Free Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) by Rita Stradling Page A

did not dare delve again, suddenly almost certain that if I did I would get knocked out again.
    I settled next to him, my arm touching his, knowing that if I looked at him, I could not complete my task. Manipulating emotions was much more complicated than depleting emotions from someone’s first three layers of their soul. Draining an emotion is a lot like pulling a plug; whereas what my grandfather wanted me to do was more like scooping out a handful of emotion and then gently pouring it into a different memory.
    That was exactly what trying to pull just a surface emotion from Keanu felt like, scooping water from his soul and having it immediately slip right through my fingers. He did not even blink, but I felt something, as though I was fading even after trying only twice with no success.
    I released my connection to his soul as the truck lurched into a parking stall.
    Showing no sign that he had any awareness of my intrusion, Keanu squeezed my shoulder. He said, “We’ll just make the sunset.”
    “Yeah,” I said, seeing double. I blinked rapidly. Was it possible to have natural internal water-wards? Could they be broken? What would happen if I tried to break them?
    Something here was—more. I did not even know how to explain it, but every time I advanced a step in this assignment, if it could even be called an assignment at this point, I just obtained a better view of how far I had to go. Would my grandfather at least leave me this when he took everything else away? Or would my failure today shoot in the last nail in my coffin.
    “Oh, I almost forgot,” Keanu said as his fingers gently lifted my wrist. He smiled as he wrapped my charm around my hand and refastened the clasp.
    My dizziness immediately vanished. “Thank you,” I whispered. I touched the one charm my dad did not give me, the water charm, and stared at Keanu.
    Hunter Bryant popped out of his truck and asked, “Bumpy ride bra?”
    Hunter was a guy I knew by reputation only, but what a reputation. He had a face to launch a thousand waveboards. If Keanu was a god, Hunter was the human that tempted all the goddesses. A blond haired, blue eyed tempter, rake, any way you wanted to put it. The difference between him and his best friend was Hunter paraded it; just looking at him, standing next to the truck-bed, shirtless and stretching, screamed ‘feast your eyes ladies’. Okay, so I guess I did, I’m only human, right?
    Well, human enough.
    “Could not have been better,” Keanu said. He offered his hand and I took it, not because I needed help getting down from the truck, but because of the message it sent to Auli, who had just emerged wearing a poorly disguised scowl.
    “Aren’t we going to the lookout?” I asked.
    “You don’t like the ocean?” Auli asked as she stepped up beside me.
    “I like the ocean, of course,” I said, heading for the path to the ocean beside Keanu.
    “Hey there friend,” Auli said with a scorching smile. Being near her was like standing on a dormant volcano, it looked safe, but right beneath the surface, beneath your feet, was coursing rivers of lava. If she wasn’t who she was I would swear that the girl was a dracon. And some part of me, perhaps my intuition, was sure that Auli’s soul would be as strong and fortified as her brother’s, but my guess was that if I took my charm off the water of her soul would be boiling.
    While Hunter and Keanu talked about something I knew and cared little about, wave-riding, Auli ended up standing next to me as we took the path down to the beach.
    “Are you going to play volleyball again this year?” I asked her. Joining our school’s volleyball team in the spring session the year before had been another scheme I had to make Auli my friend, it failed.
    “Yes,” she said curtly. “Are you?”
    “Yep,” I said.
    “Are you sure you want to put yourself through another year?” she asked as if I wasn’t the second best player on the team, after her, but