The only sound in the house was the slow, rhythmic crash of waves. Too slow. Too loud. Every tick of the clock on the wall was a hammer blow.

  Frankie stared at the pineapple on her plate, the sweet smell making her stomach churn. No one spoke. The silence was a physical weight, pressing the air from her lungs. After the chaos on the beach, after Keoni had been bundled into the back of a truck and rushed toward the distant clinic, the Pula clan had retreated, pulling the shutters of their homes and their hearts closed.

  Frankie sat on the lanai, watching the tide pull away from the shore, leaving the black sand wet and glistening like a fresh wound. Dee Dee and Ted were with her, a small, silent triangle of solidarity. The gratitude from the villagers for her saving Keoni had been a fleeting thing, a brief flicker of warmth before the cold front of suspicion had rolled back in, even stronger than before. Her unnatural strength, her impossible speed, had not made her a hero. It had made her an anomaly. A threat.

  “It knew my name,” Frankie said, the words falling like stones into the quiet. She hadn’t told them yet. Hadn’t been able to give voice to the deepest, most terrifying part of the encounter.

  Ted, who had been nervously shredding a hibiscus leaf, went still. Dee Dee looked up from her phone, her fingers frozen over the screen.

  “What?” Dee Dee whispered.

  “In the water,” Frankie said, her voice a low, ragged thing. “The creature. It spoke to me. It said my name.”

  The implication was a cold, greasy thing, slithering between them. This wasn’t a random monster, a curse awakened from a long slumber. This was targeted.

  “But… how?” Ted’s voice was thin. “No one here knows you. Not really.”

  “That’s the point,” Dee Dee said, her mind already racing, connecting the terrible dots. “It’s not just some ancient evil. It’s someone. Someone who knows Maka. Someone who knows she has a daughter. Someone who knew we were coming.” She looked at Frankie, her eyes wide with a new, horrifying understanding. “It’s not just circling the village, Frankie. It’s circling your family.”

  The world seemed to tilt; the horizon shifting. The monster wasn't just hunting. It was waiting. For her. The weight of her family’s safety settled on her shoulders, a crushing, unbearable load. Every smile from her grandfather, every gentle touch from her mother, now felt like a liability. Her love for them was a vulnerability, a weak point the creature could exploit.

  The only thing she could do was watch. Watch everyone. Her uncles, her cousins, the neighbors who now averted their eyes when she passed.

  The predator in her, the one she had just embraced, was now turned inward, toward the very people she was trying to protect. Every friendly gesture, every casual word, was now a potential clue. A potential threat. Paranoia was a bitter poison, and it was tasting like home.

  She felt a presence behind her and turned. Her grandmother stood in the doorway, her face a mask of serene, ancient sorrow.

  “It is a heavy burden, to see the monster in the faces of those you love,” she said, her voice soft. She had heard every word. Of course she had.

  “Who is it?” Frankie asked, the question a raw plea. “You have to know.”

  Her grandmother shook her head slowly. “The Mano Ha’i were a tribe, not a single man. Many families carried the bloodline. When my ancestors broke their power, they scattered. Some may have survived, hiding their nature, blending in, waiting.” She looked out at the ocean, her gaze distant, lost in a history that was still bleeding into the present. “To know for sure… it is a dangerous path.”

  A shadow fell across the lanai.

  “Dangerous is my middle name.”

  Kimo stood at the bottom of the steps, his surfboard tucked under his arm. His smile was as bright and easy as ever, but in the harsh afternoon light, it seemed brittle, stretched too thin. He looked from the grim faces of Frankie and her friends to the serene, unreadable expression of her grandmother.

  “Heard what you did,” he said to Frankie, his voice a low, admiring murmur. “Saving Keoni. That was some serious bravery. The whole village is talking.”

  The words were a lie. Or a twisted version of the truth. The village was talking, but it wasn't about her bravery. It was about her strangeness. Kimo had to know that. The thought sent a fresh chill down Frankie’s spine.

  “Just did what anyone would do,” she said, her voice flat, guarded.

  “Not everyone can swim like you,” he said, his gaze lingering, that unnerving mixture of admiration and cold appraisal. “You’re a special kind of person, Frankie Rivera.” He turned his smile on her grandmother. “Aloha, Tūtū.”

  Her grandmother inclined her head, a regal, silent acknowledgment. She did not smile back.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I was thinking,” Kimo continued, his focus returning to Frankie, “you look like you could use a break from… all this.” He gestured vaguely at the shuttered houses, the tense, quiet village. “I know a place. A secret cove, north of here. The water is calm. No one ever goes there. We could just… chill. Talk. I might know some things that could help. Old stories my father told me about the coastline. About its secrets.”

  The offer was a perfectly baited hook, dangling in the turbulent water of her fear and suspicion. Clues about the attacks. He was offering her exactly what she needed. It was too perfect.

  Ted’s eyes screamed Don’t you dare.

