Awake at Dawn

"Nothing is bad," Kylie answered Derek, and desperately tried not to emit any hormones or emotions that might have gone sailing in the air when her gaze locked on him. Problem was, she didn't have a clue how to stop them. Where the hell was her sensor button?

Off! Off! Off! She mentally jabbed at the off button in her mind. Derek shifted and dropped down in the chair beside her. She didn't want to look at him, afraid that her doing so would increase the leakage of hormones, but not looking at a person was exceptionally rude. Or so said her mom.

"Everything okay?" Derek asked, probably aware she still hadn't looked at him.

"Don't be rude," she could almost hear her mom say. "It's fine." She looked at him. And because she'd been avoiding him for the last few days, she practically gobbled up his image. Her breath caught. Holy moly, did he look good.

Oh, yeah, she was so gonna blame this on her mom!

He was a tad sweaty, not yucky sweaty, but yummy sweaty. His skin glowed a bit, and he smelled a little like sunshine, as if he'd soaked up all the good scents from his hike. She figured his skin would taste a little like salty sunshine if she pressed her lips against it. His brown hair curled up on the tips and looked windblown. He wore a dark green T-shirt that hugged his torso. And the jeans he wore were his favorite. Or at least, it was the pair he wore more than others. She recognized them both because the knees were faded and they fit him snugger than most. And snug looked really, really good on him.

Della's snicker drew Kylie's attention away from Derek. The vampire grinned and waved a hand in front of her nose. Realizing what she meant, Kylie felt her face turn red.

When she stole another glace at Derek, his gaze had shifted and was now glued to her boobs. Which probably meant that he was at this second polluting the air with all kinds of pheromones as he tried to figure out how the girls had grown overnight.

"I ... I gotta go find Miranda." Kylie popped up from her chair and shot out of the dining room like someone wearing white and in desperate need of a tampon.

"Miranda, you here?" Kylie called out as she entered the cabin five minutes later.

Her friend came scurrying out of Kylie's bedroom. She had panic plastered on her face and tears filled her eyes. Tears in Miranda's lovesick eyes had pretty much been the norm these last few days, but something appeared different. Kylie sensed it right away. And yeah, it had a little something to do with the fact that she'd stormed out of Kylie's bedroom immersed in a cloud of guilt.

"I'm so sorry," Miranda said, and hiccupped. "Really, really sorry."

"Really, really sorry about what?" Had Miranda found Lucas's letters and read them? Purposely invaded her privacy?

"I didn't mean to do it."

"Didn't mean to do what?" Kylie insisted, feeling her patience seep out like a balloon with a pinhole. Those letters were private. Heck, she hadn't even read the second one. When she'd returned from the falls, she'd stuffed it in her drawer with the other one. Told herself she'd read it tonight, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe even never. She wasn't sure her heart could handle dealing with whatever Lucas might say on top of everything else she had on her plate.

"I've done it dozens of times before, and I never had a problem undoing it until now. Please, please don't be mad at me."

Kylie suddenly got the feeling this wasn't about Lucas's letter. "What did you do?"

Miranda's gaze shot back to Kylie's bedroom, but when Kylie took a step, Miranda moved in front of her. "I'll fix it. I swear I will. I'll figure it out. I won't sleep or eat until I fix this."

"Fix what?"

"Please don't be mad."

Kylie physically moved Miranda. Then she walked into her bedroom to find out what Miranda didn't want her to see and swore she would fix.

Kylie's gaze shot first to the bedside table where she stored her most private things. The drawer was closed. No letters were strewn on the nightstand. A movement on her bed caught her eye. She shifted her gaze.

She blinked.

She screamed.

Then she hauled ass out of her bedroom in less than a flicker of a second.

She ran right into Miranda, who caught her by her forearms. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

Kylie caught her breath. "Why...?" She inhaled. "Why is there a skunk in my bed?"

Kylie felt a familiar brush against her ankle. She looked down expecting to see Socks. But nope. No Socks.

Kylie screamed again and jumped clear across the room.

The skunk raised its pointed little head in the air, meowed, and came scurrying after her.

"I'm so sorry," Miranda cried.

