Eternal

by C. C. Hunter

  “Damn it! It sucks being a supernatural teen.”

  Kylie sighed. “I pretty much thought it sucked being a human teen, too.”

  “I didn’t,” Della said. “I had it great.”

  Kylie looked at her. “Didn’t you tell me that your parents wanted you to be a doctor?”

  “Yeah,” Della said.

  “And were you going to do that just to make them happy?”

  “No,” Della said.

  “Then sooner or later you would’ve had to stand up to them, and then things wouldn’t have been so great. I’m just saying that both humans and supernaturals have it tough when it comes to being a teen.”

  “Maybe,” Della said with sass. “But being turned vampire added a little fuel to the fire. And not being able to stop yourself from shifting into a fire-breathing dragon sucks even more.”

  “True,” Kylie conceded. “Seeing your dead father hanging out when you didn’t know he was even your father wasn’t a piece of cake, either. But I know human kids who have it almost that bad.” Kylie bit down on her lip. “Look at my friend, Sara. She got cancer.”

  Della shook her head. “You know, you kind of sound like Holiday. Logical, upbeat.”

  “Am I that bad?” Kylie frowned. “I hate it when she takes something completely batty and turns it around to make perfect sense.”

  Della chuckled. “You are going to make a perfect counselor.” Then she added, “Come to think of it, maybe you can help me make sense of something else.”

  “Counselor Galen at your service,” Kylie teased. “What do you have? Wait. Let me guess. A certain vamp tried to kiss you today and you don’t know how you feel about it?”

  Della frowned. “That’s not it.” He hadn’t kissed her, but Kylie hit the nail on the dad-blasted head about her not knowing how she felt.

  “So, he didn’t try to kiss you?” Kylie asked, tilting her head to listen to Della’s heart.

  “No. I thought he was, but he wasn’t.”

  “So he wasn’t too touchy-feely?”

  Della’s mind took her back to leaning on him, to him holding her in his arms. Then it went to him touching her ear. And that took her back to the whole nose-in-his-crotch incident. An unexpected giggle spilled out of her lips.

  “What?” Kylie asked.

  Della debated not telling, but realized this was exactly the kind of thing they shared. The crazy things, the stupid things, the embarrassing things. That’s what being a friend was about. Telling each other everything.

  In spite of the cool temperature, Della’s face felt warm. Then she bit the bullet and told Kylie about seeing her dad on the freeway.

  “Did he see you?” Kylie asked with complete concern.

  “No. I … hid. The floorboard was full of Chase’s camera stuff, so I … I had to go facedown on his lap. And I think my chin might have bruised his boys.”

  Kylie burst out laughing and Della joined in. They were laughing so hard they didn’t hear the person move behind them.

  “What’s so funny?” Miranda asked, sounding sleepy. She sat down beside them, dangling her feet off the side of the porch. Della repeated the story about putting her nose in the Panty Perv’s crotch.

  And they all three sat there in the dark, the insects singing in the distance, laughing like girls. When they sobered, Kylie looked at Della. “So, what was the thing you needed me to help you make sense of?”

  Della looked at Miranda, and knew the girl wouldn’t like this subject. Hell, Della didn’t like the subject, but she needed advice, and Kylie was the go-to person for these issues. Especially if it was something you didn’t want Holiday or Burnett to get wind of. “Ghosts.”

  Kylie made a funny face, then looked at Della all serious-like. “Ghosts seldom make sense.”

  Miranda let out a moan. “I’d rather talk about you putting your nose where it didn’t belong.”

  Della grimaced. “Then maybe you want to go back inside.”

  “I don’t think so. I’d rather be with you two talking about ghosts than by myself knowing you’re talking about ghosts. My imagination can be scarier than the truth.”

  Della didn’t agree. What she had to talk about was pretty damn scary.

  Chapter Twenty

  Della told Kylie about the near accident on the freeway and what Holiday said about ghosts being able to cause crap like that.

