I know. I wouldn’t let myself think any other way.
Come here. He pulled me into his arms. You’re exhausted. Let me take over for a while.
I’m fine, I said, but I relaxed against him anyway. I was so exhausted that I was trembling with every pull of my arms through the water.
You don’t have to be Super-Mermaid, you know. Your body’s been through hell these last couple of days. Just rest for a few minutes, okay?
I nodded against his chest. Thank you, I told him, kissing his bicep.
You’re welcome. His voice was solemn when he answered, which made me think he understood just how many things I was thanking him for.
We made it to the beach near my house about ninety minutes later. It was crowded, filled to capacity with surfers, swimmers, and sun worshippers, so I shifted in the water pretty far from shore, then took my bikini bottoms from Kona, who’d shoved them in his pocket when I had shifted to mermaid.
After all the vital areas were covered, we swam to the beach. We walked out of the water together, then I slipped my hand into Kona’s and we ran up the sand I hadn’t set foot on for over eight months. As we ran, I prayed we weren’t too late.
Chapter 18
The house was empty when we got there. I rang the doorbell again and again, waiting for one of my brothers, or the new housekeeper/nanny my father had hired when I left, to answer. But no one came, and I grew increasingly freaked out with each second that passed.
“Is there another way in?” Kona demanded, already checking around the porch for a key.
“The spare is hidden on the back patio. Or at least it used to be.”
“Let’s go, then.”
The gates into our backyard were also locked, so we hopped the fence like my brothers and I used to do when we forgot to bring our keys to the beach. There was none of the lazy joy of those days in our movements now, though. I was as close to frantic as I’d been in a long time. It was the middle of the day in the heart of summer and my brothers weren’t at home. Nor were they on the beach, which was usually their favorite place.
I tried to convince myself that it was no big deal, that they were shopping or at a movie or maybe even on vacation. But I knew better. I hadn’t come all this way on a hunch. I knew, without a doubt, that something was very, very wrong.
Kona found the key underneath the rim of the outside bar, right where my dad had always kept it, and in seconds we were both inside. What I saw there wasn’t encouraging.
A carton of milk was sitting on the counter, open and spoiling, while a half-eaten bowl of what was once Cheerios rested on the kitchen table. The box was on its side, with half the contents spilled on the floor in front of the key holder—like my dad had knocked it over in a rush to get his keys and then hadn’t bothered to pick it up.
Which wasn’t like him.
“Dad!” I yelled, taking off running through the house. “Moku? Rio? Dad!”
There was no answer, but that didn’t stop me from shouting as I ran from room to room looking for someone or something that would tell me where they were. There was nothing, not even a note, although why would there be? It wasn’t like my dad just expected me to drop by …
“It’s okay, Tempest. We’ll find them, but you need to calm down.”
Kona slid his arms around me, pressed a soft kiss to my temple. And that’s when I realized I was crying. More like sobbing, really, and I couldn’t seem to stop. Fear was a wild tsunami inside of me, swamping everything else.
Kona held me until I could finally get myself under control. “First of all, do you think your dad still has some of your old clothes?” he asked when I started breathing again. “And maybe something for me to borrow? We can’t exactly go running around town like this.” He gestured to our damp bathing suits and sandy feet. I’d been so panicked I’d forgotten to wash off in the outside shower.
“Yeah, right. Clothes.” We were standing in the middle of my dad’s room anyway, so I crossed to his closet and pulled out a surfing T-shirt and a pair of shorts for Kona to wear. Thank God my dad liked his shorts baggy, because Kona was so tall that nothing else would have worked.
I left him to take a quick shower in my dad’s bathroom and went in search of my room, the only place in the house I hadn’t checked for my dad and brothers. What I found there nearly had me bursting into tears all over again.
Nothing had changed.
Not one thing, except my bed was made, and I remembered that I hadn’t bothered with it before heading out to the beach all those months ago. Other than that, the room was exactly as I had left it—right down to the painting I’d been working on still resting, half-finished, on the easel near the window, and my pre-calc homework sitting on my desk.
Maybe I should be glad my dad hadn’t messed with my stuff, but there was something intensely sad about the fact that nothing had been touched. Like it had just been waiting—they had just been waiting—for me to come home.
The thought had my heart breaking wide open.
Where are they? I asked myself for the millionth time. I crossed to my dresser, pulled out a purple tank top and my favorite pair of jeans. After a quick shower using my old shampoo—which was still in the adjacent bathroom—I shimmied into them. It felt strange to be wearing regular clothes again after so long. But it was a good strange.
Kona tapped on my door as I was sliding my feet into a pair of sandals. “Where do you want to start looking?” he asked. He was wearing a pair of flip-flops, but his feet were so much bigger than my dad’s that his toes and heels extended over the front and back. I probably would have laughed if I wasn’t so panicked.
“I need to call my dad’s office, see if they know where he is.” I was already reaching for the phone.
I dialed my dad’s private number from memory, and his assistant answered right away. “How is he, Bobby? What did the tests show?”
My stomach plummeted. “It’s Tempest, Sylvia. What tests? What’s wrong? I came home and—” My voice broke.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Moku had an accident on the beach yesterday. He’s been in a coma for the last twenty-four hours.”
I know she said more, but I couldn’t hear it over the roaring in my ears. My legs gave out and I hit the ground, hard.
Not my baby brother, not my baby brother, not my baby brother, I repeated to myself over and over again as Kona drove my car—which had still been sitting on my side of the garage like it was waiting for me—to the hospital. We were going about twenty miles above the speed limit, and I fought the urge to scream at him to go faster. Especially since neither one of us was exactly carrying a license—and Kona didn’t even own one. The only reason he was driving was because I was too upset to think, let alone pay attention to the road.
Let him be okay, I pleaded with whatever higher power was out there. Please, let him be okay.
We pulled into the parking lot of Rady Children’s Hospital, and Kona sped straight to the front doors. “Go on in,” he told me grimly. “I’ll park and meet you up there.”
I didn’t even pause to say thank you, just headed for the front desk at a dead run. “Moku Maguire,” I told the two women sitting behind the information desk. “What room is he in?”
“How do you spell the name?” the one on the left asked. She had gray curls and wore hot-pink glasses and a teddy-bear shirt. I wanted to strangle her as she slowly pulled her keyboard closer and waited, fingers poised over the keys.