Kylie looked up at Miranda and then down at the skunk quickly approaching her. Its paws pranced up in the air in a very familiar and very cute feline kind of way.

Socks?

"No," Kylie said. "Tell me that's not ... Oh crap, you didn't!"

"I'll fix it. I will," Miranda said.

Kylie had just returned from art hour with Helen and Jonathon.

Pacing, she stood in front of the office, waiting for her two o'clock appointment with Holiday. How was Kylie going to tell the camp leader that she'd ratted out her past romance with a vampire?

By the way, did you know that Burnett didn't know you used to date a vampire? Nope, that wouldn't do.

Hey, Burnett and I were talking and I happened to mention how you had your heart chewed up by one of his kind. That didn't sound like it would go over too well, either.

"Kylie?" Derek called out to her.

Oh, crappers!

She saw him walk though a crowd of campers waiting to sign up for kayak classes and she resigned herself to facing him. However, she did take several steps away from the crowd.

"Hey." He stopped in front of her and studied her carefully. "Hey." She moved in backward steps, continued to motion him to follow her another ten feet away from the crowd.

His gaze stayed glued to her eyes as she continued to move in reverse. "Have I done something wrong?"

"No." She shook her head.

"Then have you been smoking something? Because you're acting really weird."

She completely understood why he thought she'd lost track of reality. However, in her defense, her reality for the last six weeks was completely different from the one she'd grown up believing in.

"It's not ... it's..." She glanced around to make sure no one with superhearing powers was in close range. "I'm embarrassed, okay?"

"Embarrassed about what?" His gaze lowered to her breasts. "That?"

She reached out, put her finger under his chin, and brought his face up. At least he had the decency to blush.

"Sorry. It's just they ... you're..."

"Bigger. I know."

He reached out and caught a handful of her hair. "And your hair is longer."

"I'm taller, too," she said.

He took a visual measure of her and his eyes widened. "What happened?"

"I wish I knew." She attempted to keep the frustration from her voice. It wasn't his fault. "I woke up growing out of everything."

He grinned and his gaze lowered for a nanosecond before glancing up. "It looks nice."

"And why am I not surprised you feel that way?" She frowned.

His smile faded and he just stood there staring at her face. She wondered if it really took that much effort not to gawk at her breasts or if he had something else on his mind.

"Look, if I haven't done anything, then why have you been running away from me for the last two days?"

She shuffled her feet, painfully aware that her shoes were pinching her toes at this moment. "I told you. I'm embarrassed."

"Embarrassed ... about getting bigger?"

"No. Well, yeah, that's embarrassing, too. But that's not why ... why..."

"Why you've been avoiding me. Just say it. Because that's what you've been doing." He now sounded half mad, or at least half annoyed. But what she really heard in the tenor of his voice was insecurity. And honestly, she couldn't blame him. She'd feel all those things if he'd been dodging her the way she'd been doing him.

She bit down on her lip. "I'm sorry. It's not what you think."

"So what is it? Because I'm lost here. I mean, your emotions mostly seem okay when I'm around you, they actually seem really great at times, but then you run off."

"And ... that's sort of why I'm running off," she said. His brow creased. "And ... I still don't understand."

Okay, she was going to spell it out for him. Her face flushed just thinking about it. "When I'm around you all I can think about is kissing and making out." And going further than I've ever gone with anyone. His brow creased deeper, but at least some of the chip he seemed to carry appeared to fall off his shoulders with his new posture. "Okay."

He tucked a hand into his jeans pocket. "Now can you explain to me why that's a bad thing?"

"It's not so much a bad thing, but it's ... a private thing. I don't even want you to know what's going on inside my head. Much less all the vampires and other fairies wandering around the camp."

His shoulders tightened as if the chip had returned. "So you're embarrassed because other people know you like me."

"No. I mean ... liking you is one thing. Wanting to ... make out is another."

"You want to make out with me?" He almost grinned, and then ran a hand through his hair. "You know, I didn't think it was possible to feel complimented and insulted at the same time. But you've managed to make me feel both."

"I didn't insult you," she said.

"You did if you mean that you're embarrassed for people to know that you like me."

"I told you it's not about liking you."

