She didn't like the sound of that. "Do you mean we can't see each other when it's time for your change?"
"I didn't say that." He frowned. "We can see each other. But we shouldn't ... dance in the moonlight for too long. Or roll around on the ground by the creek." He grinned. "Or go skinny-dipping at the swimming hole." His tone seemed to deepen.
"That was just a dream." She felt her face flush.
"A good one, too." He smiled. Then he breathed in as if to sober his thoughts. "But basically, we'll be fine as long as we don't play too close to the fire until after the change." He ran his hand through the curtain of her hair and brought a handful of it to his nose. "Unless you change your mind. You do know that what happens in dreams isn't really real, right? I mean, we could-"
Suddenly, she felt something yanking her from behind and pulling her away from Lucas. Pulling her to someplace she didn't want to go.
Lucas yelled out her name. But a cloud appeared between them. She realized that two men dressed in white lab coats had her in their grips. One on each arm, holding her so tightly that she couldn't get away. The camp had dissolved. Now she was in a building of some kind, and the two men pulled her down a dark, dismal hall. She screamed and tried to pull away, but she was helpless.
Her heart thumped in her chest, and she tasted fear on her tongue. Nothing made sense. Then she remembered-this was a dream. All she had to do was wake up.
She slammed her eyes shut. Tight. Then tighter.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Suddenly, a bright light shone in her eyes. Everything had changed again. The men who had dragged her away were gone. She felt disoriented, lost, alone. Empty. She felt empty. What was happening to her?
The light shifted from one eye to the other, and she saw a man's face inches from her nose. She realized she was lying in a bed. Not her bed, though. Not the twin one at camp or her full-size mattress at home. This bed felt different. She tried to move but felt numb. No, not numb-she felt paralyzed.
"Is she okay?" a female voice asked. Kylie cut her eyes to the side to see her new captor, but she was out of vision range, and Kylie was unable to turn her neck. Panic started to tighten her throat again.
"She should be," said the man, shining the flashlight into her eyes.
Kylie blinked and when she opened her eyes, she saw his pattern. He was vampire.
Then he turned her chin in his large hands and ran his finger over her head. Oddly enough, Kylie realized he touched her bare scalp. She was missing her hair.
Missing her hair?
She blinked again and remembered her ghost, Jane Doe. Was that what was happening? Was this a vision sent to her by the amnesiac ghost-one of those crazy ones where Kylie actually became the spirit? Fear swelled in her chest. She cut her eyes to the side and stared at the man's eyes until she saw her own reflection. Or saw the ghost's reflection.
It should have calmed her, but the panic built higher. She wanted out of here. She hadn't wanted to be here to start with. She'd already lost everything that mattered. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions collided in her chest and she wasn't sure which ones were her own and which ones belonged to her spirit.
"Wake up. Kylie, wake up!" Kylie could hear voices coming from somewhere far away. But then the voices faded and she felt the vampire's hand on her head again.
"She's healing nicely," he said. "Maybe she'll just take a while longer to come around. Let's do another MRI scan on her." The man stood up and twitched his brows at her. "Then again, it could be more. Her pattern still hasn't emerged." He frowned. "I don't understand that. Something isn't right."
"What do I tell her husband? He woke up several hours ago and is asking for her," the female voice said. Kylie had yet to see the owner of that voice.
Help me! Kylie screamed in her head, because she couldn't make her throat work.
"Tell him she's doing fine. But we're keeping her for observation. Release him if he's ready to go."
"Do you think she's going to live?" asked the woman again.
"I don't know." He slipped his flashlight into his coat pocket. "But I guess it's inevitable that we will lose a few subjects. We just have to remember it's for a good cause."
"I guess," said the female voice.
"Get me the results of the test. However, if she hasn't awakened by tonight, go ahead and extinguish her."
Extinguish her?
Kylie's fear ratcheted up a notch.
Noooooooooooo!
Chapter Eighteen
"Damn it! She's not breathing!" a familiar male voice boomed in Kylie's ears, and she wanted more than anything to answer him. She tried to move but couldn't. She still felt paralyzed.
Help me. Please ...
"She did this once before." That was Della talking now, but panic filled her voice. Della never showed panic or fear. To the contrary, the vampire was fearless.
"Kylie, wake up!" the deep male voice said, and this time Kylie recognized it as belonging to Lucas.
Suddenly, Kylie's lungs opened up and demanded air. She opened her mouth and gasped and started coughing as if her lungs wanted to reject the oxygen. Rolling over on her side, she continued to cough, certain she was going to blow a lung. Finally, she opened her eyes and realized she was on the kitchen floor in her cabin.
After a few more seconds passed, the coughing stopped and she focused on breathing. Someone grabbed her and pulled her up into their lap and held her. Heat surrounded her. He was hot. So hot. And she was cold. So damn cold.
She focused on the face of the person cradling her so tenderly. So close. So warm. And his eyes were so blue. Lucas.
Then his face faded and she saw a strange woman's face moving close. The feel of Lucas's arms around her seemed like a memory that time was pulling away a little bit each moment.
"She stopped breathing again!" Lucas shouted, and he started rocking her. "What do I do? Someone tell me what to do!"
"Holiday says she'll be okay."
Kylie recognized Burnett's voice, but it seemed to be coming from somewhere else, from someplace far, far away.
"Holiday thinks she's probably having a vision. That sometime..." His voice faded into the background.
The vision yanked Kylie back completely, and she watched in horror as a group of women brought something up to her face. Only it wasn't her. She was experiencing Jane Doe's life, but it felt as real as if it were happening to her.