Reborn

Chapter Twelve

Chan’s phone rang. And rang. Then it went to voicemail. “Call me, damn it!” Della muttered; then she set the phone down. Frustration building inside her, she picked up her soda can, drank the last sip, then crunched the thing in her hand and wadded it up into a small aluminum ball.

Was Chan mad because she hadn’t returned his call last week? No, he’d said it wasn’t important.

“Wow!” Miranda said, staring at Della’s new version of a stress ball. “That looks badass!”

Della didn’t care how it looked. “I want answers.”

“Then let’s get them,” Kylie said. “I’ve got an idea. My mom’s been begging me to bring you two home with me for a weekend. The funeral home is only about ten miles from my house. If we go there and see it’s run by supernaturals, then chances are you’re right. Plus, it’ll just be fun to have you guys hang out at my old house. Before my mom sells it.”

Hope started filling Della’s chest. “If they’re supernaturals, I’m having a little powwow with the owner.”

Kylie looked unsure. “Remember Holiday’s rule. No stupid risks.”

Della got an idea. “Let’s look it up online.” She stood and went to the computer desk on the other side of the kitchen. The funeral home came right up. There was even a “meet the owner” page. A photo of a Tomas Ayala, a Hispanic man who looked older than dirt, appeared.

“Okay, come take a peek at this guy.” Della looked back at her two friends still sitting at the table. “You gonna tell me he’s a risk? He’s an old geezer.”

“Okay,” Kylie said. “Now the question is, do you think your parents would let you come to my house?”

“Mine would,” Miranda answered.

Della squeezed the aluminum ball down to a smaller, tighter orb. “I don’t know if my mom will agree to it,” Della said. “Maybe if I beg.”

“You beg?” Miranda mouthed off. “I’d love to witness that.”

Della growled at the witch then glanced back at Kylie. “I’ll talk to my mom tomorrow.”

“Good,” Kylie said.

Good? Not really. Della hated the idea of begging. She hated the idea of waiting until the weekend to get answers, but she didn’t have a choice. At least she now had a plan.

Holiday showed up at the cabin around six that evening and brought Della a glass of blood and some chicken-and-stars soup. Tray in hand, the camp leader ushered her back to bed. Thank goodness, Della had cleaned up the pillow guts.

Della grumbled about the in-bed rule, but she really hadn’t meant to. The sound came from her stomach … her completely empty stomach. She hadn’t realized she’d been starving until she smelled the blood. Leaning against three pillows, she enjoyed every sip, but at one point had to push the thought of the murder scene from her mind.

Deep down she knew drinking blood didn’t make her evil; killing to get that blood made one immoral and wicked. Which she would never have to consider doing, thanks to the camp’s reserves of donor blood. As Kylie had once told her, people donate blood to help save lives, what’s the difference in donating blood to keep a vampire healthy?

Yup, leave it to Kylie’s words of wisdom, even months after she’d said them, to help Della through a rough patch.

With Holiday hovering over her, Della even ate the soup. It tasted like crap, but there was something nostalgic about watching the star-shaped pasta swim circles in the chicken broth. Her mom had always served her chicken-and-stars when she was sick.

But Della wasn’t sick. Or was she?

“I’m glad to see you eating,” Holiday said, and she paused as if she needed to say something. The fae had a gift of reading other’s emotions, but she couldn’t seem to hide her own worth a flip.

“What is it?” Della asked.

“I had to call your mom about your little accident.”

“Oh, frack! Why?”

“Because they are still your parents,” the camp leader said. “I didn’t tell her you were unconscious, I just said you’d fallen and bumped your head. I assured her you were okay.”

“And?” Della asked, worried her mom said she didn’t care. In spite of what Holiday said about her mom calling once a week, Della could still remember how quiet and how disappointed her mom had seemed to be with Della on the drive up here on Sunday.

“She’s worried. She asked for you to call her.”

Della exhaled. “I needed to talk to her anyway.”

“About what?”

“Kylie asked Miranda and me to go to her house this weekend.”

Holiday smiled. “That sounds like fun. But we’ll also have to clear it with Burnett.”

“Why?” Della asked.

