The scent of plumeria in the air had turned sour. Or maybe Frankie was the only one who noticed. Silence sat at the big koa wood table on the lanai, a greasy film coating every glance, every forced smile.

  Frankie sat pushing a piece of pineapple around her plate. Her grandfather, who had been a booming font of jovial energy just days ago, was now a grim, silent statue, staring out at the ocean. Her uncles, Noa and Paulo, had abandoned their usual lazy banter, their eyes constantly scanning the line of trees where the jungle met the sand. Even her mother’s infectious laugh was gone, replaced by a tight, worried smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  Maka placed a hand on Frankie’s forehead, her palm cool and dry. “You’re not eating, kaikamahine. You feel okay?”

  Frankie forced a smile that felt like cracking glass. “Fine, Mom. Just… thinking.”

  Her mother’s gaze was sharp, probing. “About what?”

  About the monster that walks out of the ocean. About the bodies. About the fact that I’m a monster, too, and maybe that’s why this is all happening.

  “About the surf,” she lied, the word tasting like sand. “It’s different here. Heavier.”

  The lie was flimsy, transparent, but her mother let it go. She just squeezed Frankie’s shoulder, a silent, worried pressure, before moving back into the kitchen. The weight of her mother’s concern was a physical burden, adding to the guilt already churning in Frankie’s gut. She was lying to all of them. Hiding the one thing that might stop this. But how could she tell them? How could she watch the love in their eyes curdle into fear? Into revulsion?

  Ted and Dee Dee sat across from her, a small, silent island of shared knowledge in a sea of blissful ignorance. Ted wasn’t eating either. He just stared into his glass of guava juice as if it held the answers to the universe. Dee Dee was reading, but her eyes weren’t moving, her gaze fixed on a single line in one of her grandmother’s thick, leather-bound books.

  The scrape of her grandfather’s fork against his plate was the only sound. Too loud. Frankie held her breath, the air in her lungs feeling thick and stale. Suffocating.

  “We need a plan,” Frankie texted under the table, her fingers fumbling on the screen.

  Dee Dee’s phone buzzed a second later. Step 1: Information. We need to know what we’re fighting. I’m cross-referencing global shapeshifter lore with your Tūtū’s books. So far, it’s all bad news.

  Ted’s phone buzzed. Step 2: Find a huge harpoon?

  Frankie almost let out a choked laugh. Even now, Ted was trying to find the light. But it felt so far away.

  Frankie looked up from her phone, a sudden sense of being watched prickling the back of her neck. Her grandmother was standing in the doorway, watching them. Her expression was calm, her gaze knowing. She held a woven basket filled with strange-smelling herbs.

  “The ocean is a powerful force,” she said, her voice soft but carrying across the lanai. “It can give life, and it can take it away. Some spirits forget the balance.” She looked directly at Frankie. “We should talk more about the old stories. Knowledge is the only light that can pierce the deepest waters.”

  It was an invitation. An order. And a lifeline.

  Her grandmother’s study felt different in the daylight. Less a sorceress’s chamber, more a historian’s archive. Sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. But the scent of burnt herbs still clung to the bookshelves, and the feeling of ancient power was a low hum beneath the floorboards.

  Frankie, Dee Dee, and Ted sat on the lauhala mat while her grandmother thumbed through the pages of the massive, dark book. Its pages were thin as onion skin, covered in elegant, hand-drawn script.

  “The Mano Ha’i were not invincible,” she said, her finger tracing a line of text. “Like all creatures caught between worlds, they had… vulnerabilities.”

  Dee Dee leaned forward, her eyes wide with a kind of terrified excitement. “Weaknesses? Like silver? Or holy water?”

  Frankie’s grandmother gave a small, sad smile. “Their legends are not your legends, child. Their power comes from the shark, from the ocean itself. To fight them, you must turn their own nature against them.” She tapped a drawing on the page. It depicted a warrior driving a spear tipped with a jagged black stone into the chest of a half-man, half-shark creature.

  “Obsidian,” her grandmother said. “Makāula. Volcanic glass. The heart of the island. It holds the fire of the land. The Mano Ha’i, born of the sea, cannot abide by it. It disrupts their connection to the water, and makes their physical form unstable.”

