Awake at Dawn

Chapter Twenty-four

  Her mom looked down. "I. . . "

  "Please, Mom," Kylie said. "Please. If you know anything, tell me. "

  Her mom seemed preoccupied with her soda as if fascinated by the condensation running down the can. "I couldn't bring myself to throw away his obituary," she said finally. "I put it in the back of the frame of your baby picture hanging on the wall. It has their names and the town they lived in. "

  Hope flared anew in Kylie's chest. "When you get home, can you scan and e-mail it to me? Please. "

  Her mom nodded. "If they are still alive, they are going to hate me. "

  "I don't think so, Mom. They'll probably just be happy to meet me now. "

  Her mom touched Kylie's cheek. "I'm sorry, baby. I did what I thought was best at the time, but now . . . it looks as if I didn't make the best decisions. "

  "You did fine," Kylie said. And without thinking, she gave her nonhugging mom another hug.

  An hour later, Kylie watched her mom's car move down the road until it was a tiny blue dot that finally faded from view. Both Burnett and Holiday were waiting on her at the gated entrance when she returned.

  "I think my mom is going to be fine," she told them, assuming that's why they were there.

  Then she realized Burnett had probably been listening to their conversation the whole time. That's when she got a feeling they weren't here just about her mom.

  "Am I in trouble for fighting with Selynn?" she asked. The thought had crossed her mind during her conversation with her mom. Like it or not, Selynn was FRU.

  Holiday shook her head. "No. Selynn deserved what she got. She handled the situation all wrong. Terribly wrong. "

  Holiday glanced up at Burnett as if she was saying this to him as much as to Kylie. "If anyone says one thing about what went down out at the swimming hole, I'll be the first to tell them how the cow ate the cabbage. "

  When Kylie was about to ask Holiday what she meant about the cows and the cabbage, Burnett shrugged. "I don't think anyone will be saying anything," he said, humor dancing in his eyes. "I never have understood that saying. How does a cow eating cabbage translate into giving someone hell for something?"

  "I have no idea. " Holiday looked back at Kylie. Burnett's gaze followed Holiday's, and they both returned to that weird kind of staring. And Kylie went back to wondering what the heck was going on.

  "If it's not Selynn, then what is it?" Kylie asked.

  Burnett stuck his hands into his jeans pockets. "I think we just wanted to make sure you're okay. "

  She started to answer him, but realized they both were staring at her again. "If that's all, why are you two gawking at me as if I'm about to grow a tail?"

  "Do you think you might grow a tail?" Concern filled his voice. Oh, shit! He was serious.

  Kylie swiped her hand over her butt to make sure nothing had suddenly appeared. When nothing was there, she frowned at them. "What is it that you're not telling me?"

  "You showcased some new talents today," Burnett said.

  "You mean running fast?" Kylie asked.

  "And taking on Selynn," Holiday said. "A were this close to a full moon is . . . pretty hard to take on. "

  "So you're back to thinking I'm a werewolf now?"

  Holiday glanced at Burnett and then they both looked back at Kylie.

  "We're still not sure. " He started studying Kylie anew.

  "What is it?" she demanded.

  "It's your brain pattern," Holiday said, her tone making it sound like a confession.

  "What about it?" She touched her forehead. "Have I opened up? Can you tell what I am?"

  "No," Holiday said. "It's just . . . your pattern is shifting. "

  "Shifting? You mean, it's changing?"

  Burnett and Holiday both nodded.

  "What does that mean?" Kylie asked.

  Holiday's expression went from curiosity to sympathy in a flash. "It's just. . . "

  "Surmising, I know. Just tell me. " She motioned with her hands for the camp leader to hurry up.

  "The only brain pattern that shifts and changes is a shape-shifter," Holiday said.

  "So, you now think I'm a shape-shifter?" Kylie tried to wrap her head around being a shape-shifter. Turning into giant lions and . . .

