Becoming Princess Eden: Book One: How They Met (Seahorse Island 1) Read online

  My captor’s body lurched sideways, and I did too as the van started moving. In a panic, I struggled. My hands pushed with useless effort against massively tattooed and ripped arms, and I strove to drive my feet against my captor’s kneecaps. It was like being held by a granite giant. I switched tactics and raised my arms to scratch his face.

  He turned me around fast and backhanded me, knocking me back against a passenger seat. He put a heavy knee across my thighs and handcuffed my hands to a steel bar hanging from the inside of the car roof.

  I tried to rise, but he backhanded me again, harder this time. Again, I fell back, my tears of pain mingling with blood from my split lip. I opened my mouth to cry out, but he raised his hand again, smiling a smile that was not a smile, and raised an eyebrow in inquiry. I closed my mouth.

  He fastened a seat belt around me with one hand while locking my ankles together with another set of handcuffs. I immediately felt ashamed that I hadn’t tried to cry out. I thought to myself that I should scream, but it was like fear had sucked the air from my lungs and all rational thought from my mind.

  The menace sat his huge hulking presence directly across from me, his swarthy face shaded by a black baseball cap.

  “Please, let me go,” I managed to whisper.

  The menace slowly shook his head, his eyes like blue orbs of ice.

  I looked down and saw the wet stain across my lap and realized I had peed on myself. I began to cry in frustration and futility. Thirty minutes ago, I had a happy life. In thirty minutes, my spirit had been broken.

  I couldn’t think ahead because I was afraid of what came next. So, I tried to stop thinking, to put my brain in an inert state, but the stress of not thinking gave me a headache. My head began to ache, along with my suspended arms and swollen jaw. I could feel the tears, blood, and snot that had started to gel on my cheeks and chin.

  It was hard to judge time. The windows were darkened, and the car moved without stopping much. I realized I couldn’t hear outside traffic at all, so perhaps it wouldn’t have made a difference if I’d screamed before. I closed my eyes and prayed silently for help.

  Eventually, I started imagining myself getting rescued. The car would come to a sudden stop, and we’d be surrounded by cops. The menace and driver would try to escape but would be gunned down or caught, and my parents would run to hold me. I must have fantasized myself into dreamland because I awoke with a jerk as the car really did come to a sharp stop. There was a knock on the van door, which the menace immediately opened.

  “About time you boys got here,” said the woman standing at the door. “It’s time for my sherry and bed.” The woman who spoke was stout, with a round face topped off with a pug nose, narrow blue eyes, and thin, uncompromising bloodless lips pinched together in a straight line. She was medium height but broad, making for quite an imposing figure. Her eyes looked me up and down and showed no pleasure in my appearance. I fought the urge to shrink back.

  “Please,” I croaked out. “You have the wrong girl. My parents will—”

  The woman interrupted with a guttural laugh followed by a snort. “Your parents are the ones who sent you here.”

  TWO

  Gideon, My Brother’s Keeper

  On the other side of the world, exactly thirteen hours ahead, lay the island known as Seahorse. In the shape of its namesake, the island was home to the world’s most exotic plants and flowers. Purple grasses and magenta flowers bloomed voraciously. Small imported trees dotted the landscape, especially near the communal homes. The air over the island was frequently hotter than the air over the water surrounding it. The subsequent fog draped the island, hiding then revealing then hiding again.

  Never completely hidden was the mountain range at the northern end of the island. The tallest peak stood tall and impervious between her shorter sisters. This statuesque mountain could be forgiven her vanity, as she was adorned with a quite extravagant royal palace. The palace was simply called The Red Palace for the color of the mountain rock from which it was carved. Strategically placed lights gave the palace a soft glow that radiated gently at night over the northern edge of the island. Under a full moon, the island looked surreal, a dream longed for or imagined. Now, though, a blazing hot sun signaled the arrival of a new day. It was not just any day either. Today was the day of the Supreme Fighter Championship.

