"Do you real y believe someone here is doing it?"
"Yeah. Either that or someone is trying awful y hard to make it look like we're doing it."
The door to Kylie's bedroom opened and Burnett stuck his head in. "Are you going back up to the office?"
Holiday's expression changed to fake concern. She rested a hand on Kylie's shoulder. "I'm afraid she needs me. We'l talk tomorrow."
Burnett wasn't fooled, that was apparent by his expression, but he didn't argue, either. Wel , as long as one didn't cal slamming the door an argument.
"Jerk," Holiday muttered.
"I can hear you," he retorted from the other side of the wal .
Holiday frowned. "I swear, he's this close to me siccing a death angel on his ass." And she didn't try to say that quietly, either.
"I thought you didn't know if they real y existed," Kylie whispered after a few minutes. If she'd thought they existed, she would have asked Daniel Brighten, the soldier, to go find one. Then she recal ed what Holiday had said about al ghosts being angels. For sure, Daniel had been a big part of what saved Kylie.
She leaned close. "Al I have to do is threaten and even big bad vampires usual y piss in their pants."
They both laughed and then Kylie said, "He saved me, didn't he?"
"Derek?" Holiday asked. "Yeah, I would say he did."
"No. I mean, Derek did save me, but it was the ghost who told you, right?"
"Sort of," she said. "Because he's attached to you, he can't real y communicate with me. But he found someone who could." Holiday reached down and squeezed Kylie's hand. "Nana said to tel you she loves you. But she wished you wouldn't have let them bury her wearing that purple lipstick."
Kylie got tears in her eyes and laughed at the same time. After a few minutes, she said, "I final y did it."
"Did what?"
"I saw into someone's mind." Kylie almost told her it was the ghost's mind that she'd been able to see, but for some reason she wasn't ready to talk about that. It was as if she needed to digest it al first. There were a lot of things she needed to digest. Holiday grinned. "Welcome to our world, girl."
Kylie's smile was weak, but it was real. "Does that definitely mean ... that I'm one of you guys?"
"Yup." Holiday brushed a strand of hair from Kylie's cheek.
"When you saw Nana, did you check if she had been a supernatural?"
"I did. She was human." Holiday gave Kylie's hand a squeeze. "How do you feel about this new development?"
Kylie let out a deep breath. "A little scared. A little relieved. Now I just want to figure out what I am."
"You wil , Kylie. The answer is here. It always is."
Chapter Thirty-eight
Holiday was right.
Not about Kylie discovering what she was. It had been five days since Kylie had almost been a lion's dinner, and her identity crisis was stil alive and thriving.
The thing Holiday had pegged right was Burnett's method of solving the wildlife crimes backfiring. As soon as he announced that someone at the camp was guilty everyone started pointing fingers. The vampires accused the werewolves because most of the animals kil ed had been from the feline family and everyone knew werewolves hated cats.
The werewolves accused the vampires of doing it because their blood supply was low. The fairies accused the witches because they sometimes used tiger blood in some of their spel s. The witches accused the fairies because everyone knew fairies were sneaky little bastards. Someone pointed out that the shape-shifters were known to use wild animals as sport to hunt and conquer them. Then, the finger-pointing stopped being species-directed and certain unlucky individuals got suspicion slapped on them. Lucas and Fredericka got voted to be the most likely guilty parties. Then Derek's name got thrown in the hat because he could communicate with animals, and everyone knew he didn't want the gift. Then because Kylie was stil considered "the weird one" with a strange pattern and a closed mind, her name got tossed into the guilty hat as wel .
Kylie had even forgotten herself and went to Del a and accused her cousin Chan of being the culprit. Maybe he real y was one of the Blood Brothers gang. Del a did what Del a always did. She got furious.
Tension at the camp was at an al -time high. People had stopped participating in the Meet Your Campmates Hour, and Holiday and Sky were having a hard time just keeping everyone from kil ing each other.
Then there was the tension between the two camp leaders.
Kylie had walked into the office and overheard them tossing verbal punches. Sky insisted it was time to throw in the towel and close down the camp. Holiday insisted right back that it would be over her cold fairy body before she let them close it down. Sky accused Holiday of being a martyr and unrealistic, and Holiday accused Sky of having lost her faith in the school and of half-assing her job this year. Kylie didn't know Sky very wel , but she knew enough to agree with Holiday. For some reason, Kylie had never warmed up to the werewolf camp leader. In some ways, the woman even reminded Kylie a bit of her mom. Cold, uncaring, and closed-off. Not that Sky might not have reasons for joining the ranks of the Ice Queen Sorority. It appeared that Kylie's mom sure as hel did. It was funny how al of a sudden Kylie saw the relationship between her mom and dad differently now. Yeah, her mom was cold, but her dad was a cheater. It sort of became a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" kind of question. A question Kylie didn't have the answer to. While it stil hurt something fierce to think about the divorce, Kylie had decided to try not to make it her problem. Face it, she had enough fires to put out in her own life. Heck, she'd almost become kitty chow. In the back of Kylie's mind, she stil wondered who wanted her harmed badly enough to put the lion in her room. The only name that came to mind was Fredericka. But if she believed Fredericka guilty, did that not put more suspicion on to Lucas?
Thoughts of Lucas snuck into Kylie's mind more than she wanted. Now at least when they showed up, they had to compete with thoughts of Derek. He and Kylie hadn't been alone since the whole lion scene, but he sat with her and Miranda and Del a sometimes during meals. Every now and then, she'd catch him looking at her with more than friendship, but good to his word, he never put any pressure on her. Nope, the pressure she felt came from herself. One minute she'd make up her mind to just walk up to him and kiss him. The next she'd find herself thinking about her dad, about Trey, and she'd wonder if giving herself to a relationship was worth the heartbreak that seemed to fol ow. And then there was the whole issue of trying to figure out what she was. For some reason, she felt that once she got that solved, she'd be free to make other life choices.