Born At Midnight

During lunch, the introductions proved to be as embarrassing as Kylie thought they would be. Everyone had said their name and "what" they were, but when her time came, she'd only offered her name. The silence in the room had felt suffocating in the seconds afterward. Holiday had jumped in and explained that the origin of Kylie's powers was stil being deciphered and that her "close-mindedness" was not intentional, but a product of her gifts.

If anyone in the room doubted that she was the freak of al the freaks, they had now been informed of the fact by the camp leader. Oh, Kylie suspected Holiday had been trying to help, but Kylie could have real y done without it. Luckily, she had already managed to force down half a turkey sandwich because after that, there was no way she could swal ow another bite.

Right after her embarrassing moment in the spotlight, Kylie's phone rang. She saw her mom's number on the cal screen and turned the phone off. The last thing she wanted was for her conversation with her mom overheard by the super-hearing individuals. As soon as the official lunch meeting ended, Kylie found Holiday to get her cabin directions. Dinner was set at six and until then, the afternoon was free. During downtime, mingling and getting to know your camp companions and cabin roomies was encouraged. Instead, Kylie spent the four hours mingling with her emotional turmoil and hidden away in her closet of a bedroom. Hey, she understood the difference between "encouraged" and "required."

Sitting up on the bed, she noticed again the size of her room. Not that she was complaining. The fact that she had her own room made the size a non-issue. Considering the night terrors that plagued her three or four nights a week, the privacy was much appreciated. She just hoped the wal s were thick enough to contain what her mother cal ed "bloodcurdling screams." The wal s at home sure as heck weren't. Biting down on her lip, Kylie wondered again how her mom could do this to her. Send her here when only a week ago, her mom had suggested she not spend the night off anywhere because it would be embarrassing for her to let others see her in a sleep-dazed terror. Shaking off thoughts of her mom, Kylie looked around the room again. Her afternoon hadn't been a total waste. She'd unpacked her things, cal ed her mom-aka, the Ice Queen-back, tried to get in touch with a MIA Sara-who stil hadn't cal ed or texted-read the camp rules, and indulged in a good ol' fashioned meltdown with lots of tears.

A much-deserved meltdown.

For sixteen years she'd tried to figure out who she was. And while she'd always known she'd had a ways to go, she'd felt pretty confident in her discoveries. But today she realized not only was she wrong about who she was, but she didn't even know what she was. Talk about an identity crisis.

Her phone buzzed again. She looked at the cal er ID and saw her dad's name.

Her dad who'd left her.

Her dad who hadn't picked her up at the police station.

Her dad who hadn't visited her before she'd been forcibly shipped off to camp.

Her dad who obviously didn't love her near as much as she'd thought he did.

Her dad who in spite of everything, Kylie missed with al her heart.

If that made her a daddy's girl, so be it. Besides it was probably just a temporary condition. Sooner or later she'd give up loving him so much like he'd given up on her. Right?

Her throat locked up. The temptation to answer and beg him to come get her was so strong that she tossed the phone onto the foot of the bed. She listened to the buzz and knew if she answered that cal she'd tel him about supernaturals and about her being one of them-about running into Lucas Parker the potential serial kil er.

Keeping secrets from her mom had always felt easy, because it seemed her mom kept her own secrets; but keeping things from her dad was algebra-damn hard.

So instead of taking the cal , she plopped her head on the pil ow and gave in to another bout of tears. When someone knocked on her bedroom door, Kylie stil wore the watery evidence of tears on her cheeks.

Before Kylie could decide what to do, the door opened and a nose peeked through the crack. "Are you awake?"

Since Kylie sat up on the bed and saw Miranda's eyes right above the nose, Kylie didn't lie. "Yes."

Miranda stepped in-uninvited.

"Hey, I just..." Miranda's hazel gaze lit on Kylie's face and the girl's mouth dropped open.

Kylie knew exactly what had the little witch gaping. Kylie envied the girls who could cry and barely smear their mascara, but she lacked that particular skil . When Kylie cried, her fair skin broke out in big red dots and her eyes swel ed so much that she didn't look human. Wait. According to Holiday, Kylie wasn't human. Who knew?

"Are you okay?" Miranda asked.

"Fine." Kylie forced cheeriness into her voice. "Al ergies."

"Should you go see a nurse? Seriously, you look terrible."