“If he thinks the attack on you was personal, he might worry about you leaving.”

“Why would he worry about me? I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m with Kylie, the protector. What more do I need?”

Holiday shrugged. “I agree, but we’ll still have to check with Burnett. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so scared as when he carried you out of the woods.”

Della rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. And I’ll be fine at Kylie’s.”

“I know you think you’re okay. But this morning you were unconscious. And the doctor called me a while ago wanting to confirm you are on your cycle. You apparently had a little raised temperature. You are on your period, aren’t you?”

“Geez, what’s with the entire camp wanting to know about my menstrual cycle? Can’t some things just be private?”

“This isn’t about invading your privacy, it’s about looking after your health.”

“Fine,” Della sighed. “Yes, I’m on my period—practically.”

“Practically?” Holiday questioned.

“It should be here anytime. Like clockwork. Aunt Flo never lets me down.” No way was Della going to tell Holiday about possibly having a flu. She’d never agree to let Della go to Kylie’s then.

Holiday left shortly after that, but not without leaving orders. Della was to call her mom, then go to bed early. She wasn’t allowed to go out for a run until she got some sleep. How Holiday knew about Della’s nightly runs was a mystery. Then again, Holiday probably knew a hell of a lot more than she let on.

Sitting in the quiet room, Della reached for her phone on the bedside table. Her stomach hurt at the thought of talking to her mom. And how she was going to convince her to say yes to going to Kylie’s.

She was still staring down at the cell and coming up short with convincing methods when her cell rang. Please be Chan? She looked at her phone. No. Ready or not, she had to talk to her mom.

Della came up with one idea: Channel the old Della, the one who wasn’t insecure in her mother’s love. The one who used to know exactly how to persuade her mom to give in. The one who hadn’t been vampire.

“Hey, Mom!” Della grimaced at the false cheeriness in her tone.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Holiday said you took a blow to the head.”

“It was nothing. Holiday’s pregnant, and she’s a worrywart these days. Seriously, I can’t even find where I was hit.” She reached up and flinched when she found the large lump, making it a whopper of a lie.

“You do sound good,” her mom said, and Della congratulated herself on pretending everything was okay. Maybe her mom would pretend then, too. Wasn’t a pretend relationship better than what they had lately?

“I am good.” Della bit down on her lip, debating if she should bring it up. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “Sorry about … what happened.”

“You were getting into your dad’s liquor, weren’t you?”

Frigging hell. Why had she said anything? Should she just say yes, admit to something she wasn’t guilty of doing? She opened her mouth to say yes, but instead said, “I didn’t touch his precious brandy. I wouldn’t do that. I was … I was thinking about Chan and wanted to see a picture of him. I remembered Dad kept his photo albums in there.”

Silence filled the line. Oh, crap! She’d really flubbed things up now. Her mom would probably go look at the album and see the missing picture.

“Why … why didn’t you say that? Why didn’t you tell your dad that’s what you were doing?”

“Dad just started accusing me. He’s … he’s so disappointed in me, I just … It hurt.” Still hurt.

“You should have spoken up,” her mom said.

“I’ll try to remember that.” Della realized it sounded like the conversation was winding down, and she still needed two things. “Oh, Mom. I … I was wondering if you would mind if I went to see a friend next weekend? Kylie, my roommate, you’ve met her before, she’s invited me and Miranda, my other roommate, to her house.”

“To do what?” her mom asked, suspicious.

“To hang out. You know, like I used to do with Chelsea. To go over some homework.” Her mom used to be a sucker for anything involving group study. Every date with her ex-boyfriend, Della used to bring her schoolbooks, and she’d actually open them at least once, so she didn’t have to lie when she said they’d spent “some” time with their nose in a book.

“Can’t you do that at school?”

“It’s not as fun.”

Her mom was quiet. “Can I talk with her parents?”

“I’m sure her mom would be happy to talk to you.” Della hoped.

“If her mom will talk with me, then … then…”

“Thanks,” Della said, not wanting to give her mom a chance to back out. “Oh, one more thing. We’re writing essays, and one of the things we have to discuss is where our parents went to school. Where did Dad go to high school?”

