Kylie frowned and shook Selynn loose.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on." Kylie's gaze went back to Holiday who watched Derek step up onshore. "Will somebody please tell me what is wrong?"
Holiday glanced back. The line of stress furrowing the camp leader's brow told Kylie this was serious. "It's your mom."
"My mom?" Kylie took a deep breath. Bits and pieces of her mom's conversation filled Kylie's mind. Then the ghost's warning echoed like a bad song in her head. "You have to stop it. You have to stop it or someone you love will die."
Oh, God, no.
"What's wrong with my mom?" The words barely spilled from her lips. She remembered her mom was flying home sometime today. Kylie's heart clutched as she envisioned a plane crash. Oh God, was her mom...?
"She must have come to see you." Holiday said. "Late. For some reason, the new security alarm on the gate didn't work. And she got in without anyone knowing."
"She's here?" More than Kylie wanted air, she wanted to know her mom was alive and well. That her plane hadn't crashed. That some freak hadn't kidnapped her and was torturing her the way the dreams seemed to imply.
"Yes. She's here," Selynn said in her haughty tone. "Against school policy. Visiting hours were over hours ago."
Kylie's gaze went to Selynn. What was the she-wolf saying? Was her mom okay or not? Kylie looked back at Holiday.
"What happened?" Kylie repeated her question. "Is she okay?"
"She's ... upset." Holiday's frown deepened. "She was trying to find your cabin and got turned around. She ... she saw some things she shouldn't have."
"What?" Kylie remembered how stunned she'd been when she first saw Perry change into a unicorn. "What did she see?"
"She needs to be erased," Selynn snapped. "And quickly."
Erased? "What ... is that supposed to mean?"
The she-wolf grabbed Kylie by the arm and started pulling her toward the woods. Kylie put on the brakes.
"What does erase mean?" she asked again, not anywhere close to understanding, but miles from liking how it all sounded. She yanked her arm away from Selynn and then took a step closer, so close Kylie could count the woman's eyelashes.
"You better not lay a finger on my mother!" Kylie growled, and the sound of her voice seemed unnatural to her own ears. It was deeper. Coarser.
"Kylie, listen to me." Holiday's hand came down on Kylie's back, sending a surge of calm into her tense shoulders. Kylie might have listened, might have even accepted the calm emotion from Holiday if Selynn hadn't been there.
"We don't have time for this," Selynn snapped. She grabbed Kylie by both arms, her fingers digging into Kylie's biceps hard enough to bruise.
When Kylie tried to pull away again, Selynn tightened her hold. "She's human," Selynn said. "She has to be dealt with. Now."
"Dealt with?" Fury, anger, and fear for her mother's safety threatened to overwhelm Kylie. "Damn you, where's my mother?" Kylie's voice sounded deeper than before.
"Stop it, Selynn!" Holiday said. "You're upsetting her. She doesn't understand what is going on."
"Yeah, stop it!" Derek's voice rang out.
Kylie felt Holiday's touch come against her shoulder again. The fairy attempted to fill Kylie with a peace-inducing emotion, to curb her fury, but Kylie somehow rejected the flow from moving inside her.
"Your mom is going to be okay," Holiday said, her voice seeming to echo from some other place. "She's at Helen's cabin right now. She-"
Once Kylie heard her mom's location, she again tried to pull away from Selynn's grip. But the she-wolf tightened her hold, her fingernails cutting into Kylie arms. Kylie recognized the pain, but it felt as if it was happening to someone else.
"Let go!" Kylie hissed in Selynn's face.
When the woman didn't release her. Kylie, acting on some instinct she didn't even recognize, grabbed the woman by her shirt and slung her out of the way.
Several gasps echoed around her. One might have even been from Kylie when she saw Selynn flying like a rag doll through the air before she landed in the water with a loud splash. The werewolf came up covered in mud and spitting mad. She roared and started swimming back to shore, and once on dry land, she locked gazes with Kylie, slung her head back, growled, and charged.
Holiday jumped in front of Kylie and held out her hand. "One step closer and I will summon the wrath of the death angels. And if you think I'm joking about that, you don't know me very well."
But Selynn didn't stop. She kept coming.
Then Derek and Della tackled her, sending the she-wolf tumbling to the ground with a grunt.
