Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1)(13)

She blinked back a few tears and dropped back into the seat. "Why?" she asked again. "Why am I here?"

Holiday sat in the desk beside her. "You're gifted, Kylie."

She shook her head. "I don't want to be special. I just want to be me-normal me. And ... and to be completely honest with you, I think there's been some huge mistake made here. You see, I'm not ... gifted. I ... I certainly can't turn myself into anything. I don't suck at anything, except maybe algebra. But I've never been great at things, either. Sports are so not my thing, and I'm not super talented or even the extra smart type. And believe it or not, I'm okay with that. I don't mind being just average ... or normal."

Holiday laughed. "There is no mistake, Kylie. However, I know exactly how you feel. I felt just like that when I was your age and especial y when I realized the truth."

Kylie swiped at her face to hide the evidence of her tears and then forced herself to ask the question she'd been trying not to think about since the whole thing started. "What am I?"

Chapter Nine

"Can you handle the truth?" Holiday asked softly, her eyes fil ed with empathy.

Handle it? I just saw a boy turn himself into a unicorn. Can it get any worse?

Seconds after Kylie asked herself that, she got a chil . What if it could get worse? She recal ed Holiday saying there were other types of supernaturals besides vampires and werewolves, which in Kylie's mind had to be the worst kind of supernatural, not that she had expertise in the field or anything, but what if Holiday had only said that to calm her down? Would she have lied?

"Yes, I can handle it," Kylie said, sounding braver than she felt.

But when Holiday opened her mouth to speak, Kylie blurted out, "No." She dropped her face into her hands, then removed them and stared again at the redheaded camp leader. "I don't know if I can handle it."

How could she when it was just too much?

Kylie bit down on her bottom lip so hard it hurt. "I mean, if you are about to tel me something like I'm dead, that I need to start acquiring a taste for blood and I can't even eat sushi, I won't be able to handle it. Or if you're going to tel me that I'm going to start howling at the moon, eating people's cats, and wil spend the rest of my life having to get waxed if I want to wear a bathing suit, then I don't think I can handle it, either. I like cats and I tried waxing once, and that hurt like a son of a gun." She dropped her hand between her legs, remembering. Holiday laughed, but Kylie had been as serious as a heart attack. Waxing had real y hurt and she hadn't let Sara talk her into anything like that since.

"Do you think I can handle it?" Kylie asked, afraid of the answer.

"Honestly, I don't know you very wel yet, but I trust Dr. Day's assessment of you."

Kylie blinked. "What does my shrink have to do with this?"

"Your shrink-as you cal her-is the one who recommended you to us. She recognized your gifts, she's half fairy, you know."

Kylie tried to process that information. "I'm here because of her? That woman is..." Kylie leaned closer, almost as if whispering might make it less of an insult. "She's a few fries short of a Happy Meal." Kylie dropped her hands on the desk. "I wouldn't lie to you. She's a flake."

Holiday frowned. "Unfortunately, al supernaturals come off a bit flaky when viewed from the normal prospective. She spoke very highly of you."

Kylie felt a little guilty then, which she suspected had been the camp leader's intent.

Holiday dropped her palms on top of Kylie's hands. "I won't lie to you, either, Kylie. The truth ... the truth is, we don't know what you are."

Kylie sat up a little straighter, chewing on that bit of information, and Holiday sat quietly as if al owing Kylie the time to adjust. Not that Kylie was adjusting. Oh, hel no. She was working on finding a positive slant to al of this. "Don't you see? That's because I'm not anything. I'm just me. Normal me."

The woman shook her head. "You have gifts, Kylie. Those gifts could have come from various supernatural forms and almost always they are hereditary."

"Hereditary? Neither of my parents are ... supernaturals."

Holiday didn't look convinced. "In rare cases, it could skip a generation. It could be fairy, it could be you are a descendent of one of the gods. It could be-"

"Gods? Gifts? What gifts?"

Holiday cleared her throat, and her eyes met Kylie's with empathy. "You can talk to the dead-sometimes in your sleep. Other times when you're awake."

Warmth spread into the top of Kylie's hands, but cold spread into her heart. "The dead?" Her mind started filtering though images, al of them Soldier Dude, since she couldn't recal anything from her night terrors.

"No, you're wrong. I never talked to them. Never, ever. Not one word. Mom taught me to never talk to strangers, and I've lived by that."

"But you've seen them, right?"

Tears wel ed up in Kylie's eyes again. "Just one. And I'm not sure he's a ghost. Sure, my mom didn't seen him, but my mom ... she's always in her own little world." But then there was her neighbor, the way she had walked right past Soldier Dude and never even glanced at him. Oh damn. Damn.

"It's scary, I know," Holiday said. "I remember when I first started experiencing it."