“Klein High. You don’t want to know where I went?” her mom asked, reminding Della that there had been a day her mom had been a little jealous of her relationship with her dad.

“I know where you went,” Della said. “You went to Freemont High. You told me.” And Della did remember. She remembered they used to talk a lot. She used to talk a lot with both her parents. Though, she just now realized how little her dad talked about his past. Her father was always focused on the future.

The line went silent again. “I remember the story about how you and two other girls got caught letting the frogs go before the school used them as lab experiments.”

Her mom chuckled. “I haven’t thought about that in a while.” She exhaled. “I miss you, Della.”

Tears filled Della’s eyes. Was her mom pretending, too? Or were they being real? “I miss you, too.” God, what was she saying? The last thing she needed was for her mom to try to make her come home. “Not that I don’t like it here.” Della swiped a lone tear that had escaped her lashes. “I’ll text you Ms. Galen’s number later.”

“Okay,” her mom said.

Della was about to hang up.

“Della?” her mom said in a rush.

“Yeah?”

“I know your dad is hard on you, but he…”

You’re both hard on me, Della thought, remembering when she caught her mom going through her bags, afraid she’d brought home drugs and might pass them to her sister. But Della didn’t say it.

“He what?” Della asked.

“He loves you.”

“Yeah,” Della said. Part of her almost believed it.

Almost.

By eight o’clock that night, Miranda had taken off to meet Perry. Kylie had given Della her mom’s number so Della could text it and then she had skipped out to meet Lucas. Alone, and exhausted, Della turned the lights off. Surprisingly, she did sleep. Well, until four that morning. She wasn’t sure what woke her up. She tucked her feet under the blankets to keep her toes from freezing. Okay, so maybe she did know what had woken her, and just didn’t want to admit it.

She stayed in bed, covers up to her chin, leery of the cold. Cold she hadn’t felt in a long time. Was it the ghost or was it the fever?

She feared it was the ghost. Trying to push that thought away, one equally disturbing hit and this one came with images. She saw the dead girl. Then her mind created images of her fighting a shadowy attacker. Fighting and losing.

The temptation to wake up her friends bit hard. But Della’s fear of cowardice bit harder.

Crawling out of bed, she slipped on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and jumped out the window. Since she’d slept some, she wasn’t breaking Holiday’s rules. The only downside was she couldn’t expect to run into Steve. Thoughts of him had her thinking about Jessie, the doctor’s daughter, and she ran faster.

Wanting to feel the rhythm of her feet hitting the ground, she never went to full flight. But it was fast enough. The cold wind swept away most of her negative feelings. Moving at this speed offered a sense of freedom and an escape from the humdrum stresses. No, it didn’t solve problems, but Della would take the reprieve.

In a matter of minutes, she’d made it around the Shadow Falls property twice. Her heart thumped against her chest bone, her skin tingled from the October air, and she drew in fast and hard gulps of oxygen.

Slowing down, she bent at the waist and waited for her heart to slow down. When she went to rise up, she saw a figure fall behind the trees right outside the fence. Her first thought was of Steve. In spite of her leeriness of the doctor’s daughter, in spite of her insisting she needed a slowdown between them, a warm smile filled her chest.

She lifted her face to catch some air, hoping to identify his scent. No scent came. But she saw the person shift again. This time, it didn’t remind her of Steve.

She inhaled again. The scent of woods and trees, adorned in fall colors and preparing to shed their leaves, filled her nose. Yet no other aroma.

So her smelling was acting out like her hearing, huh? But not her eyes. Through the trees she could make out the figure. Not enough to see the face, but enough to know it was male.

Was it Chase?

She started running again, got almost to the fence, and took another breath. Still no scent. “Show yourself!” she demanded, not knowing if he was friend or foe.

She considered it could be the vamp who killed the couple, or perhaps the culprit who’d hit her on the head. Her muscles tensed. She debated leaping over the fence and facing the scoundrel. But knowing it would piss off Burnett, she forced herself not to act.

“So you hide like a coward, do you?” she spit out, gripping the fence and shaking it.

The intruder darted deeper into the woods, hid for one second, and then took off. Fast. But not so fast that she didn’t recognize him.