Hot-Blooded (30 page)

Another ghost eased out of nothingness into a vaguely male form between the other two figures. A fulcrum to balance them? Blake squinted. Enshrouded by the mists, the man was more blur than boundaries.

“Rise,” the two planetary bodies intoned simultaneously overhead. The volume would have deafened him if he weren’t balls-deep in a fucked-up hallucination. The power behind those voices was, quite frankly, godlike.

Were they talking to him? Blake looked around. The figures beneath the giant orbs remained still and silent. He stood and dusted himself off. On the left, Pele’s eyes glowed red. On the right, the man’s shone blue from under the hood. The one in the middle shimmered, trapped between the other two. The female with the bundle in back didn’t move.

“You have taken both sides, and now it is time to choose,” the voices said.

Blake patted his pockets for a cigarillo. He could really use one right now. No luck. “I don’t wanna piss anyone off, so I’ll just go back to my bed. Maybe all this drama will short out my memory by the time I wake up tomorrow. Deal?”

“Choose.”

Hmm … Kinda hard to do that when he didn’t know what he was choosing. The figure in the middle was as fuzzy up close as he was from a distance. It was almost like he was on trial. Blake had no idea what that guy’s damage was. Pele—Kea, he supposed?—seemed the obvious choice, but he didn’t know what or who hid behind the cloaks on the right. His subconscious must’ve been really fucking bored to dream up all this shit.

Okay, he’d play along. Not like he had anything better to do.

Avoiding the tiki monsters’ gazes, he ventured forward and stopped in front of the hooded man on the right. Two pinpoints of blue light gleamed from inside the fabric. His arms swung around from the back, and he folded his hands neatly over his front.

Well-manicured hands. Privileged hands. Girly hands.

Blake’s mouth went arid as he stepped closer. “Scott?”

The guy lifted his head. Just enough light snuck into the darkness to reveal the familiar features of his best friend.

“Fuck.” Blake raked his fingers through his hair. “Seriously? What the hell is going on, man?”

Scott said nothing. Just stared at him coldly.

Blake gestured to the sun and moon, and then to Pele. “So, I’m supposed to pick between you and her? Good versus evil? Right versus wrong? I got news for you.” He lifted his chin. “You’re both bad fucking news. We
all
are.”

“Choose.”

“I ain’t choosing dick.” Cocking his middle fingers, he shot the sun and moon a bird apiece. “I’m out of here.”

As he turned away from the mountains and planets and stars, he caught a glimpse of Pele’s smile hidden behind a wall of smug satisfaction. Her mountain rumbled. Scott’s took the cue and finished her thought with an angry reply. The woman behind him remained motionless.

Couldn’t be—Lori …

Could it?

Squinting, he willed the mists to part, but uncovered nothing.

Blake stood his ground, though his better judgment screamed it was time to go. The tikis turned in unison like a horde of remote-controlled robots. Their masks swelled bigger and darker than before. The lines deeper, harsher, more vicious. The mouths opened wider, the teeth elongated to sharper points, and the snarls grew more threatening.

Shit.
Don’t look ’em in the eyes.
Blake trotted away.

He expected stomping feet to follow. The silence was worse. He ventured a glance back, keeping his head down to avoid their gazes. They swept toward him with remarkable speed.

He pulled on all his energy reserves, clenched his ass cheeks, and bolted like he was back in high school at a championship track meet. Arms pumping, legs burning, and feet slapping dirt, he kept his focus straight ahead. The whisper of a nearby presence ghosted over his skin, sending his senses into a tailspin. He couldn’t surrender. Couldn’t look at them. He pushed harder.

As the cool vapor of the deadly beings converged on him, he tapped into his soul and begged it for some kind of protection. The mist swirled into the shape of a man, blocking his path. Blake hit the brakes before hitting the guy—or maybe running through him. As he skidded to a stop, he recognized the face. Kea’s brother, Bane.

His body now fully formed, his lids snapped wide, revealing eyes bulged with terror. He opened his mouth. Instead of the scream Blake expected, hundreds of butterflies shot from his lips in a seemingly endless flurry of orange and black.

Exhausting every atom of oxygen in his lungs, Blake roared, “Keahilani!”

* * * *

Blake shot straight up in the bed beside Keahilani, his urgent cry waking her from a restless sleep. He focused intently on her, demanding her full attention. Shoulders hoisting the weight of the world as they gasped for air, and face pale with madness, he choked out, “The butterfly says go to Bane. Now!”

Her pulse tripped. “Butterfly” was all he had to say. Keahilani didn’t think twice as she bounded off the mattress and tore down the hall, everything but her ‘ohana forgotten.

‘Ohana is everything.

Dear God, it was.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Bane saw him. Bane could identify him. Bane had to die.

He waited patiently, staring at the fourth monitor in the security office at the hospital. The night guard lay sprawled on the floor at his feet, thanks to an overdose of gun butt to the temple. Shadows danced in the absence of light needed to create them, defying physics.

The intensive-care unit was quiet. Only six beds occupied. Three nurses on duty. He’d already plotted out which patient would serve as his distraction. He glanced past the Waialua Kope keychain on the desk beside him to the lab carrier and smiled at the loaded syringe within.

Movement on the monitor snagged his attention. Kai stepped into the hall, waved to the nurse at the welcome station, and headed for the elevator. He must’ve been going to toke up behind the hospital as he’d done twice already tonight. Based on the lengths of Kai’s previous jaunts, he figured he had a fifteen-minute window to get his job done.