"Okay, you just don't want people to know you're attracted to me." She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn't sure what to say. "Yeah. Sort of. I mean, it's just private."

"Private?" He hesitated as if trying to figure out what she meant. "It's never all that private."

"It is for humans," she said. "And I may not be a hundred percent human, but ... I mean, let's face it. I've had sixteen years of living as a human, and less than two months of trying to cope with being ... Oh wait, I don't even know what I am yet." She shook her head, feeling her frustration level rise. "But yeah, I kind of like how humans do this."

"How they do what?" he asked, as if he wasn't following her.

Not that she could totally blame him, because she wasn't so certain she was following herself. "I like how humans keep their personal thoughts and feelings to themselves."

He stood there chewing on what she said. She could tell that her argument wasn't making sense to him.

"No," he said. "You're wrong."

"Wrong about what?" Now she was confused.

"It's not private for humans, either. They don't keep everything to themselves."

"Only if they chose to tell someone," Kylie said.

"Bullshit!" he said. "Look at Helen and Jonathon over there. Are you going to tell me that you, the human part of you, can't see that these two people are attracted to each other? And what about Burnett? You knew he was lovesick for Holiday before I did. You can see it."

Okay, he had a point. But she didn't like him jabbing her with it. "See it, yes. But I can't feel their emotions or smell the pheromones they put out because they want to..." bump uglies "... get it on. And knowing other people can ... do that with me, well, it freaks me out a little, okay?"

He shook his head. "Are you sure it's other people knowing it that's freaking you out? Or is it you knowing what you feel for me that's freaking you out?"

She stared at him. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, that I'm not so sure you want this." He waved a hand between them.

"Want what?" Just like that, she got flashbacks. Flashbacks of having a similar argument with Trey. Oh, please. Not again.

"You and I. Us. You don't want us to become an 'us.' Every time I feel as if we get a little closer, you end up pushing me away. I've asked you to go out with me at least six times and you never answer me. What's up with this?"

Yup, she'd had almost this very conversation with Trey. "It's always about sex, isn't it?"

"What?" His mouth dropped open. "No. I wasn't talking about that."

"So you don't want sex?" she asked, getting angrier by the second. He stood there staring at her as if she'd grown two heads and a tail. And God help her, considering everything that had happened to her lately, she almost wanted to check the mirror to make sure she hadn't sprouted a second head. Ditto for the tail.

"Where the hell is this coming from?" he asked.

Suddenly, she became aware that the crowd had gotten closer to them and several of the people in that crowd had the hearing of a gossiphungry bat. She glanced at her watch and saw it was after two. "Sorry, I'm late."

Kylie stormed into Holiday's office. She dropped down in the seat across from the desk and looked her friend and camp leader right in the eyes. "I hate boys. I'm seriously considering going lesbian."

Holiday's expression was part grin, part groan. "If it was that easy, ninety percent of the women in the world would be gay." She made a funny little face and then asked, "So ... boy problems?" She reached for a can of soda and took a sip.

"More like boys, skunk, and ghosts."

Holiday choked on the diet drink. "Skunk?"

Kylie sank into the chair, feeling defeated and frazzled from her argument with Derek.

"Miranda turned Socks into a skunk. And she can't figure out how to turn him back." No sooner had the words left her lips than Kylie realized it sounded as if she was tattling. "Not that I want you to say anything."

Holiday tried not to smile, but the edges of her mouth twisted up. "She was probably practicing for the show that her mom entered her into when she's back home."

"She explained why she did it. And I don't want her to get in any trouble ... but what if she can't figure out how to change him back? I'm going to be stuck with a skunk for a pet."

Another smile threatened to appear on Holiday's lips. "I'm sure she'll figure it out."

Kylie shook her head and then dropped her hands into her lap. "You have no idea how much I wish my life could just go back to normal. Like human normal? Nobody trying to read my thoughts, change my feelings, or making it my job to save someone's life."

Holiday leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms up as if she'd sat too long in the same position. Hands still up in the air, she gave the papers scattered on her desk a frown. "Don't know about human, but normal does sound good sometimes, doesn't it?"

Something about Holiday's mood had Kylie's own concerns shifting. "Is everything okay?"

