The sun was a hunter. It stalked Frankie across the water, its heat a physical weight on her shoulders. She sat on her board, tucked behind a jagged lava rock formation, the long-sleeved rash guard sticking to her skin. She kept the obsidian knife tucked into the waistband of her red bikini bottoms. Its cold, sharp edge was a chilling contrast to the tropical heat.It felt less like a weapon and more like a secret.

  From her hiding place, she could see the whole cove. Dee Dee was a small, bright speck of orange hair on the beach, pretending to read, binoculars resting in her lap. And out in the center of the turquoise water, the bait.

  Ted paddled in slow, lazy circles on his longboard, a perfect picture of a relaxed tourist. But Frankie could smell the sharp, acrid scent of his fear on the breeze. His movements were too stiff, his shoulders too tight. A tightly wound spring trying to look like a loose thread.

  Every minute he was out there, her own stomach tightened. The taste of salt and bile rose in the back of her throat. My plan. My fault.

  This gambit was hers. Reckless. Desperate.

  Draw the creature into the shallows. Use Ted as a lure. Ambush it. It sounded so simple in the pre-dawn quiet. Out here, under the unforgiving sun, it just felt stupid. It felt like she was getting her friends killed.

  Her senses were a living net cast across the water. The lap of waves against rock. The distant cry of a gull. The frantic, terrified beat of Ted’s heart. She watched every ripple, every shadow. The water was a placid, shimmering blue. A beautiful lie.

  Nothing.

  The sun climbed. The heat pressed down. Her skin prickled. She shifted on the board, the motion doing nothing to ease the taut coil in her muscles.

  Where is it? Come on. Or don't. She didn't know which she wanted more.

  A sound cut through the air.

  Not from the cove. Further south. A sharp, splintering crack. Wood breaking. A shout, cut short. A scream, swallowed by the ocean.

  Frankie’s head snapped around. Her next breath caught a painful hitch in her chest.

  A small outrigger canoe was overturned two hundred yards down the coast. A man was in the water, flailing. Keoni. One of her uncle’s friends. He had smiled at her just yesterday.

  The surrounding water erupted.

  Not a fin. Not a clean attack. A churning, violent explosion of white water and a sickening, spreading a cloud of red.

  The plan was dust. The trap was useless. The monster wasn't playing by their rules.

  “Frankie!” Ted’s voice was a raw, panicked yell from the center of the cove.

  She didn't hesitate. No more thought. No more debate. No more fear. Only the scream, the blood in the water, and the cold, blazing fire of a predator’s rage.

  She slid off her board. Dove.

  Cold. Silence. The world went green.

  Above, the sun vanished. Below, only murky light. The roar of the surf muffled to a distant thunder. Salt stung her tongue.

  Her vampire reflexes blazed to life. The water felt like air. She kicked, legs like pistons, propelling her with unnatural speed. The world became a blur of green and blue, darting silver fish scattering in her path.

  She saw the cloud of blood before she saw the body, a billowing, ghostly curtain of crimson. A beacon. The coppery scent of it filled her senses, a call to the thirst buried deep inside. She fought it down, revulsion and adrenaline clearing her head.

  Keoni. A limp, broken doll, sinking into the darker depths. His leg was a ruin. Shredded flesh and bone.

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  She kicked harder. Closed the distance. Reached for him, her fingers brushing his shorts.

  Something moved in the gloom below.

  It rose from the abyss. Slow. Deliberate. Huge. The body was a mottled gray. Scarred. Shifting, its very form unstable. Not a fish. A mockery of a man. Arms long, ending in webbed, claw-like hands. Legs thick, powerful.

  And the head. The jaw too wide, filled with rows of serrated teeth. But the eyes—the eyes were the worst. Not the flat, black discs of a shark. They glowed with a faint, internal luminescence. Two points of cold, malevolent light.

  Vertical slits on its thick neck flared open and closed. Gills.

  The full, monstrous form of the Mano Ha’i. The creature from her grandmother’s darkest tales, made real.

  Frankie’s hand closed on Keoni’s arm, her grip like steel. She had to get him to the surface. To air. To light.

  The creature didn't lunge. It stopped, hovering a dozen feet away, its glowing eyes fixed on her.

  Watching.

  Assessing.

  It tilted its head, a gesture so unnervingly human a chill that had nothing to do with the water spread through her limbs.

  A sound bubbled through the water, a distorted, guttural rumble that vibrated in her bones.

  Not a growl. A voice. Warped and mangled by the water.

  It hissed a single word.

  “Frankie.”

  The sound hit her. A blow. Not a growl.

  A voice. Her name. The water went colder. The world went silent. Every muscle locked. Her lungs burned for air she forgot to breathe.

  It knew her name.

  Not a random predator. Not a territorial beast. This was personal.

  The creature’s jaw opened in a hideous smile. With a flick of its powerful tail, it turned and melted back into the deep. A disappearing shadow.

  A dismissal. A promise.

  The shock gave her the opening. The terror gave her strength. She wrapped her arm around Keoni’s chest, her legs kicking, driving them upward, toward the shimmering, silver ceiling of the surface.

  Her head broke the surface with a gasp, lungs burning. The sun was a blind, white fire. She took a ragged breath, then another. She held Keoni’s head above the water, his body a dead weight against her.

  She started the long swim to shore.

  She dragged him from the surf, feet sinking into wet black sand, muscles screaming.

  People raced toward them, their shouts a panicked chorus. Ted and Dee Dee were there first, their faces pale, terrified, relieved.

  “Is he…?” Ted’s voice was a choked whisper.

  “He’s alive,” Frankie gasped, collapsing to her knees beside Keoni. “Barely.”

  Her mother pushed through the crowd, her face a storm of fear and determination. She knelt, her hands immediately going to the wound on Keoni’s leg, her voice sharp, commanding, calling for tourniquets, for pressure. The nurturing mother was gone. In her place was a woman who had seen death before, who knew how to fight it.

  Frankie fell back, out of the way. Her body trembled, a deep, uncontrollable shudder. The adrenaline drained away, leaving only an ache in her bones and a single word echoing in her head. Frankie.

  It knew her. It had been toying with them. With her. The trap was a child’s game to it.

  The chaos of the rescue subsided, replaced by a low, buzzing murmur. The villagers stared at her. Their whispers reached her with painful clarity.

  “How did she get to him so fast? He was out by the reef.”

  “She pulled him from the water… like he weighed nothing…”

  “Did you see her swim? ?A?ole kanaka. Not human.”

  The whispers circulated. A poison.

  Their gratitude was a fragile thing, already curdling into suspicion. The awe hardened into fear.

  Frankie looked up and met her mother’s eyes. Maka was staring at her, her hands still pressed on Keoni’s leg. Her gaze wasn't on the wound. It was on her daughter. And the fear in her eyes was no longer just for the monster. It was new. Sharper. It was the fear of a woman looking at her own child and seeing a stranger. An impossibility.

  Her grandfather pushed through the crowd, his face unreadable, a mask of ancient stone. He looked from the wounded fisherman to Frankie, drenched and trembling on the sand.

  His gaze was heavy, filled with a sadness of a thousand years old.

  She had saved a man’s life. She had revealed herself as a hero.

  And in doing so, she had confirmed their deepest fears. She had exposed herself as the other. The curse. The monster.

  The whispers grew louder. The stares grew colder. Surrounded by her family, by the people she had just risked everything to protect, Frankie had never felt more alone.