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“M-O-K-U,” I said through gritted teeth. “M-A-G-U-I-R-E.”
She leisurely typed the name in as I imagined snatching the keyboard away and doing it for her. After what felt like forever, she glanced over the top of the screen, her expression ripe with sympathy. “He’s in the Critical Care Unit, honey. But only family is allowed.”
“I’m his sister. What floor is the CCU on?”
She told me and then I was running for the elevator, banging on the button over and over again, like that would somehow make it come faster. It was as if there were two of me: the calm, rational one and the one who was a step away from losing her mind. Guess which one was in control.
Kona caught up to me just as I stepped on the elevator. He tried to wrap his arm around my waist, but I shrugged him off. I felt like any wrong move, any drop of sympathy, and I was going to start screaming and never stop.
The elevator dinged on the appropriate floor, and we stepped off, only to be confronted by a bunch of signs pointing in other directions. I tried to read them, but the letters kept blurring in front of my eyes. “Where do we go?” I asked Kona as I frantically rubbed the tears away. “Which way do we go?”
“This way, baby.” He reached for my hand and this time I didn’t pull away. Instead, I let him guide me down the hallway to the nurse’s station, each step closer to the CCU an agony of fear and horror inside of me. Let him be okay, I prayed again. Please, don’t take Moku from me. Not Moku.
We finally found the nurse’s station, a relatively quiet area walled behind glass. There was a line in front of me, and I waited impatiently, feeling the whole time like I was about to jump out of my skin.
Finally, finally, it was my turn. “Moku Maguire,” I said at the front desk.
The nurse looked me over. “Name, please.”
“Tempest Maguire.”
She typed it into the computer. “I’m sorry, but you’re not on the list of approved visitors.”
The words hit me like a blow, and I probably would have fallen then if Kona hadn’t been there to hold me up. “That’s because my dad wasn’t expecting me.” I stumbled over the words. “Is he here?” I demanded. “Is Bobby Maguire in there right now?”
Again, she checked the screen. “He is.”
“Please, can you get him? He doesn’t know I made it back to town. Please, tell him I’m here. I need to see my brother. I need to know—” My throat tightened up.
The woman nodded. “Let me see what I can do, sweetheart. Why don’t you go sit in the waiting room, and I’ll see about getting your dad out here.” She pointed to an open door about twenty feet away.
I didn’t want to go to the waiting room. I wanted to see Moku. But while her eyes were sympathetic, her demeanor was implacable, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get around her.
Kona and I walked slowly down the hall to the waiting room. I kept turning around, trying to catch a glimpse of my father coming through the brightly painted double doors that guarded the CCU.
We were hovering in the entrance to the waiting room when I saw him barreling through the doors and into the reception area near the front desk, a slightly crazed, completely disbelieving look on his face. “Tempest?” he called, looking both ways.
“I’m here, Daddy. I’m here.”
And then I was running straight into his arms and the biggest bear hug I’d ever had in my life.
Chapter 19
Hours later, I sat by Moku’s bedside, willing him to wake up. So far, it hadn’t worked.
Beside me was Rio, my now fourteen-year-old brother. Since only two of us were allowed in at a time, my dad was outside in the waiting room.
I think he believed that sending Rio and me in together would help break the ice between us, get us talking. Not so much. Oh, my brother kept stealing glances at me out of the corner of his eye, like he couldn’t believe I was really there, but he wasn’t saying a word. Even worse, he didn’t exactly look happy to see me.
In fact, he looked downright angry. Not just at me, but at the whole world. In the eight months that I’d been underwater, his appearance had undergone a radical change. The surfing tees and board shorts were MIA, replaced by black jeans and T-shirt, a chained belt, and spiked, black leather bracelets. His shaggy blond surfer’s cut had been shaved into a Mohawk he spiked up with a copious amount of gel, his flip-flops replaced by Doc Martens. I was also pretty sure he was wearing my favorite black eyeliner.
I had no idea what to say to him at this point, especially since my first few tries at starting a conversation had been shut down. Viciously. Still, I wanted to reach him. Needed to reach him. Now that my brothers were right in front of me, this inability to communicate with either of them was driving me completely insane.
“How are the waves?” I asked Rio when I caught him looking at me for about the thirtieth time.
He snorted. “Brutal. Or did you think Moku was in here because he wanted a vacation?”
“Rio …”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he deliberately turned his back, his obvious dismissal leaving me to deal with my recriminations and fears alone. There were a lot of them.
Every time I thought about what had happened to Moku, I felt horror ripple through me. When I had first asked, my father said my brother had been out at the beach early yesterday morning, catching some of the smaller waves. Rosa, the babysitter/housekeeper, had been with him, but in the end, that hadn’t mattered.
He’d gotten caught in the undertow, and judging by the bruises, the doctors thought he’d hit his head on a rock right before the drop-off. Whatever had happened, he’d ended up passing out and had been underwater for over seven minutes before Mark and Logan had finally managed to find him and fish him out.
Thank God.
Still, he should be dead. That’s what all the doctors had hinted at, what every bit of medical science told them. Yet here he was, in a coma, but alive. My dad thought it was his mermaid half that kept him from dying, but whatever it was, I was grateful.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Nobody knew if Moku would come out of the coma or not, and if he did, the doctors weren’t sure what kind of brain damage he’d have.
My dad kept saying his mermaid half would protect him, but I wasn’t so optimistic. If the last eight months had taught me anything, it was that the last thing being a mermaid protected you from was pain and suffering. In fact, it seemed to make both worse.
Still, I refused to think about all that yet. Refused to worry about it. I just wanted Moku to wake up. I closed my eyes and tried to believe that he was going to be all right, that somehow everything would be okay. It had to be. I couldn’t lose Moku too. I just couldn’t.
“It never would have happened if you’d been here.” Rio finally spoke, his words hurling across the silence between us. They struck me, sharp and poison-tipped, just as I was sure he’d intended. Though I fought not to react, I felt their impact all the way to my soul.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m so sorry.” And I was. If this was what had happened to my family in my absence, then I’d never been more sorry about a decision in my life.
“Yeah, I can tell,” he answered with a totally disgusted glance. “You looked really sorry when you were in the waiting room, hanging all over your boyfriend—or whatever the hell you call that weird animal thing you’re dating.”
