Inhaling another gulp of smoke, Kylie moved to escape the path of the wind. As her gaze moved from one group to another, one of Nana's old sayings fil ed her head, birds of a feather flock together.

The flocks, or cliques, were different at camp than in high school. She spotted Del a and the pierced boy, Jonathon, crowding around a group of kids, al vampires, no doubt.

Standing close to the fire, roasting marshmal ows, was Perry, the shape-shifter, and with him were two other guys and a girl. Kylie wondered if they could al turn into unicorns.

Derek stood to the side of another crowd, as if he wasn't so sure he wanted to belong. She assumed these must be the fairies, or Fae as he cal ed them. Not that she blamed him for using the different version. No straight guy would want to be cal ed a fairy. Not that anyone could mistake Derek for gay. Something about the way he walked and carried himself was overtly female-loving male-like Trey. Staring under her lashes, she let herself admire Derek's overtly male body. The wide shoulders, the square jaw, the way he fil ed out his jeans. That's when she realized she was doing it again-comparing Derek to Trey. She real y, real y didn't want to get caught up in that emotional storm, so she looked away.

Luck would have it that her gaze shot straight to another hard male body among a different flock of campers. Lucas. His warning about Del a's cousin echoed in her head as she let her gaze move over his tal frame. Not that she planned to al ow herself to appreciate the view for long. The fact that she appreciated it at al annoyed her. She owed her cat more loyalty than that. Right?

Before she could force her gaze away from his solid torso wrapped in the black T-shirt, she noticed his goth-dressed girlfriend standing next to him. Her body was pressed so close, that nobody would dare come between them.

Lucas turned around as if he'd sensed her staring. Kylie attempted to look away, but his gaze locked on hers. She felt caught. Then the strangest thing happened. A forgotten memory surfaced. She'd been walking home from school, and a few of the older boys had started picking on her. One of the bul ies had picked up a rock and slung it at her, but Lucas appeared out of nowhere and caught the rock. Like some kind of pro basebal player, he slung it back at the kid and hit the bul y right between his legs.

The boy fel in the street moaning. Lucas had walked beside her the rest of the way home-as if to protect her. Those bul ies never bothered her again.

Realizing she continued to stare at Lucas during her memory recal , she swung around. She noticed Miranda chatting with an artsy-looking crowd

-obviously the witches of the group. Stil feeling the tingle of Lucas's gaze, and needing something to get her mind off both him and her exboyfriend's lookalike, she started moving toward Miranda. Hopeful y, Kylie had learned enough floater skil s from Sara to get her through the next few months. Because face it, why should camp be any different than high school? Belonging to a group and fitting in just wasn't in her cards.

* * *

Kylie's pil ow didn't smel right-didn't feel right, either. Nothing felt right. She'd been the first to leave the campfire. When Holiday stopped her on her way out to ask how she was doing, Kylie had been tempted to hit the leader with a deluge of questions. Couldn't I just be a bit loony instead of gifted? And if I'm truly gifted, how do I find out what I am? And ... What's the real chance that camp could be closed down by those black-suited dudes? Oh, and can I do anything to make sure that happens? Okay, she wouldn't have asked the last two questions, but not from a lack of wanting.

More than anything in the world, Kylie wanted to go home-back to her own miserable life, back to her own miserable world. Nevertheless, standing in front of Holiday, Kylie recal ed the supersonic hearing of some of her campmates and put her questions on hold. According to her schedule, which had been handed out at the campfire, she'd have an hour counseling session with Holiday before lunch tomorrow. Before that, right after breakfast, Kylie was to show up for the daily activity of Meet Your Campmates Hour. Supposedly each camper was to be paired up with someone for an hour to get to know a little about each other, their gifts, and the culture of their species. Now, wouldn't that be fun? Not.

Sure she was curious, yet it would be kind of be nice to figure out what she was, or hopeful y what she "wasn't" before investing in what everyone else was. And if she could prove she wasn't anything but human maybe she could go home.

She rol ed over for about the hundredth time, knowing part of the reason she couldn't sleep was the fear that she'd have another night terror. Good God, she didn't want to have to explain that to her cabin mates.

The sound of her stomach grumbling fil ed the lonely darkness. Was there anything to eat in the fridge? Slipping out of bed, wearing a pair of navy boxers with hearts and a pink tank top, she moved to the door.

The door creaked when she stepped out of her room. The eeriness seemed to bounce against the log wal s. Kylie gazed at the two closed doors leading into the other bedrooms. She'd heard Del a and Miranda come in and listened to see if the two of them were stil planning to kil each other. Hey, if she was going to have to wake up to a bloody mess, she wanted to be prepared.

Fortunately, the two of them had exchanged a non-combative conversation. It seemed al Miranda wanted to talk about were the boys. Derek included. Not that Kylie minded, of course.

A couple more steps and Kylie looked again at the bedroom doors. Hopeful y, they were now both dead asleep. Okay, maybe dead wasn't the best word. Especial y considering she didn't know if vampires were dead or not. Did they even sleep? And for that matter, were they immortal like the books said they were?