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Keahi doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. I risk scooting forward a few inches for a better view. There, in a ray of moonlight: One younger sister, standing, armed. One older sister, curled against the sand, clearly injured. Both staring across the space between them, as the ocean pounds behind them.
“I know what you did to Mama.” For the first time, the gun in Leilani’s hand trembles. “You told me to stay, you just had to run back for one last thing. But I was scared. I didn’t want to stand at the end of the driveway all alone. So I followed you back to the house. I saw you, your hands wrapped around her throat. You snapped her neck. And she just stood there and let you.”
“Daddy would’ve killed her for letting us go. If you remember anything at all, you must realize that. Except he would’ve beat her within an inch of her life first. My way was less painful. She knew that, too.”
“What kind of child kills her mother?” Leilani murmurs.
There’s a sudden heightened tension between the two. I suck in my breath as I suddenly get it. Then from Leilani:
“You are not my sister.”
“No.”
“Fourteen-year age gap. As if Mama never conceived, never bore any more babies. And then magically, she had me.”
“I have always loved you—” Keahi’s voice, clear and steady.
“Is he my father? He and you? Making him my daddy and my granddaddy. He was that sick and twisted?”
“He’s gone now, that’s all that matters.”
“Why didn’t you kill him first? Why start with Mama?”
“Because I didn’t know how!” Keahi explodes. “Because I was just a kid, too. And I did the best I could, and I got us both out of there.”
“After Mama got us tickets and then you snapped her neck!”
“I got us out of there—”
“Straight into Mac’s arms.”
“He was never as bad as Daddy—”
“Exactly. So you kept beating him until he was. You are broken. Without violence, you don’t know how to live.”
Keahi doesn’t respond.
“And I’m the answer to a terrible riddle,” Leilani continues. “What do you get when two monsters mate? You get me. Empty, emotionless, broken me.”
“I remember your laugh,” Keahi speaks up fiercely. “I remember your giggle. The way you lit up when you saw me or Mama. The way you’d throw your arms around my neck and hold on tight—”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“You were the best of us—”
“I killed Orange Kitty. In New York. One day, I snapped her neck, just to see if I would cry. I didn’t.”
“You are strong. Good for you; in this world, women need to be tough. Look at what you just accomplished. Mac, his entire fortune, operation, business associates. All yours now. Fuck him. You win it all. As it should be.”
“Do you think Brent is dead?”
A slight hesitation. “Probably.”
“He was our escape plan.”
“We’ll make another one.”
“How? We can’t fly a plane.”