  "It's not changing like a shape-shifter," Burnett corrected. "A shapeshifter only changes when they change forms. "

  Kylie looked down at her chest and lower, almost to make sure she hadn't morphed into anything, and to make sure her boobs hadn't taken on another cup size. Then she gave her butt another swipe, praying again that she hadn't grown a tail. "I'm not changing. "

  "We know," Burnett said.

  Then, as if sensing Kylie had about had her quota of crap for the day, Holiday came over and dropped an arm around her. "Come on, why don't we take a walk to the falls?"

  Kylie nodded. She'd been thinking about going back to the cabin and having a good long cry, but a trip to the falls sounded even better. "I'll come with you," Burnett said.

  "I think we'll go alone," Holiday replied.

  "I don't think you two should be that deep in the woods alone," he countered. "We still don't know why the security gate wasn't working. "

  "I don't think we're exactly vulnerable. " Holiday nodded her head to Kylie.

  "I would feel better if I went with you. " He frowned. "You won't even know I'm there. I'll stay at a distance. "

  Holiday rolled her eyes, as if to say "whatever," then she guided Kylie to turn around and they started walking toward the trail that led near the falls. "I might be happy with a fifty-mile distance. "

  "When are you going to remember I can hear you?" Burnett said from about fifteen feet back.

  "When did you ever think I forgot?" she countered in a low voice. Monday morning Kylie woke up to the chill of the ghost. She opened her eyes, but the spirit hadn't materialized yet. "You do know just coming here and waking me up isn't going to help me, don't you? You need to give me something, find a way to show me who it is I need to help. "

  No answer came back and Kylie pulled the covers over her chin and just stared at her breath making little clouds of mist rising above her nose. The visit to the falls with Holiday had been both amazing and amazingly disheartening. She and Holiday hadn't even talked; they just sat beside each other, staring at the wall of water cascading down in front of them. The same ambience Kylie had found existed there last time seemed even stronger this visit. That was the amazing part.

  And the amazingly disheartening part? The message she took away from the visit wasn't so much everything was going to be fine. Nope. It was more like: stay focused and keep the faith.

  And if Kylie had thought she could argue with the presence at the falls, she would have looked up at the rock ceiling and roared, "Really? That's all you're going to give me?"

  Honestly, how was she supposed to stay focused when she didn't know what to focus on? Sort of hard to focus on ghosts when they wouldn't even appear, wasn't it?

  The temperature dropped another few degrees.

  "Yeah, I'm talking about you," Kylie said aloud to the spirit.

  Keeping the faith was almost equally impossible. Having faith meant believing nothing bad was going to happen. Didn't two girls being killed by a rogue vampire qualify as bad? Who could consider having your mom's memory erased to be a good thing? Add her changing brain pattern that had everyone staring at her as if she were a freak-and let's not forget her uncontrollable desire to barge into people's dreams-and, well, her faith could use a pack of steroids to build it back up again.

  Kylie let go of a big gasp of frustration when the cold of the spirit started to fade. Great! Just another day of being shocked awake at dawn with nothing to show for it. Rolling over, she punched her pillow and
felt her mood grow darker by the second.

  Oh, it wasn't just a general Monday blues kind of mood, either. Nope, this was more. Tonight was the full moon. Who knew what was going to happen? But the fact she'd awoken in such a piss-poor mood was even more of a sign that she might be werewolf.

  Not that morphing into a wolf was the only bad-mood trigger. After finally making up her mind to say yes to going out with Derek, she hadn't had a chance to get him alone and give him her answer. There was also the particular werewolf coming back to the camp today or tomorrow.

  Make that two weres coming back. She wasn't exactly looking forward to getting reacquainted with Fredericka. And facing Lucas after the whole dream fiasco? Oh yeah, that was going to be so much fun. Not!

  Kylie let out a groan, punched her pillow, and pulled the covers over her head.

