Midnight Hour (Shadow Falls: After Dark #4)(59)

In a few minutes, they set a plate of cold cookies and cubes of cheddar cheese down in front of her.

Miranda went for the cheese first.

They watched her eat. “So?” Della finally asked.

Miranda reached for a cold cookie. “Who put the cookies in the fridge?”

“Forget the cookies,” Della said. “I need details on the rest of the bat shit.”

“You know everything about the case.”

“But not about Perry,” Kylie said.

“And about the tattoo,” Della said.

Miranda looked at her arm where the cast ended to see if it had appeared again. It hadn’t. “I hope it’s gone.”

“Perry came to see you, right?” Kylie asked.

“Yeah.” Propping her cast on the table, she grabbed ahold of a cookie and twisted it with her good hand until the two chocolate wafers came

apart, then she looked up. “What am I going to do?”

“What do you want to do?” Kylie asked.

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you,” Miranda said.

“Okay, let’s make this easy,” Della said. “Look at your cookie. It has two sides. One of them is Shawn, one is Perry. You’re the white

stuff in the middle. Which one are you stuck to?”

“That’s a stupid analogy.” Miranda suddenly didn’t want to eat either one of the cookies.

“She’s right,” Kylie said. “That’s stupid.”

Miranda put the cookie pieces back on the plate.

“Not really,” Della said. “I’ve been the white stuff. There was Steve and then there was Chase. It wasn’t easy, and it took me a while to

see it, I finally realized it came down to where I wanted to be.”

Miranda looked at the broken cookie.

“You can’t compare them against the other.” Della grabbed a cookie herself. “Each side of the cookie is good. But when under pressure”—

she twisted the cookie—“you always stick to one side.” She dropped the two pieces of cookie, one with icing and one without.

“What if half of you sticks to one, and half of you to the other,” Miranda asked.

“Good question,” Kylie said.

“That doesn’t happen,” Della said.

“Yes it does.” Miranda grabbed another cookie, twisted without care, hoping to prove her point. Again, all the white stuff ended up on one

side.

“I’m with Miranda.” Kylie snatched one up and twisted it. Hers all ended up on one side, too.

Della pumped her hands up in the air. “My cookie analogy stands proven.”

They all laughed.

Della swiped a half-of-cookie with icing from the plate.

“I used to love these.” The vampire took a bite.

“You’re chewing on my ass.” Miranda chuckled.

“Yuck,” Della said. “But the question is, who else’s ass am I tasting?” Her tongue dipped out to catch a crumb on the corner of her mouth.

“Is that shifter, or warlock? I think it tastes like a shape-shifter.”

Miranda laughed, but was Della right? Was she still stuck on Perry?

Suddenly the specific, nauseating, scratchy sound of a cat hacking up a hairball filled the air.

“Oh, that’s disgusting,” Della said.

“What? The sound? Or the taste of shape-shifter?” Kylie giggled.

“Both.” Della bolted up and spit the cookie in the sink. Swinging around, her gaze went to Kylie. “I’m not cleaning that hairball up. This

morning, I picked up two the size of a small cat.”

“You know the rule.” Laughter shook Kylie’s words. “You see it, you clean it.”

Della slapped a palm over her eyes. “I swear I’m blind.”

They laughed. Laughed hard. Laughed like good friends do over silly things.

Somewhere with that release something else in Miranda broke free. Her lungs shook. Her heart broke. Her vision became a watery mess. Not just

silent tears, but loud ones.

“What’s wrong?” Kylie asked.

Miranda couldn’t talk. She stood, brushed the tears from her cheeks, and tried to pull up her big-girl panties. She couldn’t find them.

Kylie and Della shot around the table.

“It can’t be that bad,” the chameleon said.

“It is,” Miranda said. “One minute I’m sure I’m the white icing stuck to Perry, but then I think about Shawn and I remember how sweet he

is. How he’s never done anything to hurt me, and Perry has.” Her voice trembled. “I’m not even sure Perry isn’t just going to hurt me

again. But forget boy problems. My sister has run away. I still might go to jail for drugs, and my dad and mom are probably going to divorce.

Or they would if they were married. I don’t know if I’m going to get to go to college with you, and … and I called my mom a bitch and a

slut.”

“Ouch!” Kylie said.

Della set a hand on her hip, striking her sassy pose. “It’s about time.”

Miranda’s next breath trembled all the way down. “Honestly, I didn’t … really call her a slut, I insinuated it.”