"You can see the dead?" Del a stepped back from the bed. "Oh, hel . I do not want to room with someone who has ghosts hanging around. That's too freaky."
Even Miranda popped up off the foot of the bed. Kylie stared at them, completely befuddled. "You're joking right? You two are scared of me?
You're a witch." She pointed at Miranda. "And you're a vampire." She wagged her finger at Del a. "And ya'l are cal ing me"-she poked herself in the chest-"freaky?"
Miranda and Del a exchanged a look, but neither girl denied what Kylie had just said.
"Fine, forget it then," Kylie said, hurt by their attitude. "But just for the record, I don't talk to them." Then she realized that both girls were looking at her the same way she'd been looking at them al day. The bitterness of tasting her own medicine had Kylie turning things over in her mind.
"So they just hang around you?" Del a started eyebal ing the room. "Please tel me there's not any here right now."
"There's not," Kylie snapped, but her anger wasn't directed at her, just the situation. Because dad-blast it, if she'd heard someone could see ghosts, she'd probably be afraid of them, too.
"Good." Miranda reclaimed her spot at the foot of the bed.
Del a continued to glance around. "Nope. Too weird. I don't want to room with you."
"I'm not any weirder than you are." Kylie stared at the vampire and for some reason wanted Del a to accept her.
"She has a point," Miranda said to Del a. "We're probably pretty scary to her, too. I say, let's try to make this work. You know, be buds."
Del a let out a deep breath. "Okay, but you'l tel us when you see a ghost hanging around?"
Kylie nodded, but quickly realized how hard that request was going to be to keep, because the familiar icy feeling of a ghostly presence hit right then. The saving grace was that she didn't "see" the ghost. Not that she looked hard, but who could blame her not wanting to clash gazes with a dead person?
* * *
Kylie hadn't thought she could eat, but when the warm, spicy scent of pizza hit her nose, she realized how little she'd eaten al day. She'd managed to down one slice of thin pepperoni and cheese and eat half her salad before she started feeling self-conscious from the occasional twitching stares. Some of the campers were stil trying to figure her out. Wel , good luck with that. She took another bite of salad and hoped that if they managed to do it, they'd let her in on the secret.
As Kylie moved her gaze around the room, she found Derek sitting at another table. There was a red-haired girl sitting next to him, and from her body language she found Derek more interesting than her pizza. The girl leaned so close to Derek that her left breast brushed against his arm and from the way Derek leaned into the girl, Kylie figured he enjoyed the girl's attention.
The tiniest bit of jealousy echoed in her chest, but Kylie pushed it back. It was just because he looked like Trey. Biting down on her lip and her emotions, she knew she'd have to be careful where Derek was concerned. It would be easy to confuse her feelings for him. Right then the half-fairy looked over his shoulder at her. Their gazes met and held. The flutter, the good one, started happening again in the pit of her stomach.
"I think he likes you," Miranda whispered.
Realizing she and Derek had drawn attention, she glanced away. "He's probably just curious about me like everyone else," she whispered back.
"Nope. He's hot for you," Del a said, reminding Kylie of the supernatural hearing of some of the campers. "When he was sitting by you at lunch, he oozed so much testosterone that it was hard to breathe. He wants your body," Del a teased.
"Wel , he's not getting it," Kylie said.
"So you don't like him?" Miranda asked, sounding thril ed.
"Not like that, I don't." It felt like a lie, but she ignored it, because she knew any feeling she might have stemmed from his looking like Trey. She had enough stuff going on in her life right now. She sure as heck didn't need to start fal ing face-first into another relationship, especial y one based on a lie. Derek wasn't Trey.
And Trey wanted her back. Or at least he'd insinuated that on the phone earlier. With al the other stuff she'd been zapped with today, she hadn't had time to consider how his confession made her feel. Happy? Sad? Angry? Maybe a little of al three?
Trying to prevent emotional overload, Kylie reached for her glass of diet soda and watched Del a pul the pepperoni off the pizza and pop it in her mouth. The very tips of her sharp canines caught Kylie's attention and her thoughts skipped past Trey issues and landed on living-with-a-vampire issues.
As another piece of pepperoni disappeared down Del a's throat, Kylie realized that the girl was eating. From the fictional books she'd read, she'd assumed vampires didn't eat. They only drank ... Kylie's gaze slammed against Del a's glass fil ed with some red, thick liquid.
"Oh crap." Kylie's stomach heaved, and she placed a hand over her mouth.
"What?" Del a asked.
"Is that ... blood?" she muttered, and looked around the dining hal , noticing the glasses fil ed with the red substance that were occupying the tables in the room.
Miranda leaned in. "It's gross, isn't it?"
"Hanging out with toads is gross." Del a's voice came edged with anger.
"I don't hang out with toads," Miranda snapped, her hazel eyes grew bright with what appeared to be embarrassment. "I put a spel on this guy. He deserved it, of course, but now I can't seem to reverse it so whenever he misbehaves, he automatical y turns into a toad and pops in to see me."
Desperation echoed in Miranda's voice, but Kylie barely paid it any heed. For some reason the fact that Miranda could turn people into toads didn't bother Kylie near as much as the fact that Del a was drinking blood. But holy hel . What kind of blood was it?
Del a looked at Kylie and read her disgust. "Seeing dead people is gross, too. This"-she picked up her glass and took a big gulp-"is not gross."
When Del a pul ed the glass away, a couple of red drops beaded right below her bottom lip. Del a's pink tongue shot out and caught the droplets. Kylie's stomach knotted and the pizza, now a lump in the bottom of her gut, wanted to find its way up.
"Of course"-Del a's smile came off wicked-"you guys wil find that out when you have to try it."