Taken at Dusk (Shadow Falls #3)

"What's wrong?" Burnett called out from Holiday's office a couple of minutes later when Kylie stepped inside the camp's main offices.

The camp leader had set up an office for Burnett in the back of the cabin, but he apparently preferred using Holiday's office in her absence. Not that Kylie blamed him.

Holiday's office was small but nice. A tan sofa stood against one wall, leaving only enough room for a desk and a couple of file cabinets. Not that Holiday hadn't added her own mark to the tiny space. Plants, different kinds of ferns, and even some herbs were stationed at every corner. The air even smelled like Holiday-a light floral aroma. And on top of the large metal file cabinet were several different-colored crystals. The light from the front window streamed into the room and got pulled into the crystals, reflecting rainbow colors on the walls.

Burnett quickly closed a few files that were on the desk and then leaned back in Holiday's chair. Kylie couldn't help wondering if Burnett wasn't using her office simply because Holiday's presence was so alive in the room.

"What's wrong?" he asked again.

She just blurted it out. "Do you know anything about healing powers?" She dropped into the chair across from the desk.

"Not a lot, but some."

"If I bring something back to life, do I lose a piece of my soul?"

His brow creased deeper. "What happened? Did someone get hurt? Did you have to-"

"Not someone," Kylie answered. "A bird."

"Oh. Holiday told me about that," Burnett answered. He leaned forward. "However, she said you weren't sure it was dead."

"It looked dead," Kylie said. "And I just want to know, did I lose a piece of my soul when I brought it back to life? And what does that mean?"

Burnett folded his arms on the desktop. "I'm not nearly as up on this as I'm sure Holiday is, but she wasn't concerned. So I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Not happy with his answer, Kylie remembered the second thing she wanted to discuss. "I want a library card."

"A what?" he asked.

"I want to be able to read the books that the FRU have in their library."

He frowned. "It's not a library, or not a normal library. Before you are allowed a book, it has to be cleared."

"Why?"

"Because a lot of items in the collection are FRU documents."

"What is the FRU hiding?"

He looked almost annoyed at her question. "We're not hiding anything. But we can't let normals get their hands on the books."

She pressed a finger to her forehead. "Do I look normal to you?"

"We still have to be careful."

"So you're telling me I can't check out the books."

His frown deepened. "I will see about getting you a few books on healing," he added, as if wanting to console her.

"What other kind of books do you have?" she asked.

"It's not a library, Kylie," he said with some firmness, and then settled back and didn't speak. Finally the awkward silence brought Kylie to another question. "Any more news on the elderly couple who pretended to be my grandparents?"

His guarded expression slipped away. "I just got a call. The fingerprints we were able to pull belong to the owners of the car. I'm afraid it's not going to help us. I'm sorry. But I can return these." He handed her the brown envelope that held her father's pictures. "You really resemble your father."

The genuine concern in his eyes and his tone should have made her feel better, but it just validated her suspicions that he hadn't been completely honest about the whole FRU and the library. What was the FRU hiding?

Kylie took the envelope. "Thank you," she said. While she wasn't going to start mistrusting Burnett, she would proceed with caution when dealing with him.

Kylie started to leave when Burnett looked at the door and said, "Come in."

Lucas walked in. He met Burnett's gaze head-on. "I'd like permission to walk Kylie back to her cabin."

"That's up to her," Burnett said.

"Without her shadow," Lucas said.

Kylie could see it cost Lucas a chunk of pride to ask permission. She recalled something Della said about werewolves hating to be submissive. And asking permission was a submissive gesture.

However, from the look on Burnett's face, Lucas's request had won him some respect and hopefully a few minutes to be with her. Burnett looked at Kylie as if to make sure it was okay, and she nodded.

"Just back to the cabin. And stay on the path." Burnett looked toward the window. "Della takes over again when she gets to the cabin. You got that, Della?"

"Yes," came her answer, and Kylie rolled her eyes a bit, wondering if Della was always listening in.

Della and Miranda were gone when Kylie and Lucas walked out of the office. The afternoon air was warm but tolerable. A few campers hung around the front of the lunchroom. Kylie saw Will, another werewolf, standing to one side, watching them. She also saw Lucas shoot him a frown.

"Come on." Lucas started walking toward the path.

Only after they made the first turn and were out of view did Lucas reach for her hand. Right then, Kylie suspected that Fredericka wasn't just blowing smoke about the pack's disapproval of her.

She started to ask, but Lucas spoke first. "Are you okay?" He stopped and turned to face her. His blue eyes studied her with intensity. "For a second, you were scared of me this morning, and then you just ran off with Perry as if you were mad."

