The Islands at the End of the World (33 page)

AUSTIN ASLAN was inspired to write his debut novel,
The Islands at the End of the World
, while living with his wife and two children on the Big Island of Hawai`i. He earned a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo. A National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, he is pursuing a PhD in geography at the University of Arizona. Austin loves traveling, backpacking, and photography. He continues to write fiction and looks forward to the publication of this novel’s sequel. Follow him on Twitter at
@Laustinspace
.

It’s a few months after the end of
The Islands at the End of the World
. Hilo is dangerous, and warring groups known as Tribes patrol the coast. There’s not enough food on the island. Lei and her friends Tami and Keali`i go night diving for “slippah” lobsters in Hilo Bay and are shot at by members of the Hanaman tribe. Lei, Tami, and Keali`i swim under a breakwater to escape.

And then …

Excerpt copyright © 2014 by Austin Aslan. Published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

My friends pop up to the dark surface of the water.

“Lei, Tami got cut,” Keali`i says. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Where?”

“My thigh,” she says. “Right below my shorty. Coming through one of those turns in the wall. Scraped an exposed piece of rebar.”

“Are you okay?”

She adjusts her mask and tries to hold on to the floating marquee, which bobs away from her. “I don’t know. It hurts. Feels gross, deep. Pretty sure I need stitches.”

A stab of fear
. Blood in the water
.

She doesn’t answer. I look at Keali`i; he’ll know if we’re in trouble.
Sharks
?

He shrugs. “Look, they’re here. Hammerheads and tigers are common. Seen one take the `
okole
right off a surfer by Richardson’s. They
do
come in. Black tips, white tips, reef sharks, big noses … barracudas, too.”

“Oh, God,” Tami moans. “Get me out of the water.
Now
.” Her voice rises. If she panics, the Hanaman might hear us even at this distance.

I look at the breakwater. “I don’t like it, but we have to go back.”

“I can handle him,” Keali`i says. “It’s three on one. We sneak up behind him, I’ll clock him with my weight belt. End of story.”

“What if he starts shooting?”

“He’ll never know what hit him.”

I don’t like it—it’s never that simple. “What a nightmare,” I mutter.

“Guys, come on. I’m bleeding a lot.” Tami’s voice wavers, betraying the effort she’s putting into staying calm.

I turn to Keali`i. “Don’t kill him. Promise me.”

“They were trying to kill us.”

“I know. I don’t care. We’re better than them. Just … promise.”

“Fine. I won’t do anything on purpose. Just pound ’im good and knock ’im out.”

The dark below me now feels like one giant mouth, closing in on our legs. “Okay, let’s go. Back to the breakwater.”

Tami attempts a smile. Keali`i draws in a deep breath. As I’m dog-paddling, I brush his leg with my fin.

He yelps and launches half out of the water. Tami and I bark. We scatter. It takes me a second to realize—and then to trust—that we’re jumping at shadows.

“Guys, that was just my fin,” I whisper. “Calm down. It was me.”

Too late. The Hanaman rises along the breakwater. “Hey!” he shouts. “Got you!”

“We’re done. It’s over,” Keali`i breathes.

“Kea, I’m so sorry. I—”

“
Whatevah
. It almost worked. But this is nuts. Tami needs help.”

“No.” Tami shakes her head. “I’m not going to be the reason this falls apart.”

I can’t help thinking:
But she could be the reason we get eaten
.

“Hey!” the Hanaman shouts. “Come here! Now!”

Keali`i slaps the surface of the water. “Idiot thinks we’re going to swim over there just because he tells us to.
God!
”

I know the rest of his thought, unsaid:
And we’re going to do exactly that, make it easy for him
.

Tami’s eyes narrow. “No. We’re not going to him. You’re right.”

“Tami,” I say. “We can’t stay in the water.”

“Your turn to follow me,” she says. “Stay back a bit. Just in case.”

