Wait, Kylie thought. If she was dead, wouldn't she be on the floor in a crumpled, lifeless heap?
"Oh, crap!" Kylie muttered when her mom, a dumbfounded look on her face, walked up to Holiday.
"Where's Kylie?" her mom asked.
"She ran to ... to the bathroom, I think, but ... I'm not sure." Holiday's voice sounded an octave too high.
Burnett stopped at her mom's side, his serious gaze trying to read Holiday. "Something wrong?" His calm front almost sounded convincing, but Kylie saw the stress tightening his jawline.
"Uh, Kylie ... she ... disappeared. I thought maybe you could find her."
Disappeared? So, she'd just disappeared. She wasn't dead.
"Disappeared?" All sorts of questions filled his eyes.
Holiday nodded and didn't break eye contact as if mentally telling him it was serious.
And hell yeah, it was serious. She was freakin' invisible.
"It's crazy." Her mom sounded confused. "She was here and then ... she vanished."
Vanished? Kylie suddenly remembered wishing she could vanish. Vanish like a ghost.
Damn! Damn! Damn! If there was ever a lesson in the old adage of be careful for what you wish for, this was it.
Questions flashed across her mind. Was she still a vampire? Had she turned back into a witch and accidentally wiggled her pinky when she made the declaration? Or was this completely connected to her being a chameleon? That's when she recalled that her great-aunt and grandfather had gone poof, both from the car the first day they'd shown up at Shadow Falls, and at the cemetery. Was poof the same thing as vanishing?
Her grandfather's words echoed in her head. Come with us. We'll help you understand everything. You need to learn who and what you are.
More than ever, and maybe not even for the first time, Kylie wondered if he was right.
"You've lost her daughter?" John snapped. "What kind of place loses kids?"
"We haven't lost her," Holiday said, but Kylie saw fresh panic flash in her eyes. "I'm sure she'll show up any minute."
Her mom seemed to relax, but Kylie didn't get a warm fuzzy feeling from Holiday's tone. And when Kylie listened closely, she heard the camp leader's heart beating to the tune of a lie.
Crap! Crap! Crap! Kylie tried to think. She had to get herself out of this because ... well, apparently she'd gotten herself into it.
"I can do this," she said, needing a little encouragement even if it was as fake as a mall Santa.
She tried to rationalize. If she'd gotten this way by wishing it, maybe she could un-wish it. She started un-wishing, if you could call begging to everything holy in her mind to change her back as un-wishing. She closed her eyes and realized that if it worked, she'd magically appear. That would freak everyone out even more. "Go somewhere else," she muttered to herself. "Somewhere private." She dashed toward the bathrooms.
Hurrying into the room, she heard voices but ignored them, and stormed into an empty stall. Breathing in, then breathing out, she closed her eyes, closed them really tight. "I wish ... I wish I was visible." She opened her eyes. Her gaze shot to her feet. Or to the space where her feet should have been, but weren't.
A knot formed in her throat; fear bounced around her chest like bumper cars. What if she stayed like this? What if ... No! She'd been in worse situations. Heck, she'd been kidnapped and chained to a chair and survived. She'd been tossed off a cliff and came through it. All of a sudden, she questioned again if this was Wicca related. She wiggled her pinky. "Turn me visible. Turn me visible."
Nothing happened.
"What the hell have I done?" The knot in her throat doubled in size. She started to cry. "Somebody help me, please?" She leaned against the bathroom stall door. "Daniel." She whispered her father's name, even though she knew the likelihood of him showing up was slim to none. "Can you please, please help me?"
"Think yourself there," a voice said.
Her breath caught when she realized it wasn't just any voice, but Daniel's. She pulled away from the door and saw the vague apparition of him, crowded between the toilet and the stall wall. "Think it. Make it so in your head."
"How?"
"Think it. In your heart. You have the power-" He faded.
"No," she begged, but he was gone.
