Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  “My father can’t pass water wards,” Wyvern said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking too,” Scruff said. “That’s why I’m helping you stay alive.”

  “We saw some video surveillance of Honua in that party, she broke into Senator Hale’s office then she turned into a boar…” I left the words hanging between us, but Scruff stayed silent not showing any expression on his face.

  I said, “When people are infected with the were-animal infection, I usually see two souls; they have one animal and one human soul in them. When I look at all of you, I see only one soul each, but they’re similar to each other, similar to Kali’s soul also. Are they similar to Honua’s soul?"

  “That’s not your business,” Scruff said, with a touch of warning in his voice.

  “But I was Honua’s business? Kali said that she did not know why Honua was at that party because ‘I wasn’t even there,’” I said.

  Scruff pursed his lips. “Maybe my grandmother did a favor for your grandfather. Maybe she asked Honua to watch out for you at that human school, make sure you’re safe when you were inside the wards and helpless.”

  “Her grandfather knew about Honua?” Wyvern’s voice was cold.

  “Nah, nah, but he knew we were looking out for Dakota. We did not tell that dracon who was looking out, that’s not his business,” Scruff said. “And that’s going to continue to not be his business, you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  The thought that little Honua had been working as my bodyguard was just so ridiculous it was almost believable. Of course my grandfather would have asked for some back-up from his human allies. It’s not even all that unexpected that he did not tell me a thing, no one ever bothered to.

  “Kali said that no one knows why Honua was at that party, is that true?” I asked.

  “If Grandma doesn’t know, it means no one knows.” Scruff shook his head. “Honua never listened to anyone and I don’t mean that in a mean way because she doesn’t have ears. Honua is my baby cousin, but she’s tough as shit and she knows she’s tough as shit. If I say, ‘don’t write your brother who’s a half-dragon, that’s stupid, that’ll only bring you trouble.’ Honua will be like, ‘no I won’t,’ all sweet like. Then she does it. ”

  “Someone helped her, someone gave her inside information,” I said, “Do you know anyone who works for Senator Hale?”

  “No, that piece of shit won’t hire our people,” Scruff said, “If Honua was after something, she did it on her own. We have to ride now. But don’t worry, wherever my baby cousin is, they’re having a hell of a time keeping her locked up. Get that boy inside.”

  The moment I stepped into Kali Alaniu’s house I knew that questioning her was going to be less fun than midterms. The house was immaculate. The astringent scent of bleach, mixed with a balmy wax aroma made the air almost intolerable to breathe. Every surface had been recently polished, especially the floor. Though I walked carefully, my shoes slipped on the over-waxed hardwood.

  Wyvern, who had managed to keep hold of my hand by literally refusing to let me tug away, used our held hands to stabilize me. I made one more effort to tug my hand out of his but he just pulled me closer to him.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “You stop it,” I said.

  “Wyvern?” Kali stepped into the hall. “Have you found anything yet?” she asked, desperately.

  “We’re working on it,” he said. “First Dakota needs to bandage her arm. Then we will sit down and I will tell you what I know.”

  I quickly used the gauze and antiseptic Kali provided me with in the bathroom to clean and bandage up my arm, holding my breath as much as possible so I did not inhale bleach fumes.

  The living room reeked even worse than the bathroom and hallway, but it was lemon cleaner not bleach this time. The couch Kali gestured for me to sit on was damp. Even though I wanted to go sit somewhere else, Wyvern was already sitting on it and Mele had also obviously been there for some time. I knew if I stood up to move somewhere else, it would probably embarrass Kali.

  As Kali’s hands were dry, cracked and bleeding, I knew who was doing all the cleaning.

  Wyvern told his mother in detail all the information we had gathered since Honua’s disappearance and Kali listened intently. She showed no surprise through the whole story, only misery.

  “How can Honua read to Wyvern and the wards as human? Is she using some sort of water-spell?” I asked.

  Kali looked at me with a tense, hard to read look. “Honua is human, just like me,” she said.

  “Then how did Honua turn into a boar?”

  Kali shook her head. “How can you be what you are and not know?”

  I glanced over at Mele. Then said, very clearly, “Mabiian?”

  “It is because Dakota Kekoa thinks that the only thing that comes from those volcanoes is Dragons, but she is wrong,” A voice said from behind me.

  We all three turned around to see an older woman, maybe sixty or seventy walking into the room. Her face looked more like Scruff’s than Kali’s, but there was a similarity between the older lady and Kali. She looked like she weighed at least three hundred pounds and wore a mu’umu’u, yet she moved quickly and easily as she continued to walk into the room. Her soul had that same distinctive wild intensity that churned within all the bikers’ souls, but hers was the densest that I had seen of any of them.

  She said, “Mabi’s Volcano is the oldest volcano that came up from the Dragon Kingdoms by over a thousand years. That volcano brought soil from the deep, soil from the Dragon Kingdoms, and that soil has been growing our plants and trees and most of all, our food, for over a millennium.”

  She took a seat in a chair next to Kali and stared at me as if she was waiting for me to come to a realization.

  “You’re saying Mabiians were slowly infected over a thousand years?” I asked.