  Dee Dee was scribbling furiously in a small notebook. “Unstable how?”

  “It forces the change,” she said simply. “And makes it harder for them to change back. It can trap them in their monstrous form, making them vulnerable.” She turned another page. “And there are other things. Certain chants of binding. Symbols of protection, drawn in sand that has been blessed.” She looked up from the book, her gaze settling on Frankie. “Their senses are powerful. They can smell blood from a mile away. They can sense fear. But they are also predators. And predators are driven by instinct. Arrogance. They often underestimate their prey.”

  The words hung in the air, a lesson meant for Frankie alone. She felt the weight of her own predatory nature, the arrogance she herself had to fight down. She was not so different from the creature she was hunting.

  The thought made her skin crawl.

  “So we get some obsidian, draw a magic circle, and chant some Hawaiian?” Ted asked, his voice cracking slightly. “That’s the plan?”

  Her grandmother placed a calming hand on the closed book. “The plan is to understand. To be prepared. This is not a creature you can fight with fists alone.”

  She closed the book, the sound a soft, final thud. The sunlight outside seemed too bright, too cheerful for the dark, ancient knowledge that now filled the room. Frankie’s idyllic vacation had not just transformed into a supernatural battlefield. It had become a history lesson, a crash course in a war she hadn’t known she’d been born into.

  The air in the study was thick with the dust of centuries. Frankie felt the walls closing in, the weight of the book and her grandmother’s words pressing down on her. She had to get out. Had to breathe. The fear was a poison, yes, but the only antidote she had ever known was salt water.

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  They waxed their boards on the lanai, the familiar, sticky scent of the wax a slight comfort. Her grandfather came out, carrying a long, beautiful gun-shaped board made of koa wood.

  “You take this one, Frankie-girl,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Made it myself. She knows the waves here.” He ran a hand along the board’s smooth rail. “Be careful. The currents are strong today.”

  His eyes held a warning that had nothing to do with the water. Be careful of what’s in the currents.

  The three of them walked down to the beach, boards under their arms. The yellow caution tape was still there, a garish, useless scar on the black sand. The village felt like a ghost town. No kids playing in the surf. No tourists sunbathing. Just a few grim-faced fishermen mending their nets, their movements slow, their faces tight with worry.

  Frankie paddled out, the cool water a shock against her skin. Ted and Dee Dee followed, their usual pre-surf chatter replaced by a tense silence. The waves were perfect, clean six-foot peelers breaking over the reef with a sound like thunder. On any other day, Frankie’s heart would have been pounding with excitement. Today, it just pounded with dread.

  She dropped into a wave, the muscle memory taking over. The world narrowed to the curve of the water, the hiss of the spray, the flex of the board under her feet. For a few briefs, glorious seconds, the fear was gone, burned away by pure, unthinking instinct.

  She kicked out at the end of the ride, a small smile touching her lips. The ocean was still her refuge.

  “You got skills.”

  The voice came from beside her. She turned, startled.

  A guy was sitting on a board a few feet away, a lazy grin on his handsome face. He was tall, muscled, his skin tanned a deep, warm brown. Short black dreadlocks were slicked back from his forehead, and his eyes were the color of rich, dark coffee. He looked like he’d been born on a surfboard.

  “Thanks,” Frankie said, her voice a little breathless.

  “That’s the Pula break,” he said, his voice a smooth, alluring drawl. “It can be tricky. You read it like a local.” He paddled closer, his grin widening. “I’m Kimo.”

  “Frankie.”

  “Frankie,” he repeated, the name rolling off his tongue like a warm wave. “Maka’s daughter. Sweet.”

  He knew who she was. Of course he did. In a village this small, everyone knew everything.

  “So you’re the one they’re all talking about,” he continued, his gaze direct, confident. He looked her up and down, not in a creepy way, but with the appraising eye of a fellow athlete. “Heard you were good. They weren't lying.”

  A flush of heat rose in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun. She hated it. His charm was a warm current, pulling her in. She fought against it.

  “Heard about the attacks,” he said, his expression turning serious. “Crazy, yeah? My uncle was one of the first fishermen to see… what was left. Says he’s never seen a shark do something like that.”

