“What does my shrink have to do with tonight?” Kylie asked. “Don’t tell me you called her. God, Mom, if you dare bring her down here where all my friends—”
“No, she’s not here. But it’s not just about tonight.” She inhaled. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Do what alone?” Kylie asked and she got this bad feeling in her stomach.
“I’m signing you up for a summer camp.”
“What summer camp?” Kylie clutched her purse to her chest. “No, I don’t want to go to any camp.”
“It’s not about what you want.” Her mom motioned for Kylie to walk out the door. “It’s about what you need. It’s a camp for kids with problems.”
“Problems? Are you freaking nuts? I don’t have any problems,” Kylie insisted. Well, not any a camp could fix. Somehow she suspected going to camp wouldn’t bring Dad home, it wouldn’t make Soldier Dude disappear, and it wouldn’t win Trey back.
“No problems? Really, then why am I at the police station at almost midnight picking up my sixteen-year-old daughter? You’re going to the camp. I’m signing you up tomorrow. This isn’t up for debate.”
I’m not going. She kept telling herself that as they walked out of the police station.
Her mother might be bat-shit crazy, but not her dad. He simply wouldn’t let her mom send her off to a camp filled with a bunch of juvenile delinquents. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Chapter Three
Three days later, Kylie, suitcase in hand, stood in the YMCA parking lot where several of the camp buses picked up the juvenile delinquents. She freaking couldn’t believe she was here.
Her mom was really doing it.
And her dad was really letting her mom do it.
Kylie, who’d never drunk more than two sips of beer, who’d never smoked one cigarette, let alone any pot, was about to be shipped off to some camp for troubled kids.
Her mom reached out and touched Kylie’s arm. “I think they’re calling you.”
Could her mom get rid of her any faster? Kylie pulled away from her touch, so angry, so hurt she didn’t know how to act anymore. She’d begged, she’d pleaded, and she’d cried, but nothing worked. She was about to head off to camp. She hated it but there was nothing she could do.
Not offering her mom one word, and swearing not to cry in front of the dozens of other kids, Kylie stiffened her back, and took off to the bus behind the woman holding the sign that read: Shadow Falls Camp.
Jeez. What kind of hell hole was she being sent to?
When Kylie stepped on the bus, the eight or nine kids already there raised their heads and stared at her. She felt an odd kind of stirring in her chest and she got those weird chills again. Never, not in all sixteen years of her life, had she wanted to turn and run away as much as she did now.
She forced herself not to bolt, then she met the gazes of . . . Oh, Lordie, can you say freaks?
One girl had her hair dyed three different colors—pink, lime green and jet black. Another girl wore nothing but black — black lipstick, black eye shadow, black pants and a black long-sleeve shirt. Hadn’t the Goth look gone out of style? Where was this girl getting her fashion tips? Hadn’t she read that colors were in? That blue was the new black?
And then there was the boy sitting almost at the front of the bus. He had both his eyebrows pierced. Kylie leaned down to peer out the window to see if she could still see her mother. Surely, if her mom took a look at these guys, she’d know Kylie didn’t belong here.
“Take your seat,” someone said and stepped behind her.
Kylie turned around and saw the bus driver. While Kylie hadn’t noticed it earlier, she realized even the bus driver looked a little freakish. Her purple tinted gray hair sat high on her head like a football helmet. Not that Kylie could blame her for teasing her hair up a few inches, the woman was short. Elf short. Kylie glanced down at her feet, half expecting to see a pair of pointed green boots. No green shoes.
Then her gaze shot to the front to the bus. How was the woman going to drive the bus?
“Come on,” the woman said. “I have to have you kids there by lunch, so move it along.”
Since everyone but Kylie had taken their seats, she supposed the woman meant her. She took a step farther into the bus, feeling as if her life would never, ever be the same.
“You can sit by me,” someone said. The boy had curly blond hair, even blonder than Kylie’s, but his eyes peering at her were so dark they looked black. He patted the empty seat beside him. Kylie tried not to stare, but something about the dark/light combination felt off. Then he wiggled his eyebrows, as if . . . as if her sitting beside him meant they might make out or something.
“That’s okay.” Kylie took a few steps, pulling her suitcase behind her. Her luggage caught on the row of seats where the blond boy sat and Kylie looked back to free it.
Her gaze met his and her breath caught. Blond boy now had . . . green eyes. Bright, very bright green eyes. How was that even possible?