"Hey, where have you been?" Miranda asked as Kylie dropped down on the bench beside her and Del a in the dining hal fifteen minutes later.
"Talking to Helen." Kylie brushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear, her nerves stil jumpy.
"Who's Helen?" Del a held her glass of "juice"-that's what Kylie had decided to think of it as-to her mouth.
"Helen Jones." Kylie motioned to the quiet girl who had just sat down at another lunch table. While Kylie had invited Helen to join them, she'd declined, saying she'd promised to sit at the fairy table today.
Kylie watched Helen sit next to Derek and lean in to whisper something in his ear. Kylie didn't need super hearing to know Helen had shared the no-tumor verdict. As if to prove Kylie right, Derek met Kylie's gaze and smiled.
Kylie returned the gesture. While she was comforted that Helen hadn't seen any black dots in her brain as she'd spotted in her sister's, the answer moved Kylie closer to accepting that she was ... wel , not al human. And that was not comforting at al . Del a leaned forward and whispered, "How did your interrogation go? Did you find out what they suspected you of?"
"What interrogation?" Miranda's eyes grew round.
Kylie looked around at the crowd. "I'l tel y'al later."
Miranda nodded. "Oh, did you hear we're getting a computer? They're putting one in every cabin."
"Cool," Kylie said, only half listening. Instead her mind chewed on the possibility of insanity explaining her odd brain pattern. For sure, there'd been times she felt crazy-these last few weeks topping the list.
"You'd better get your lunch before they stop serving," Del a said.
Kylie noticed that several of the campers were already stacking their trays and leaving. The tumor scan had taken longer than Kylie had thought.
"Yeah." Kylie stood up.
"Oh," Miranda said. "Perry was trying to find you earlier."
Kylie frowned and leaned down. "What did he want?"
"Maybe for you to check his sex again." Del a snickered.
Kylie groaned.
Miranda chuckled and then got serious. "I think it was to apologize. He told me that he even tried to get away from you, that you were the one to bring him inside."
Kylie recal ed that the kitten, aka Perry in disguise, did try to resist when she brought him in. As he did when she pried his hind legs apart. "He stil shouldn't have been peeking in our windows."
"True," Miranda said. "But at least he's wil ing to apologize. It takes a big person to do that."
"Or a little twerp who's afraid I'l tel Holiday on him," Kylie said.
"She has a point," Del a said.
Kylie walked to the lunch pickup window. The elf who had driven the bus stood behind the counter-al three feet of her, the tip of her head barely hitting the countertop. She cocked her head back and looked at Kylie, her brows twitching. "Have we figured out what you are yet?" The elf slid a food tray at Kylie.
"Not yet," Kylie muttered, not liking the fact that everyone at the camp knew about her identity crisis.
"Does your friend need anything to eat?" the little woman asked, frowning.
"What friend?"
The cold brushed down Kylie's right side-his presence as noticeable and as welcome as a paper cut. "You can see him, too?" A wisp of steam left her lips with the words.
"Nah, just feel him. Don't like it, either." The elf backed away from the counter.
Go away. Go away. Closing her eyes, Kylie wil ed Soldier Dude to leave. When the chil faded as quickly as it had come, she wondered if it was real y as easy as just wishing him away. One more thing she needed to talk to Holiday about. Nevertheless, the smal victory offered Kylie a tiny sense of control. Real tiny.
Picking up her tray, she went back to join Miranda and Del a. Admittedly, she didn't search the room for any guys wearing army garb. Why look for trouble?
"Bad day?" Miranda asked when Kylie dropped her tray rather discontentedly on the table.
"Bad month." Kylie picked up the sandwich and sniffed. "I hate tuna." She felt her throat tighten and swal owed the knot of emotion, swearing she wouldn't cry.
"You like peanut butter and jel y?" Miranda asked.
"Yeah." Kylie looked at Miranda, thinking she was offering to swap. Instead, she was holding out her pinky and waving it at Kylie's sandwich. The sandwich in Kylie's hand moved. Kylie looked at it, and her mouth fel open. Peanut butter and red jam oozed over the crusty edges of the bread. "Holy crap." Kylie dropped the sandwich back on the tray.
"Wow." Del a leaned over. "Can you zap me up a second glass of blood? Oh, make it O negative. I hear that's the best."
Miranda made a face. "I do not do blood."
"Why am I not surprised?" Del a huffed.
Kylie shut out al talk of blood and shifted her gaze from her transformed sandwich back to the sandwich transformer. "I thought you said you couldn't do magic?"
Miranda made a funny face. "That's hardly enough to cal magic. I've been replacing my lunch with peanut butter and jel y sandwiches since I was two. My mom tried force-feeding me liverwurst. Who in God's name eats that stuff?"
"I'd bet I would love it now," Del a said.
Kylie's stomach growled and she pul ed back the bread to give the sandwich a quick check. "Is it ... safe to eat?"
"You think I'd poison you?" Miranda asked, clearly offended.
"No, but it could be radioactive or something. I don't know what happens to food when it's ... zapped here."
"I've eaten my sandwiches al my life," Miranda said.
"Yeah, we see what it did to you, too," Del a added, her tone sounding more and more annoyed.
"Go suck a vein," Miranda snapped.
"You got one?" Del a countered, and bared her teeth.
"Please." Kylie looked from one roommate to the other. "I beg you, don't start this again." Only when they both seemed resigned to stop bickering did Kylie revisit the idea of eating. Amazingly, she was starved. Getting one's brain scanned must increase one's appetite. Or maybe it was that her headache had final y taken a hike. Either way, she was hungry enough to take a chance and eat a sandwich that had been conjured up by Miranda's pinky finger.
