“Yup.” Kylie looked around. Della followed her gaze and didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“We should go inside,” Kylie spouted, sounding leery. And right then, a bolt of lightning hit the ground a foot in front of the porch. The electrical current vibrated the air. The hair on Della’s arms stood up.
Wasting no time, Miranda bolted to her feet and shot through the cabin door. Della waited for Kylie to follow the witch. With her friends safe inside, Della took a step to do the same. Before she crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut with a loud crack that was followed by another ground-shaking bolt of lightning.
“Shit!” Kylie screamed from the other side of the door. “Della, are you okay?”
Della, feeling the icy fingers of cold fear, but too stubborn to admit it, turned back around and faced the storm and the ghost. “Who are you? Tell me, damn it!”
And just like that, darkness swallowed her. Her arms and legs went numb. Her heart stopped beating. She felt frozen.
The blackness faded and the back of her eyelids turned red. She forced her eyes open and saw it.
Saw her father when he was young, standing over her. Gripped in his right fist, he held a knife. Blood, thick and red, dripped from the blade and splattered on the wooden floor right beside where she lay.
Where she lay … not breathing.
Where she lay … dead.
Sensing a floating sensation, she left the body. She saw the bloody scene again from above. The person on the floor, resting in a pool of blood, wasn’t her. The Asian girl’s long, silky black hair lay fanned around her body; her eyes stood open, staring at nothing, but there was so much blood on her face it hid most of her features. Della saw only her eyes.
So still.
So sad.
But her dad was there.
He stood over the body, knife in hand, murder in his eyes.
No!
No!
No!
“Della? Della?”
She heard Kylie’s voice. Deep and dark, as if she was in protective mode. The sound of a door being forced open echoed in the distance. Then Della felt Kylie’s hands on her shoulders.
Della’s vision faded and the blonde chameleon, a shimmer of brightness surrounding her, appeared standing in front of her. Behind Kylie stood Miranda, tears and fear pooled in her green eyes.
“Are you okay?” Kylie asked.
Okay?
Hell no!
He had given her life. Loved her. Read Charlotte’s Web to her when she was a child. He taught her to play chess. Helped her with algebra.
He had killed his sister.
Her dad was a murderer.
No!
Everything in her wanted to deny it. But she’d seen it. How could she not believe?
No, she hadn’t seen it. There had been so much blood on the girl’s face, she didn’t know if it was really her aunt or someone else.
“I’m fine,” Della lied. She pulled away from Kylie and ran past Miranda.
Della entered her bedroom, turned, grabbed the doorknob, and glanced back at her best friends. Concern and worry filled their eyes, but Della couldn’t deal with it now.
“We need to talk,” Kylie said.
“No.” Not this time. She couldn’t say it. Didn’t want to think about it. “I just want to be left alone!” She slammed the door.
When she turned, she saw the book on the bed. The yearbook she’d gotten to help find her dad’s twin. It hadn’t been there when she walked out. How had…?
The ghost? Could she have…?
And just like that, her mind started connecting the dots.
One dot.
Two dots.
Three.
“I’m sorry.” Kylie’s voice came from behind her with the click of the door being opened. “I don’t care what you say, you don’t need to be alone. You had a vision, didn’t you? I know how they can make you feel.”
“We’re best friends.” Miranda’s voice echoed behind her. “We don’t slam doors on each other.”
Della swung around, hearing what they said, but lost in her own thoughts. “They’re twins. It might not have been him.”
“What?” Kylie and Miranda asked at the same time.
“My uncle wasn’t dead then. He was just vampire. So it could have been him, my father’s twin, who I saw standing over her.”
“What could have been your uncle?” Kylie came closer. Her blue eyes filled with compassion.
“I was dead. I don’t know who I was. I could have been my aunt. And my uncle could have killed her.”
“Your aunt?” Kylie said. “So Miranda was right, and your aunt is the ghost?”
Della shook her head. “I don’t know. She had so much blood on her face.”
“I’m sure I was right,” Miranda said. “Who else could it be?”
“I said I don’t know for sure!” Della snapped.
Kylie stood there as if thinking. “Did she tell you how she and Natasha are connected?”
“No.” Della fought the sting in her sinuses. “I saw her dead. I saw a man who looked just like my father standing over her with bloody knife.”
“And you think it was your uncle?”
“It has to be,” Della said. “It has to be.”
* * *
Della spent the rest of the night doing more tossing and turning than sleeping. Not that it surprised her. The vision had been just as mind reeling as her first FRU visit, when she’d seen two dead bodies. She’d get to sleep and be jarred awake by the image of her father—no, her uncle—holding the bloody knife.
It had to be her uncle. Believing that made it almost acceptable. Forget that she’d had grand hopes of finding said uncle. She’d give up having a family member who was vampire, who understood her and loved her. She’d toss all that away before she would believe her father could kill.
Della rolled over again. From her window she could see a sliver of sky slowly growing pink with the rising sun. A new day. A better day, she hoped. By the time that light had gotten one shade brighter, she heard the footfalls.
Footfalls walking toward her cabin … her window. Only one person visited her window on a regular basis. One person who said he didn’t want to say good-bye in person and who’d texted a sad face.
Since the vision last night, she’d put all the hurt of Steve leaving in a tight pocket and buried it in her heart. But that sound. Those familiar footsteps—both the pain and pleasure of everything Steve was in her life danced on her heart.
Before Della could decide whether to run and hide or let him come inside and give him an ass whooping, his sad face appeared at her window. She stood up and gripped her hands at her sides. She wanted to scream, to laugh, and to cry all at once.