Showtime. He pocketed his key ring and shut off the ICU cameras. Then he activated the stopwatch on his wrist, grabbed the loaded plastic carrier, and headed up to the third floor. He whistled the tune of “Heartache Tonight” by the Eagles as he exited the elevator. The nurse he’d seen on the monitor glanced at his badge, nodded, and returned to her computer.

He swaggered down the hall to the last room on the right and went in. The patient lay unconscious on the bed. Still whistling, he withdrew the hypodermic needle and injected its contents into the saline bag hanging from the IV infusion hook. Checking his time, he wandered out after a minute and moved on to the next room where he waited for two minutes—about the length of time it would take to draw labs. Finally, he went to Bane’s room.

He stood over the bed and stared down at the muscular young man. Drainage tubes wove out of his chest. IV lines protruded from his arms. Bruises dotted his skin.

He grabbed the kid’s hand, and the shadows converged around them both like a blanket. Black tongues darted out, testing the air. He patted them.

“So like your mother,” he whispered to Bane.

The kid’s eyes snapped open and met his. No fear behind them. Just intense focus. The kind he couldn’t get on him.

He smiled, caressed the boy’s cheek, and broke their mutual line of sight with great effort. “I don’t think so.”

Grabbing the pillow from the empty chair next to the bed, he pushed away welling urges that might deter him. He lowered the pillow to Bane’s face and smothered him. By his estimation, it would take five to six minutes to choke the life out of the kid. He held on tight and watched the clock on his wrist.

Bane didn’t struggle.

Three minutes in, alarms went off down the hall. Urgent voices pinged back and forth, hurried footsteps rushed toward the room of the first patient he’d visited. Perfect. While the nurses were busy with the code blue, he turned off Bane’s machines with his free hand to keep any other alarms from chirping.

He returned his gaze to the lifeless body lying beneath him. He laid a latex-gloved hand on Bane’s wrist and felt for a pulse. Weak, but still there.

Hurry up and die, why don’t you?

Too much damn light in this one.

The shadows agreed.

Four and a half minutes.

The pulse hammered on, slowly, fading, until there was one beat left. Then … nothing. He waited another thirty seconds to be sure.

Gone.

He had to admit, the kid took it like a man.

He checked his disguise in the mirror, nodded to the shadows slithering around him, and picked up his carrier. Out they went, whistling the Eagles song once again, one big happy family.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Keahilani burst from the elevator and stormed down the hall to Bane’s room. A nurse tried to stop her. “Get out of my way.” She shoved the woman and rushed to her brother’s side.

“Bane.” She tapped his blue cheeks. His cold skin chilled her fingers. “Come on, baby brother. It’s Keahilani.” She threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged his lifeless body to her chest. “Wake up, baby,” she cried. Tears coursed down her cheeks as panic wove its awful tentacles through her and unhinged the lynchpin holding her soul together.

The nurse stood near the door, hand to her mouth. “Miss Alana, he’s gone.”

Keahilani bared her teeth and turned on the woman. “No, he isn’t! You shut your fucking mouth!”

That was when she noticed Kai sitting in the chair in the shadows. He barely moved when he said, “It’s true, Keahilani.”

She pulled back to look at her sweet brother and choked on her sob. Bane, her baby, Mahina’s “salvation,” no longer lived in the shell before her. His spirit had escaped, gone off to Haleakalā or some other plane of existence. She could only hope.

Spasms racked her shoulders. She couldn’t breathe. No air. Legs gave out. Was this what Bane felt like when he died? Kai had told her on the car ride over that someone had murdered their brother. Stuffed a pillow over his face and stole him away from his ‘ohana.

It wasn’t Blake, but maybe he was to blame. His boss must’ve done it. Scott would pay.

No. They would
both
pay.

Blood boiled. Darkness awoke, stretched, tested the strength of her resolve. She promised Blake that if Bane died, so would he, and she fucking meant it. Lust be damned. Innocence be damned, if he was indeed innocent, which she doubted.

Avoiding her brother’s face, she lowered his body to the sheets and stepped away, wiping her nose, negotiating control with the black fury stabbing her veins. Pele came out to play, and she was hell-bent on vengeance.

Kai sat up in his chair, leaned forward, his cold expression chiseled out of the shadows. Darkness similar to hers infused those eerie lines. Jet circles outlined his irises, bleeding the green from them. Something forbidden sprouted demon wings behind those windows into his soul. She had no idea what it was, but she recognized its call.

Twins.

Glancing to the nurse, she said, “Security cameras. You have plenty of them. I want to know who did this.”

The distraught woman shivered. “I didn’t see anyone but the lab technician who came to collect blood samples. He had an ID. It’s customary for them to come in the middle of the night. He made his rounds, starting with the patient we lost at the end of the hallway.”

As if possessed, Kai stood and joined her by the bed. He crossed his arms over his chest and flexed his biceps. Pele’s Enforcer. Bane’s vengeance. Shackles of kindness and blind trust fell away.

Transformed. Like her.

Strange new power surged within the organic superhighways beneath her flesh. An elixir of temptation and need and desire. And hunger. She met Kai’s intent stare and saw her reflection. And so much more.

The chill slithering across her skin didn’t bother her so much as it urged her to press onward. Like a torch leading her into darkness with promises of safety where there was only danger. Taunting, delicious danger.

Kai felt it too.

“Someone else died here?” Pele asked. Though she couldn’t see herself, she sensed a trace of heat flaring in her eyes, like the cherry at the end of a cigar, desperate for oxygen to keep it burning. The nurse gasped.