"Me? Oh, I'm fine." She dropped her hands and sat up a little straighter as if to put up a front. "It's you I'm worried about, Kylie. You seemed very upset this morning."

Kylie recalled how she'd stormed out of here. "I'm sorry. It sometimes ... it just feels as if it's too much."

"I know it feels like that. But it will work out," Holiday said. Kylie frowned. "You sound like my mom. She always says, 'God won't give you more than you can handle.'"

Holiday chuckled. "And we just wish He didn't trust us so much, right?"

"Yeah." Kylie saw the concern flare up in Holiday's eyes again. "What about your problems?" She motioned to the desk, sensing Holiday was upset.

"It'll be fine ... just have a lot of financial crap to figure out with us going full-time here at the camp. There are teachers to be hired.

Heating units to put into the cabins. And I don't have a clue how we're going to manage it." "I thought the government, I mean the FRU, funded the camp."

"They do to some degree, but when they agreed to let me open the boarding school, they put us on a tight budget. These days even government programs are cutting back." She looked at the desk again. "It's probably not as bad as I think it is. It's just ... Sky used to do all the financial work, and now I'm stuck with it."

"Burnett's not good with doing that kind of stuff?" Kylie asked, hoping to ease into a conversation about him.

"I don't know. But since he shouldn't be helping out here for more than another month, I don't see any reason for him to get involved with this side of the business."

Take the sugarcoating off what Holiday said and it basically meant she didn't trust Burnett. Was that because he was vampire, or could it be because she'd trusted Sky, her last co-camp leader, and Sky had let her down? Holiday never talked about Sky much, but Kylie sensed her friend's betrayal had hurt her more than she wanted to admit. "Have they hired a new camp leader?" Kylie asked.

Now Holiday's expression turned into a full groan. "No. But they've promised by the end of summer I should have someone. And that can't come soon enough."

"Is he really that unpleasant to work with?" Kylie sensed Holiday's frustration came from Burnett, which only made Kylie worry about how Holiday would take Kylie's confession.

"We're just too different." Holiday's gaze lowered to Kylie's chest and stayed there for a fraction of a second too long. Which meant Holiday had noticed the growth spurt.

Kylie's thoughts shot away from her confession and turned on her own issues. "Can you explain this?"

"Explain what?" Holiday asked innocently enough, but it didn't convince Kylie.

Kylie held out her hands in front of her boobs.

Holiday's brows wrinkled. "I was hoping you'd just gotten a new Wonderbra."

"Afraid not. There's my hair, too." Kylie pulled it over her shoulder. "Plus, my shoes are almost too tight and I'm pretty sure I'm a whole inch taller."

"Mmm." Holiday almost appeared as if she worked at keeping her expression unreadable.

"Mmm, what?" Kylie leaned forward, pressing her hands on the desk. "Mmm, it's odd." Holiday said, but something about the way the camp leader glanced back to her papers hinted that she wasn't being one hundred percent up front with Kylie.

"Please don't do this now," Kylie insisted.

Holiday looked up. "Do what?"

"Hide something. It's happening to me. I have the right to know what the hell is going on."

"I'm not hiding..." Holiday stopped talking and sighed. "I don't consider it hiding anything when I'm surmising, guessing. I'm not sure if it's fair to give you information when I'm not sure."

"What's not fair is to leave me completely in the dark. Because believe me, whatever you have to tell me isn't going to be half as bad as what I'm imagining."

Holiday nodded. "Okay, but just remember ... it's speculation. Even Burnett said he didn't see it being a sure sign."

Kylie had suspected that Burnett had noted her boob increase. To his credit he'd dealt with it well, but to think he and the others were discussing it, well, it felt like overkill. Really dead stinky overkill. "You two discussed my boobs?"

"No. Well, yes, but not ... Look, he said he noticed some changes in you when he ran into you at the falls. I insisted he tell me what they were."

The mere mention of Kylie seeing Burnett at the falls had Kylie remembering she needed to come clean, but first she had to know. "What's the speculation?"

"Some female werewolves-"

"Werewolf? Oh, damn! Not werewolf. Anything but werewolf."