She hesitated to tell him, but she wanted Lucas to be honest with her, so she needed to be honest with him. "It wasn't you I was afraid of. Last night I was pulled into a dreamscape. I wasn't sure what was happening, but you were there."

"No, I wasn't," he said.

"I know it wasn't you now. It was Red, Mario's grandson. He appeared as you in the beginning."

Lucas stood there as if contemplating. "He's vampire. They don't dreamscape."

"Well, he did. I don't know how, but he did."

"Maybe it was a regular dream."

She shook her head. "I know the difference now."

"Did you tell Burnett?"

"No," she said. "I ... handled it myself. I know how to shut it off. If it happens again, I'll tell him. Or I'll tell Holiday."

He frowned. "What did the freak do in the dream? He didn't..."

She understood what he was asking. "He only put his hands on my waist. Then I realized he wasn't hot like you are." For the first time, she wondered why Red hadn't tried to do more. Then again, she should just be happy he hadn't. The thought of kissing him was too much.

Lucas pulled her against him. "I really want to catch that slimy vamp." He wrapped his arms around her. She stood there for a few seconds, her cheek pressed against his chest, absorbing his embrace. Finally, she lifted her face and looked at him.

He pressed his lips against hers. It wasn't the really hot kind of kiss, but it was nice. Nice enough that she let her feelings about how he was always followed by Fredericka slide away.

"So you're not mad at me?" he asked.

"A little," she admitted.

He looked perplexed. "About what?"

She didn't have a clue how to say it but then just blurted it out. "Every time I see you walk up, Fredericka is with you."

He pressed his forehead to hers. "I've told you nothing is happening there."

"I know, and I believe you, but she's so ... smug."

He half grinned. "She's a werewolf; smugness is instinctual."

"I don't care. I don't like it."

His half smile faded. "She's part of my pack. I can't kick her out without just cause and major consequences for her."

The fact that he cared about Fredericka stung, but then she realized she wouldn't want bad things to happen to Derek. But it wasn't just Fredericka causing this problem.

"Your pack doesn't want you with me, do they."

He looked a little shocked. She almost repeated what Fredericka told her, but she didn't want to come off like a jealous girlfriend.

"It's stupid," he said. "It doesn't matter what they want."

"Doesn't it?"

"No, it doesn't," he said with firmness. "I refuse to let anyone dictate who I like or see. Besides, you might end up being one of us."

"And if I'm not?"

"It still doesn't matter," he said, but the conviction in his voice had lessened.

"What will happen?" she asked.

"Nothing. Because I won't let it happen." He touched her cheek. "This is my issue. Let me deal with it."

Thirty minutes later, Kylie walked into her chilly bedroom-yep, she had a ghostly visitor, but Kylie was determined to ignore her. She had to mull over her conversation and suspicions concerning Burnett and her conversation with Lucas. His pack's attitude was his issue, but it involved her. She also wanted to spend some time looking at her dad's face. As crazy as it sounded, she hoped staring at the pictures would somehow bring him closer to her.

"Someone lives and someone dies."

Kylie frowned. Okay, ignoring the spirit was probably going to be harder than she thought, especially since the so-called message the ghost was delivering was supposedly something the death angels had sent Kylie.

Ditto for Holiday's aunt, when she dropped in the day before.

"Who lives and who dies?" Kylie turned around to see the ghost woman hovering behind her. She had hair again, long dark hair that hung around her shoulders.

"They didn't say. But they did say that it isn't your fault."

"What's not my fault?" Kylie demanded.

The spirit shrugged. "They never explain anything. They just tell me to give you the message." She nipped at her bottom lip. "They scare me."

Kylie dropped onto the bed, and that's when she noticed something else about the ghost. She was pregnant. The pink maternity shirt clung to her round belly.

Suppressing her frustration, Kylie motioned to the woman's baby bulge. "You're pregnant."

She glanced down and dropped her hands around her middle. "How did that happen?"

Kylie shook her head. "If I was at home, I could give you a pamphlet to explain it step by step. A sperm meets an egg and so on. My mom gives me one of those every few months. But basically, it means you had sex with someone."

The spirit's expression grew puzzled. "Sex?"

"Please tell me you know what that is, because I'm too young to have to give you the whole sex talk. I haven't even heard it yet. I've just read the pamphlets."

"I know what sex is. I'm just ... Who did I have sex with?" she asked. "I can't remember."

"I wouldn't know that."

The spirit moved closer, and so did her chill. She dropped down on the bed beside Kylie, her palms still stretched across her belly. Closing her eyes, she sat there in silence. Kylie sensed she was searching her mind, trying to remember.

Kylie pulled a throw over her shoulders to ward off the chill. After several silence-filled minutes, the ghost opened her eyes but continued to stare down at her round middle. Her hands started moving tenderly over the child she carried within, as if to show it affection.