Thanks. "No. I'm fine. It'l go away in a bit."

"It's not contagious, is it?" Miranda stopped a few feet into the room.

"I sure as heck hope not," said a voice at the door. A voice that belonged to Del a, who stil wore her dark shades, and who Kylie had learned during the introductions was a vampire. Yup. A real vampire.

"I'm not contagious," Kylie said, and realized she should have said yes so they'd leave her alone. Miranda moved in and sat on the foot of the twin bed, and Del a fol owed her but didn't sit down. Instead, the girl removed her sunglasses and eyebal ed Kylie up and down. Her dark expression reminded Kylie of a how a person on a diet stared at a Girl Scout cookie right before it became mouth mush.

Kylie's skin crawled at the thought of becoming mush in anyone's mouth.

"You are coming to dinner and the campfire, aren't you?" Miranda asked.

"Is ... is it mandatory?" Kylie asked, hoping her reaction to Del a didn't show.

"Are you scared of me?" Del a blurted out, axing al of Kylie's hopes of hiding the fact that Del a scared the pee out of her.

"Why ... why would I be scared of you?"

"Because I have sharp teeth?" She opened her mouth and exposed her pearly whites that did indeed showcase two sharp canines. "Because I might suck your blood out?"

It took effort not to cringe at Del a's words, especial y when the girl ran her tongue over her lips.

"Quit teasing her." Miranda laughed and rol ed her eyes.

"That's just it." Del a waved at Kylie. "Her heart is racing and her pulse is running off the chart. Look at the vein in her neck, it's throbbing. I don't think she knows I'm teasing."

The fact that Del a mentioned Kylie's veins had her blood pumping harder. "Of course I do," Kylie lied. "Holiday said everyone here was good ...

people."

"And you believed her?" Del a's black eyes accused Kylie of being dishonest.

Kylie decided right then that Del a's ability to read her vital signs surpassed her ability to lie. "I want to believe her. But I'l admit it, I'm stil trying to wrap my mind around the fact that ... that supernaturals exist."

"But you're a supernatural," Miranda said. "How could you not know-"

"Holiday thinks I'm a supernatural." Yeah, somewhere in the last few minutes Kylie had gone back to hoping Holiday's analysis was meritless.

"You are a supernatural," both Miranda and Del a said at the same time, both their eyebrows twitching ever so slightly.

"Or at least, you aren't al human," Del a said. "We can tel that by looking at your brain pattern."

"And you guys are never wrong?" Kylie clutched her knees tighter to her chest.

"Everyone's wrong once in a while," Miranda said.

"But not very often," Del a added.

Nevertheless, their answer spurred Kylie's hope. "But it does happen. Right?" The heaviness in her chest lightened.

"Yeah, there are the people with brain tumors," Del a added.

Kylie dropped her forehead on her knees. She was either a supernatural or dying of a brain tumor; she didn't know which was worse.

"And a few whose brains are just loopy," Miranda added.

Kylie raised her head. "Loopy?"

"Yeah, like a frog's hair from being loco."

"Then maybe I'm just loopy. I've been accused of that before."

"No, wait," Miranda said. "Didn't Holiday mention you had gifts?" Miranda and Del a both raised inquisitive eyebrows. Kylie shrugged. "Yeah, but that could just be because I'm dealing with a super-charged ghost."

"Ghost?" Miranda and Del a said in unison.

Kylie could be wrong, but both girls looked appal ed and scared. Their shock reminded her of Derek's reaction earlier when she'd asked if he could see ghosts.

"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."

"I tried it last summer and it was gross," Miranda said. "It tastes like a dirty penny smel s."

"What?" Kylie swal owed hard. "I have to drink blood? I'm not doing it. Nope. Not me." She put her hand over her mouth and concentrated on not barfing.

"Not drink it, just taste it," Miranda said. "We al have to learn about each other's cultures toward the end of the summer. We, the witches, put on a ceremony and show some of our magic; the werewolves, last time we actual y saw Lucas Parker transform himself. It was scary. Whatever you do, don't piss off a werewolf."

Kylie's mind stopped fixating on drinking blood and fixed on Lucas Parker transforming into a wolf. Then she remembered their little meet-up during lunch. The one where she'd probably pissed him off.

