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“He’s a selkie.”
“He’s a freak.”
“Come on, Rio.” I glanced at Moku with a sigh. “You really think this is what he needs right now?”
“How the hell would you know what he needs?” Rio reached over and shoved me in the shoulder, hard. Something he’d never done before.
I ignored the sudden sharp pain, made worse by the sensitivity of my skin above water. “I don’t.” God, it grated to admit that. “Not like you do.”
“That’s right, you don’t. You haven’t been here—not for him. Not for anyone.”
“I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t care! It’s not the same thing. And now we don’t care, not about you. Why don’t you leave? Why don’t you get the hell out of here? No one wants you around anyway.”
“Rio—”
“Go.” He tried to drag me out of the chair but I was too strong for him. Frustrated, hurting, he started shoving the chair toward the door. “Just go!”
“Rio, stop it!” I was getting angry now too. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah, right. The second your loser boyfriend wants you, you’ll be gone. So you should leave now, before Moku wakes up. I won’t let you hurt him again.”
That took the fight right out of me. “I promise you, I won’t leave while Moku is hurt.”
“But you will leave, so what does it matter when?” He choked on a sob, and for a second I saw the lost little boy he was trying so hard to hide. And then he was gone, hurtling past me and out the door.
“Rio, stop!”
He didn’t. I needed to follow him, to chase him down and make him talk to me—really talk to me—but I didn’t want to leave Moku alone, not even for a few minutes. At the same time, Rio shouldn’t be alone right now either.
Biting my lip, I lowered my head to the side of Moku’s bed and just breathed for a few seconds. If I’d had my cell, I would have texted my dad in the waiting room, told him to look for Rio. But I didn’t have a phone anymore. I didn’t need one in my new life.
God, it felt strange—and terrible. It used to be that I believed I could fit into whichever of the two worlds I chose. These days, though, it felt like I was as ill equipped to deal with my old life as I was my new one.
So, what was I supposed to do now?
“Oh, Moku,” I whispered. “Please, please don’t do this. Please come back to me. I miss you so much.”
I threaded my fingers through his cold, limp ones and squeezed tightly. “Come on,” I cajoled. “Don’t you want to see me? I’m dying to talk to you. I have so many stories about sharks and sea turtles and the coolest coral reef I’ve ever seen. It makes the ones in Hawaii look like nothing. I swear, there was every color in the rainbow. You would have loved it.
“And just last week, I had an up-close-and-personal encounter with a great white shark. I survived, obviously, but for a while there I was pretty sure it was going to eat me. I’ve never seen that many teeth so close—”
“I’m not sure if you should finish that story. I don’t think my heart could take it.”
I turned toward the door, where my dad was leaning against the wall, his casual stance belying the pain in his eyes.
“You saw Rio?” I asked.
“Yeah. I called my secretary. She’s going to give him a ride home.”
“He’s really mad at me.”
My dad sighed. “He’s really mad at the world, Tempest. You’re just a small part of it.”
“I’m sorry.” It was hard to look him in the eye as I said it.
“Nothing to be sorry about, darlin’.” He tried to smile, but his lips trembled a little at the corners. He looked drawn, tired, and about ten years older than he’d seemed when I left. No matter what he said, I knew these last eight months had been hard on him. On all of them.
“What are we going to do, Dad?”
“We’re going to keep talking to your brother until he wakes up.” He slid into the chair beside me, looked me full in the face. “He is going to wake up, Tempest.”
“I know,” I told him, because anything else was unthinkable, unsayable. But fear—huge, looming, overwhelming fear—throbbed inside of me with each rise and fall of my too-human lungs.
With every beat of my too-frail human heart.
Kona was sprawled in a chair in the waiting room when my dad finally convinced me to leave Moku. He’d given me a hundred bucks and instructions to “pick up some food and then get some sleep.” I almost laughed. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sleep again, at least not without nightmares playing through my head of Moku nearly drowning.
Still, he was right. I needed to go home, to talk to Rio. To show him that I still loved him even after choosing the sea. Too bad I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that.
Leaning down, I brushed a few strands of Kona’s hair out from in front of his eyes. When that didn’t wake him, I dropped a light kiss on his lips.
His gorgeous silver eyes blinked open and he smiled sweetly at me. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I know. I saw Rio.”
“Yeah. Hard to recognize him, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He still looks a lot like you.”
“Perpetually angry?”
“I was talking about the stubborn jaw and don’t-screw-with-me expression, but whatever works.” He grew serious. “How’s Moku?”
“No change.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. We’re supposed to pick up some food and go back to the house. Feed Goth Boy. Dad will be home when visiting hours end.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” He stood up, still holding my hand.
We headed for the door, but when we got there somebody was coming in just as we were trying to leave. I brushed against him in passing and my entire body went nuts. Goose bumps, shivers, electric shocks. The whole nine yards. Plus the hum of my powers suddenly kicked into top gear.
I stiffened, gasped in surprise. Turned to look back at him the same second he turned to look at me.
I knew, even before our eyes met, but it was still a shock. For him too, obviously.
“Tempest?”
Without conscious thought, I stepped forward to meet him. “Mark.”
Chapter 20
Kona stiffened beside me, and I felt more than saw his hands clench into fists. It was only for a second. Then he was relaxing, pulling away from me, extending his hand for Mark to shake. I glanced up at him, a little shocked at the easy smile on his face when I could feel the tension radiating through him.
“Hey, Mark, how are you?”
Mark looked at Kona’s hand for long seconds before taking it. “I’ve been better, Kona. How are you?”
I didn’t hear Kona’s answer, didn’t hear much of anything but the roaring in my ears as the two of them exchanged obviously fake pleasantries. From the second my dad had told me what happened, I’d known I was going to see Mark again, if only to thank him for saving Moku’s life. But I hadn’t expected to see him here, hadn’t expected to see him now.