  Twenty-two-year-old Prince Gideon Li, one of the competitors, shadowboxed as he checked his muscular form in the mirror. He was warming up in his palace suite. After a few minutes, he saw Luke, one of the royal guards, behind him in the mirror. Annoyed, he asked, “What is it?”

  “Your grandmother is on her way,” the guard replied.

  “Ugh.” Gideon stopped boxing and began running in place as he looked at the screen above the mirror. “Screen, find grandmother.”

  He groaned when he saw his grandmother’s image appear on the screen. She was carrying a tea set. At the slow, tortuous pace she was going, it would take her a while to reach his suite. The tea set meant she wanted to chat. She probably meant to wish him well, but he didn’t want to be late to the fight.

  “You won’t be late,” Luke said, as though he read his mind. “She’ll be here in about fifteen. If you can keep the conversation to no more than another fifteen minutes, we’ll have time.”

  Gideon nodded as he went back to shadowboxing. Luke left the room, and Gideon found himself thinking about his grandmother as he went through routine moves. She had come to the island as a child refugee, part of the last wave of refugees permitted on the island. More times than he cared to remember, especially when she was by a window, his grandmother would talk with him about how she expected to see the shanties that were there when she arrived and how it always gave her a little jolt to see the island’s development. Now there were large communal homes, well-ordered streets, luxury boutique stores, and business districts. And even though she had lived in The Red Palace almost all her adult life, his grandmother had never adjusted to the palace’s vastness and formality.

  Glancing at the screen above the mirror, Gideon observed her rebellion against the modern changes. Staff rushed to take the tea tray from her hands, but she just shook her head at them. She could have asked her personal maid to have the kitchen staff make the tea and then have a royal page deliver it to Gideon. But that would not do for his grandmother. She’d most likely heated the water on a little hot plate she had added to the small kitchen in her suite and made a simple green tea for him.

  It was a long way to Gideon’s suite from his grandmother’s. Sixty years ago, she would have covered the distance in no time, but now he knew her knees probably creaked and her shoulders most likely ached just from the carrying the tea tray. She was winded and looked a little bit cross as she arrived at his suite. Gideon couldn’t imagine why she’d brought the tea all the way to his room.

  “Ya Ya, what are you doing here?” Gideon asked as he bent down to take the tea tray. His grandmother’s real name was Priya, and she hated to be called Granny. Somehow Gideon and his twin had ended up calling her Ya Ya.

  “If you bothered to visit me, I wouldn’t have to make the long trek down to your room,” she replied irritably as she sat down with a huff.

  “Ya Ya, I see you at dinner practically every night,” Gideon replied, still standing as he wondered what was going on.

  “I had a disturbing dream again last night. I had to warn you,” Priya said.

  Gideon groaned. “Ya Ya, the fight is today. I must get ready. Tonight, tell me your dream, ok?” He put the tea tray on a side table and extended a hand to help her up.

  She turned her head and remained seated. “The dream was worse this time.”

  “Ya Ya, do you ever have a good dream?” Gideon asked. “Why don’t you dream about something nice, like finding a gold mine or the love of my life or something like that?” He held his hand out again.

  She slowly stood with his help, but instead of letting go of his hand, she held on and gripped his forearm wi
th her other hand, digging in with her nails. She stared into his face.

  “I dreamed of the snake again, but this time you were sitting at a table, looking with horror as blood dripped from your fingers while the snake slithered with glee toward you. I fear evil has already been set in motion. You must be careful. Promise me!” she pleaded.

  Gideon nodded, shrugging off her words. He was a man who prided himself on being ruled by reason, so to acknowledge that he always feared her dreams would be a step too far for him. If her dreams frequently came true, it was just a coincidence, he rationalized.

  “Did you warn Gabe too?” he asked, always curious as to whether she had come to him first or to his twin Gabriel.

  She shook her head. “I only saw you in the dream.”