Of course, she didn't need to hear Miranda's warning. She knew firsthand what he was capable of doing. Then for some crazy reason, she found herself trying to find him in the crowd. He either wasn't there, or had his back to her.

"Werewolves aren't as badass as vampires," Del a said, defending her species with enthusiasm. "Werewolves only have ful power once a month. Vampires-we're a hundred percent twenty-four/seven. It's my kind that you don't want to piss off."

Kylie sat there trying to digest the conversation while her shaky stomach worked on digesting the pizza.

"And then the shape-shifters-that was weird, but not scary," Miranda continued.

"What did the Fae do?" The question came from a deep, obviously male voice.

Kylie recognized Derek's voice before her eyes found him. And when she did find him, she realized he'd found her, too. He stared right at her. Her already knotted stomach knotted some more. Only these knots, like the flutters, weren't al unpleasant. Yup, she was going to have to be extra careful with Derek where her emotions were concerned.

"Wel ," Miranda said, her tone a little higher pitched than normal. "Because fairies have different gifts, each one did a short presentation."

Miranda gave her hair a twirl and smiled extra wide.

"What's your gift?" Del a asked Derek as she pul ed another piece of pepperoni off the pizza and slipped it between her lips. Lips that had just drunk blood.

A long pause fol owed the question. Derek's posture stiffened. "Who said I even have gifts?" His tone implied he didn't like to be questioned. Or could he be like her, and wasn't too thril ed to have his gift?

"One of the fairies last year could read people's thoughts," Miranda continued, obviously not picking up on Derek's mood. "Can you read my mind now?" She bit down on her lip and sent him a sultry look.

Kylie's gaze shot back to Derek. Could he read minds? No, she didn't think he could, because he'd asked earlier what she was. Or was he just making conversation?

She recal ed thinking some private thoughts about his body, comparing it to Trey. Oh, great. How embarrassing would that be if he knew she'd imagined him without his shirt? Then she realized she was doing it again. Kylie felt her face flush and Derek, stil staring, didn't miss a thing.

"Another fairy could move objects with his mind," Miranda said louder as if trying to get Derek's attention on her. "Of course, witches can do that, too."

"Real y?" Del a sounded honestly amazed. "Do it now. Move my plate." She leaned back as if to give Miranda room. Miranda's gaze shot to Del a and she frowned. "I can't. It's against the rules."

"Rules? Screw the rules," Del a said. "Do it. No one is going to know but us."

"I can't." Miranda's cheeks turned pink, almost as pink as the streaks in her hair. It was good to know Kylie wasn't the only one who suffered from blushing.

"Why not?" Del a argued. "Just because of some stupid rule?"

Miranda glared at Del a. "Why don't you just go drown yourself in blood?" Miranda glanced at Derek, who she'd obviously wanted to impress, and turned pinker.

"Oh, stake me!" Del a snapped.

"Be careful, or I might," Miranda shot back, her expression passing embarrassment and going straight to anger. Kylie's gaze shifted from Miranda to Del a as they took turns slamming each other with insults. Great. Now her two roommates were going to be trying to kil each other.

"You two should chil ," Derek said, as if he'd read her mind.

"I'm already as chil ed as I can get," Del a said, and focused on Miranda. "Somebody's got a chip on her shoulder. And you'd best be careful, because I'd be more than happy to knock it off for you." She jumped up and before Kylie could focus on her, she was gone.

"Cool," a new voice in the crowd said.

Perry, aka Weird-Eyed Boy who'd turned himself into the unicorn, stood beside Derek. Kylie stared at his black eyes, and her heart raced to the tune of panic.

"Hey," Perry said to Miranda. "I'd love to watch you two go at it and rip each other's clothes off."

"In your dreams," Miranda said.

"Yeah." Perry chuckled. "Especial y the clothes off part."

"Grow up." Miranda grabbed both hers and Kylie's trays and shot off to drop them off.

"Thanks," Kylie said to her, but looked from Derek to Perry, not sure which one made her more nervous-Derek who made her feel things she didn't want to feel, or Perry who just plain freaked her out. Her phone buzzed. She pul ed her cel from her purse, hoping it was Sara with notpregnant news and not her dad. A sigh escaped her lips when she saw Sara's number.

"Later," Kylie said to the guys. Then, eager to escape, she took off outside where she could have a private conversation. Though who the heck knew how far she'd have to go so the super-hearing supernaturals couldn't listen in?