  Five minutes after Kylie was up, and two minutes after checking and realizing her mom still hadn't sent her the scan of Daniel's obituary, Kylie managed to piss off both Della and Miranda. After they both managed to piss her off. So Kylie made up her mind-she was taking a day off. A complete day off from people. And that included all the supernatural varieties, too. Today, it was just her and her skunk.

  Snatching a bottle of soda from the fridge, she scooped up Socks, told her roommates to tell Holiday she was taking a vacation day, and went back into her bedroom where she slammed the door just because she felt like it.

  At nine o'clock, Holiday tapped at her bedroom door. "Just checking on you. "

  "I just want to be alone," Kylie said, hearing the door open, but not moving from the facedown position she'd landed on her bed an hour ago.

  "Bad mood?" There was a bunch of meaning to Holiday's question that Kylie didn't want to think about.

  "Yeah, a real piss-poor bad mood. " Kylie rolled over.

  "Okay. " Holiday bit down on her lip. "Just remember, I'm here if you need me. "

  "I know," Kylie said.

  At ten o'clock, there was another knock. This time, the knock sounded at her cabin front door.

  "Go away," she yelled out.

  A minute later, Derek walked into her bedroom without being invited.

  That pissed her off even more. Then, she remembered something else that had pissed her off that she hadn't spoken with him about yet.

  "Why didn't you tell me about the whole erasing thing?" she blurted out.

  He dropped down on her bed. "Burnett kind of said I shouldn't tell everyone. "

  "Am I everyone?" she asked, and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest.

  Whether it was her tone, her question, or if her mood was contagious, she didn't know, but she recognized pissed off when she saw it. And Derek was pissed off. "Maybe if you'd been more accessible to me, instead of worrying that someone might figure out you liked me, we could have spent more time talking. "

  "I think I've apologized for that. " She hugged her shins. "Not that it means you've forgiven me," she said with a touch of sarcasm.

  He shook his head. "Okay fine, so maybe I don't have a right to be mad about that. "

  His inflection on the word that led to her next question. "But you're mad about something, right?"

  He frowned. "I shouldn't be. " He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her. The deep emotional hurt that Kylie saw in his eyes chased away her own bad mood and she started to worry about him.

  "What is it that you shouldn't be mad about?"

  He stood up from the bed and paced across the room. "You never lied to me. Not really. And I could see you still had feelings for him. You'd feel guilty and I knew you were probably thinking about him. I knew it, because I felt it. Yet like an idiot, I kept on pursuing you, even when you refused to go out with me. "

  She shook her head. "You're not making sense. "

  He stopped walking and let go of a deep breath. Then his beautiful, warm, and still-hurting eyes met her gaze again. "I can only be mad at myself. "

  "For what?" she asked again, her bad mood trying to move back in.

  "But what I can't get over is that you didn't tell me. "

  "What didn't I tell you?" She felt confused and yet . . . not really. She sensed he was talking about Lucas. Not that it really mattered, because she and Lucas were history. She'd made up her mind.

  Yeah, there were the dreams. And she felt the guilt creep around her again.

  He waved a hand in the air. "You see, this is how you feel half the time I'm with you. Guilty. " He shook his head. "Tell me it's not true. Tell me that you haven't been getting letters from him this whole time. "

  His question bounced around her head. "I . . . I never wrote him back. "

  She wanted to assure Derek that she hadn't done anything wrong. But the truth hit and it hung on like a big mean dog to a bone he considered his own. If he'd been getting letters from some girl who'd kissed him, she would have been jealous. She wouldn't have liked it. Certainly not if he'd been having sexy dreams about her, too.

  "Derek," she said softly, "I swear to God, I didn't mean-"

  "To hurt me," he finished her sentence. "I believe you. I know you didn't do this to hurt me. You aren't cruel or mean. You don't have a devious bone in your body. You're just . . . confused. "

  She stood and walked over to him and tried to take his hand in hers, but he pulled away. His withdrawal hurt. Meeting his eyes, she tried to find a way to explain it. "You're right. I'm confused about a lot of stuff.