Tami jettisons her weight belt and swims away. Keali`i and I share a look of confusion. Visible on the water against the Orchid’s brilliance, a sailboat turns into view around the far end of the breakwater. It’s moving slowly—there’s very little breeze.

Leaving a trail of blood behind her, Tami disappears.

She’s going to intercept the sailboat.

“Tami! Wait!” I shout. She doesn’t hear, or she’s too determined. She’s a fast swimmer.

“Why’s she doing that?” Keali`i asks, mouth agape.

I whip around. “Because you’d never have let her hear the end of it if she didn’t try something.”

Keali`i releases an exasperated sigh. “Ah, man,” he says. “Let’s go get her. She’s completely
lōlō
.”

Distantly, the Hanaman continues with his empty threats. “This is my last warning! Get over here, now!” He fires a round from a pistol. Keali`i and I flinch.

I unstrap my weight belt in a flash and hold it out to Keali`i.

“Drop it,” he says.

I let it go and turn to swim away. Keali`i grabs my leg and pulls me back. I yelp again and then gather control. Sharks—barracudas—could be swarming us. Or they could be miles away. “Don’t grab me like that!” I spit.

“Lei,” Keali`i says. “Don’t follow her directly.”

My eyes widen. Tami, out there all alone, churning up the water in noisy fits, her blood pluming out behind her.

If a feeding frenzy starts, we’re all goners.

“Give me your lobsters,” Keali`i says. He has the other full bag of slippahs around an elbow, the dive light in his hand. “Catch her. I’ll follow. Reach the boat before it overshoots us.”

The Hanaman lets off three more rounds. I hear one of them enter the water to my right.

The mainsail of the sailboat flutters. The boat is turning away from the breakwater. Whoever’s piloting it must think the shots are being fired at them.

“Go!” Keali`i shouts.

I fly over the water, my fins like rockets. I push the fear away, focus on my breathing. If something comes from below, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Just go.

I hear Tami shouting. “Wait! Stop! Help!”

I swim hard. We’re in trouble if we can’t catch it, if we can’t get on board. Coconut Island is far to my left, connected to shore by a footbridge. We could reach it after a long swim, if the sharks don’t find us first, but the Tribe will be in that very area.

We’re putting a lot of faith in whoever’s on this yacht. Could be
anybody
. I haven’t seen a new sailboat come into the bay in weeks. Those that come get commandeered by the Tribes and fitted with tribal flags. The crews are tossed overboard or killed.

“Stop! Please!” Tami yells, desperate.

I feel myself slowing. My side cramps with pain; my lungs and my throat are burning. When I raise my head to catch a glimpse of the boat, it seems impossibly far away. Whoever’s on board may not even know we’re in the water. I slow, overcome by a sense of defeat.

I stop and catch my breath. Tami’s still swimming, just ahead. Keali`i chugs along behind me. I watch the sailboat. It’s a sixteen-footer. Nothing too big. What are they doing here? Folks from Kaua`i, migrating to the Big Island like everyone else? I see the flag catch a bit of breeze on the mast. I can’t tell the colors, but the shapes are familiar. The bottom half is one solid color. Along the top half, stripes radiate from
a five-pointed star set in the center. I know that flag from visiting Dad’s childhood haunts in the Southwest.

Arizona.

A sailboat from Arizona?

Doesn’t make any sense. But then it hits me: This boat’s from the
mainland
.

Adrenaline charges through me. I feel like I’m Popeye with a can of spinach.
I need to talk to the people on that boat
.

I bring my fingers to my lips and force a piercing whistle. I whistle again, and then I scream, “STOP! HELP US!”

I turn to Keali`i. “Shine your light at them! Flash them!”

I charge forward in the water, reach Tami. She pauses and watches me swim past. My friends shout pleas; Keali`i’s dive light illuminates the boat in jostled circles. In the distance, the Hanaman is silent. Either he’s given up or he’s racing back along the breakwater to his gang. I’m sure he knows that if we reach the boat, we get away.