  “So, you only brought me tea?” he asked.

  Priya sighed, clearly irritated he wasn’t more serious about her warning.

  She stepped close to Gideon and stretched her arms up to hold his face in her hands before replying, “Yes, I only brought you tea. You are my most favorite grandson.”

  Gideon smiled at her and was glad that she smiled back, but then she returned to the business at hand.

  “Because you are my most favorite, my heart would break if something happened to you. I know you think I am just a crazy old lady—”

  “No, Ya Ya . . .” Gideon interrupted to deny, even though it was true.

  She slapped his cheeks gently. “Listen to your elders. You must be careful. Don’t get caught up in stuff you shouldn’t be involved in. Ok?”

  “Ok,” he replied before giving her a quick hug and walking her to the door of his suite. “I have a fight to get ready for. Wish me luck!”

  As he rushed to get ready to leave for the fight, he noticed the small black-and-white photograph of his grandparents on the same side table where he had placed the tea set. He couldn’t help but think about their past. Even if he hadn’t been in a rush, Gideon would have had little desire to learn more about his grandparents’ history than what he already knew. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t care as much as he didn’t find their histories relatable.

  He knew his Ya Ya was only seven when she first arrived on Seahorse Island in 2062 with her grandmother, mother, and stepbrothers. In those days, the island had become a haven for those refugees displaced by the submersion. The submersion happened when a massive storm submerged the entire country of Bangladesh, parts of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and a very thin sliver of China. Countries less affected by the submersion had agreed to take in refugees, but only those who met their stringent entry criteria. Unwanted refugees had no place to go and floated from country to country, seeking entry and finding none. Those who lived survived on donated food that had expired and was basically unmarketable. It was an unsustainable situation that was resolved by the appearance of the island, which emerged after the submersion, a miraculous occurrence that baffled scientists.

  Eventually, those unwanted refugees found a home on the island. The UN soldiers patrolling the island tried to catch the refugees but never knew where to send them once they caught them, so the refugees stayed. The abundant sea life in the waters surrounding the island nourished their rail-thin bodies, and the island soon became filled with makeshift shanties. The refugees reveled in their new home while making friends, meeting neighbors, and having babies. The island, however, had no real leader or system of government, and crime ran rampant. Also, an unfortunate number of refugees fell prey to diseases caused by the island’s unsanitary conditions.

  Two years before Priya and her family’s arrival to the island, her future husband, Steve Li, stepped into this power vacuum. Li was credited with the island’s prominence and affluence of the current day. Gideon had learned an extremely sanitized version of his grandfather’s life from history books, but his Ya Ya was not reticent about explaining the complete, unvarnished truth about Seahorse Island’s first king, including those parts she didn’t really know but had heard about.

  The story Priya had been told started prior to Li’s coming to the island. He was raised in rural China at a center for children left behind by parents who lived and worked in China’s cities. At ten, tired of waiting for his parents to claim him, Li ran away to Guangzhou and was promptly recruited into a local gang specializing in robbing and repurposing electronic toys like phones, watches, and notepads. Li spent his tween years doing on-the-job training for how to steal, strip, and resell electronic devices for those who didn’t want their every move monitored by the government. Like most street boys, he was forced to fight frequently in encounters with rival gang members.

  At twenty, Li was a man of medium height, with a lean but muscular build, hard face, penetrating gaze, and an uncanny understanding of human psychology. He decided he wanted to be his own boss. He trained in martial arts, read management and pop psychology books, monitored politics, and observed people. At twenty-three, he moved to Hong Kong. By twenty-five, he had taken over his own gang specializing in illegal tampering with electronic equipment and systems. His criminal empire, however, was hampered both by more powerful gangs and the effectiveness of Hong Kong’s Internet Crimes Division. Seahorse Island sounded like a good place to run his business with no interference.