Kylie didn't stick around to hear or see what happened next. She took off through the woods, her blood pumping through her veins as she ran with everything she had to reach her mother.
As she moved with inhuman speed, she felt a blast of air pass by her and she spotted a blur of movement. The sudden silence of the woods told her it was vampire. Not that she cared.
She only wanted to reach her mother before anyone touched her. If anyone hurt one hair on her head ...
Kylie heard her mother's screams right before she exited the woods near the path that led to Helen's cabin. Panic clawed at Kylie's chest like a wild animal seeking escape. She cut through the last of the trees, flew over the path, and arrived at Helen's porch.
Burnett, with a windblown Holiday at his side, stood there blocking the door. And Kylie knew Burnett had brought Holiday here. "Let me out of here!" Her mom's scream reached Kylie's ears.
The rich berry scent that she now knew as blood filled her nose. She stared at Burnett. "Move!"
"Kylie." Holiday jumped in front of Burnett. "Listen to me, okay? Your mom is fine. She's very upset and we're going to have to calm her down."
"She's hurt." Kylie struggled to breathe and fought the desire to break through Burnett and the door to get to her mom.
"She's not hurt," Burnett insisted.
"I smell blood," Kylie seethed.
"That's not her blood," Burnett answered, his eyes turning a burnt orange color.
"I swear," Holiday said, and attempted to touch Kylie, but Kylie jumped back. Holiday lowered her hand. "Your mom isn't hurt, Kylie. I promise you. Please calm down. We're going to fix this. But we need your help."
"Trust them, Kylie," a voice said at the same time a familiar coldness invaded her breathing room.
Kylie turned to see Daniel standing next to her. "Trust them," he repeated.
Tears filled Kylie's eyes as Daniel wrapped her in his cold embrace. "It's okay." His icy breath came at her ear, as comforting warmth filled her chest.
An awesome sense of peacefulness flowed though her body. The same kind of peacefulness she'd felt at the falls. The kind that said things weren't as bad as she thought. The kind that said she should have faith. She raised her head to look at Daniel, but he was gone. Feeling overwhelmed, her legs wobbled and she dropped to her knees on the porch.
Holiday crouched beside her. "She's going to be fine, Kylie. I promise." Kylie looked at Holiday. "What ... what did my mom see? Perry...?"
"No." Holiday brushed Kylie's hair from her face. "I had given permission for Helen to donate a pint of blood to Jonathon. He was bleeding her, and against my rule he was..." Holiday paused and then firmly added, "He was drinking from the tube when your mom stepped in. I'm sure it looked really bad to her. She panicked."
Kylie dropped her face into her hands. "Oh, God." How the hell was she going to explain this to her mom?
"Jonathon was startled," Holiday continued. "He grabbed her and pushed her into Helen's bathroom, shoved the dresser against the door, and sent Helen after me. I got Burnett here as quickly as I could."
"I didn't hurt her," Jonathon said, stepping up on the porch. "I probably should have handled it differently, but I swear, I didn't hurt her. I'm sorry this happened."
Kylie looked at Jonathon. His shirt had stains of blood, Helen's blood, she told herself, not her mom's blood. Following him up the steps was Derek.
"Here's what we have to do," Burnett said. "It's called erasing."
"No," Kylie said, instantly being reminded of her emotions and her fight with Selynn.
"It's not a bad thing," Holiday said. "Erasing means that the memory is removed from her mind. It won't hurt her. But the calmer she is, the easier it is and the more successful it will be. And right now she's not calm. I think if you talk to her, you can calm her down."
"Talk to her? She saw someone drinking blood from an IV tube. What am I supposed to tell her that will calm her down?" Kylie asked. "Oh, don't worry, Mom, they're just vampires?"
Holiday looked Kylie right in the eyes. "She's worried about you now more than she's scared," Holiday assured her. "Just let her know you're fine and then Derek will come in-"
"Derek?" Kylie swung back to look at Derek. "Why Derek?" Something that looked like guilt clouded his eyes.
"We've recently discovered that Derek has the gift of erasing," Holiday said.
Derek nodded and for a fraction of second, Kylie wondered why Derek hadn't told her about his new gift. She thought they shared everything. Then her thoughts went back to her mom. "But if he's new at this, then ... what if he messes up?"
