"Thanks," Kylie muttered, and went to join Sara. Luckily, Soldier Dude had decided margaritas weren't his thing after al and left.

"Here." Sara took the beer from Kylie's hand and replaced it with a margarita.

The frosty glass felt unnatural y cold. Kylie leaned in and whispered, "Did you see a strange guy here a minute ago? Dressed in some funky army outfit?"

Sara's eyebrows did their wild, wiggly thing. "How much of that beer did you drink?" Her laughter fil ed the night air. Kylie wrapped her hands tighter around the cold glass, worried she seriously might be losing her mind. Adding alcohol to the situation didn't seem like a good idea.

An hour later, when three Houston cops walked into the backyard and had everyone line up at the back gate, Kylie stil had the same untouched margarita clutched in her hands.

"Come on, kids," one of the cops said. "The sooner we move you to the precinct, the sooner we can get your parents to come get you." That was when Kylie knew for certain that her life real y had been toilet-bound-and someone had just flushed.

* * *

"Where's Dad?" Kylie asked her mom when she stepped into the room at the police station. "I cal ed Dad."

I'm a phone call away, Pumpkin. Hadn't he told her that? So why wasn't he here to get Pumpkin?

Her mom's green eyes tightened. "He cal ed me."

"I wanted Dad," Kylie insisted. No, she needed her dad, she thought, and her vision clouded with tears. She needed a hug, needed someone who would understand.

"You don't get what you want, especial y when ... my God, Kylie, how could you do this?"

Kylie swiped the tears from her face. "I didn't do anything. Didn't they tel you? I walked a straight line. Touched my nose and even said my ABCs backwards. I didn't do anything."

"They found drugs there," her mother snapped.

"I wasn't doing drugs."

"But do you know what they didn't find there, young lady?" Her mother pointed a finger at her. "Any parents. You lied to me."

"Maybe I'm just too much like you," Kylie said, stil reeling at the thought that her dad hadn't shown up. He'd known how upset she'd been. Why hadn't he come?

"What does that mean, Kylie?"

"You told dad you didn't know what happened to his underwear. But you'd just flame-broiled his shorts on the gril ."

Guilt fil ed her mother's eyes and she shook her head. "Dr. Day is right."

"What does my shrink have to do with tonight?" Kylie asked. "Don't tel me you cal ed her. God, Mom, if you dare bring her down here where al 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. Wel , 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? Real y, 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 tel ing 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 fil ed 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 real y doing it.

And her dad was real y letting her mom do it.

Kylie, who'd never drunk more than two sips of beer, who'd never real y 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 cal ing you."

Could her mom get rid of her any faster? Kylie pul ed 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 hel 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 chil s again. Never, not in al 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?