He pushed open the window and leapt in as if he belonged here. Belonged in her bedroom and in her life.
And damn it, no damn him, because she wasn’t sure that he didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-one
Steve took a step toward her. Della took one step back. Behind him, the rising sun had turned the sky purple. “You said—”
“I couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t leave?” She held her breath, didn’t blink, even her heart stopped beating as she waited and hoped he’d say she was right. But then what? a voice inside her said. What about Chase?
“No, I couldn’t go without saying good-bye. But leaving is going to be hell.”
He moved forward and slipped his warm hands around her waist. Slowly, he pulled her against him and she didn’t resist. Couldn’t. The thought of kicking his ass was yesterday’s news.
He didn’t kiss her, just held her. Her head came to rest on that special spot on his chest. The one she claimed belonged to her. His smell, a tangy, earthy scent mixed with the aroma of fresh wind, filled her senses.
She breathed it in greedily. Tears formed in her eyes.
When he pulled back, even his eyes were misty. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, I will never regret what we were. What we had. And if I lose you, you will always be the one who got away that I’ll never forget.”
He stopped and looked up at the ceiling for one second. Two. Three.
He inhaled and his breath sounded shaky. Or was that hers?
“Promise me,” he said, looking back at her. “Promise me that you won’t do something stupid and get yourself killed. Promise me that you’ll stop letting your parents’ ignorance hurt you so much. You don’t deserve that. Promise me that before you fall in love with Chase, you’ll remember that I loved you first.”
That’s when the need to whip his ass came back!
She hit his chest with her palm. He stumbled back, but remained standing. “Why did you make me care about you when you knew you were leaving? You could have just left me alone! I wouldn’t be hurting now! Why?”
He grabbed her and kissed her then. His lips tasted warm, tasted like Steve—so sweet, but oddly salty. Perhaps from her tears, and maybe even his. Before she knew it, way before she wanted it, the kiss ended. She opened her eyes. He was gone. She saw several tiny bubbles floating in the air. Then she spotted the bird, a peregrine falcon perched on her windowsill.
Looking almost regal, the bird bowed his head at her then leapt up and flew away. With him, he took a part of her heart. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever get that part back.
* * *
Della heard Miranda and Kylie leave in time for the morning meal. Della skipped breakfast and the campmate hour. She managed to pull herself together enough to go to her first-period class. Math.
From there she went to science. The class was halfway over, and Haden Yates, Jenny’s brother, was up discussing sound waves. It might have been interesting if she gave a shit.
She didn’t.
Not while she was still reeling over last night’s vision. Reeling over the mere possibility that her father, and if not him, her uncle, was a killer. Over the fact that another day had passed and she wasn’t any closer to finding Natasha. Add that a part of her heart was halfway over the ocean heading to France, and was it any wonder that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about sound waves?
Someone in the back of the room chuckled. Della looked back and right then she realized something wasn’t right. She turned her head around to make sure she wasn’t mistaken.
Nope. No mistake. She’d been so busy wallowing in self-pity that she hadn’t realized Kylie and Miranda were missing. Damn.
What kind of friend was she? Especially considering Miranda was in the same sinking boat as Della. Well, she didn’t have her dead aunt haunting her ass, but at least romantically the girl’s heart had been yanked out of her chest.
Della shot up out of her seat to leave, only to remember that one didn’t just leave class and discussions on sound waves.
“Della?” Mr. Yates said.
She looked at him. She started to explain she needed to go find her friends, but that didn’t sound like a good enough excuse to leave class. And lately, Mr. Yates had been complaining about absences—even when they were approved by Burnett.
“Uh … I need to be excused.”
“Because…?”
“Personal reasons,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t argue, and if he did, he wasn’t going to like her alternative get-out-of-class answer. But she wasn’t above using it—even if it was a lie.
“What kind of personal reasons?” he asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
Well, damn, she’d tried to spare him. She put her hand on her hip and met his unhappy gaze.
“I just started my period and it’s about to get messy. Of course, you wouldn’t understand that.”
Mr. Yates’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t excuse her from class so she continued.
“I mean, I know guys don’t understand the whole period thing.”
Red color climbed up his neck to his face and almost looked cartoonish, but he still didn’t excuse her.
“But seriously, if your penises bled once a month—”
“Go!” he almost yelled, and she barely heard it over the laughter from the other students.
“Thank you.” She shot out of the classroom and didn’t slow down until she stopped at her cabin.
She could hear Miranda and Kylie inside. Miranda’s broken voice echoed the loudest.
Feeling terrible about abandoning them when they’d been there so much for her these last few months, she stormed inside. They sat at the kitchen table. Miranda had a pint-size carton of Chunky Monkey ice cream in her hands, and three empty cartons sat on the table. And they looked licked clean.
Kylie stared at Della as if she didn’t know what to do with the witch. Not that Della had any great ideas.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know we were having an ice cream party.” Della stopped at the table.
Miranda let go of another sob and shoveled another big scoop of banana ice cream into her mouth. “He haaaasn’t even called,” she whimpered around the sweet goo in her mouth.
Della exhaled and reached deep for patience. “He’s only halfway there. Once you get up to around twenty thousand feet, it’s kind of hard to find a cell tower.”
“I gave him a special phone.” She hiccupped. “It doesn’t need a cell tower.”
“All cell phones need … Oh, you mean a magic one?”
Miranda nodded and let out another sob.
“Cool,” Della said.
“Not cool when he’s not calling … me. Why hasn’t he … called me?”
Kylie frowned at Della as if saying she didn’t know what to say.