Whispers at Moonrise (Shadow Falls #4)(103)

Kylie reached for it and wiped her mouth, and then looked at Burnett. "I think you need it worse than me." Tears filled her eyes and her whole body trembled. "Sorry."

He looked down at his shirt and back up at her. "I'm not mad."

She focused on Holiday's face, felt the calm flowing from her touch, and tried to remember exactly what had happened. How had she gotten ... Her memory started to fall into place one piece at a time.

But it only took a few pieces for her to start panicking again. "Please tell me I didn't go wacko in English class."

Holiday's gaze filled with empathy. "It's not your fault. And Della brought you here as soon as she got you out of the closet."

Kylie flopped back on the sofa and started to wish she could vanish, but stopped herself before it came true. "I hate this. I really, really hate this."

Kylie stared at the ceiling. Burnett left the room, but returned in record time wearing a different shirt. Obviously he didn't keep a new pair of shoes handy in his office because he now stood in his socks.

After a few minutes, Holiday asked Kylie, "Can you talk about it?"

"I was Hannah. But ... most of the time when I have these types of visions and I'm the spirit, the spirit isn't dead and ... in a grave with bugs and snakes." Kylie's breath shuddered.

"Hannah's trying to show you something. That's what visions are all about," Holiday said. "Tell me what happened."

Kylie swallowed a tight knot down her throat. "I don't know what she wants me to see. We were in the grave. There were snakes and bugs. I saw plenty of those." She wiped her face, remembering the snake slithering across her cheek.

"Tell me everything," Holiday said. "Everything."

Kylie started recounting it, from the footsteps sounding on top of the rotting wooden planks above her, to the herb smell and the scrap pieces of iron that looked like they came from the cemetery. When Kylie finished, Holiday's expression went white.

"What is it?" Burnett asked, not missing the look on her face.

"Someone knows Hannah is reaching out from the grave."

"How do you know that?" Kylie asked.

"The tape over their mouths and the chains. You said you smelled herbs and that you saw someone adding iron from the graveyard. In the past, it was called cold iron. It's basically iron, but some of it was blessed by practicing Wiccans. It was used to keep spirits from escaping, and ... the herbs, there are several that are used to silence spirits. That's what she was trying to tell you. That someone is trying to stop her from communicating with us."

"And Blake knows you are a ghost whisperer," Burnett said. "It's logical that Hannah would come to you."

"But if that's the case, why is he just now trying to silence them? He would have done that in the beginning."

"She's right," Kylie said. "It's someone here. Hannah told us that much. And excuse me for sounding like a broken record, but Hayden Yates is bound to have heard I'm a ghost whisperer. Everyone here has." And if they hadn't, today sealed the deal.

Holiday twisted her hair in a tight rope and then met Kylie's gaze. "I don't want to suspect someone here," she said, and then met Burnett's gaze. "But Kylie's right. It could be someone from Shadow Falls. And if it was the iron from Fallen Cemetery, then Hannah's and the other's bodies are close by."

"Fine," Burnett growled. "I'll go back and run Hayden Yates through every damn database I can find. Until then, you don't let the man within two feet of you."

"I still don't think it's Hayden," Holiday said.

"And I still do," Kylie insisted.

"Who else could it be?" Burnett asked.

"One of the new students or teachers," Holiday said, "but..."

"Most serial killers are men. And I don't see a teen being able to pull this off."

"And Hannah keeps calling the killer a he," Kylie said.

Burnett huffed. "I'm not sure Collin Warren could look at someone long enough to kill them."

"But he's strange," Kylie said. However, Kylie's gut just knew that Hayden Yates was up to no good.

"Being extremely shy doesn't make him a killer," Holiday pointed out. "It just makes him socially awkward."

Burnett shook his head. "But just to be sure, I'll check him out again, too. You stay away from both of them."

Holiday rolled her eyes. "How am I going to run a school and not talk to any of the teachers?"

"I could always lock you in my cabin," Burnett said.

"You wish," Holiday said.

Burnett's eyes brightened and a smile barely tilted his lips up slightly. "That I do."

Kylie smiled for a second, too, completely getting Burnett's underlying message. Then for some reason, Kylie thought about Lucas, and started missing him, wishing he could be here to help her cope. Don't ever fall in love, princess. It just hurts too much.

Her stepfather's words echoed in Kylie's head and right then, she knew. She loved Lucas.

As if the epiphany gave her heart and mind a reboot, she suddenly recalled being in Miss Kane's closet and screaming at the top of her lungs. She closed her eyes as embarrassment flooded through her. If any of the other campers hadn't quite made up their minds about whether she was or wasn't a freak, she'd made it easy for them.