  “Not infected,” the older lady said and then shook her head, “We evolved. We grew our food from the same soil that grew the food in the dragon kingdoms, but we are not made the way that dragons are. We’re not like dragons who are fire, rather humans are made of water. Dragons were never supposed to come here,” she said, looking very sternly at me. “Ancient Mabiians killed them until they shut down the portal in the Mabiian Volcano. The Mabiian people are starting to think their ancestors had the right idea. Those girls need to be found.”

  “You’re Ailani, the leader of the Hells’ Hogs?” I asked, though I did not really need to ask. The moment she walked in, I knew who she must be. Humans spoke about Ailani the way the infected talked about my grandfather, one part respect, ten parts fear.

  “I am,” she said, nodding. She smiled, her whole demeanor changing in an instant. “Wyvern, I am also your grandmother.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Four hours later we were on the road a couple of miles from my house. Mele had passed out in the back seat and I had two to-go boxes of food on my lap.

  We had left Kali and Honua’s house after I had interviewed Kali and Ailani and searched Honua’s room, both produced nothing. Kali and Ailani refused to discuss Honua’s ability to turn into a boar, but they assured me that Honua had no other ability that would explain her disappearance.

  Wyvern offered to treat us to dinner before we left the east side of the island and I had suggested The Fiesta Grill in a very small town surrounded by cane fields between the east and west sides.

  I had used a technique that I used all the time when my grandfather or uncles took me out to lunch or dinner. I bought a combination special and then I ate two baskets of the complimentary chips and salsa. When my food came, I picked at it, said I really should not have filled up on chips, and then asked for a box. Like me, Mele had only taken a couple bites of her taco salad and had been happy to give me her leftovers.

  Wyvern had glowered at my uneaten food but did not say the things my grandfather would usually have said like, ‘next time order less,’ or ‘make sure you eat those leftovers.’ I ther
efore guessed that Wyvern was probably just annoyed in general. He had asked us to wait in the car while he made some phone calls before we continued our drive back across the island.

  I was smiling because I had two to-go containers of food to give my sisters. And, the money would come. We were no closer to finding Honua but I was starting to get an idea of what was going on and I really preferred to think of Honua as a bad-ass were-boar giving her captors hell, rather than a helpless victim.

  And for some reason, Wyvern and I had been holding hands for the entire drive back. He had slowly sneaked his hand into mine and I just refused to acknowledge or even look at our joined hands. If I acknowledged we were holding hands, I would have to pull my hand away and it felt really nice.

  “So,” I said, “Your mom is like a biker-princess.”

  He glanced at me; obviously his bad mood had worn off, because there was a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

  “I’m not sure my family would approve of us…” I said.

  “So you admit that we are dating,” he said, definitely smirking now.

  “I don’t think we can date, they might think I’m slumming,” I said, “I mean, people expect a girl of my station to go slumming once in a while but…” I shook my head.

  “Well, I have you in a contract,” he said, “You’ll just have to live with the embarrassment of being seen with me.” He lifted my hand that was in his and kissed the inside of my wrist. It was like a tiny jolt of joy shooting through my arm. Immediately, I wanted him to kiss my arm again, but he put our arms back down to rest beside my leg.

  “How often do you do this?” I asked.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “Trick girls into a contract with you,” I said.

  “You’re the first that I’ve tricked,” he said, smiling.

  “But not the first contract?” I asked.

  He was silent for a moment. “No,” he said.

  “How long do they usually last?” I asked.

  “The longest was a couple of weeks; the shortest was less than a week,” he said.

  “How many have you had?”

  “Six,” he said.

  “Wow.”

  “You are jealous,” he said, smiling.

  “No, I’m relieved,” I said, but I was lying. I really wanted to feel relieved, but what I felt was much closer to disappointment.

  I was getting confused and I was getting stupid. It was all this damn hand holding stuff; it was messing with my head. After the thought occurred to me I really wanted to pull my hand away, but I knew that if I did it would look like I was jealous and sullen from his comment.

  We drove in silence for the rest of the drive back to my house.

  Right as Wyvern drove us up my driveway and parked a woman exited my house. Though I immediately knew I had met her before, it took me a second to remember who she was, Gina, the werewolf event-planner that my mom hired for some event thing.

  Was she there to collect the remainder of her money? We did not have any. Her expression was pleasant enough; although who knew, she could be the kind of werewolf that smiled pleasantly right after murdering people.

  “Gina, right?” I called over to her as I exited the car. “Is everything okay?”

  She turned. There wasn’t any visible blood on her.

  “Dakota, right?” she said, with a fixed smile, “Your mother and I were just making some final arrangements about the event she’s planning.”

  “I’m sorry for wasting your time but we’re going to probably have to cancel that event,” I said. Better she rage at me now, especially with Wyvern only a few feet behind me, than at my mother when she finds out she could not pay for all the orders that have already gone through. Mele was thankfully still in the car, asleep and safe.

  Gina laughed with her brow furrowed in a sort of contemptuous-amusement. “But your mother just paid me in full,” she said. “You are going to have to speak with her. Goodbye.” She turned and walked to a gold luxury car parked further up the driveway.

