"I'm afraid so," Holiday answered. "You opened yourself up when-"
Kylie jumped up so fast that the wooden chair shot out from beneath her and hit the floor, filling the small office with a loud crack.
"Kylie, wait." Holiday's voice chased Kylie as she hurried out the door, but she didn't pay it any heed. Damn it. She had to figure out a way to decipher the ghost's message. Had to, because if not, someone she loved would die and Kylie couldn't live with herself if that happened. With her throat still tight with emotion, Kylie moved up the steps of her cabin right about the time the sun finally crawled out of the corner of the eastern sky. The golden spray of light hit her back and cast her elongated shadow on the porch. As she took the next step, the sun must have risen higher because her shadow seemed to dance on the porch planks. Dancing shadows reminded her of ... the falls.
Kylie's breath caught. She needed to go to the falls. As crazy as it seemed, it was as if something was telling her that she'd find the answers there. She let the idea sink into her tired brain. And like the sun against her back, the first glimmer of hope started to grow. Taking in a big gulp of air through her nose, she suddenly felt refreshed, energized.
She could do this. She just didn't want to do it alone. Her gaze returned to the cabin's front door. Why should she have to do it alone? She had friends. Ghost or no ghosts, they would help her if she asked.
Okay, sure, she'd asked them to go before and they'd turned her down flat, but this time was different. This time, she'd beg. They would do it, wouldn't they? There was only one way to find out.
She hurried through the front door, zipped past the ankle-chasing Socks, and yanked open Della's door. "I need you. Wake up." She watched Della raise her head and study her through sleepy, nocturnal eyes. Morning just wasn't Della's best time.
Next, Kylie rushed over to Miranda's door and slung it open. "Miranda. Wake up. I need you guys."
Miranda rose up on her elbow. Her eyes were puffy-crying puffy, as if she'd stayed awake half the night sobbing into her pillow-which, knowing Miranda, she probably had. Kylie's heart squeezed for her friend and she almost said, Never mind. But then Kylie batted back the desire to give in because she really wanted both Miranda and Della with her. And maybe Della was right-it was time Miranda stopped moping and started moving past the pain.
"Please," Kylie said before Miranda had a chance to whine.
Kylie went to the kitchen table to wait, but she felt too anxious to sit. So she paced around the kitchen, waiting for her two best friends to get up so she could commence her begging.
"This better be important," Della said, and stumbled into the kitchen and dropped down in a chair. "Do you know what time it is? It's not even six yet. This is when I get my best sleep."
Miranda stepped out of her bedroom only seconds later, wearing a Tshirt, shorts, and bunny slippers. Kylie stared at Miranda's slippers; the ears bounced with each step as the sleepy girl shuffled over to an empty chair. Once she settled in, she looked up. "What is it?" she muttered. "We're a team, right?" Kylie asked. "We're there for each other. Isn't that we've said?"
"Why is it that I think this is a setup?" Della dropped her head on the oak table, and her forehead thudded against the wood. If anyone else would have dropped her head that hard, it probably would have knocked her out, or at least left a goose egg of a knot. But not a vampire. "Just tell us what it is." Miranda folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on top of her wrist. Her multicolored hair feathered out onto the table.
Kylie glanced from Miranda to Della, still facedown on the table, and her heart picked up a notch. If they said no, it was going to sting. Della must have heard the thumping of Kylie's heart, because she raised her head and stared. "Spill it, ghost girl. How bad could it be?"
Swallowing, Kylie did it. Just spilled it. "I need you both to come with me to the falls. I just want-"
"Oh, hell no," Della said.
"Not happening," added Miranda at the same time, and sat up.
"But I have to go," Kylie said.
"Then go." Della waved her hand toward the door.
Kylie swallowed the knot down her throat. "I don't want to go alone."
"So you want us to sacrifice ourselves, too," Della bit back.
"Nothing is going to happen," Kylie insisted.
"Then why do we have to go?" Miranda asked, a frown marring her lips.
"Nothing bad is going to happen." Kylie dropped into a chair, losing hope due to their attitude.
"Says who?" Della asked.
"Says me," Kylie answered. "I just ... I don't want to go alone." "Because you're scared," Della insisted. "And for a damn good reason. Don't you know what death angels do?"
Kylie hesitated. "They are the ones who stand judgment of supernaturals."
She repeated what she had heard, but truth was, she didn't completely understand death angels. How could she when no one really wanted to talk about them? Well, no one but Holiday, and most of what she would say was that she had never met one face-to-face.
"Yeah, they are the ones who stand judgment of us and sometimes they dish out the punishment, too," Miranda said. "I knew a girl, Becca.
She was ... toying around with spells on people who pissed her off. People who really didn't deserve it. So maybe she was being bad, but damn, her spells were more an annoyance than anything else. Then two days later, she walked outside and her clothes caught fire. Poof, just like that, she went up in smoke. She's disfigured now, scarred like crazy, and everyone says it was the death angels teaching her a lesson."
"Or maybe it was someone she'd cast a spell on getting even with her," Kylie said.
"They were all questioned by the witches council. Proven innocent."
Kylie shook her head. "We don't even know if death angels really exist. Chances are, they are just powerful ghosts," Kylie said, repeating another thing Holiday had said. If Della and Miranda had heard even half of what Daniel had done by pulling her into his dreams, and pulling her out of her own body and into his so she could relive his death, well, they'd probably think he was a death angel.
Della leaned her chair back on two legs. "If you don't believe they exist, then why do you even want to go?"