"He won't mess up," Burnett said. "He's practiced on me numerous times."
Kylie looked back at Derek. She didn't know what all went into erasing someone's memory, but the idea scared her. "Don't you have someone with more experience?" Much to Derek's credit, he didn't appear offended by her request.
"He's on another case right now," Burnett said. "And the sooner we take care of this, the better it is. If we wait too long, he might have to remove more data from her mind. It could require he remove hours before what happened. Obviously, the less memory time that we have to remove the better."
"Is it at all dangerous?" Kylie looked at Holiday for the answer. Holiday shook her head. "When it's done soon enough, the biggest side effect is a headache and confusion at the loss of time."
Kylie looked back at Derek. "Promise me you won't mess this up."
"I won't," he said. But was that doubt in his voice?
"What do you have to do?" Kylie asked.
"Just touch her," he answered.
Kylie nodded. She remembered Daniel's assurance that she should trust them, and she stood up. "Okay. I guess." Then she heard her mom start screaming again. She looked at Burnett. "Nothing better go wrong."
"Mom," Kylie called to her mom five minutes later from behind the large dresser that Jonathon had moved in front of the door.
"Kylie?" her mom screamed. "Oh, baby, are you okay? Tell me you're not hurt. Tell me these crazy people-"
"I'm fine. I'm going to get you out, okay?"
"Hurry, baby," her mom said. The rawness in her mother's voice told Kylie her mom had been screaming and crying for way too long.
"We've got to get out of here. There are some very bad people here."
"It's okay, Mom," Kylie said.
"Hurry, baby. Hurry before they come back."
Burnett motioned that he planned to move the dresser and then leave. Derek nodded. Then Burnett, with one hand, pushed the heavy piece of furniture out the way and, in a flash, was gone.
Her mom yanked open the door and flew out, wrapping her arms protectively around Kylie. "We gotta get out of here!" She spotted Derek and pushed Kylie behind her. "Stay away," her mom yelled.
Derek looked at Kylie as if he was unsure how to proceed.
"It's okay, Mom." Kylie's heart broke when she saw her mom's tearstreaked face. "This is Derek. He's a nice guy."
"I don't trust him," her mom said. "We can't trust anyone here. I just want us to leave. Now." Clutching Kylie's arm, she started moving toward the door, keeping herself between Derek and Kylie as if in protection. Unsure what to do, Kylie stopped moving. She couldn't let her mom walk outside. If her mom was freaking out with just Derek, she would surely lose it if she saw Jonathon and Burnett.
"Mom, Derek is a good guy. He's going to help us leave," she lied. "Aren't you, Derek?" Kylie looked at him.
"Yes ... Mrs. Galen. I'm going to help you and Kylie get away."
Her mom looked at Derek and back at Kylie. Panic shone in her eyes, but she didn't jump back when Derek took a step closer.
"Let me get the door," Derek said. He moved in and when he did, he reached out and touched her mom's arm.
Kylie hadn't known what to expect when a person's memory was erased, but when her mom's eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed in a dead heap on the floor, Kylie screamed.
Shaking, and still in mid-scream, she dropped down beside her mom to make sure she was still breathing.
"It's okay." Derek dropped beside Kylie and touched Kylie's elbow. "She's just unconscious. I promise, Kylie," he said, as if reading her fear.
Burnett appeared and scooped her mom up in his arms. "I'm putting her in her car. You come with me," he said to Kylie. "We'll need you there when she wakes up."
His gaze held Kylie's for a second. "It's all going to be okay," he told her. "Follow me. It's almost over now."
Burnett disappeared. Kylie took off, too. She wasn't anywhere near as fast as he was, but with luck, and considering he had her mother in his arms, he could bet she wouldn't be far behind him.
"Mom, you okay?" Kylie tapped on her mom's car window only five minutes later.
When her mother didn't instantly wake up, it took everything Kylie had not to yank open the door to see if she needed CPR. But Burnett's list of don'ts still echoed in her head.
Don't show panic, because she might pick up on it and it will make her even more nervous.
Don't try to explain too much; let her come up with her own conclusions of what happened.
Don't start crying for no reason.
And as he'd said that one, he'd pointed to Kylie's tears.
It was the "crying for no reason" part of number three that Kylie would have argued about if she hadn't been so damn worried about her mom.
