Why are you leaving if you love him? The question flowed through Kylie's mind, but the vision continued, leaving the question hanging in the air unanswered.
With tears now streaming down her face, she walked out of the small house. A car, with its headlights off, pulled up to the curb. She got inside. Kylie wanted to see who was driving, but Jane was too busy crying, too busy trying to deal with a broken heart, to care about the driver.
"You're doing the best thing," a woman's voice said as the car pulled away. "He wouldn't understand."
The vision went black. Kylie tried to wake up but got pulled back in.
And not to a good place, either.
There was light now, but she didn't care. She was in too much pain. Something was ripping her insides apart. It reminded Kylie of the worst menstrual cramp she'd ever had. Her body contorted with pain. Her back arched and she screamed.
"It's not coming," someone said. The pain in her abdomen eased and she became aware of the emotional pain in her chest again.
"Don't let my baby die." She raised up on her elbow.
The man standing between her opened knees met Jane Doe's eyes. "I'd have to take it by C-section."
"Then do it!" Jane screamed.
"I'm not prepared for that. I don't have any anesthesia."
"I don't care," Jane said. "Don't let my baby die. I can take it. It's not like I'm human."
The man looked at the woman sitting beside him. "Get me a knife."
Chapter Thirty-three
No! Kylie screamed in her head, even as Jane Doe dropped back on the bed and resigned herself to being cut open with nothing to dull the pain.
"Kylie? Wake up!"
Kylie felt someone shake her. Still screaming, she opened her eyes and saw Della and Miranda standing over her. She managed to stop screaming but couldn't stop shaking.
"Should we get Holiday?" Miranda asked, looking worried.
Kylie shook her head no. "I'm okay." She rolled over and dried her tears on the blanket. "Go back to sleep," she muttered. Her heart still carried the panic from the vision, and she could feel the cold. Jane was here.
Della and Miranda looked at each other as if unsure what to do next.
"Go," she repeated.
As soon as they left, Kylie sat up. Jane sat on the edge of the bed. Her abdomen gaped open and blood spilled onto the tops of her bare thighs. "I didn't kill my baby. I loved him."
"I know. I saw." Kylie hated to ask, but finding answers was why Jane had come to her. "Did the baby die? Is that what happened? Did your baby die during childbirth?"
Jane looked at Kylie again. "No." She smiled, and instantly the blood on her hands disappeared and she was dressed in a pretty sundress with big yellow sunflowers. "He lived. My baby lived. I made sure he was okay. And then I went back home."
"Where was home?" Kylie asked. "Home to who?"
She blinked and then looked up. "I don't know. I can't remember."
"I'm a little confused," Kylie said. "Did you die during the birth?"
"No, I already showed you how I died. They killed me." And then she faded.
It took Kylie forever to fall back to sleep, and when she did, another dream had her in its trap. Immediately, she recognized what was going on. She hadn't moved into the dream, someone had come into hers.
She waited just a fraction of a second to make sure it wasn't Derek, then she saw him. Red. He stood by the lake.
"I'm not trying to fool you this time," he said.
"Leave me alone!" she snapped.
"I need to tell you..."
Kylie woke up in a panic in her bed. Red was gone. "Don't come back!" she said, and hugged herself, proud of how quickly she'd woken herself up.
* * *
The next four or five days at Shadow Falls were all about getting the camp ready to become a full-blown school, and that was fine with Kylie. Holiday was busy interviewing a few more potential teachers while a construction group-all paranormals-built a few large classroom cabins. Another all-paranormal crew put heating units into the cabins.
Kylie was still being shadowed. Because nothing else had happened, she'd started to feel guilty about piling on to everyone's busy schedules. On Friday morning, she took off to Burnett's office to suggest he call a halt to the shadowing. He disagreed.
"If anything, this is the time to be more careful," he insisted.
"Why?" Kylie asked.
He frowned. "For starters, how about because this place is a revolving door right now? I don't like strangers being here."
Kylie felt a shiver run down her spine. "You think someone working here could really be working with Mario?"
If so, that might explain Miranda's growing feeling that someone was lurking around their cabin. She'd started putting protective spells on their cabin every day now and had even gone to Holiday and Burnett with her concerns. Concerns they'd listened to but didn't feel held a huge threat. Or at least Kylie had assumed until now.
Burnett, all two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle, leaned back in his office chair. "I've checked everyone's credentials a dozen times." He reached for a heart-shaped stress ball with the words Donate Blood and squeezed it. "Maybe Holiday's right, and I'm being overly cautious, but I'm not taking chances."
Burnett turned his head to the side as if listening to something from outside the cabin. He frowned. "Another were is at it again. I'll be so friggin' glad when tomorrow's full moon is past. Excuse me." He shot out of the room.
Kylie ran out of the cabin after him, afraid Lucas was involved in whatever was happening. While normally she wouldn't consider Lucas getting into trouble, these last few days, he'd been extra tense. Last night when he'd come by her cabin to say good night, he'd barely kissed her.
When she'd asked if something was wrong, he'd reminded her that the closer he got to the full moon, the more he turned to his instinct instead of logic. Then he'd reached out and passed a single finger over her lips. "You are temptation in its purest form, Kylie Galen."
There was a part of Kylie that wanted to give in to that temptation, but another part of her still resisted. And as much as she wished it weren't true, she knew her reason for holding back had to do with Lucas's grandmother.