Wilson nipped at her chin as if to tell her to go on. Praying harder than she’d ever prayed before, she edged closer to the lava bench. A steam fissure released just to her left, and she bolted back to the top of the hill. She could feel the heat from here. Mano was out there somewhere though. What if he was hurt or injured? She should never have involved him in this. He wasn’t equipped to handle this terrain. But she was a volcanologist, she reminded herself. She knew how to handle herself out here.
She started back into the valley again. The heat grew more intense as she moved closer to the red glow in the distance. The ground moved under her feet like a grumbling stomach. She could feel the bench shift and move like something alive. Sometimes she thought the lava had a mind of its own. She’d seen it do crazy things over the years, all of it impossible to predict. All she could do was go on and pray the ground stayed firm beneath her feet.
A rumble from the bowels of the earth crescendoed, and the rolling tossed Annie to the ground just as another fissure opened up. Wilson slipped out of her shirt and ran away. “Wilson, come back here!” The scalding steam burned the hair from her arms as she quickly scrabbled away. The skin on her arms stung like a sunburn. She had to find Mano and get off this unstable shelf. There was no sacrifice going on back here. No one in their right mind would be this close to the volcano.
She cupped her hands around her mouth to call to him when she heard a sound off to her right, behind a large rock. Creeping to the rock, she peered around it. A giant skylight lay before her. A fountain of lava, as well as steam and vapor, spewed from it occasionally. A heiau crouched too close to the fissure for safety. Mano was brandishing what looked like a gun at the people standing around the altar.
Annie tried to make out the faces of the figures, but there was too much vog and haze. Then she noticed the white form lying on the altar. The spill of dark hair cascading over the edge of the stone slab stabbed Annie with panic. Leilani. It had to be her sister.
There was a shuffling, sliding sound behind her. She whirled in time to see a figure rise up and leap toward her.
Get your hands up where I can see them,” Mano ordered. He gestured with the rock and hoped it was dark enough for all to mistake it for a gun. “Drop the knife, Gina.”
The older woman stood with her eyes wide, then her gaze flickered to something behind him, then back again. “I think you’d better drop your gun, Mano.”
Mano stiffened when he heard a sound behind him. Then Annie called out, “Don’t do it, Mano.” He turned and saw Annie being shoved toward him by Kim Aki.
“Let go of me.” She jerked in the big man’s grasp.
Aki seemed surprisingly gentle as he propelled her along. He stopped and pressed a gun to Annie’s head. “Drop your gun, Oana.”
Mano had no choice but to release the rock he held. It thudded to the ground. They still seemed unaware all he’d held was a rock. He held his hands in the air. “Let her go, Aki.”
Aki lowered the gun and pushed Annie forward. He gripped her by the forearm with one big hand. As Annie neared, her gaze went past Mano to the figure lying on the slab. “Leilani,” she gasped. She jerked her arm loose from Aki’s grip and ran to her sister. Leilani was moving about, but her eyes were still unfocused from whatever drug Gina had given her. Annie slipped her arm under her sister’s head and tried to help her to sit.
Gina jerked her head toward the women. “Get her out of the way,” she told Jason.
Mano moved to intercept Jason, but the young man pointed a gun at him. “Go ahead. I’d love to put a bullet in your chest,” he sneered.
Mano raised his hands and stepped back. He didn’t want to risk Annie getting shot. Jason grabbed Annie’s arm and dragged her away from the altar. He shoved her onto the ground near a large rock. She rubbed her arm and stared up at him, then looked over to Mano with a plea in her eyes.
Mano clenched his fists and searched for a plan, any plan, to stop Gina.
“Gina, I know about your family,” Annie said softly. “I’m so sorry. But please don’t do this to Leilani. She had nothing to do with their deaths. She’s innocent.”
Gina’s eyes glittered in the moonlight. “So were Michelle and Alex. They were just having a good time. Your brother killed them. He took my daughter and my husband. Now his sister will join his mother in paying for his sin.”
“Mother?” Annie’s voice broke. “What about my mother?”
“You really thought she’d kill herself ? She never seemed the type, so I was surprised when everyone bought that story.” Gina gripped the knife and moved closer to the altar where Leilani lay.
Annie rose slowly. “You killed my mother? You threw her into the volcano?”
She closed her eyes, and Mano knew she must be thinking of the horror her mother went through. He itched to move, to do something.
“It seemed a perfect justice,” Gina said. “She put up a good fight and even got away for a while. We chased her over the lava field, though, and the bench gave way. I took that as confirmation that I was doing the right thing.”