  Dee Dee shook her head. They were right. It was stupid. Insane. A trap. But what was the alternative? Sit here in the suffocating silence, waiting for him to pick off her family one by one? The hunter in her screamed, Act. Move. Corner the threat. It was her greatest strength. And her most dangerous flaw.

  She met Kimo's gaze, the lie already forming on her lips.

  “Okay,” she said, the word tasting like ash. “Lead the way.”

  The path to the cove was not a path at all. It was a scramble over jagged, black lava rocks, their surfaces sharp as broken glass. The jungle pressed in on one side, a thick, green wall of tangled vines and broad-leafed plants.

  On the other, the ocean crashed against the rocks, sending plumes of white spray into the air. There was no one else for miles. The isolation was absolute.

  “Almost there,” Kimo called over his shoulder, his movements sure-footed, graceful. He moved over the treacherous terrain as if he were walking on flat sand.

  Frankie followed, her body a tightly wound spring, every sense screaming a silent alarm. The musky, predatory scent she associated with him was stronger here, away from the village, mingling with the salt and the damp, earthy smell of the jungle.

  The cove, when they reached it, was beautiful. A perfect, hidden crescent of black sand, sheltered by high, sheer cliffs of lava rock. A small waterfall cascaded down one cliff, a silver ribbon of fresh water pooling in a shallow lagoon before running out to sea. It was a paradise. A prison.

  There was only one way in. The way they had come.

  “See?” Kimo said, his smile radiant as he dropped his board onto the sand. “Told you it was worth the hike.”

  Frankie put her own board down, her eyes scanning the cove, the cliffs, the dark water of the lagoon. There was nowhere to run.

  “So,” she said, her voice harder than she intended. “You said you had clues. Stories.”

  Kimo laughed, a low, easy sound. But his eyes stayed cold. Flat. Like a shark’s. “Always so serious, Frankie.” He walked toward the edge of the lagoon, his back to her. “My father used to bring me here. He told me this place was kapu. Sacred. Forbidden. He said it was the heart of the Mano Ha’i’s power. The place where they made their sacrifices.”

  He turned.

  The smile was gone.

  His face was a mask. Cold. Ancient. His eyes glittered with a light that wasn't the sun.

  “He told me their last descendant was still alive,” Kimo continued, his voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper. “Preserved in a magical sleep by his parents, just before your ancestors slaughtered them. Hidden away. Waiting for the right time to awaken. To reclaim what was stolen from him.”

  Frankie’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. She took a half-step back, her hand instinctively going to the obsidian knife tucked in her waistband.

  “The killings,” she whispered, the horrifying truth dawning on her. “They’re not just random attacks.”

  “Random?” Kimo let out a short, harsh laugh. “Nothing is random. They are a ritual. A blood sacrifice to awaken an ancient power. To summon a god from the deep. But the ritual needs a final key. A catalyst.” He took a step toward her, his movements slow, deliberate. Predatory. “It needs a convergence of power. The blood of the old world, and the blood of the new. The magic of the Pula, and the magic of… something else. Something cold. Something strong.”

  He was in front of her now, so close she could feel the unnatural coolness radiating from his skin. He reached out, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw, his touch a shocking, icy burn.

  “I knew what you were the moment you arrived,” he hissed, his voice a low, guttural rumble that was no longer entirely human. “I could smell it. The darkness in you calls to the darkness in me.”

  He's the shark. Frankie flinched back, pulling the obsidian knife, the black, glassy blade a stark contrast to her pale, trembling hand.

  Kimo looked at the knife and laughed, a genuine, mocking sound. “A toy,” he sneered. “A relic from a forgotten war. Your ancestors were weak. They drove us into the sea, but they couldn’t kill us. They only made us stronger.”

  He moved, a blur of motion too fast for her human eyes to follow. He wasn't just fast. He was impossibly, supernaturally fast. As fast as her.

  He grabbed her wrist, his grip like a band of iron. The obsidian knife clattered to the sand. He twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to her knees. Pain, sharp and blinding, shot up her arm.

  “The ritual needs your blood, vampire,” he snarled, his face contorting, the handsome features seeming to ripple and shift. His teeth sharpened, elongating into rows of serrated points. His skin took on a grayish, mottled pallor. “Just a taste. To complete the circle.”

  He leaned in, his monstrous jaw opening.

  Teeth.

  Hot. White. Agony.

  Not a clean bite. A tear. A grind. The sickening crunch of teeth against bone. She screamed, the sound raw, animal.

  He pulled back, his mouth smeared with her blood. A dark, triumphant light blazed in his glowing eyes. He had what he wanted.

  He threw her backward. Her last conscious thought was of the betrayal.

  No.

  The thought was a razor blade. The predator in her surged, a final, desperate burst of fury. She kicked out, her heel connecting with his knee with a sickening, wet crack. He roared, a sound that was half-man, half-beast, stumbling back. It was all the opening she needed. She scrambled backward, vision tunneling, the world a smear of black sand and white sun.

  She ran.