"Do you think he's going to try to do this again?" Kylie asked, hugging her knees. While she wouldn't deny that she had a newfound respect for the man, even found her heart grieving for him, she didn't want to do this again. Every time she remembered that woman's screams, remembered pul ing the trigger to kil the woman's attacker, she felt sick.
Holiday squeezed Kylie's hand. "I don't think ghosts realize it's as hard as it is on us. They can be relentless at times."
Kylie shook her head. "I can't do this, Holiday. I'm not brave enough." Her insides started shaking again. Holiday sighed. "You're doing fine. And I'm here whenever you need me, Kylie. Why don't you go to your cabin and get some sleep? Take the day off and just rest."
"What if it happens again?"
Holiday reached for a pad of paper. "I'm giving you my cel number and if you need me, I'm just a phone cal away."
Isn't that what her father had said? But another hug from Holiday and Kylie almost believed her.
* * *
Around noon, Miranda and Del a brought Kylie some lunch. "You didn't have to do this," Kylie insisted, and picked at the pizza.
"You donated blood. I'm obligated to you for life," Del a teased.
"What about me?" Miranda asked. "I gave blood, too." She held up her arm to show off the Band-Aid.
"Yours wasn't that good," Del a teased, and then she looked at Kylie again. "Derek asked about you at breakfast this morning. He said he needed to talk to you about something."
Kylie sighed. With everything else, did she even have it in her to start thinking about Derek? "Did he say what it was about?"
"No, but he looked serious."
"Oh," Miranda added, "you missed the excitement, too. You know Chris, the vampire? He and that blond werewolf-I think his name is Nathan-
they got in a fight. Sky had to break it up."
"There was blood al over the place," Del a said. "And it smel ed so good."
"Why were they fighting?" Kylie popped a piece of pepperoni into her mouth.
"A reason?" Miranda asked. "Everyone knows vamps and wolves don't get along. Especial y the males." Miranda shot a glance at Del a, who was already frowning.
"Not true," Kylie said. "Lucas even gave blood to Chris. They're roommates."
"And some of the vampires didn't want him to take it," Miranda said.
"Why not?" Kylie asked.
Miranda shrugged. "Stupid prejudices. One of them said they didn't want to be indebted to a dirty dog."
"That's just a stupid rumor," Del a said. "I don't know if anybody real y said that."
"Yeah, but that's what everybody's saying happened. Oh, and guess what else you missed?" Miranda started twisting in her chair. "Guess who sat at our table?"
Kylie saw the twinkle in Miranda's eyes. "A bird with a broken wing."
Miranda grinned. "How did you know?"
"Because you've got that goofy grin and started dancing, stupid." Del a laughed.
"I don't have a goofy grin," Miranda snapped.
"No fighting. I'm trying to digest my food." A minute later Kylie asked, "Anything else happen?"
"The FRU showed up again," Del a said, her voice more serious this time, and then she rose and walked to the computer. "I didn't hear anything, but that tal dark guy was al over Holiday, reading her the riot act about something."
Kylie took a drink of her diet soda and told Del a and Miranda what she knew. "So, something is going on, guys. And whatever it is, it's serious. On the second day at camp, Burnett told Holiday that if 'something' didn't stop happening, they would close the camp down."
"Close it down?" Del a swung around from the computer. "They can't do that. This is what keeps us sane and keeps us from kil ing each other."
The computer let out an e-mail-alert beep. Del a glanced at the computer and then back at Kylie. "You got another e-mail from your dad."
Kylie dropped her pizza, suddenly not hungry anymore. She stil hadn't spoken to him. Kylie knew she was wrong to keep dodging him, but so was he. He'd told her he would come to the parents day. Add the fact that Kylie felt he'd also stopped loving her, and the whole daddy subject was just another demon she needed to tame. And she intended to do it. Sometime later. When it didn't hurt so darn much to think about.
"Holiday didn't look happy," Del a added. "Especial y when they brought Lucas into the office."
Kylie's gut clenched. "They talked to Lucas? What did they say?"
"I don't know," Del a said. "But he looked mad enough to kil ."
When Miranda and Del a left a short while later, Kylie lay back down. But sleep evaded her. And not just because she was afraid a certain ghost would snatch her up for another trip down memory lane. She thought about Holiday and wondered about the mess with the FRU. She wondered about Lucas. Did they find out his parents had been rogue? Did Lucas think she was the one who said something?
Her mind raced and she didn't know which problem to give herself over to, or how to stop thinking about it al . She'd already logged in about forty minutes talking to Sara this morning, listening to her go on and on about Phil ip, the new guy she was seeing. Then Kylie had spoken to her mom and lied like a big dog. Everything at camp was just peachy. When Kylie heard a knock on the cabin door, she was thril ed over the distraction.
But not so thril ed when she opened the door and found Lucas standing there. Okay, she was thril ed he was there, but why couldn't she have looked better? She looked like she'd just crawled out of bed, which she had, while he looked ... great. He stood in her doorway, with one hand behind his back.
She opened her mouth to say something but couldn't even get out a normal greeting. It wasn't just lack of sleep, either. No, it was remembering their kiss.
And how he'd told her it had been a mistake.
"Hi." He grinned as if he knew she was tongue-tied. "Your roommate, the one with the tri-colored hair, said you weren't feeling good."
"Yeah, but I'm feeling better now," she managed to eke out, and then said, "I heard the FRU talked to you?"
He nodded. "It was nothing."
She sensed that was a lie.
"I got you something." He shot her his kil er smile.
And darn it if she didn't just melt into a puddle. Holding on to the doorknob, she asked, "What did you get me?"
"I went to town to pick up some stuff for Holiday and ... I found it." He suddenly looked guilty. He pul ed out his arm, and Kylie expected to see a bouquet of some inexpensive flowers. Not a wiggling, mewing black and white kitten. Her breath caught.