  His words, meant to be comforting, sent a fresh spike of unease through her.

  “The whole village is spooked,” he went on, shaking his head. “Everyone’s staying out of the water. Except us, I guess.” He winked. “Guess we’re the crazy ones.”

  He paddled effortlessly to catch a coming wave, his movements a fluid, powerful dance. He dropped in, carving a line so perfect, so aggressive, it made Frankie’s jaw drop. He wasn’t just good. He was a master. He moved like he was part of the wave, a creature of the water.

  He paddled back out to her, his grin radiant. “There’s a better break, around the point. More power, holds a bigger swell. The tourists don’t know about it. I could show you.”

  The offer was casual. Friendly.

  But something was wrong.

  A dissonant note.

  The water near his board went cold. Just a degree. But she felt it on her skin. A prickle of ice.

  And his scent. Beneath the clean, salty smell of the ocean and the coconut scent of his surf wax, there was something else. A faint, musky undertone. The same ancient, predatory scent she had smelled on the beach. Faint. So faint she thought she might imagine it.

  Her breath caught in her chest.

  “Maybe some other time,” she said, her voice tighter than she wanted it to be. “My friends are waiting.”

  Kimo’s smile didn't falter, but his dark eyes lingered on her for a moment too long, their friendly warmth replaced by something else. Something older. A flicker of appraisal that was not just about her surfing.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice still smooth, still easy. “I’ll be around.”

  He paddled away, catching another wave without even looking back. Frankie watched him go, her heart hammering against her ribs. She told herself she was being paranoid. He was just a cute local surfer being friendly. The scent was probably just some weird brand of soap. The cold was just a current.

  But the predator in her, the part that lived in the shadows and understood other things that hunted in the dark, was screaming a silent, primal warning.

  *****

  That night, the Pula clan held another feast. It was a forced, defiant act of normalcy against the fear that had gripped the village. The torches were lit. The ukulele player strummed a cheerful tune. But the laughter was brittle, the smiles were tight, and everyone stayed on the lanai, well away from the dark edge of the beach.

  Frankie sat nursing a can of soda, her eyes scanning the crowd. She felt trapped in a nightmare where everyone else was pretending to be in a pleasant dream.

  And then Kimo was there.

  He walked onto the lanai as if he belonged there, a platter of fresh-sliced mango in his hands. He greeted her grandfather with a respectful nod, charmed her uncles with a joke, and handed her mother a perfect plumeria blossom with a smile that made Maka blush. He was woven into the fabric of this place, a beloved and familiar thread.

  He made his way over to Frankie, his presence a magnetic pull.

  “Told you I’d be around,” he said, his voice an inaudible murmur under the music. He handed her a slice of mango. His fingers brushed hers, and a jolt, cold and sharp as an electric shock, shot up her arm.

  She flinched, pulling her hand back.

  “You okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

  “Fine,” she said, her voice a choked whisper. “Just… static.”

  He accepted the lie. But his eyes searched her face. Something flickered in their dark depths.

  He sat beside her. Too close.

  The hairs on her neck stood straight up.

  The scent was stronger now. Salt.

  Mango.

  And musk.

  Animals grew restless when he was close. Her grandfather’s dog, which had been sleeping peacefully under the table, let out a low, guttural whine and slunk away into the house. A gecko on the wall chirped in alarm and vanished into a crack in the wood.

  No one else seemed to notice. They were all caught in his orbit, charmed by his simple grace.

  He started telling her stories about the island, about the best places to find sea turtles, about the spirits that lived in the waterfalls. His knowledge was deep, intimate. He spoke of the island as if it were a living being he knew by heart. It should have been fascinating. All it did was make the warning bells in Frankie’s head clang louder.

  This idyllic scene—the warm torchlight, the sweet music, the friendly faces—it was all a facade. A hunting blind.

  Frankie looked at Kimo, at his perfect smile and his kind eyes, and saw a predator hiding in plain sight. She didn’t know what he was, not for sure. But she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that he was part of the darkness that was bleeding into her world.

  Her vacation was not a battlefield she could escape. It was a trap.