A figure along the port side of the sailboat. They know we’re in the water. The mainsail swings to the side; the boat turns to port. They’re stopping! I barrel toward them.

“Please, help!” I shout as I reach the hull.

“Who are you?” A woman.

“I’m”—I cough—“just a girl. My two friends … chased. For fishing without permission. They’re gonna get you, too. You can’t dock here.”

Silence.

The woman says, “Wait there.”

“My friend is bleeding badly. Please, we need to get out of the water.”

“Wait there.” She disappears. Another figure is at the tiller, frozen, as if trying to remain unnoticed.

Tami swims beside me. “What are we waiting for?” She’s panicky. “Let’s go!”

“Shark!” Keali`i screams. “SHARK!”

“Oh, God.” Tami claws at the prow of the boat, pulling herself up.

Electricity surges along my spine. I scan the waves. Every shadowy crest looks like a dorsal fin. I slap the side of the boat. “Get us out of here NOW!”

The woman returns, pointing a gun. I want to scream, but it comes out as more of a whimper.
It never ends
.

“Hurry! What are you
doing
?” Tami cries. “I’m cut, bad. PLEASE GET ME OUT OF THE WATER!”

“Pull her out,” the woman with the gun says to her companion. “Slowly. Make sure she’s not hiding anything.”

Tami starts crying but chokes her sobs back. The other figure, a man—mostly bald, with a ring of white hair—lowers a metal ladder off the stern. Tami and I paddle to it.

“No quick movements. You hear? From either of you.” The woman with the gun is nervous. She reminds me of Dad back on O`ahu when we stole the fishing boat at gunpoint.

Tami removes her fins and hands them to the bald man. She pulls herself up and tenderly swings her legs into the boat with a grunt and a moan. She outran the sharks. Bravest thing she’s ever done, swimming away from dry land with a gushing leg.

Keali`i is yelling. I only hear one word.

“Fin.”

I jump out of my skin. The gunwoman’s “slow and steady” command is the last thing on my mind. I leap for the ladder and pull myself up, use my knees on the rungs and awkwardly flip into the boat with my fins.

Keali`i!

I look at the bald guy hovering over me. “We need to get him up here!”

Fin. He saw a shark
.

The bald man nods, turns, throws the boom of the mainsail wide to the side. He pushes the tiller in the opposite direction. The sail and the jib fill with air and we cut left. The woman lowers the gun, her eyes everywhere at once—on us, on her shipmate, on the water.

I rip off my fins and spring to my feet. Keali`i is easy to spot with his dive light bobbing on the surface. He’s still and silent, drawing the boat toward him with a tractor beam gaze.

He’s white as a haole. He definitely saw something.

We glide beside him to port. The woman puts her pistol on the deck and leans over the rails, arm outstretched. We slow with a jerk. Keali`i reaches up and clasps the waiting hand of his rescuer. I scramble, hopping over Tami, and help the woman pull Keali`i, his dive light, and two big bags of slippah lobsters into the boat.

“Hoo!” Keali`i sighs. “Shark fo’ sure.”

My heart pounds. “Keep going,” I tell the bald man. “Don’t slow down.”

“Hold on a sec,” he says. “You’re—”

“Listen,” I interrupt, “you’ve been spotted by some very
bad people. They plan to take your boat. If they have a motorboat waiting back in one of those inlets, they could still catch you. They’re armed.”

“And they’re good at what they do,” Tami adds.

“Ha,” says Keali`i. “Not as good as us. You did it, Tami! Those Hanamen gonna be so pissed!”

“Go,” the woman says, waving a hand to the man. She leans forward and retrieves her gun. Her grip around the handle is white-knuckled.

“Rachel …,” the bald guy starts.

“Just go,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”

She turns back to the three of us and points the gun right at Keali`i. “Okay, talk. You better start making sense. You drawing us into a trap?”