Pain.

  White-hot. Grinding. A fire in her shoulder.

  The world returned in pieces.

  Grit of black sand on her cheek.

  The taste of her own blood.

  The roar of the ocean.

  He bit me.

  The thought was a shard of ice in the pain's fire. She pushed herself up, her arm screaming in protest. The world swam, a nauseating blur of green and black and blue.

  Kimo was gone. The secret cove was empty, the only evidence of his presence the discarded obsidian knife lying on the sand and the slick, dark patch of her blood staining the beach.

  She staggered to her feet, clutching her shoulder. The wound was deep, a ragged, crescent-shaped ruin of flesh. It wasn't healing. Her vampire vitality, the power that could seal a cut in seconds, was struggling against the wound, a sluggish, pathetic trickle of regeneration. There was something wrong with his bite. Something unnatural.

  Poisonous.

  Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the pain. She had to get out. Get back.

  Run.

  The command came from the deepest, most primal part of her brain. She stumbled toward the treacherous path of lava rock, her bare feet slipping on the slick, wet surfaces. Every jolt sent a fresh wave of agony through her shoulder. The jungle was a wall of impenetrable green, the ocean a churning gray mouth. There was no escape.

  Only the path back.

  She scrambled over the rocks, her breath coming in short, ragged sobs. The image of Kimo’s face as it changed, the handsome features melting into a monstrous mask, burning behind her eyes. The calm smile. The warm, dark eyes. The way he’d talked about the island, about mana. It had all been a lie. A performance. A beautifully crafted lure.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  She couldn’t look at the trail of her own blood on the rocks. A dark, ugly smear. She had done this. Led him right to her own door. The warnings had been there. The coldness in the water. The turtle’s terror. The musky, predatory scent her own instincts had screamed at her to recognize. She had ignored it all. Pushed it down. Because he was charming. Because she had wanted, for one stupid, desperate moment, to feel normal.

  To feel the uncomplicated spark of attraction.

  You trusted a monster.

  The thought was a whip, driving her forward. A loose rock shifted under her foot and she fell, her uninjured arm scraping against the sharp volcanic glass. She cried out, a thin, pathetic sound swallowed by the roar of the surf. She lay there for a second, the rough rock against her cheek, the taste of salt and blood on her tongue. It would be so easy to just stay here. To let the tide come in. To let the darkness take her.

  No.

  The word was a flicker of fire in the cold emptiness. She pushed herself up again, her body a symphony of pain. She had to warn them. Dee Dee. Ted. Her family. Kimo wasn't just a monster. He was a hunter. And now he had what he wanted. Her blood.

  She stumbled on, a broken, bleeding thing, leaving a trail of dark droplets on the black rocks behind her. The sun was beginning to set; the sky bleeding into shades of orange and violet. The beautiful, treacherous sunset felt like a mockery. The world was ending, and it was doing so in the most breathtakingly beautiful way.

  She found them near a small, dilapidated beach house, a relic from the 1960s that was slowly being devoured by the jungle. They had been waiting for her, their faces etched with a growing, frantic worry.

  Ted saw her first. His face went slack with shock, his easy-going humor dissolving into pure, naked horror. “Frankie!”

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  He ran to her, catching her as her legs finally gave out. She collapsed against him, her body a dead weight, the world going gray at the edges.

  “What happened?” Dee Dee was there, her voice sharp with a terror that was colder and harder than Ted’s. Her eyes, wide behind her glasses, took in the mangled shoulder, the blood-soaked rash guard, the pale, clammy sheen of Frankie’s skin. “Who did this?”

  “Kimo,” Frankie choked out, the name itself a fresh wave of betrayal. “It was him. It’s always been him.”

  They half-carried, half-dragged her into the relative shelter of the crumbling beach house. It smelled of mildew and salt and rot. They lowered her to the sandy floor, Ted’s hands gentle, his face a mask of horrified disbelief.

