"Oh, screw this!" Kylie said. "I'm not leaving the camp. I'll be fine."
Della frowned. "You're not leaving the cabin unless I come with you." Her right hand landed on her right hip as if to punctuate her tone.
Kylie inhaled and tried to calm down before this got ugly. "Look, I want to go talk to Derek, okay? And I'm sorry, but I don't want you with me. This is private."
Della's pissed-off expression vanished into something that looked almost like empathy, and she glanced at Miranda. "You still think keeping this from her is the best thing?"
"Oh hell." Miranda plopped down on the sofa. "Maybe you're right. But don't just tell her, show her."
Kylie looked back at Miranda and instantly recalled her friends acting all secretive right before Burnett had charged into the cabin. "Keep what from me? Show me what?"
Della snatched her phone from her jeans pocket and started keying in something. "I got it from Chan. I wanted to tell you right away, but Miranda said with you being kidnapped and all that you had enough on your plate."
"Got what?" Kylie leaned down almost nose to nose with the vamp. Her patience had been stretched to the max.
"Jeez." Della lunged back. "Patience. You're acting like it's a full moon again." She studied Kylie. "It's not, is it?" Then Della looked back at Miranda, who was still stretched out on the sofa. "Is it time for the wolves to have PMS yet?"
Kylie considered the question, almost afraid Della might be right. Was the moon cycle making her feel out of sorts, or was it everything that had happened the last few days?
"No." Miranda popped up and moved in. "We got another week before we have to deal with lunar PMS."
Kylie frowned. She hadn't morphed into a wolf the last full moon, but it appeared she'd experienced the typical mood swings that affected weres right before their shift. And obviously her two roommates still considered it a possibility that she might wind up being a werewolf. Not that Kylie thought the consideration didn't have merit. At this point, she could turn out to be just about anything.
"Somebody better start talking," Kylie said. "And fast."
"Good Lord!" Della snapped back. "I'm trying to find it. Here it is." She looked up. "You see, my cousin Chan sent me a couple of images and asked if this was one of our campers. You know he lives with that vampire commune in Pennsylvania, right?"
She held out the phone and Kylie looked at the image. "That's Derek." A few seconds passed. "What was Derek doing in Pennsylvania?" Then again, she didn't know where the FRU had sent him or where the half-fae had gone looking for his dad.
"I have a better question." Della pulled back the phone, hit another button, and then held it back out for Kylie to see. "What's Derek doing sucking face with a vampire in Pennsylvania?"
Kylie's heart jolted when she saw Derek lip-locked with a dark-haired girl. And it wasn't just their lips that were locked. The girl's legs were wrapped around his waist, while Derek's hands-obviously holding the brunette up and close-were placed on her cute little jeans-covered butt.
An ache settled in Kylie's chest. "Who ... how ... what?"
"I asked the who question," Della said. "Her name is Ellie Mason and she was new to their vampire commune. Chan said someone mentioned Derek was from Shadow Falls and he just wanted to see if his source was telling the truth."
Ellie? Kylie recalled Derek telling her he'd dated a vampire named Ellie. She also recalled he'd told her that he'd given Ellie blood. Odd how she hadn't even known she'd remembered it, but now it seemed carved into her memory bank. "Ellie." The word leaving her lips caused a sharp and painful yank on her heartstrings. The heartstrings must be connected to her emotions, because about a dozen different ones started flapping around her chest like wild birds going after a swarm of moths. Anger, jealousy, betrayal, distrust ... the list went on.
"I need this." She took Della's phone and tried to push Della out of the way. Not that her effort got her anywhere. Della stood cemented in place.
"Sorry. I still can't let you go alone," Della said. "Seriously, I'm your shadow."
"Fine, come. Just don't get in my way! And stay back. Way back. I need to talk to him alone." Tears prickled Kylie's eyes.
Tears of jealousy, betrayal, and frustration.
Tears of knowing that she had no right to feel any of those emotions. She wouldn't let herself cry. But she still felt those tears. Felt them as she swallowed them down her throat and they burned her chest.
* * *
Phone gripped tight, Kylie took off through the woods toward Derek's cabin, hoping that he was there. She didn't have a clue what she'd say when she saw him. She didn't want to think; she just wanted to get there. She leapt over thornbushes, ducked under low-hanging branches, and made darn good speed. Della's footfalls sounded behind her, staying close-her friend took her job as shadow seriously.
Too seriously.
The thud of Kylie's feet hitting the earth echoed, and the smell of rain hung in the air. A summer storm brewed somewhere in the distance. But not too far, because thunder rumbled overhead.
Silence followed one particularly big boom. A flash of lightning sent sprays of sizzling silver light dancing through the leaves to the moist earth. Kylie kept running, kept hurting. She could feel the storm, the energy, the power of it, in the air. More thunder followed.
Suddenly, a loud rustle sounded off to her right, and a large deer-a buck with antlers big enough to decorate a hunter's wall-darted out and jolted to a stop in the middle of her path. Shocked, she came to an abrupt stop, too. A few more inches and she might have impaled herself on the beast's antlers. She hadn't caught her breath when a bolt of lightning shot down and struck the trunk of an old tree buried only a foot past the buck. The light still sizzled when Kylie felt Della slam into her.
"What the hell?" Della said.
The buck reared his head back, the heavy antlers dropped forward almost in a threat, and then he shot off. But not before Kylie felt the beast's cold and somehow evil gaze.
The hair on the back of her neck rose. That calculating gaze meant something. Like the look the eagle gave her earlier. She pulled oxygen into her lungs and hoped it would clear her mind and she might realize she was wrong.