Picking up the sandwich, Kylie sank her teeth into the soft white bread. "It's good," she told Miranda, as she moved the bite around in her mouth, and tried to keep the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of her mouth. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Miranda said. "And in return, al I'd like is for you to put in a good word for me with Derek-since you don't like him."
Del a made a snorting sound. "You are so blind. Kylie's crazy about him."
Miranda's mouth fel open and she looked at Kylie as if waiting for her to rebuke Del a's claim. But the peanut butter got caught on the roof of her mouth and Kylie couldn't have spoken even if she wanted to. Not that she was overtly ready to speak up. She didn't know how to answer. Frustrated at Kylie's silence, Miranda addressed Del a. "She said she didn't like him."
"She lied." Del a shrugged.
Miranda snapped her head around to Kylie. "Do you like him? If so, just tel me you like him."
"Who does Miss Don't-know-what-I-am like?" Lucas's girlfriend plopped down on the opposite side of the table. Kylie's gaze shot to the werewolf. Strange. She couldn't ever remember having so much anger or dislike being lopped on her in one cold stare. She managed to push the lump of sandwich she'd pried off the roof of her mouth to her cheek. "No one," she said, but it came out muffled.
"Real y?" The werewolf's lips turned up in something that might have been considered a smile if the smirk accompanying it wasn't so evil. "By the way, my name's Fredericka. I thought you'd like to know the name of the girl who wil kick your ass if you even try-"
"Ha. That's funny," Miranda said.
Funny? Kylie shot a look at Miranda and right then the blob of bread, peanut butter, and jam slid halfway down Kylie's throat. She covered her mouth and coughed, which only made the situation worse, because as the golf bal -sized lump of food tried to come up, it lodged between her tonsils. She gasped for air, but got none. Zilch.
"What's funny?" Fredericka's cold stare now focused on Miranda, which might have concerned Kylie if she wasn't slightly preoccupied about not being able to breathe. She started thumping her chest.
Can't breathe.
"You kicking her ass," Miranda shot back.
Hey. I can't breathe here. Kylie reached for her throat, the universal sign of choking.
"I mean, with al the help Kylie would have stopping you and al ."
Seriously, I can't breathe. Oh, friggin' great, she was at a camp ful of bloodsucking, meat-eating creatures, and she was about to die of asphyxiation from a peanut butter and jel y sandwich.
Fredericka leaned forward, getting closer to Miranda. "You think I'm scared of your scrawny little butt?"
Still can't breathe here, guys.
Final y, Del a-you gotta love an attentive vampire-reached around Miranda's shoulders and gave Kylie one extra hard thump between her shoulder blades. The clump of food dislodged from her windpipe. While it hurt going down, at least oxygen started passing.
"Me?" Miranda's voice came out squeaky. "You thought ... I meant ... No, no. I didn't mean help from me." Miranda pointed a finger at Del a. "She might take you on. She's got this whole vampire combative attitude going, but I didn't mean her, either."
"But she's right," Del a said, half her attention on Kylie and the other half on Fredericka. "I'd help Kylie kick your ass in a heartbeat." She curled her lips at the werewolf, showing off her canines.
Fredericka didn't appear concerned. Not that Kylie was certain of anything; she was stil working on getting the needed oxygen to her brain, while giving the drama playing out in front of her a wee bit of attention. Hey, if she was about to get ripped apart by a werewolf, she wanted to know the reasons why.
"Then who are you talking about?" Fredericka leaned across the table and a low growl escaped her throat.
"I mean Kylie's ghosts." Miranda said. "She's got like a dozen or so hanging around, or hadn't you heard?"
What? Kylie coughed-good thing the lump of bread had gone down and not up because she would have choked on it again.
"I don't know about you, but I'm not messing with the dead. Don't you remember last year when Holiday talked about the death angels?"
Death angels? Kylie recal ed Miranda talking about the legend of dancing death angels at the fal s on the bus ride to the camp. She gave up one more cough and then held up her hand. But right before she started talking, she noticed the fear in Fredericka's expression. Not wanting to come off like a scared rabbit confronting a hungry wolf-even though that pretty much described exactly how Kylie felt-she looked Fredericka directly in the eyes. "Stop." Cough. "I don't want to fight you." Cough. "I don't even know why you'd want to fight me. Or my ghosts."
Hey, Kylie was no fool. She ful y intended to take advantage of the fear she spotted in the girl's eyes.
"Just stay away from Lucas," Fredericka warned, but her voice lacked its earlier confidence.
"Me?" Al the crappiness of the day, of the last few weeks, zeroed in on this high and mighty B with an itch, and the scared-rabbit feeling faded.
"You know what?" Kylie snapped. "Maybe you should go tighten the leash you have around your so-cal ed boyfriend's neck, because every time I've spoken to him was because he came up to me. Not the other way around."
"You'd better watch your back," Fredericka said.
"She doesn't have to," Del a said. "Her ghosts do that for her. Didn't you hear about the little incident that happened at our cabin last night?"
Fredericka shot up and took off.
Kylie pressed a hand to the table and stared after her. "What a bitch."
"Yeah, she was like that last year, too. But we did good," Miranda said, and placed her hand on top of Kylie's.
"We rocked," Del a said, and put hers on top of Miranda's.
"Thank you," Kylie said, and looked from one roommate to the other. "Y'al didn't have to stick up for me, and I appreciate it."
"Hey, we're friends," Miranda said. "And that's what friends do."
Smiling at her two new friends, Kylie realized that coming to camp wasn't going to be all bad. Then, letting go of a heartfelt sigh and feeling her bravado kick down a notch, she met Miranda's gaze. "Do death angels real y exist?"