Kylie tapped again on the window. "Mom?" She fought to keep her voice calm.
The way Kylie saw it, she deserved to go on a crying jag that lasted for a good two weeks. The emotional trauma she'd endured this last half hour would go down as one of the top worst half hours of her life. Even the fight at the wildlife preserve hadn't kicked her in the gut so hard.
She glanced down at her arms, expecting to see bruises and nail marks from where Selynn had grabbed her. Oddly enough, her skin was smooth and unmarked. Weird. Had she just acquired a new quick healing gift, too?
Her mom's eyes fluttered open and Kylie refocused on the situation before her. Her mom sat up and looked around, obviously startled. Kylie's first thought was that the erasure hadn't worked.
Then her mom turned her head and her confused eyes met Kylie's.
Kylie plastered a smile on her lips, hoping to appear as if everything in the world was just peachy. "When did you get here, Mom?"
Her mom's brow creased and she raised her wrist to see her watch and then opened the door. She turned and put her feet on the pavement, but didn't climb out of the car. "I..." She blinked. "I rushed over here from the airport." She ran a hand through her dark hair, which now had highlights of red running through it.
"You must have fallen asleep after you got here." Kylie bit her lip, realizing she'd broken one of Burnett's rules.
"Yeah." Her mom pressed a hand to her temple, a sure sign of the headache Holiday had said might come. "I was up all night at the airport hoping to get a flight on standby."
"You must be really tired," Kylie offered.
"Yeah. Gosh." She looked back at her watch and then stood from the car seat. "I hardly even remember arriving here. I must have parked and zonked out. Which is a good lesson for both of us. Don't drive while under the influence of exhaustion." Her mom reached over and gave Kylie a hug. "It feels so good to see you."
Damn it, if Kylie didn't feel herself breaking another rule. Tears filled her eyes and she hugged her mom really hard. Ahh, but her tears weren't just because of the last thirty minutes. No, they were because of Kylie's last sixteen years and the rarity of hugs from her mom. And because it brought to mind the hug she'd given her dad ... stepdad, before he'd left a few hours ago.
When her mom pulled back, she looked at Kylie. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Kylie batted at her tears. "It's just ... you don't hug me a whole lot."
"Something I guess we need to work on, huh?" her mom said, and touched her temple again.
"Yeah, we need to work on that," Kylie said. "But we're off to a good start." And they were. Kylie could feel it.
Her mom looked at her watch again. "I must have slept for an hour."
"You probably needed it," Kylie said, and started walking back through the gates.
"Yeah. I was going to call and let your camp leader know I was going to be here a little late. I remember what a big deal they made over visiting hours, but wouldn't you know it that my battery died in my phone. It's completely dead."
"Yeah. Luckily I walked by and saw your car and told Holiday you were here. But they are very strict about visiting hours." Please God, don't let me have to go through this again.
"Which I think is silly," her mom said. "It's like they are trying to hide something."
"Nope." Kylie lied through her teeth and almost felt bad doing it. "Not trying to hide anything." Except things like: people drinking blood, changing into any kind of creature imaginable like super-size bears or unicorns or wolves. Or girls who accidentally turn kittens into skunks. In other words, the usual stuff that happened at Shadow Falls.
"But they're still strict," Kylie said. "They say it's for our safety. Besides, you know, like you used to tell me. Rules are rules."
"I know and I'll try to follow the rules from now on."
Thank you, Jeezus! "Would you like to go sit in the dining hall?" Kylie asked.
"Or your cabin," her mom said.
"Sure." And then Kylie remembered Socks-her little skunk. "Uhh, I forgot that ... Della and Miranda invited a few girls over. The dining hall might work better."
"That's fine," her mom said. "Maybe I could grab something to drink so I could swallow a couple of aspirins. My head is pounding like I'm going to have an aneurysm."
An icy coldness suddenly settled around Kylie again. For a moment, she thought the ghost was back.
She looked at her mom. "Don't say that."
"Don't say what?" she asked.
"The aneurysm crap." It had been one of the many unsaid possibilities Kylie had considered happening with someone messing with your mind, and erasing your memories, and it still freaked her out.
Her mom smiled. "I'm just being a drama queen. I'm fine."
