“That’s Griffin?” called his mother in the background. “Is he okay?”
“Where the hell are you?” Pop demanded. “Everyone’s—”
“I’m sorry.” The apology was as much for interrupting his father as it was for his unexplained disappearance. “I’m fine, I promise. Is Henry around?”
“Henry?” Griffin heard his dad’s curiosity, but didn’t want to add anything more. “Yeah, he’s in his room. I’ll get him. You sure you’re okay?”
Griffin wasn’t remotely sure, but he said he was anyway.
The door to Henry’s room opened and a stream of really bad dance music tumbled out. “Turn that off,” their father shouted over it. “Your brother’s on the phone.”
The music cut. “Which one?” Henry asked.
“Pop?” Griffin said before the phone was handed over.
“Yes?”
“You didn’t hear from me today. No one in the family did. Okay?”
“I can’t at least tell people you’re all right?”
“No.” Griffin hated to do this. “And that’s an order. Please.”
Pop sighed. “Absolutely.” Then, “Come home safe.”
There was shuffling as the phone traded hands.
“Hey, buddy,” Griffin said.
“Griff!”
“How are you?”
“Good, I guess. Got a B on my math test yesterday. Thought you’d like to hear that.” There was very little excitement in Henry’s voice.
“I do. Wow, buddy, that’s great.”
Griffin’s chest filled up so suddenly and sharply he had to brace himself against the counter to keep his balance.
“So, ah,” Griffin said, “I was thinking that when I get back, I’d like to spend a little time with you at the gym. Help you out, like you asked.”
Henry gasped. “For real?”
The boy’s eagerness and excitement splintered Griffin’s emotions and shifted some muddy areas of thinking back into alignment. Sometimes Gwen was a genius.
Henry wanted nothing more than to follow in his parents’ and brothers’ and sisters’ footsteps, to become a soldier worthy of wearing the Ofarian black. To protect the race. To make his leader, and oldest brother, proud.
So who the hell was Griffin to deny him that? What gave Griffin the right to try to steer a boy into a life track he didn’t want to enter in the first place? How did that make Griffin any better than the old Board? It was Henry’s choice to make. It was Henry’s heart and passion on the line, and it was Griffin’s job to support him in whatever that was.
Griffin could, however, do exactly as he just professed to Gwen. He could still try to pave the way for other Ofarian kids who wanted to branch out. He could still focus on expanding their options, and that, in turn, would end up helping Henry.
There, in a dingy Hawaiian gas station, with Keko sprinting toward the first boat she saw, Griffin grinned at his baby brother through the phone.
“For real,” he said. “I’ll even help you with the formal training application if you want. But you gotta know I’m not going to pull any strings or anything. You want to do this, you do it with your own skills. You got that, soldier?”
“Aw, yeah!” The books and academic trophies on Henry’s shelves rattled as the kid jumped up and down.
“You and me, bud,” he added. “When I get back. I promise.”
Griffin twisted his head to the side and had to focus hard on an old Camel cigarettes poster, because who knew what was going to happen to him or his leadership or his people when he left Hawaii.
Then he hung up the phone, punched out of the gas station, and started jogging down the road. Away from Hilo. Because he realized while talking to Gwen that if Keko was intending to throw him off the chase, she wouldn’t have headed into the big town, toward the obvious source of boats. That’s exactly what she’d assume Griffin would think. No, she would go for the hidden spot, the remote area with fewer craft . . . so that’s exactly where Griffin went, too.
Because he couldn’t help the future and current generations of Ofarians by standing on the sidelines, by just throwing away all that he’d worked toward for five long years.
He couldn’t help Keko obtain a cure for her people if he didn’t find her first.
And he sure as hell couldn’t fight for the woman he loved if she went and got herself killed.
• • •
Keko would not cry. She would not fucking cry.
Enough water plagued her every step—it sat in her line of sight no matter where she looked, and it poisoned her heart with a slow drip. No tears. Anything but water. She turned up her inner heat, trying to burn away her emotions, but not nearly succeeding.
She concentrated on running, her legs pumping over the uneven ground as she clung to the edge of the Big Island, heading away from Hilo. The little enclave of homes and local shops and the B and B she’d burned fell behind. The land sloped hard upward, dense clumps of trees pointing inland, in the direction she did not want to go. The houses spread out and she slowed her steps, moving more carefully over private land, keeping to the cliff side draped in trees and greenery. Every now and then a large tour bus gave a high whine as it braked, and then gunned its way up and down the distant road.
The run refused to delete Griffin from her mind. He would come after her again. But he would be too late.
When he found her, she would be holding the whole of the Earth’s fire in her hands, and it would be hers to command. The Queen had touched the Source once and there had been no devastation like Aya had claimed. The same would be for Keko; her prayer had been answered and she could feel it.
Now she did want to be Queen. Fuck what she’d told Griffin just that morning. She wanted to rise above everything . . . but most especially heartbreak.
She slipped from a wide swatch of private land into an area heavily forested with tall, skinny trees that permanently swept back and away from the coast like a woman’s hair in the wind. The natural area climbed higher and higher, and at the very top the bluffs dove sharply downward. At the bottom and about a half mile to the northwest was a small community with a marina.
The air whistled as it tried to negotiate its way through the thick trees, and Keko had to slow down even more to get up and through the rocky, shaded area. She refused to listen to the moans and complaints of her body. It was how she’d been trained, and she was still Chimeran, above everything. She pushed and climbed until the sun went down, splashing into the ocean.
She wanted food. She craved water.
When Griffin’s stars popped out, she knew she had to stop. She could give herself fire to see by, yes, but it would also announce her presence to anyone peering out into the dark.
She found an outcrop of rock, a huge tree erupting from the top, its roots coiling down from the sides to form a black, moist, hidden cave, and she climbed into it. Thirty feet in front of her the bluff dropped off a scary distance into the roaring ocean. From her little hiding place she had a good vantage point to the left and right—high enough to see anyone approaching before they noticed her.
A distinct scent filled her nose, bringing with it an avalanche of unwanted emotion. It confused her until she remembered she was wearing Griffin’s T-shirt. Grinding the back of her skull into the rock, she turned her face to the treetops, trying to get away from the smell she loved but didn’t want to. If she could burn the black cotton like she’d burned his coat, she would. But she couldn’t.
She choked back any and all sorrow. Choked it back hard enough the tightness in her jaw turned to pain. Bitterness and disappointment and heartbreak and determination clenched every muscle into a wiry, uncomfortable, shaking mass. Though her eyelids dragged down, the extreme physical discomfort did not allow her to sleep.