  I stood there staring. My grandfather gave my mother money once a month, on the same day and at the same time every month without fail. I knew for a fact all that money was gone.

  I turned on my heel and found Wyvern looking determinedly at me, his jaw clenched.

  “No,” I said, my voice a little panicked, “You did not give her money.”

  He said, “Part of the contract is—”

  “No!” I screamed at him.

  Running to the house, I threw open the door and marched into the kitchen. My mother had her phone to her ear and she was reading off the numbers to a credit card that I knew had been maxed-out yesterday.

  I grabbed the card out of her hand.

  “Dakota-?” she asked, startled.

  “Give it back mom! Give the money back!”

  “Honey, give me my-”

  I bent her card back and forth in sharp movements until the card snapped. Then I bent the half-pieces.

  “Stop, Dakota, sweetheart, stop this—” My mother dropped the phone and started to grab for the card but her attention caught over my shoulder. “Dakota is under a lot of stress, Mr. Manderson, she usually doesn’t act so…dramatic, she’s-”

  “Don’t try to convince him that I’m still worth buying!” I threw her card into the trash. Tears were coursing down my face, but I did not care. “After everything I’ve done for you, you’re just so happy to sell me off to the first dracon that shows any interest! Aren’t you?”

  “Dakota, that’s just—ridiculous,” she said, “Sweetheart-”

  “Give him the money back!” I sobbed. “All of it!”

  “I can’t,” she said with finality. “That’s just not possible.”

  It felt like she ripped out my heart, ripped it out and threw it away without a care. But there was nothing I could do, I could not un-spend the money she had spent, I did not even have access to her accounts.

  I looked straight into her eyes and told her, “They’re not coming back mom. I am what you have, me. You can sell me, you can sell all of us but they’re never coming back to you.”

  My mother looked at me as if I had slapped her.

  I turned, determined to get away from my mother and Wyvern and pretty much the rest of my life. I was so tired of all of it.

  Before I reached the front door, Wyvern gently yet firmly grabbed my shoulders, stopping me. “Dakota, part of the contract is that I need to prove to your family that I can provide for you,” he said, his voice sounded defensive.

  I turned on him in the hall. “Screw your contract!”

  His eyelids narrowed and he leaned in. “Your fridge is empty, your family’s accounts were overdrawn, credit-cards over the limit and the Mabi-electric company just sent you a twenty-four hour notice.”

  He had already invaded my privacy in every way, but this one felt so much worse than the others, so much more personal.

  “I was handling it!” I yelled.

  “How? By going hungry, so you could bring a couple boxes of partially eaten food to your family? Is that how you handle things?”

  “At least I earned that food; I was shot at for that food.”

  He leaned in so far he was looming over me. “You’re really so proud that you’re going to let your sisters survive off other people’s leftovers when I want to give your family money.”

  I went very cold inside at his words.

  He did not realize that he had just bought and paid for the one part of me that I worked so hard to make sure was not for sale with money that would just vanish. The money Wyvern gave my mother would not pay for any food other than a party’s catering bill. However, I would rather starve than tell him the truth and receive any more of his pity.

  After a second, I said. “I’m still going to look for Honua, but if I find her, consider the payment made in full. This game you’re playing with me and my life is over. I don’t want anything more to do with you.”

  He did not move away, continu
ing to stand too close, looking down at me. “If you have a complaint about our contract, you can email it to my steward. If he finds it worth my attention, he’ll forward it to me and I’ll consider it.”

  “You. Are. A. Jerk,” I gritted out.

  “Probably,” he said, “but I’m your jerk and it’s going to stay that way.”

  I turned away because there were tears in my eyes that refused to be blinked away and I would rather almost anything in that moment than for him to see me cry. I walked up the stairs that led to my sisters’ and my bedrooms. Clara waited at the top of the stairs, like she always did when mom and I were fighting.

  “I’m so sorry, Dakota,” she whispered.

  “There’s some leftover food in the car,” I said and then I started sobbing.

  Clara wrapped me in her arms. She petted my hair, whispering, “It’s alright sweetheart, it’s alright.” Over my shoulder she said, “She needs some… space for now Mr. Manderson.”

  “Can I trust you that your family will not sneak her out while I give her this ‘space’?”

  “On my honor, I promise neither will she attempt to escape your protection nor will I aid her or any other in an attempt to that end, until the next time you see her and are within arm’s reach of her,” Clara said, formally.

  “I’ll come up to check on you in an hour, Dakota,” he said.

  I did not respond, just let Clara usher me to my room and lay me down on the bed.

  My sobbing refused to let me go for a long time. I had never felt so humiliated in my life. I hated Wyvern for what he said, but I hated him more for what he had seen. Now I was a charity case for him, not just a charity case, but one to feel contemptuous pity for.

  Without knowing how much he gave her, I already knew I could never afford to pay him back. That money would be sucked into the same black hole that sucks up all our money. My lot in life would forever be to sit at a table set with fine china and no food.

  Clara’s hands continued to pet my hair and right before I fell asleep, I remembered, “Mele is still in the car.”