Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1)(88)

"But the cabin door was closed," Kylie said.

"Maybe one of you left it opened. Then he might have hit it and shut himself in."

"Or someone put him here," Kylie said.

Holiday reached out to touch her again, to calm her, and Kylie held up her hand. "I'm okay."

Fal ing deeper into her pil ow, Kylie stared up at the ceiling. "Do they blame Lucas for this?"

Holiday was quiet for a moment. "He's being looked at as a possible suspect."

"I don't believe it," Kylie said. "He's not like that."

"I know, but ... I can't convince them of that. Especial y since Fredericka took off this afternoon."

"She did?" Kylie watched Holiday nod, and she felt the tiniest bit of jealousy. "Do you think she's with Lucas?"

"Knowing her, yes."

Kylie clutched her hands together, accepting she had to get past Lucas, but stil refusing to believe he was guilty. "Are they going to try to shut down the camp?"

Holiday's frown deepened. "If they can't get to the bottom of this, they'l try. I'l fight it with every ounce of fairy dust I have in me, but ... it may take more than me."

Silence fil ed the room and then Holiday said, "Burnett's going to hold a meeting tomorrow and probably interrogate everyone. I wish I could stop him, but damn it, with al the evidence, I can't even argue with him that it's not one of us. But throwing accusations around in a group of adolescent supernaturals is sure to backfire."

"Do you real y believe someone here is doing it?"

"Yeah. Either that or someone is trying awful y hard to make it look like we're doing it."

The door to Kylie's bedroom opened and Burnett stuck his head in. "Are you going back up to the office?"

Holiday's expression changed to fake concern. She rested a hand on Kylie's shoulder. "I'm afraid she needs me. We'l talk tomorrow."

Burnett wasn't fooled, that was apparent by his expression, but he didn't argue, either. Wel , as long as one didn't cal slamming the door an argument.

"Jerk," Holiday muttered.

"I can hear you," he retorted from the other side of the wal .

Holiday frowned. "I swear, he's this close to me siccing a death angel on his ass." And she didn't try to say that quietly, either.

"I thought you didn't know if they real y existed," Kylie whispered after a few minutes. If she'd thought they existed, she would have asked Daniel Brighten, the soldier, to go find one. Then she recal ed what Holiday had said about al ghosts being angels. For sure, Daniel had been a big part of what saved Kylie.

She leaned close. "Al I have to do is threaten and even big bad vampires usual y piss in their pants."

They both laughed and then Kylie said, "He saved me, didn't he?"

"Derek?" Holiday asked. "Yeah, I would say he did."

"No. I mean, Derek did save me, but it was the ghost who told you, right?"

"Sort of," she said. "Because he's attached to you, he can't real y communicate with me. But he found someone who could." Holiday reached down and squeezed Kylie's hand. "Nana said to tel you she loves you. But she wished you wouldn't have let them bury her wearing that purple lipstick."

Kylie got tears in her eyes and laughed at the same time. After a few minutes, she said, "I final y did it."

"Did what?"

"I saw into someone's mind." Kylie almost told her it was the ghost's mind that she'd been able to see, but for some reason she wasn't ready to talk about that. It was as if she needed to digest it al first. There were a lot of things she needed to digest. Holiday grinned. "Welcome to our world, girl."

Kylie's smile was weak, but it was real. "Does that definitely mean ... that I'm one of you guys?"

"Yup." Holiday brushed a strand of hair from Kylie's cheek.

"When you saw Nana, did you check if she had been a supernatural?"

"I did. She was human." Holiday gave Kylie's hand a squeeze. "How do you feel about this new development?"

Kylie let out a deep breath. "A little scared. A little relieved. Now I just want to figure out what I am."

"You wil , Kylie. The answer is here. It always is."

Chapter Thirty-eight

Holiday was right.

Not about Kylie discovering what she was. It had been five days since Kylie had almost been a lion's dinner, and her identity crisis was stil alive and thriving.

The thing Holiday had pegged right was Burnett's method of solving the wildlife crimes backfiring. As soon as he announced that someone at the camp was guilty everyone started pointing fingers. The vampires accused the werewolves because most of the animals kil ed had been from the feline family and everyone knew werewolves hated cats.

The werewolves accused the vampires of doing it because their blood supply was low. The fairies accused the witches because they sometimes used tiger blood in some of their spel s. The witches accused the fairies because everyone knew fairies were sneaky little bastards. Someone pointed out that the shape-shifters were known to use wild animals as sport to hunt and conquer them. Then, the finger-pointing stopped being species-directed and certain unlucky individuals got suspicion slapped on them. Lucas and Fredericka got voted to be the most likely guilty parties. Then Derek's name got thrown in the hat because he could communicate with animals, and everyone knew he didn't want the gift. Then because Kylie was stil considered "the weird one" with a strange pattern and a closed mind, her name got tossed into the guilty hat as wel .