The Fire Keeper (The Storm Runner 2)

“I’ve never even heard of anything like this,” Brooks muttered. She stopped walking and turned to me. “What do we do now? Abandon our plans?”

“No.

We’re going through with them,” I said. “She can stay at my house. We just have to make sure she calls her grandpa first, to let him know she’s safe. And then hope my mom doesn’t freak out.”

“Because some godborn just showed up?”

“Because we’re going to rip a hole in the sky so we can go on a quest that could get us killed.”

“If we can rip a hole.”

“Just be ready,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”

Brooks blew a curl off her face. “Ren can sleep at my place.” Then she added, “But only if Rosie stands guard.”

I laughed it off to make Brooks feel better, but as we walked up the beach, all I kept thinking was Even a hellhound can’t kill a nightmare.

With Rosie stationed at Brooks’s door as killer-hellhound-watchdog, I slept in the hammock just outside the casita. Well, I didn’t exactly sleep. My mind kept replaying the fight with the colossal shadow monsters. Between that, Rosie’s hellish snoring, and thinking about how to rescue Hurakan within four days and what to do with Ren in the meantime, I didn’t get any rest until the sun began to rise. The next thing I heard was “Hey, wake your flojo butt up.”

That was Hondo smacking my leg as he stood over me.

I startled, tipping the hammock and dumping myself onto the sand-covered patio. “What time is it?” I said, clumsily getting to my feet. I glanced over at Brooks’s door. Rosie was no longer there. Did that mean Brooks and Ren were gone, too?

“Where’s Rosie?” I grabbed Fuego from the hammock and leaned against it.

Why couldn’t everyone at least stay put until I figured things out?

“I saw her chasing a seagull down the beach earlier,” he said. “It’s after nine. Why’d you sleep out here? I mean, I know you have a thing for Brooks, but this is kind of stalkerish, dude.”

“Nine?!” I raced across the courtyard, stumbling over the water hose. “Why didn’t someone wake me?”

“You have a hot date or something?” Hondo followed me all the way into my room, laughing.

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

It’s like this, I wanted to say. Massive shadow beasts stormed into this world because some godborn shadow witch showed up in a boat with no oars. And today is the day I’m leaving to save my dad, who is trapped in a water park in South Dakota, but there’s an invisible wall keeping me on this island that I have to find a way to bust through.

I’d thought about that stupid wall all night. There was no way I’d get through it without the jade, but something was telling me to save the amulet’s power. We just might need it on this quest. So, I had come up with another possible solution. A dangerous, crazy, hope-I-don’t-get-my-head-eaten-off-by-a-demon solution. Now all I had to do was convince Brooks.

“Hey, Earth to Zane.” Hondo waved his hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my daydream. “What’s your problem?”

“Who said I had a problem?” I grabbed a T-shirt out of my dresser drawer and tugged it over my head.

“Uh-huh. Don’t forget you’ve got afternoon duty at the shop.”

“You think you could take my shift?” I poked around the room for my sneakers. A knot of guilt settled in my gut. I hadn’t thought about how I’d say good-bye to my mom. The last time I set out on a quest, I’d only left her a note, and she was pretty furiosa with me afterward.

Hondo stepped in front of me. “Give it up, bro. What’s going on?” I’d grown another two inches the last couple of months, so Hondo seemed even shorter than before. But it didn’t make him any less intimidating.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“I saw the burned-out boat.”

I tried to look casual. “Oh, the boat—ha, yeah, that was Rosie. She…uh…she got a little too excited.”

“I guess we owe someone a new boat, then?”