Her mom blushed. "I'm an adult and I'm capable of making that kind of decision. You're young and..." Her eyes widened. "You aren't ... you haven't...?"
"No, Mom. I haven't," Kylie said. "But I will someday, and I don't want you to have an aneurism when you find out."
Her mom looked horrified. "I won't. As long as you're thirty."
Kylie rolled her eyes. "Mom."
"Okay, twenty-nine." She paused. "You know, it hurts to see you grow up."
"I know; it hurts to see you grow up, too."
Her mom's brow wrinkled with confusion. "What?"
"I could say it hurt to know you're having sex, but I thought you'd prefer the euphemism."
Her mom chuckled at the same time a cold entered the room, a familiar cold. Daniel? A quick glance around the room told her he couldn't manifest. But she knew he'd tried.
Her mom smiled. Then she reached over and hugged her. "I swear, sometimes when I'm with you, I can almost feel your father here."
"Me too," Kylie said, and wondered how much her mom could really feel.
The chill in the room grew colder, but oddly it came with a hint of anger and frustration. Had her dad overheard the conversation and was making his opinion known about the whole sex-with-John issue?
I know, Dad, Kylie spoke in her head. I don't like him, either.
* * *
Even before her mom and John pulled out of the parking lot, Holiday and Burnett had Kylie by her elbows. "Let's talk," Holiday said.
Kylie gazed back at the dining hall. "Shouldn't ya'll be in there?"
"First things first," Holiday said as Burnett led them to the office.
"How the hell did you disappear like that?" Leave it to Burnett to cut to the chase.
"I don't know." Kylie walked into the office. "I wished I could vanish like a ghost when I saw my mom and John kissing, and then ... I did."
"You wished yourself invisible?" Holiday asked.
"I guess," Kylie said.
"Then how did you come back?" Burnett closed the door.
"I un-wished it." Knowing how crazy it sounded, she glanced at Holiday and dropped down on Holiday's sofa. "Sort of like how you tried to teach me to shut off a ghost."
"Visualization." Holiday arched her brows as if impressed.
Not that Kylie shared her viewpoint. "It was scarier than hell. I remembered what my dad said about us working things out together and I thought I was dead." She paused. "How am I going to stop it from happening again?"
Holiday looked at Burnett as if expecting some wisdom from him.
"What?" He held up his arms in defeat. "I ain't got shit. I'm just now learning to deal with ghosts."
Holiday rolled her eyes. "You read the reports at the FRU. Did it say anything, or lead you to assume anything, about a chameleon's gifts?"
"No. The only thing it stated was some of the case studies considered themselves chameleons." He frowned. "There could have been more in the other reports, but they conveniently disappeared."
Right then, Kylie couldn't help but remember her grandfather's warning about the FRU.
"We need to read the other files," Holiday said. Her eyes stayed on Burnett. "How can we do that?"
Kylie closed her eyes. She didn't know what they were going to do, but she knew what she was doing. First, she was going to find a way to get back in touch with her grandfather, and then ...
A wash of pain spilled over her. Could her grandfather be right? Did she have to leave Shadow Falls and go with him in order to get the information she needed?
* * *
After a few minutes of both Burnett and Holiday trying to come up with a solution, they finally concluded that Kylie should be careful about what she wished for.
Right! As if she hadn't come up with that one by herself.
Burnett's phone rang. He answered the call. "Yeah," he said. "How long has she been missing?" Both Holiday and Kylie tried to pretend they weren't listening, but how could they not when the call was obviously about Cindy, the waitress at the diner, the once-smiling young woman in her driver's license who was now in the grave with Holiday's sister?
"Okay," Burnett said. "Get me the file. Did you get anything back on the other matter?" Burnett's eyes shifted to Kylie, telling her that the "other matter" involved her, as well.
Burnett listened and suddenly that's when it hit Kylie. She couldn't hear the conversation on the line. What happen to her ... "Hey," Kylie screeched at Holiday. "Am I still vampire?"
Holiday tightened her brows. Shock filled her eyes. "No."
"What am I now?" Kylie asked.
"Welcome to my world," Holiday said.
"I'm fae?" Oh, great. More "Kylie's a freak" moments from the other campers were predicted to arrive soon. As if the parental chaos wasn't enough to get them talking about her.
Her aunt's words echoed in her mind. The few who did not hide were viewed as outcasts, freaks, and not belonging to any one kind.
Holiday nodded and smiled a smile that came with a lot of empathy. And Kylie not only saw it, but felt it.
Burnett must have heard the conversation, because as soon as he pulled the phone from his ear, he stared at her forehead and said, "Damn."
"What did you learn?" Holiday asked, as if sensing Kylie didn't want to discuss her ever-evolving brain pattern.
"Cindy Shaffer disappeared about six months ago."
"So after Hannah disappeared," Holiday said.
"Do we know for sure that Hannah didn't just leave for a while and then..." He paused and sympathy flowed out of him in waves.
"And then was killed," Holiday said, and the words no more left her lips than the grief floated off her and filled Kylie's chest. Kylie had always been empathetic to others, but this was so much more intense.
Not a cakewalk, Kylie thought. Being fae would take some getting used to, but at least she could go back to eating food again. Then she thought about Derek and how he'd said her emotions had felt supersized. That must have been so hard on him.
Burnett moved in. "The police are investigating her disappearance. They have a suspect-old boyfriend-but they couldn't prove anything. I'll go over their files, but considering what we know, I don't think this is tied to her personally."
"What else did you learn?" Kylie asked, remembering Burnett's glance at her during the call.
"I had another check done on Hayden Yates."
"And?" Kylie asked, but even before he spoke she felt his discontent at having to tell her.