"It's stupid," he said. "It doesn't matter what they want."

"Doesn't it?"

"No, it doesn't," he said with firmness. "I refuse to let anyone dictate who I like or see. Besides, you might end up being one of us."

"And if I'm not?"

"It still doesn't matter," he said, but the conviction in his voice had lessened.

"What will happen?" she asked.

"Nothing. Because I won't let it happen." He touched her cheek. "This is my issue. Let me deal with it."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Kylie walked into her chilly bedroom-yep, she had a ghostly visitor, but Kylie was determined to ignore her. She had to mull over her conversation and suspicions concerning Burnett and her conversation with Lucas. His pack's attitude was his issue, but it involved her. She also wanted to spend some time looking at her dad's face. As crazy as it sounded, she hoped staring at the pictures would somehow bring him closer to her.

"Someone lives and someone dies."

Kylie frowned. Okay, ignoring the spirit was probably going to be harder than she thought, especially since the so-called message the ghost was delivering was supposedly something the death angels had sent Kylie.

Ditto for Holiday's aunt, when she dropped in the day before.

"Who lives and who dies?" Kylie turned around to see the ghost woman hovering behind her. She had hair again, long dark hair that hung around her shoulders.

"They didn't say. But they did say that it isn't your fault."

"What's not my fault?" Kylie demanded.

The spirit shrugged. "They never explain anything. They just tell me to give you the message." She nipped at her bottom lip. "They scare me."

Kylie dropped onto the bed, and that's when she noticed something else about the ghost. She was pregnant. The pink maternity shirt clung to her round belly.

Suppressing her frustration, Kylie motioned to the woman's baby bulge. "You're pregnant."

She glanced down and dropped her hands around her middle. "How did that happen?"

Kylie shook her head. "If I was at home, I could give you a pamphlet to explain it step by step. A sperm meets an egg and so on. My mom gives me one of those every few months. But basically, it means you had sex with someone."

The spirit's expression grew puzzled. "Sex?"

"Please tell me you know what that is, because I'm too young to have to give you the whole sex talk. I haven't even heard it yet. I've just read the pamphlets."

"I know what sex is. I'm just ... Who did I have sex with?" she asked. "I can't remember."

"I wouldn't know that."

The spirit moved closer, and so did her chill. She dropped down on the bed beside Kylie, her palms still stretched across her belly. Closing her eyes, she sat there in silence. Kylie sensed she was searching her mind, trying to remember.

Kylie pulled a throw over her shoulders to ward off the chill. After several silence-filled minutes, the ghost opened her eyes but continued to stare down at her round middle. Her hands started moving tenderly over the child she carried within, as if to show it affection.

Kylie had never seen so much love shown in a simple touch. For a crazy second, she wondered what it would feel like to carry a child inside her own belly.

When the spirit looked up, she had tears in her eyes. "I think my baby died."

The grief on the spirit's face and in her voice brought a lump to Kylie's throat. "I'm sorry."

Then the spirit pulled her hands away from her belly, and both her palms were bloody. Kylie's breath caught when she saw the spirit's rounded abdomen was gone and the front of her dress was drenched in blood. "No." The deep, painful sob of the spirit filled the tiny room and seemed to bounce around from wall to wall.

Kylie opened her mouth to say something, to ask the spirit if she could remember what happened, to offer more apologies and sympathy. But before she could say anything, the woman disappeared.

The spirit's cold vanished but left a wave of icy sadness and grief so intense that it filled Kylie's chest with pain. And it wasn't just any pain. It was the grief of a mother losing a child. Kylie reached for her pillow and hugged it.

* * *

After a few minutes, Kylie pulled the pictures out of the envelope and flipped through them slowly. When she came to the one of her mom and Daniel in a group of other people, Kylie reached for her phone.

"Hi, sweetie." Just hearing her mom's voice brought back some of the empathy Kylie felt for the spirit.

"Hey, Mom."

Odd, how not so long ago, Kylie felt certain her mom didn't love her, didn't even want her. Now, there wasn't a doubt of her mom's devotion to her. Deep down, Kylie wondered if this was a part of growing up. The part where teens stopped seeing their parents as instruments out to destroy their lives and started seeing them as people.

Not perfect, of course. Kylie knew her mom still had flaws-lots of them-but none of them involved her love for Kylie. And none of them prevented Kylie from loving her.

"I'm glad you called," her mom said. "I've missed hearing your voice."

"Me too," Kylie managed to say without choking up, and she wished her mom were here to hug her. She wished she could tell her mom about the pictures, but then she'd have to explain about the Brightens, and she didn't think that whole mess was explainable. Not yet, anyway.