Kylie had never seen so much love shown in a simple touch. For a crazy second, she wondered what it would feel like to carry a child inside her own belly.

When the spirit looked up, she had tears in her eyes. "I think my baby died."

The grief on the spirit's face and in her voice brought a lump to Kylie's throat. "I'm sorry."

Then the spirit pulled her hands away from her belly, and both her palms were bloody. Kylie's breath caught when she saw the spirit's rounded abdomen was gone and the front of her dress was drenched in blood. "No." The deep, painful sob of the spirit filled the tiny room and seemed to bounce around from wall to wall.

Kylie opened her mouth to say something, to ask the spirit if she could remember what happened, to offer more apologies and sympathy. But before she could say anything, the woman disappeared.

The spirit's cold vanished but left a wave of icy sadness and grief so intense that it filled Kylie's chest with pain. And it wasn't just any pain. It was the grief of a mother losing a child. Kylie reached for her pillow and hugged it.

After a few minutes, Kylie pulled the pictures out of the envelope and flipped through them slowly. When she came to the one of her mom and Daniel in a group of other people, Kylie reached for her phone.

"Hi, sweetie." Just hearing her mom's voice brought back some of the empathy Kylie felt for the spirit.

"Hey, Mom."

Odd, how not so long ago, Kylie felt certain her mom didn't love her, didn't even want her. Now, there wasn't a doubt of her mom's devotion to her. Deep down, Kylie wondered if this was a part of growing up. The part where teens stopped seeing their parents as instruments out to destroy their lives and started seeing them as people.

Not perfect, of course. Kylie knew her mom still had flaws-lots of them-but none of them involved her love for Kylie. And none of them prevented Kylie from loving her.

"I'm glad you called," her mom said. "I've missed hearing your voice."

"Me too," Kylie managed to say without choking up, and she wished her mom were here to hug her. She wished she could tell her mom about the pictures, but then she'd have to explain about the Brightens, and she didn't think that whole mess was explainable. Not yet, anyway.

"I was going to call you tonight if I didn't hear from you," her mom said.

"I'm sorry, I've been going a little crazy since I've been back."

"I figured as much. Sara called and said she'd tried to call you and you hadn't returned her call. She sounded so good. She told me it was like a miracle-her cancer up and disappeared."

"I'm sure it was one of the treatments they did on her," Kylie said, biting down on her bottom lip and wondering how she was going to handle the whole Sara issue. Kylie hadn't returned Sara's call because she'd wanted to ask Holiday first. Poor Holiday. When she did return, Kylie had a list of things they needed to discuss.

"I guess," her mom said. "But I would like to believe in miracles."

"Then you should believe," Kylie said, now unsure what to say to her mom about it. Because more than ever, Kylie knew miracles did exist. The fact that she had been the one performing the miracle still had her feeling out of sorts.

"Are you okay?" her mom asked, as if picking up on Kylie's mood.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not," her mom said. "I hear it in your voice. What's wrong, baby?"

"Just ... boy trouble," she said.

"What kind of trouble?" her mom asked, the tension in her voice indicating that she worried Kylie's problem concerned sex.

"It's nothing." Searching for a change of subject, Kylie tossed out, "How was work today?"

"It was strange," her mom said. "I got a new client."

"Why is that strange?" Kylie asked. Her mom worked in advertising and she was always getting new clients.

"He's strange."

"Strange in what way?" Kylie asked, glad the subject had taken a turn.

"He seemed more interested in me than ... the campaign." Her mom giggled.

Kylie frowned. "Define 'interested.'"

"Oh, I don't know. It's just the way he acted," her mom said, as if she were trying to make light of the subject. "We're supposed to do lunch tomorrow and discuss his ideas for the special promotion on his new line of vitamins."

"Is it a work lunch or a ... date lunch?"

"Don't be silly," her mom said. "It's work."

"Are you sure?" Kylie asked. "I mean, if he seemed interested in you..."

"I think it's work," she said, no longer sounding so sure. "But ... if it were a date lunch, how would you feel about it?"

Kylie took a deep breath. An image of her stepfather filled her head. She recalled him sitting on the edge of her bed only a few weeks ago, crying when he told Kylie he'd made a terrible mistake. She knew he wanted to reconcile with her mom, and while Kylie wasn't sure he deserved a second chance after cheating on her, she couldn't deny wanting at least one thing in her world to go back to the way it had been.

"You're not answering," her mom said.

Kylie swallowed a big lump of indecision and stared down at the image of her mom and Daniel. Was it fair of her to want her mom to forgive her stepfather just to bring a sense of normalcy back into Kylie's life, especially when she sensed the man her mom really loved was dead? The question bounced around her head, and Kylie decided to be honest.