  “What do you think happened after your grandfather got to the island?” Gideon’s grandmother asked him one day when he was nine. It was the day after the New Year’s celebration. Gideon and Gabriel were in the playroom that connected their rooms. They had just started playing a video game, which they were only allowed to play on school holidays and, even then, on a limited basis.

  “What?” Gideon mumbled in reply. Gabe was too absorbed in the game to even hear their grandmother.

  “Stop your game!” Priya said shrilly. The boys looked at each other in dismay before looking up at their grandmother who had stopped in the doorway. Still, their fingers lingered hopefully near the games’ controls.

  “You two did a report on the history of Seahorse, right?” she asked.

  “Ya Ya, we turned in our reports last week,” Gideon explained, hoping that would appease her.

  “Really? I was here practically from the time the island started, and you didn’t ask me anything,” Priya said as she entered the room and sat down on a nearby chair.

  The boys looked at each other again. They knew that tone in their grandmother’s voice meant they were in for some sort of lecture. But they only had an hour to play before they had to get ready for bed.

  “Ya Ya, you always say you hated those days,” Gabe replied, bewildered.

  His grandmother just shook her head and said, “Still, you should have asked.”

  “Do you want to talk about it now?” Gideon reluctantly asked.

  “No, I hated those days,” Priya said.

  “What was so bad about those days?” Gabe asked. “Uncle Michael always says you’ve lived a life of leisure since you married our grandfather.”

  “You think it’s great eating fancy foods as you look out the window and see refugees being turned away, probably to their deaths? Your grandfather wouldn’t even let anyone hand out bags of food.” Priya became more agitated as she spoke.

  “Is that why you insist on the family donating to food charities every year?” Gideon asked.

  “Yes,” she replied as she got up to leave. She paused at the door. “Don’t ever be a leader who eats comfortably in front of beggars.”

  The boys nodded and breathed a sigh of relief as she finally left their room. They resumed avidly playing their video game.

  Afterward, Gideon lay awake longer than usual, puzzled by his grandmother’s words and her dislike of the island’s early days. From all accounts, his grandfather was a savior. He realized early on that the island needed what he had taken for granted in Hong Kong: a functioning government, a steady and reliable food chain to supplement the fish, some sort of sanitary system, and an electric grid.

  Through his grandfather’s ingenious negotiating skills, his organization
became the first point of contact for those who wanted to know more about the island. He controlled aid that was delivered, and his word was the law. Still, Gideon’s grandfather realized the island was woefully underprepared for any challenge to the island’s autonomy, so he set out to make friends.

  In the end, through diplomacy that rivaled any seen by a first-world country, Seahorse Island became known as Geneva East, a neutral place for the world’s leaders to relax, meet, and play. Every amenity was accommodated. Gideon’s nine-year-old self was always confused as to why people referred to amenities in hushed tones. He did understand, though, that it was at this point that the island was divided into sixteen sectors. Each sector’s development was financially sponsored by a first-world country. In exchange for such largesse, the sponsoring country got a share of the profits produced by that sector for the following ten years and accommodations without charge for their current leader for the following fifty years.

  For some reason, the fine print in this deal went unreported. Once each sector completed its ten years of profit sharing, the island would become a sovereign country. So, two generations later, Seahorse was a sophisticated, first-world island with its own military and police force. Its laws forbade some of its prior activities like human trafficking and other morally unacceptable activities.

  Instead, the island had arable land, clean water, and reliable electricity. One of its main crops was its unique plants that were discovered to have cancer-fighting properties. These plants did not adapt well to the climate of other countries. Seahorse Island had luck, beauty, and money. What it did not have was a democracy.

  In the summer of 2072, the representatives of the sixteen sectors declared Steve Li as King of Seahorse Island and established the rules for the permanent monarchy. The flag was immediately modified from sixteen white doves flying toward an unseen destination to sixteen white doves flying around a yellow circle representing the sun that was the king. The flag’s background remained sky-blue to represent the sea and sky.