  She told them everything. The secret cove. The story of the last Mano Ha’i. The ritual. The bite. The words tumbled out, interspersed with ragged, painful sobs.

  “I was so stupid,” she finished, the words a raw whisper. She couldn’t look at them. She stared at the sandy floor, at the dark drops of her own blood that were soaking into it. “I saw the signs. My body, my instincts, they were screaming at me, and I ignored them. I wanted to believe him. I walked right into his trap.”

  Dee Dee said nothing. She just knelt beside Frankie, her movements clipped, efficient. She gently peeled the blood-soaked fabric of the rash guard away from the wound. A low, sharp hiss escaped her lips. The bite was deep; the flesh torn and ragged. Inflamed with ugly edges, purplish-red.

  “This isn’t healing,” Dee Dee said, her voice a low, clinical murmur that did nothing to hide the fury beneath. “His bite… it’s like it’s poisoned. It’s actively fighting your regeneration.” She looked up, and the anger in her eyes was a physical force. Not directed at Frankie.

  “That bastard,” she snarled, her voice shaking with a ferocity Frankie had never heard from her before. “He played you. He played all of us. I should have seen it. The pattern, the charm, the way he just appeared out of nowhere… it was all too perfect.”

  “It’s not your fault, Dee,” Frankie whispered.

  “It is!” Dee Dee shot back, her voice cracking. “I’m supposed to be the brains! I’m supposed to see the patterns before they bite us!”

  Ted had been silent through it all, his face pale, his expression unreadable. He placed a hand on Frankie’s uninjured shoulder, his touch a small, warm anchor in the swirling chaos of her pain and shame.

  “It’s not your fault, Frankie,” he said, his voice quiet, steady. “He’s a predator. This is what they do.” He looked from Frankie’s agonized face to Dee Dee’s furious one.

  “Predators don’t come at you with fangs and claws out in the open. They come at you with a smile. They make you feel safe. They make you want to trust them. They always hide in plain sight.”

  His words, simple and profound, cut through the noise of their self-recrimination. He was right. Kimo hadn’t beaten her with strength. He had beaten her with trust. And that was a weapon she had never learned how to defend against.

  A sound from the village, thin and high on the evening breeze, made them all go still.

  A scream.

  Another followed, then a chorus of panicked shouts.

  Kimo wasn’t wasting any time. He had the last piece of his ritual. He was speeding up his plan.

  Frankie struggled to her feet, her body screaming in protest. “We have to get back.”

  They stumbled out of the derelict beach house into the deepening twilight. The sky was a bruised purple, the first stars beginning to prick through the gloom. The sounds from the village were growing louder, a symphony of terror.

  They didn’t have to go far. On the path, just outside the Pula property, they saw the first one. A fisherman’s woven basket, overturned, its contents of silver fish scattered across the dirt. And next to it, driven into the soft earth, was a totem.

  It was a piece of driftwood, sharpened to a point. And tied to it with a piece of wet, sinewy seaweed, was a single, massive shark tooth. It was a warning.

  A declaration. A territorial marker.

  As they got closer to the village, they saw more of them. One on the doorstep of a shuttered house. Another hanging from the branch of a palm tree. Each one a promise of violence. Each one a mocking testament to her failure.

  He wasn’t just killing now. He was terrorizing. He was turning the village into his own personal hunting ground. And he was using the symbols of the very people he was destroying to do it.

  Frankie stopped, her breath catching in her throat.

  Another totem. On the gatepost of her family’s home.

  This one was different.

  Not one tooth. Three. A triangle.

  Tied to it, a scrap of fabric fluttered in the breeze.

  Red.

  My bikini.

  The world went silent.

  This wasn’t just a general warning to the village. This was a message. For her.

  I was here. I can get to them whenever I want.

  She reached out and ripped the totem from the gatepost, the sharp edges of the teeth digging into her palm. The pain was nothing compared to her sorrow

  .

  The fear was still there. The guilt was still there.