concrete wall. Exhausted, legs pulled to his chest, forehead resting on his knees, he fought for his equilibrium.
I love you.
Those words gave him the tiniest edge of hope to grab and hold. His fingers were worn and bloody, his muscles shorting out and his heart in tatters, but he’d fucking well cling to that edge.
“Fuck.” Griffin’s arm flew out to the side, his fist hitting the concrete. A chunk of it, painted pale green, crumbled off and fell to the dirt.
On the front side of the gas station, a screen door opened and slammed. Two voices—one male, one female—drifted back to where Griffin hid. They sounded worried, their tone clearer than their words. Griffin thought he heard the word fire tossed about. He couldn’t be sure, but his stomach dropped anyway.
No, Keko wouldn’t. He shook his head, choosing to believe she wouldn’t have done anything to harm Primaries. She was many things, but not that kind of woman. She knew her battles, and right now her only opponent was him.
He peeked around the gas station corner and saw the rotund figures of a man and woman hurrying up the road in the direction from which he’d come.
Griffin pushed to his feet. He still needed time to recover, and if those two had been the only employees inside, they’d just given him a good opportunity. He slunk around to the front of the station. The place was empty, the door laughably locked. The screen in the door gave way under his fist, he undid the feeble latch meant to keep it locked, and the hinges screeched as he let himself in. A phone hung on the wall behind the cash register and he snatched it up, pulling the cord over the counter so he could stand in the aisle and keep an eye out for the returning couple.
He got an answer on the third ring. Gwen still picked up her phone even when she didn’t recognize the number of the caller. She’d told him once that after all she’d been through, she never knew who might be calling, who might need her help. When Griffin heard his friend’s voice answer with a terse “Hello,” he’d never been so grateful for a practice he’d once chastised her for.
“It’s Griffin.”
Gwen exhaled. “Great stars, Griffin, it’s been days. I thought I’d hear from you sooner. Or at least get word through the Senatus.”
“Not from the premier you won’t. He’s dead. Bad situation I don’t know much about. Things are a little . . . up in the air right now.”
“Are you okay? You don’t sound so good.”
He glanced down at his body. “I’m alive.”
By the way she paused, he knew she was about to say something she didn’t want to. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but your cabinet is restless, and when they get like that, they talk. They hate not knowing where you are, what you’re doing, and they’re letting all Ofarians know it. You’re going to have your own bad situation on your hands when you get back. You might . . . Griffin, I’ll just say it. They’re talking about deposing you.”
That was a new one. Grinding a heel of one hand into his eye socket, he took pleasure from the burst of stars that came out behind his eyelid. He didn’t want to hear about his cabinet or his office right now. There were bigger things to worry about.
“Listen, Gwen. Things have . . . changed.”
“Did you find Keko? Are you with her?”
The ache in his chest burned with her absence.
“I was,” he replied. “Then I lost her. And I think—oh God, Gwen—I think I might have to let her go. I think I might have to let her get to the Source.”
Gwen’s tone shifted from that of worried friend to concerned Ofarian. Which was exactly what he needed. “You can’t. That’s not why you went there.”
“I know I can’t. But . . . oh fuck, Gwen.” The hand that didn’t grip the phone tapped incessantly on the counter. “I think . . . I think I love her. And the only way she’ll ever believe how I feel is if I let her go after the Source, let her do this one thing that means more to her than anything, far more than me. The one thing that she believes will make her whole.”
“The Children will kill her before she ever gets it, Griffin.”
“I know! You don’t think I know that?”
The pause on the other end was interminable. “There’s more you aren’t telling me.”
He barked a short, hard laugh. “A lot more. And if I could tell you, I’m pretty sure you’d agree with me.”
“I probably would. You sure you can’t say anything?”
“No. I really can’t.”
He could almost hear her nodding. “Okay, then. You called for a reason. What do you need from me?” This was the Gwen he knew and treasured—the Gwen who’d never backed down from a challenge and whose mind knew all too well how to parse the personal from the political, the heart from the head.
“I just need you to listen. I’m trying to work shit out in my head.”
“I’m here.”
Yes, she was. And he could trust her.
He scratched at his face and neck. “So I go after her. Stop her. Drag her back to the Senatus and get my seat. Save the fucking world from breaking apart or whatever it is the Children fear. Yay. I’ll get everything I want by surrendering the one person I desire. Keko is alive but all her hate for me is validated. I’m nothing but a liar and a traitor, and in her eyes I’ll never be able to climb out of that pit.”
“Did she really say she hated you?”
“Yes. After she told me she loved me.”
Gwen whistled. “Wow, all right.”
“So I have to let her get killed to prove my honesty? To prove how I feel? That’s such bullshit.”
“You’ll lose your chance at a Senatus seat if you do that.”
“Fuck the Senatus. I want what’s best for Ofarians, and if I have to find another way, I’ll do it.”
At length Gwen said, “You know what I think?”
“No. Please tell me. I’m flailing over here.”
“I think you should talk to someone else.”
“David?” Griffin could use a good slap in the face. David was much less diplomatic than Gwen.
“No, not David.”
And she gave him a name he hadn’t expected.
He hung up with Gwen and reached over the counter to dial a new number. As it rang, he pushed aside the flapping portion of the door screen to see if the gas station owners were returning. The coast was still clear.
As someone picked up, the explosion of chaos on the other end of the line—music and the TV and young voices—had Griffin pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off emotion.
“Hello?” A deep, skeptical voice.
“Pop, it’s me.”
“Griffin.” He heard the familiar creak of the old couch as his father got off it.