Wiping her tears, she did what he said. She concentrated on being visible. On being there, physically.
Closing her eyes again, with no faith but desperate enough to try, she concentrated. She opened one eye and peered down. Her feet had never looked so beautiful in all her life.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
"For what?" someone asked in the stall beside her, but Kylie barely listened, too excited that she wasn't invisible anymore.
She walked out of the stall and came to an abrupt stop when she saw Steve and Perry both standing in front of urinals, their jeans hanging low on their butts. The sound of urine hitting ceramic filled her ears. It wasn't a pretty sound.
Her face heated to a nice shade of red.
The stall door behind her swished open. "What are you doing in the boy's restroom?" someone asked.
Steve, pants still down, swung around. Completely around. Kylie slapped her hands over her eyes.
"I didn't see a thing. I swear." Okay, maybe she did, which had her face turning hotter.
"What the hell?" Steve growled. Along with Perry's laughter, she heard the sound of zippers being pulled up.
"I'm sorry." Hands over her eyes, she moved in the direction of the door, but she hit a wall instead.
Perry laughed again. "Our friends are all put up. You can open your eyes now."
She did, but refused to look at anyone. Their friends! She darted out, wishing she had a minute to get her head together before ...
Too late.
Holiday spotted her. And so did her mom and John. All three came hurrying over.
Holiday stared at her wide-eyed with questions flashing in her eyes. Questions Kylie didn't have answers to.
"Was that the boy's bathroom you just walked out of?" her mom asked, sounding a bit annoyed, but mostly worried. John moved in and slipped his hand around her waist. Something about the way he touched her had Kylie envisioning them naked together. Oh, Gawd. They were having sex. She knew it.
Then she saw it. Saw it in her head. And it was not pretty!
"Are you okay?" her mom asked. "You're beet red."
"Yeah." Kylie squeaked. She pushed away the image of them naked before she wanted to vanish again.
"You were right there," her mom said in a mildly scolding voice. "I turned my head and you were gone when I looked back."
Kylie opened her mouth to say something, to apologize, or maybe to say something mundane like beautiful weather isn't it, but those weren't the words to leave her lips.
"You didn't turn your head. You were sucking face with that idiot." She inhaled, clamping her mouth shut, but it just flew back open. "You're sleeping with him, aren't you? Have you even read the sex pamphlets you gave me all those years?"
Her mom gasped and her face brightened. So that was where Kylie got her ability to blush. Her mom opened her mouth, obviously to scold Kylie, but nothing came out. Not a word.
John cleared his throat in a scolding tone. What in holy hell gave him the right to clear his throat at her? "Now, Kylie, that wasn't nice."
"You mean the kiss?" Kylie asked. "Because, frankly, I didn't say it was nice. It was actually quite embarrassing."
That's when Holiday cleared her throat. Kylie could handle Holiday's intervention, but not this bozo's, who was doing the dirty with her mom.
"I really think we should go outside," Holiday said.
"I think the girl needs a firm talking-to," John said.
Kylie's spine went ramrod straight. And damn if she didn't feel her canine teeth grow a little longer. She had emotions racing through her so fast she couldn't even begin to define how she felt. Except hungry. For blood. How dare he feel he had the right to correct her?
"I hope you're rich, because that's the only reason I can think my mom might like you."
Her mom gasped, and so did Kylie. Why was she saying these things? Oh, shit, she needed to shut up. What was wrong with her? Had going invisible addled her brain? Or was being vampire making her as ballsy as Della?
"You're being quite rude, young lady." John looked at Kylie's mom.
"She's not being rude!" a deep voice sounded behind Kylie.
The voice rang all kinds of familiar bells, but Kylie couldn't think straight to know who it was, so she turned around to put a face to the voice.
Oh, shit! Could this get any worse?
"I happened to witness it as well. And frankly I agree with my daughter. It was inappropriate." Her stepdad shot her mom a stern look.
