"She's dead," Kylie said, feeling the pressure to answer under his intense scowl. "Holiday's sister is a ghost."
Chapter Nineteen
"Her twin is dead?" Burnett's tone rang with empathy. "How? What happened?"
Kylie felt a warmth in knowing that he thought of Holiday first before realizing exactly what this meant-not that she didn't expect him to see the obvious any minute now.
Or maybe less than a minute. His eyes widened with hints of panic and his mouth became slack.
"No! She can't be ... because I can't..." He shook his head. "No."
"It's not much different than smelling them. And you already knew that you could do that," Kylie said, hoping to ease the shock.
"It's a hell of a lot different." He raked a hand through his hair. "How could ... I'm vampire and we don't ... We don't see spirits."
"I know. I remember Holiday saying that." Kylie paused. "What's even stranger is that you saw her, and normally only the person connected to the spirit sees them. I don't see Holiday's ghosts and she doesn't see mine. So why would you see Hannah?"
"I'm not supposed to see any of them!" he bellowed. "I'm vampire. Very, very few vampires are given this secondary power."
Kylie twitched her brows at Burnett's pattern. "Maybe you're not a hundred percent vampire. Your great-great-grandma could have been a hybrid, and it just kind of popped up now."
He slapped his forehead. "Does my pattern not look all vampire?"
Kylie shrugged. "Yes." She looked at him with empathy. "But considering what I've been through, I've kind of learned not to put a lot of stock in what someone's pattern shows."
He stared at Kylie as if she'd morphed into something evil. "That only happens to you."
"Yeah. Sometimes it feels that way." She found his comment somewhat humorous. She did another shrug, biting back her smile because she didn't think what little sense of humor Burnett had was functioning right now.
"However," Kylie continued, "we can't deny that something's going on. Your pattern says all vampire, and full-blooded vampires aren't usually ghost whisperers."
"Maybe it's punishment because I went into the falls."
Kylie's first instinct, being a ghost whisperer, was to feel a bit insulted that her gift was viewed as retribution; her second instinct was to remember that in the beginning that's exactly how she'd felt. As if she'd been punished.
"What?" he asked, as if sensing she had something to say.
Put on the spot, she said exactly what came across her mind. "To channel Holiday here, it's a gift, not a punishment."
"It's a punishment to me. Frigging hell!" he muttered.
Kylie still didn't understand how it could happen. Because even Holiday had said that very few vampires had the gift of ghost-whispering. "Seriously, your parents are full-blooded vampires, right?"
He stared at her as if the question required some thought. Looking away, he gazed silently at the sky. After several long seconds he looked back at her. "Okay ... let's forget about my issues with all this." He ran his palm over his face again as if trying to wipe away his confusion. "Why didn't you want Holiday knowing her sister's spirit was here?"
Kylie bit down on the edge of her bottom lip again, then released it when she found it sore. "I don't think Holiday knows. I wanted to figure out exactly-"
"Wait. You don't think Holiday knows what?" he asked, impatient.
"That her sister's dead."
His eyes widened. "She doesn't know? Shit!" He exhaled. "How did her sister die? How long ago?"
Even before she answered, Kylie suspected his reaction. He wasn't going to like this. "She was murdered. She and two other girls."
Discontent filled his gaze and his posture hardened. Two points for guessing his reaction, Kylie thought, and tried not to be intimidated by his fury.
"Murdered?" he bit out. "How freaking long have you known this, and why in God's name are you just now telling me?"
"I ... I've been trying to figure it out. Hannah's just now able to tell me things. And I'm still trying to put it all together." A small part of her wondered if maybe he was right, and that she'd been wrong to try to deal with this herself. But she hadn't been doing this alone. She had Derek. Then again, perhaps she should have taken it to Burnett instead of Derek.
Her doubt started to rise and then eased. The calm that lingered from the falls swelled in her chest and somehow she knew she'd been right to follow her instinct. And wasn't that what Holiday told her to always do?
"Damn it. You should have come to me so I could help do the figuring."
Kylie held his gaze. "As if you were receptive to hearing about my ghost issues. Besides, I was following what I felt needed to be done."
Burnett's stance relaxed as if he'd seen reason in her words. "But if it's about Holiday, I'm always receptive."
Kylie saw it in his eyes again. His loyalty to Holiday. Because he loved her, Kylie realized. That realization led her to think about Derek and his willingness to help her with ghosts when no one else would.
Thinking of Derek led her heart back to Lucas. The trip to the falls had lessened her animosity toward him, but not completely. Sooner or later, the two of them needed to talk. She just didn't know how that talk would end. Or even how it would begin. Was she right to feel angry at him for keeping his distance when she knew why he did it-to prevent issues with his dad so he could get voted on the were Council? Shouldn't she be more accepting and understanding?
Burnett reached back and squeezed his neck as if to relieve his tension. "Holiday has to be told."
Kylie dug the toe of her right tennis shoe into the dirt and focused on the problem at hand instead of her Lucas issues. "I know. But I thought maybe if I knew exactly what it was Hannah wanted, then it would be easier."
"You think she wants something?"
Kylie nodded. "They always want something. That's why they haven't crossed over. That's why they come to us."
"Come to you," he said, and then added, "Do you have any idea what she could need?"
Kylie prepared herself for his reaction again. "I'm not completely sure. At first I thought it could be just to get her and the others from the makeshift grave. Maybe to find out who did this to her. But now ... now I think she feels she has to protect Holiday from something or ... someone."
His expression darkened, but this time his angst didn't focus on her. His eyes brightened with an instinctual need to protect Holiday.