"Good," Kylie said. And when she looked at her mom, she recalled how frightened she'd been that she might never see her again. Another wash of emotion filled her chest. Kylie almost reached out to steal another hug. She didn't. Not just because it might make her mom suspicious, but because where her mom was concerned, she'd probably handed out her quota of hugs for the month.
Amazingly, thirty minutes later, they hadn't run out of things to talk about. Of course, they'd talked a good fifteen minutes about her mom's new makeover. All of which Kylie admitted liking. Sure, Kylie was still a little hesitant about the thought of her mom dating, but Kylie decided to cross that bridge when she came to it.
Then her mom noticed Kylie's "growth spurt."
"Tell me that's one of those Wonderbras making you look so big."
"'Fraid not," Kylie said. "I'm a growing girl."
That conversation led to her mom asking about Kylie's shopping trip.
But Kylie didn't want to talk about shopping, or anything that occurred during her recent trip downtown. So she told her mom that her dad had come to visit. They talked a good five minutes about him. Kylie hadn't given any details about the embarrassing scene she'd caused. She'd never even told her mom that she'd seen her dad in town.
She also opted out of telling her mom that her dad had broken up with his little girlfriend. For some reason, she didn't want to remind her mom about that.
"I'm glad you two talked," her mom said. "No matter what mistakes he's made recently, he is a good father."
"Yeah," Kylie agreed.
Then Kylie spent another five minutes telling her how much she loved camp and her interest in the cake decorating class, all prep work for getting a commitment from her mom about signing her up for the boarding school in the fall. Not that she planned to ask about it today. Face it, whether her mom remembered it or not, she'd had a pretty lousy day.
"Seriously, you really enjoy decorating cakes?" her mom asked. "I do, too. Do you remember that I took that class when you were younger and made you the Cinderella cake?"
"Yeah," Kylie said. "I loved it." Another big freaking lie. She'd been fourteen and embarrassed out of her mind when her mom had served a fairy-tale cake at her soccer meet, but hey, what did one more little white lie count compared to the others she'd told today?
Lies aside, this whole new direction in their relationship was really going well. So well, Kylie decided to chance asking for more info about her real dad.
Picking up her soda, Kylie twirled the can in her hand. "Mom, can you tell me a bit more about Daniel?"
Her mom's eyes widened. "Sure. I guess. But I think I pretty much covered everything the last time you asked."
"You hardly told me anything. Like ... where were his parents from?"
She smiled. "I remember him telling me that they were originally from Ireland."
"They're Irish?" Kylie asked, not sure it would help, but not sure it wouldn't. "When did they come to America?"
"I don't know."
"Was Daniel born in the States?"
"I'm guessing he was. He didn't have an accent."
"But you don't know for sure, right?" Her hope started to wane. If he was adopted in Ireland, wouldn't that make it almost impossible to trace him?
"I think he would have told me if he was born somewhere else."
Kylie nodded. "You said his parents were in Dallas, right?"
"Close to Dallas. You know, somewhere up there."
"Where?" Kylie couldn't believe she'd spent this last two weeks calling Dallas numbers only to learn they didn't even live there.
"I can't remember." Her mom studied Kylie. "You're not thinking of trying to find them, are you?"
Okay, decision time. Kylie had told the PI that she would eventually tell her mom about her quest. Maybe this was showtime. "Would it upset you if I was?" Kylie asked, not wanting to add any more stress to her mom's day.
Her mom frowned. "I ... I just ... We don't even know if they're still alive."
"They could be," Kylie said, and couldn't tell her mom that her real interest was in finding them so they might be able to lead her to Daniel's real parents. Soon, her mom might find that out, but one thing at a time.
Besides, she didn't have a clue as to how she could explain that she knew Daniel was adopted. Well, not a clue without going through the whole ghost thing, and that was totally a conversation she didn't want to have with her mom.
"Seriously, would you mind if I tried to find them?"
Her mom let go of a deep breath. "I don't mind, Kylie. I guess I'm just worried they will be very angry at me if you did. There have been so many times that I felt guilty for not letting them know about you." There was something in her mom's voice that drew Kylie's attention.
She suddenly realized if her mom felt guilty about not telling them, then she had to know where they were.
"Do you know where they are, Mom? Do you know how I could find them?"