emotion, no vulnerability. God, the woman had actually had people spying on her. She knew all the painful points to zing her arrows in, knew how to jab, as if she held Li’s knife in her hands. But let her talk; let her fling her sharp blades. Let her try to finish the grinding humiliation she’d begun on the Hypnautique. Every moment counted.
“Doesn’t want to displease anyone,” Camille went on. “Or lose her job. Please her employers at their stupid little sporting goods company. Well, do what I tell you, good girl, and your friends will live. And you might too, who knows.”
“No,” Joel pleaded hoarsely. “No, Bella. Give it to me, you bitch. I’ll drink it. Not her.”
Camille ignored him, and so did Bella, their gazes locked.
The woman was right.
Bella was going to drink it. But not for the reason Camille gave. But because if she obeyed Camille, the drug would take at least a little while to take effect, and watching her would delay Camille, keep her from killing the others. And by the time Bella was unconscious, or dead, her ohana would be there. She could feel them coming, a deep knowing in her very bones.
Yes, the Ho’omalus were coming as fast as they could. And they would save Joel and Frank and the others.
Not her, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes a person, even a good girl, got the chance to do something heroic, and this was hers. And even though she was shaking in her sandals, ready to pee her bikini bottoms, she was going to do something much more worthwhile than hawking swimsuits and shoes.
“No, Bella,” Joel shouted, struggling again. “She lies. Don’t do it. It’s poison.”
Bella smiled at him, with her mouth, with her eyes, her heart. “It will be all right,” she said.
And then she held out her hand and accepted the cup. It looked like some kind of herbal tea, smelled of some dank garden weed.
She took one drink and nearly choked on the bitter brew. Another and then gagged, finally swallowing. The cup fell from her hand, splashing the rest of its contents on her legs and bare feet.
Lifting her head, Bella gazed at her captor. Camille watched her avidly, her eyes wide and greedy, lips parted, her teeth showing like those of a shark closing in on her prey.
And then the world began to spin in great dizzying sweeps. Bella staggered and, no longer in control of her limbs, tried to right herself. As a dull roar sounded in her ears, the ground swept up and hit her hard, her face smacking into the rock.
Shouting echoed, from a long way away. The earth shook under her—no, that was her body shaking, her teeth chattering, heart pounding so hard she opened her mouth to scream as terror swallowed her whole.
A woman composed of dark fire, edged in the dark red glitter of flame, rose from the ground before her, her terrible eyes burning into Bella’s and her mouth opening to devour her whole. She spoke, and her words were like thunder, rattling Bella’s bones and the foundations of the islands. “E ala mai, ho’omalu! Rise, warrior. Rise…or die.”
And around her, the trees approached, reaching out with their sharp limbs and razor-tipped leaves, ready to devour whatever the goddess left of her. No longer her friends, they waited, horrid predators.
Bella jerked onto her back, straining, choking, as her heart tried to burst and her brain spun and burned until she was exhausted, and fell back, her head flopping dully to one side.
Someone kicked her, a sharp toe in her ribs. That hated voice echoed over her, through her.
“Look at you now, Miss Ho’omalu. Not so pretty now, are you? Rolling in the dirt like a common addict.”
But Bella ignored her as, through her lashes, she saw more strange things. The forest around her was moving. Murmurs drowned out Camille’s voice.
“Rise, little sister. E ala mai, ho’omalu. Rise, warrior wahine.”
Her eyes widened. The fiery woman beckoned, her burning eyes fastened on Bella, no longer threatening but commanding. And yes, those were people stepping out of the threatening trees, emerging from them like shadows. Hawaiians, shimmering out of the hard-edged brilliance that now illuminated the forest, large and dark, dressed in simple kapa-cloth skirts, their long, dark hair caught back with plaited crowns. Their liquid eyes, her eyes, were fastened on her, and they too beckoned to her, urging her to her feet.
Bella rolled over, moving drunkenly, escaping another kick from those sharp toes,