  “Did you see the ghost when it happened?” Kylie asked.

  “No, I’ve never seen her. I hear her. I feel a cold presence.”

  “And you still don’t think you know who she is?”

  Della remembered that both Holiday and Kylie had said she probably had a connection to the ghost. “No. But we already know what the connection is. It’s that Chan knew Natasha.”

  Kylie looked doubtful. “Most of the time it’s more than that.”

  “Well, this time it isn’t,” Della said.

  “Did you feel her when the accident was about to happen?” Kylie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Della answered honestly. “It happened so quickly and then I saw my dad and—”

  “That’s when you saw your dad?” Kylie asked.

  “Yeah,” Della said and realized she hadn’t put those two things together. “Do you think he has anything to do with it?”

  “Duh,” Miranda added her two cents’ worth.

  Della shot a frown the witch’s way. “If you can’t say something constructive, just keep your mouth zipped.”

  The witch scowled back. “I could say something constructive, but you don’t want to hear it.”

  “What do I not want to hear?” Della asked, annoyed.

  Miranda looked at Kylie as if asking permission to speak.

  “You don’t need her approval. Just say it already,” Della snapped.

  “Fine. You act as if you don’t know who the ghost is, but I think it’s pretty evident.”

  “It’s not Natasha,” Della snapped.

  “I’m not saying that it’s Natasha.”

  “Then who?” Della and Kylie asked at the same time.

  Miranda looked at both of them and then appeared almost scared to say it. “Your aunt.”

  “My aunt Miao is alive.”

  “No, the other one.”

  Della’s breath caught. “You mean Bao Yu?”

  “Is she the one who was murdered?”

  Della nodded.

  “Then yes, that one. It makes sense. She spotted your father, she freaked out, and made all the cars go crazy—”

  “No!” Della felt her chest burn and her eyes burned with it. “My dad did not kill his sister!”

  Miranda did a quick shift away from Della.

  Kylie reached out and gently held Della’s arm. The calm emotion radiating from the touch told Della the chameleon had turned fae.

  “I didn’t say he killed her,” Miranda said, sounding sympathetic. “There could be all kinds of reasons that she could be mad at your dad.”

  “What reasons?” Della asked, Kylie’s calm touch easing her fury, but not her fear. Like it or not, what Miranda said made sense. And Della really, really didn’t want to believe it.

  Miranda’s brows puckered. “I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are some. Aren’t there, Kylie?”

  “Yeah,” Kylie said, not sounding extremely confident. “But first, we don’t know if the ghost is your aunt. Second, let’s say the ghost is her. We still don’t know if she made the cars go crazy because she’s angry.”

  “Right,” Miranda said. “Maybe she wanted you and your father to see each other so you’d make up and stop fighting.” Miranda pulled her arms into her shirt to hide from the cold.

  “If he’d caught me riding around with a hot guy in a fancy convertible, we wouldn’t have been making up.”

  Kylie brought her other foot up and hugged both her knees. “Maybe she was warning you that he was there and didn’t want you to get busted.” Miranda cut a look at Kylie. “Did you miss the fa
ct that she called him hot?”

  Della growled. “It can’t be my aunt. What would my aunt, a teenager who was murdered almost twenty years ago, have to do with Natasha?”

  Right then, a breeze so cold it came with tiny bits of ice, moved over them. Little BB-sized bits of hail started clicking against the porch.

  Chills prickled Della’s neck and she remembered what happened earlier in the office with the water and the ice. She glanced at Kylie and found the girl staring back, her eyes wide as if trying to tell her something.

  Miranda’s teeth started chattering, clicking almost at the same tempo as the ice pinging against the wood porch. “Tell me…” Click, click. “That … this is just a normal storm.”

  “This is just a normal storm,” Kylie said, and stood up. Della didn’t even have to try to hear Kylie’s heart registering the words as a lie. The truth, along with fear, reflected in her light blue eyes.