  But I'm not confused about what I feel about you. I care about you. A lot.

  When I'm with you, I feel safe and when you kiss me I feel everything. Everything looks so beautiful and . . . and I don't even care if you're doing it anymore. I just want that feeling, okay? I want to go out with you. "

  "If you'd really wanted that, you'd have said something earlier. "

  "I did want to, I was . . . just confused. Like you said. "

  "Because of Lucas?"

  "No. " She offered him the answer she'd offered herself. "Because I'm still trying to figure out what I am. "

  "But I told you that what you are isn't important. "

  "It is to me," she said. But deep down, deeper than she wanted to look, she knew what he said was true. Not knowing what she was, was only part of the reason she hadn't agreed to go out with him earlier. The other part was Lucas.

  But that didn't change how she felt about Derek, she insisted to herself.

  It was just like Holiday's aunt Stella. She might feel an attraction for Lucas, but she wouldn't act on it. She tried again to take his hand, but he wouldn't let her.

  "You have to decide, Kylie, because I can't stand living in this limbo. I have too much limbo in my life with my father and I just can't deal with it anymore. "

  "I've already decided," she said. "It's you. I was going to tell you yesterday and then . . . everything happened. "

  He stepped closer and her heart sighed with relief. She leaned in for a kiss. She wanted him to kiss her so badly; she wanted to make him see how much she cared about him.

  He touched her cheek. "Until you're sure about what you feel about him, then you can't trust how you feel about me. "

  "That's not true. " She tried to kiss him, but he put a finger over her lips, stopping her.

  "No. No more. Until you've made up your mind, we're just friends. Just friends. " Pain and hurt echoed in his voice and took a flying leap, landing right in her heart.

  She didn't want to just be his friend. She wanted more. "Please don't do this, Derek. I never meant-"

  He put his finger over her lips again. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me, Kylie. But it does hurt. I feel . . . everything. That's what makes this so hard. " He took a step back. "I'd better go. "

  Pain welled up inside her. Tears filled her eyes. She was going to lose him.
She knew it as well as she knew her own name.

  He got to her bedroom door and turned back. "As your friend, I'm telling you this. Fredericka is back. She wants to hurt you. And I don't think she'll stop with just telling me about the letters. Be careful. Especially until after tonight. Weres are hyper-aggressive before they turn. "

  Kylie felt her own aggression boil up inside her and she swiped at the tears sliding down her face. Until he mentioned it, she hadn't stopped to guess how he knew about the letters Lucas had sent her. And now that she knew, she didn't like it one iota. Fredericka had told Derek about the letters.

  And in doing so, she hadn't just hurt Kylie, she'd also hurt Derek. Kylie closed her hand into a fist. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm not as helpless as I used to be. "

  "Helpless, no," he said. "But she's got meanness on you hands down. You don't want to tangle with her. "

  An hour later, heart still breaking, Kylie checked her e-mail and found her mother had finally sent her the scan of Daniel's obituary. Maybe her emotions were already primed and ready to go because of her already sucky day, but when she read about her father's death, Kylie dropped her head on the desk and wept. She wept for Derek and she wept for Daniel.

  She recalled the dream/vision she'd had about his death. He'd been leaving a war-torn village and had returned to save a woman from some insurgents. He had not only given his life for his country, he had given it to save a stranger.

  "I love you, Daniel. " She wished he would drop in for a visit.

  She noted his parents' names and that they lived in some place called Gladlock, Texas. A search on the Internet showed it was a small city about seventy-five miles outside of Dallas. With her heart still hurting, she did a search for a phone number for Kent B. Brighten. The computer hadn't completed the search when the door to the cabin swung open. Kylie glanced up, expecting to see Miranda or Della. But nope. Fredericka

  had come a'calling. And she'd bypassed the proper etiquette of knocking before entering, too.