Her mom's face turned even redder, but Kylie recognized that red-faced expression, and it wasn't embarrassment. She was pissed!
"How dare you tell me what's appropriate!" her mom snapped.
Shame filled her stepdad's expression. He looked at Kylie. "I didn't know Kylie was there. I wouldn't have done it if I had. I've apologized a hundred times. But two wrongs-"
"Let's all take a walk," Holiday said again. But no one took a step.
It took Kylie about a second to realize what her stepdad meant. She opened her mouth to say something, but what? Don't worry, Dad, Mom doesn't know that I watched your young skank rub herself all over you and practically give you a handjob in the middle of downtown Fallen?
Nope, that didn't sound like the right thing to say. So she ceremoniously shut her mouth and started praying for a miracle, because it would take one right now to fix this mess.
"You wouldn't have done what?" her mom asked, and when her stepdad didn't answer, her mom's fury focused on Kylie.
"What did you see?" she asked in her speak-or-be-grounded tone.
And grounded sounded like the best option.
Guilt fluttered in Kylie's chest. But for what? she asked the unwelcome emotion. Not telling her mom had to be the right thing, didn't it?
"Why don't we walk outside," Holiday piped up again, and put a hand on Kylie's mom's shoulder.
Her mom's expression softened. Thank God for Holiday's emotion-altering touch. The panic blossoming in Kylie's gut lessened. Leave it to Holiday to save the day.
But then Kylie saw the way John stared at her stepdad. And when he opened his mouth, Kylie questioned if Holiday could pull off a miracle.
It didn't help matters when Lucas came to a sudden stop beside Kylie, his eyes glowing a shade of pale protective orange. Not that she didn't love that he cared enough to protect her, but the last thing she wanted to have to do was explain his eye color to her stepdad, her mom, and the man who was having sex with her mom. And thinking about that had Kylie's eyes stinging. Shit! Were they glowing now?
"You have no right to judge her after what you did." John took a defensive step toward Kylie's stepdad and her own protective instincts sparked to life.
"No wonder your daughter lacks respect," John quipped.
Lacks respect? Kylie felt her fangs grow a little longer, and she was so mad, she'd missed Derek joining the crowd, but Lucas hadn't missed it, because he growled.
Holiday moved in, and keeping one hand on Kylie's mom, she rested her other palm on John's shoulder. For a second, the tense energy sucking up oxygen diminished.
Kylie sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Then she noted the expression on her stepdad's face. And she immediately recanted her gratitude.
"Who the hell do you think are? Don't you dare insult my daughter," her stepdad said. Holiday looked from her mom to John and back to her stepdad. Poor Holiday had only two hands. Before anyone could stop it, her stepdad's fist made contact with John's nose. Blood poured. All the vampires in the room, including herself, breathed in the sweet scent.
Lucas tried to move her back, but she wasn't budging. Kylie's mom screamed. John started swinging his fists at her stepdad, missed, but knocked Holiday over in the process.
Burnett flew across the room and tossed John to the floor. And everyone ... everyone in the room, all the campers, all the campers' parents, all the new teachers, especially Hayden Yates, stared at the foolhardy chaos that was her life.
Refocusing on the mess before her, she felt as if she were the star on some new reality show: Parents Behaving Badly. She watched in complete mortification as the scene continued.
John rose to his feet and apologized to Holiday.
Her mom seethed.
Her dad tried to talk to her seething mom.
Holiday tried to touch everyone.
Burnett continued to glare green daggers at John, proving how hard it was for a vampire to accept an apology. Not that she blamed him. Kill him. Kill him. She cheered the vampire on.
Lucas hadn't stopped scowling at Derek and Derek hadn't stopped ignoring Lucas.
Everyone reacted in one manner or another. Everyone except Kylie. She didn't move, not even to breathe. She stood frozen in the same spot, and concentrated ... concentrated really hard on not wishing she could vanish-because down deep, that's exactly what she wanted to do.