  Miranda huddled up in a tight ball and looked up at the chameleon. “You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”

  “Yup.” Kylie looked around. Della followed her gaze and didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  “We should go inside,” Kylie spouted, sounding leery. And right then, a bolt of lightning hit the ground a foot in front of the porch. The electrical current vibrated the air. The hair on Della’s arms stood up.

  Wasting no time, Miranda bolted to her feet and shot through the cabin door. Della waited for Kylie to follow the witch. With her friends safe inside, Della took a step to do the same. Before she crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut with a loud crack that was followed by another ground-shaking bolt of lightning.

  “Shit!” Kylie screamed from the other side of the door. “Della, are you okay?”

  Della, feeling the icy fingers of cold fear, but too stubborn to admit it, turned back around and faced the storm and the ghost. “Who are you? Tell me, damn it!”

  And just like that, darkness swallowed her. Her arms and legs went numb. Her heart stopped beating. She felt frozen.

  The blackness faded and the back of her eyelids turned red. She forced her eyes open and saw it.

  Saw her father when he was young, standing over her. Gripped in his right fist, he held a knife. Blood, thick and red, dripped from the blade and splattered on the wooden floor right beside where she lay.

  Where she lay … not breathing.

  Where she lay … dead.

  Sensing a floating sensation, she left the body. She saw the bloody scene again from above. The person on the floor, resting in a pool of blood, wasn’t her. The Asian girl’s long, silky black hair lay fanned around her body; her eyes stood open, staring at nothing, but there was so much blood on her face it hid most of her features. Della saw only her eyes.

  So still.

  So sad.

  But her dad was there.

  He stood over the body, knife in hand, murder in his eyes.

  No!

  No!

  No!

  “Della? Della?”

  She heard Kylie’s voice. Deep and dark, as if she was in protective mode. The sound of a door being forced open echoed in the distance. Then Della felt Kylie’s hands on her shoulders.

  Della’s vision faded and the blonde chameleon, a shimmer of brightness surrounding her, appeared standing in front of her. Behind Kylie stood Miranda, tears and fear pooled in her green eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Kylie asked.

  Okay?

  Hell no!

  He had given her life. Loved her. Read Charlotte’s Web to her when she was a child. He taught her to play chess. Helped her with algebra.

  He had killed his sister.

  Her dad was a murderer.

  No!

  Everything in her wanted to deny it. But she’d seen it. How could she not believe?

  No, she hadn’t seen it. There had been so much blood on the girl’s face, she didn’t know if it was really her aunt or someone else.

  “I’m fine,” Della lied. She pulled away from Kylie and ran past Miranda.

  Della entered her bedroom, turned, grabbed the doorknob, and glanced back at her best friends. Concern and worry filled their eyes, but Della couldn’t deal with it now.

  “We need to talk,” Kylie said.

  “No.” Not this time. She couldn’t say it. Didn’t want to think about it. “I just want to be left alone!” She slammed the door.

  When she turned, she saw the book on the bed. The yearbook she’d gotten to help find her dad’s twin. It hadn’t been there when she walked out. How had…?

  The ghost? Could she have…?

  And just like that, her mind started connecting the dots.

  One dot.

  Two dots.

  Three.

  “I’m sorry.” Kylie’s voice came from behind her with the click of the door being opened. “I don’t care what you say, you don’t need to be alone. You had a vision, didn’t you? I know how they can make you feel.”

  “We’re best friends.” Miranda’s voice echoed behind her. “We don’t slam doors on each other.”

  Della swung around, hearing what they said, but lost in her own thoughts. “They’re twins. It might not have been him.”

  “What?” Kylie and Miranda asked at the same time.

  “My uncle wasn’t dead then. He was just vampire. So it could have been him, my father’s twin, who I saw standing over her.”

  “What could have been your uncle?” Kylie came closer. Her blue eyes filled with compassion.

  “I was dead. I don’t know who I was. I could have been my aunt. And my uncle could have killed her.”

