Taken at Dusk (Shadow Falls #3)(36)

The animal was so adorable, she had to stop herself from picking up the little fellow and snuggling with him. "Very cute," Kylie said.

The kitty, aka, Perry, cocked its head to the side as if puzzled. He reached up with his paw and gave his right ear a good scratch.

It worked. Kylie remembered her reasoning for insisting on the specific animal and smiled.

"I can't hear!" Perry said. "How did you do this?"

Kylie had to bite her bottom lip not to smile. "I didn't do it. Most male white cats with blue eyes can't hear." She said the words slowly so he might be able to read her lips. "You can watch." She pointed to her eye. "But you can't hear."

"That was sneaky," Perry said, obviously able to read lips.

Kylie smiled. "No, it was genius. Now stay back."

"But stay where I can see you."

"Fine." She took off to Helen's cabin and kept an eye out for any unwanted shape-shifters.

* * *

Helen answered the knock almost immediately. "Hey, you came to see me." She hugged Kylie so tight and had such a big smile on her face that Kylie felt a tad guilty for not visiting sooner. Helen was ... well, a little quiet and didn't have a lot of friends.

However, some of the guilt faded when she remembered she had asked Helen to come over to the cabin half a dozen times. The half-fae had declined each and every time because she spent all her free time with Jonathon, her newfound love.

"Come on in," Helen said.

Kylie started to step inside and remembered Perry. "I can't."

"Why?" Helen asked, and ran a hand through her sandy brown hair.

"I've got a shadow."

"Oh, yeah." Helen's hazel eyes widened with concern. "Jonathon was telling me what happened. They think some shape-shifters broke through the security. Are you okay? I mean, after your weekend and now this." Helen stepped out and closed her cabin door. She moved over to the edge of the porch and sat on the whitewashed wooden planks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Kylie answered, which was a bit of a lie, but she didn't need to dump her problems on Helen.

"Did you actually see the intruder?" Helen asked.

Kylie dropped down beside the girl. Their feet dangled off the edge of the porch. "It was an eagle and a snake and then a deer. And we're not even sure that it's anything. It might not even have been shape-shifters." Or at least, Kylie had been telling herself that. And since nothing else had happened today, it was getting easier to believe it-as long as she didn't remember the evil look she'd seen in the eagle's and deer's eyes.

Kylie suddenly became aware of two birds soaring overhead. A shimmer of fear ran down her back, and she looked out toward the patch of trees to see if she could spot Perry.

He didn't seem too worried. He'd found a patch of sunlight spilling through the trees and had stretched out, as if to soak in the warmth. "Who's your shadow?" Helen asked, following Kylie's gaze but obviously not noticing the cat.

"It's Perry. I had him turn himself into a male white cat with blue eyes."

Helen arched a brow with understanding. "So he couldn't hear us. Good one." She brushed an ant off her knee.

They sat there for a few seconds in silence, both of them gently pumping their legs back and forth.

Finally, Kylie spoke. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind answering a few questions about healing?"

"That's right, I heard you healed your friend," Helen said. "And then Lucas, too. Pretty cool."

Kylie bit down on her lip. "Yeah. It's cool. I mean, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I like knowing I did it. That's what I wanted to ask you about. I really don't know how it works."

Suddenly, a thousand questions started running rampant in her head. Could she heal anyone? Could she go to the hospital and just heal everyone?

"Holiday hasn't talked to you about it?" Helen pulled one leg up.

"She tried. I just wasn't ready to hear about it. And then she had to leave. Her aunt died, but she's supposed to be back this afternoon."

"That's sad," Helen said with sincerity, then she added, "Holiday said that we two were going to start meeting with her on occasion to discuss healing as a group. I've read up on a lot of it, but I've barely made a dent in all there is to know about the gift."

"There are books on supernatural healing?" Kylie asked, surprised.

"Yeah, there's a whole library on all different supernatural subjects."

"Really? I never heard about them."

"Oh, yeah. There are tons of books on just about every subject."

Every subject? If that was the case, Kylie couldn't help wondering if there might be some information somewhere about anomalies like herself. "Who...? I mean, where do you get them?"

"From the FRU library. If you can call it a library. More like a vault with books. It took almost a month before I was approved to check out the books I got. Burnett finally went in and got me approved."

"Why would they not want you to read up on healing or ... any subject concerning supernaturals?"

"Beats me."

Kylie chewed on that for a few minutes and then asked, "So what did you learn about healing?"