"That's because I don't know what to say. I guess part of me was thinking you and Dad might work things out. Don't you love him anymore? Or did you ever really love him?"

It was her mom's time to get quiet. "I loved him. I probably still love him," she finally confessed. "But I'm not sure I can forgive him. Or trust him. And ever since we talked about Daniel, I just ... I'm not sure that marrying Tom wasn't a mistake. And if that's true, then us getting back together would also be a mistake. But I shouldn't be talking to you about this, Kylie."

"Why not?"

"Because, my darling, you shouldn't have to worry about this."

"You're my mom. I have a right to worry." And Kylie realized she did worry about her mom being alone and being lonely. But did that mean she wanted her mom to start dating? To completely rule out getting back with the man Kylie had loved and considered her real dad all her life?

"No," her mom said. "You've got that backwards. Moms have a right to worry about their kids, not the other way around."

"Then we'll just have to agree to disagree," Kylie said.

"You are way too stubborn, you know that?"

"And I wonder where I got it from," Kylie answered with a chuckle. Kylie's mom's phone beeped with an incoming call. "I'll let you go," Kylie said. "But Mom..."

"Yes?"

"Enjoy the lunch. Just be careful. And don't go falling in love or anything. Oh, and no kissing on the first date. That was your rule, remember?"

Her mom chuckled. "I'm sure it's just a business lunch. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

When Kylie hung up she heard a tap at her window. She looked over, expecting Lucas, but instead the blue jay perched on her windowsill. It flapped its wings, hovered right outside her window for a second, and then flew away.

Great. Now she was being stalked by the blue jay she'd brought back to life. What did that mean?

The melancholy from the ghost and the mixed feelings about her mom-as well as the possibility that she'd given a piece of her soul to the blue jay-hadn't completely faded an hour later when Miranda and Della stormed into her room.

"Get ready," Della said.

"Ready for what?" Kylie asked, lying on the bed, still hugging her pillow and staring holes into the ceiling.

"Burnett agreed to let us have a party tonight," Miranda said. "This is our chance to work on our pact. Steve will be there, so will Lucas and even Perry. We're ordering pizza and playing music. Maybe even dancing. I think I'll wear the new jeans I bought last weekend."

"You didn't tell us you got to go shopping," Della said.

"Yeah, and I also got this brand-new jeans skirt." Miranda looked at Della. "It would look fabulous on you. Why don't you borrow it?"

"Really?" Della said. "You'd loan me your new skirt?"

"Of course. I like you most of the time," Miranda said, and nudged her with her elbow.

Kylie's lips were poised to say, "You two go without me," but she spotted a hint of excitement in Della's eyes. Kylie remembered that since the vamp was assigned as her shadow, if she didn't go, Della didn't go, either.

So Kylie stood up and went to her closet. "I say we get all dressed up and impress the socks off those guys."

Thirty minutes later, the three of them, dressed to kill, walked into the dining hall. Miranda had loaned Della her new jeans skirt, and it looked really good on her, especially paired with the spaghetti-strap top with art deco black-and-red print with flared tiers of fabric hanging down the front. Miranda wore her new jeans with a low-cut pink lacy tank top that showcased her girls. When Kylie had packed to return to camp, she'd brought some more clothes. Her black knit dress wasn't fancy, but it still fit well, especially with her recent growth spurt. The hem of the dress now came a tad higher, and the scooped bustline fit tighter. While she had been faking her enthusiasm in the beginning, somehow getting dressed up had her looking forward to the evening.

The music was already playing and boxes of pizza were stacked on one of the tables that had been pushed against the walls, making room for dancing. Most of the campers were already there, mingling and talking. The smell of pepperoni and zesty tomato sauce filled the air. Then Chris walked in from the kitchen carrying a large pitcher and a bunch of cups.

"Man, that smells good." Della lifted her face into the air, and Kylie caught the wild berry scent of blood. And though she didn't like admitting it, her mouth watered more from that aroma than from the pizza.

Not that she would indulge in it, or had indulged in it since she'd tasted blood at the vampire ceremony. If Kylie ended up being vampire, she'd deal with it. But until then, the idea of drinking blood, even when it tasted like ambrosia, was not her cup of tea.

Miranda must have pushed the door closed a little hard because it slammed shut and the crowd looked up. Kylie felt everyone's eyes on her, or on her forehead, checking to see what her forever changing brain pattern was doing now.

But then she noticed one pair of blue eyes, and they weren't looking at her forehead. They were looking at her.

She knew Lucas liked her dress. Or at least he liked her in it. And wasn't that what she wanted?

The desire to do another visual sweep of the room to see if Derek was there hit strong. She fought it. Tonight was about Lucas. And from the way he stared at her, she had a feeling he wouldn't mind.