  “Your aunt?” Kylie said. “So Miranda was right, and your aunt is the ghost?”

  Della shook her head. “I don’t know. She had so much blood on her face.”

  “I’m sure I was right,” Miranda said. “Who else could it be?”

  “I said I don’t know for sure!” Della snapped.

  Kylie stood there as if thinking. “Did she tell you how she and Natasha are connected?”

  “No.” Della fought the sting in her sinuses. “I saw her dead. I saw a man who looked just like my father standing over her with bloody knife.”

  “And you think it was your uncle?”

  “It has to be,” Della said. “It has to be.”

  * * *

  Della spent the rest of the night doing more tossing and turning than sleeping. Not that it surprised her. The vision had been just as mind reeling as her first FRU visit, when she’d seen two dead bodies. She’d get to sleep and be jarred awake by the image of her father—no, her uncle—holding the bloody knife.

  It had to be her uncle. Believing that made it almost acceptable. Forget that she’d had grand hopes of finding said uncle. She’d give up having a family member who was vampire, who understood her and loved her. She’d toss all that away before she would believe her father could kill.

  Della rolled over again. From her window she could see a sliver of sky slowly growing pink with the rising sun. A new day. A better day, she hoped. By the time that light had gotten one shade brighter, she heard the footfalls.

  Footfalls walking toward her cabin … her window. Only one person visited her window on a regular basis. One person who said he didn’t want to say good-bye in person and who’d texted a sad face.

  Since the vision last night, she’d put all the hurt of Steve leaving in a tight pocket and buried it in her heart. But that sound. Those familiar footsteps—both the pain and pleasure of everything Steve was in her life danced on her heart.

  Before Della could decide whether to run and hide or let him come inside and give him an ass whooping, his sad face appeared at her window. She stood up and gripped her hands at her sides. She wanted to scream, to laugh, and to cry all at once.

  He pushed open the window and leapt in as if he belonged here. Belonged in her bedroom and in her life.

  And damn it, no damn him, because she wasn’t sure that he didn’t.
/>   Chapter Twenty-one

  Steve took a step toward her. Della took one step back. Behind him, the rising sun had turned the sky purple. “You said—”

  “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Couldn’t leave?” She held her breath, didn’t blink, even her heart stopped beating as she waited and hoped he’d say she was right. But then what? a voice inside her said. What about Chase?

  “No, I couldn’t go without saying good-bye. But leaving is going to be hell.”

  He moved forward and slipped his warm hands around her waist. Slowly, he pulled her against him and she didn’t resist. Couldn’t. The thought of kicking his ass was yesterday’s news.

  He didn’t kiss her, just held her. Her head came to rest on that special spot on his chest. The one she claimed belonged to her. His smell, a tangy, earthy scent mixed with the aroma of fresh wind, filled her senses.

  She breathed it in greedily. Tears formed in her eyes.

  When he pulled back, even his eyes were misty. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, I will never regret what we were. What we had. And if I lose you, you will always be the one who got away that I’ll never forget.”

  He stopped and looked up at the ceiling for one second. Two. Three.

  He inhaled and his breath sounded shaky. Or was that hers?

  “Promise me,” he said, looking back at her. “Promise me that you won’t do something stupid and get yourself killed. Promise me that you’ll stop letting your parents’ ignorance hurt you so much. You don’t deserve that. Promise me that before you fall in love with Chase, you’ll remember that I loved you first.”

  That’s when the need to whip his ass came back!

  She hit his chest with her palm. He stumbled back, but remained standing. “Why did you make me care about you when you knew you were leaving? You could have just left me alone! I wouldn’t be hurting now! Why?”

  He grabbed her and kissed her then. His lips tasted warm, tasted like Steve—so sweet, but oddly salty. Perhaps from her tears, and maybe even his. Before she knew it, way before she wanted it, the kiss ended. She opened her eyes. He was gone. She saw several tiny bubbles floating in the air. Then she spotted the bird, a peregrine falcon perched on her windowsill.