She looked at Holiday, who sat on the rock, her arms holding her knees tight to her chest. The tears in her eyes told Kylie that Holiday hadn't just been in Kylie's vision. She'd actually experienced it herself.
Someone lives and someone dies. The words seemed to flow from the rock themselves and bounce around the stone walls.
Kylie looked at Holiday. "What does this mean?"
Holiday blinked and Kylie saw her attempt to put on a brave face. "Whatever happens, we'll be okay."
"We will," Kylie said, fighting the calmer feeling and letting the feeling of grief take the lead. "But someone here isn't going to be okay. We have to do something to save her. Or him."
It's our custom when a vampire dies that ...
Chris's words tore at her heart. When a vampire dies ... Oh, God. Please say it's not Della, or Burnett.
Holiday shook her head. "There's nothing to be done, Kylie." She inhaled. "Can't you feel it? Acceptance." Tears filled her eyes again. "It breaks my heart, but that's what they are telling us. Someone we love will die, and we have to accept it."
"But I don't want to accept it." Kylie turned and walked through the wall of water to the sunlight.
The instant her gaze landed on Burnett, all the calm from the falls shattered around her. The acceptance she'd felt earlier was little more than a vague memory.
Please not Burnett. Please not Della. Please not Burnett.
She repeated the mantra over and over in her mind, as though wishing would make it so. She wanted to run to him, to grab him by his hands and make him swear to her that he would be careful, that he wouldn't take any unnecessary risks.
But even as she thought those thoughts, she knew in her heart that nothing, and no one, would stop Burnett from being himself. And that meant him taking risks.
Kylie felt Holiday come to a stop beside her. Kylie glanced at the camp leader. Her gaze was locked on Burnett, and Kylie knew she'd been having the same thoughts about his safety that Kylie had.
Someone lives and someone dies. The words repeated themselves in her head.
* * *
"Are you guys ready?" Miranda called out on Friday evening from the living room.
Kylie sighed. Miranda was nervous. Tonight was her big date with Todd, the cute warlock, and Kylie and Della were going to go wait with her at the main gate.
"Just about." Kylie grabbed her hairbrush and gave her hair a few strokes, not really caring if her hair looked as though a bird had taken up residence there.
The last few days had passed by her in a haze. Accepting that someone was trying to kill her was bad, but trying to accept that someone she cared about, a vampire, was about to die was impossible.
She and Holiday had butted heads about trying to stop the vision they'd shared from becoming a reality. What if it was Della? Didn't Holiday care that it could be Burnett? Kylie had mentally gone through a list of all the vampires at camp. Some of them she didn't know all that well, but they didn't deserve to die. Kylie had come within a breath of telling Della about the vision, but just as she was about to say it, a wave of knowing passed over her. She couldn't tell.
For reasons Kylie didn't understand, she simply knew it would be wrong.
Holiday kept pointing out that Kylie was forgetting the message came with two parts. Someone lives. But what about the someone who dies? "You can't change Fate," Holiday had insisted.
Kylie still wanted to kick Fate's ass. The acceptance that had filled Kylie at the falls occasionally returned and tried to numb the ache. It helped, but not completely.
"I'm waiting," yelled Miranda again.
So am I. Kylie looked at the ghost sitting on the edge of the bed.
"One more minute," Kylie answered Miranda. The ghost was pregnant again, and she just sat there, holding her round belly as if to protect it.
"We have to talk, you know," Kylie whispered.
The spirit didn't answer.
"If you want me to help you, we have to talk."
She still didn't speak.
"I know the other ghosts think you did horrible things, but I don't really believe it. I'm trying to prove it, but I don't know if I can do it alone. I need your help."
More silence met Kylie's pleas. Then she heard Miranda calling again.
Kylie looked at the ghost. "I have to go now." She reached for her door and inhaled, knowing she needed to put on a front for Miranda, who was excited about her date with Todd. Never mind that the girl had asked Kylie at least ten times to tell her the story about how Perry had saved both her and Ellie from the sinkhole.
Miranda needed to make up her mind. But people who lived in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks. And she'd spent a lot of time in that particular glass house herself, trying to decide between Derek and Lucas.
Not anymore.
And she meant it, too. She did.
She missed Lucas. And when he came back, she was telling him straight out that she wanted to go out with him.
Last night, she'd even tried to find him in her dreams. Had Lucas been awake at the time, or could the pack somehow stop her from reaching him? She didn't know. So this morning, she'd found another way to contact him. Through that all-powerful thing called a cell phone.
He couldn't talk about what was happening there. She couldn't tell him about the issues with Fate. And telling him yes to going out with him just seemed like something she wanted to do in person. But they talked for about twenty minute about other things, like the vacations they'd had as children.
He'd visited about every foreign country Kylie had ever heard of and some that she hadn't. But he hadn't ever been to Disney World or to a real amusement park, for that matter, and she'd told him all about them. They'd decided to make that their first real date.
Just as soon as Kylie was removed from someone's hit list and free of her mandatory shadow.
Walking out of her bedroom, Kylie found Miranda pacing by the door. She looked pretty; she wore her hair swept up, with only a few soft blond strands falling around her neck. The different colors in her hair hardly showed when she wore it up.
She wore a sleeveless yellow sundress that had a few ruffles around the bottom and a pair of matching yellow sandals. The outfit was very feminine without looking too cute, sexy without looking slutty, and dressy without looking overdressed. For just a second, Kylie envied Miranda and her evening out. She wished Lucas were here and they could go somewhere away from the camp.
Somewhere she could forget about Fate snatching away one of her own.
Della stood up from the computer desk. Kylie's heart knotted at the mere possibility that it was her in that casket, and then she remembered bits and pieces of the conversation she'd had with Holiday this morning.