Shadow Falls After Dark: Eternal Part 16

Or maybe not so alone.

A strange, repet.i.tive whoos.h.i.+ng noise came behind her. A kind of scary, repet.i.tive whoos.h.i.+ng noise. Her heart did a small tumble.

Did ghosts whoosh? And smell like ... fowl?

Chapter Eighteen.

Refusing to give in to the urge to run like h.e.l.l, Della swung around, her canines already out and her eyes feeling tight as if glowing.

The d.a.m.n huge bird c.o.c.ked its head and looked at her. "It's just me." Perry's voice came out of the bird's beak as sparkly bubbles started popping off, signaling that the shape-s.h.i.+fter was changing form.

"You realize I could have ripped your head off," she seethed, watching the bird fade and Perry appear.

"Because I scared you, or because you're mad at me?" he asked, his words a little slurred due to his beak being in the process of turning into lips. Della looked away-it was too creepy to watch.

Staring at the woods, it took only the tiniest fraction of a second to remember why she would be mad. Perry was leaving. And forget the fact that she would miss the twerp. One of her best friends was going to be devastated.

Della didn't like people devastating someone she cared about. Even when the person doing the disappointing was also a friend.

She swung back around. "Definitely because I'm mad. And I wasn't scared!" Her heart thumped to the tune of a lie, but shape-s.h.i.+fters couldn't hear that, so her little white fib didn't count. "Do you know what your leaving is going to do to Miranda?"

He frowned and kicked at the dirt. "It's going to hurt me, too. But what am I supposed to do? Turn it down? It's my one chance to maybe..."

"Maybe what?" Della asked.

"Nothing," he said.

"Don't 'nothing' me! What were you going to say?"

He kicked at another rock on the ground. "To change things."

"Change what?"

"Me," he said.

Della shook her head. "There's nothing wrong with you."

"Right," he said as if he thought she was making s.h.i.+t up. Couldn't he see she was too tired to make s.h.i.+t up right now?

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, suddenly realizing she didn't understand why Perry was going to the fancy school. She got why Steve would go. They were going to give him a crash course in supernatural medicine. But Perry wasn't into medicine.

"Spill it, bird boy!" Della snapped. "I'm dead tired and don't want to dance around this conversation."

"Haven't you noticed I have to hide on parents' day? And if Burnett uses me in a case, I have to go in already s.h.i.+fted?"

"Why?"

"Because I can't control things."

"What things?" Della asked.

"My eye color. And when I get mad I ... s.h.i.+ft without meaning to."

Della thought back. "So you turned into a dragon and a super-sized lion once or twice. That's not the end of the world."

"Not here, it's not, but if it's in the human world, it could stir up a lot of s.h.i.+t."

Della couldn't deny it. It would make national news. She could see CNN covering it now. They'd probably blame it on one of the political parties. That, or stem cell research. "And you really can't control it?"

"I wish."

Her heart, already broken in a hundred different ways, still hurt for the guy. "Then go and learn how to control yourself and come back. Miranda is bonkers about you, I'm sure she'll wait."

"She shouldn't."

"What?" Della asked. "Oh, c.r.a.p! Please tell me you aren't breaking up with her."

"Not breaking up, just taking a break."

"It still has the word 'break' in it, idiot. You can't do that to her!"

"You and Steve did it."

Della's mouth dropped open. "No. Steve and I weren't together. You can't break up when you're not made up." It was another lie, emotionally-they had made up and made out, but she ignored that point, ignored the sting of pain connected to the lie. Right now, she just felt for Miranda.

"Why the h.e.l.l are you doing this?" Della seethed.

His blue eyes tightened. "She needs to figure out what she wants."

"Duh, she already has! She wants you." And that's when a thought hit. And that thought shot to her gut, burned, and completely p.i.s.sed her off. Being p.i.s.sed off took the edge off her exhaustion.

"Is this about s.e.x?" she asked. "Because if this is about s.e.x, I'm gonna open up a huge can of whoop a.s.s on your b.u.t.t."

Her question seemed to shock him. "It's not ... I mean..."

"Boys!" she seethed. She moved in and poked the shape-s.h.i.+fter in his chest. "Listen to me, you little h.o.r.n.y twerp! n.o.body should be forced to do something they're not comfortable doing. Especially when it involves getting naked."

"It's not ... You don't understand."

"Oh, I understand all right." She gave Perry another poke. "Guys are jerkoffs who think if they can't get what they want from a girl, they'll just move on and get it from someone else."

"Stop," he ordered, his tone deep and vibrating with frustration. "You don't understand."

His eyes grew a bright red. He was about to s.h.i.+ft into something big and mean, but in the mood Della was in, she'd be happy to take him on. That can of whoop a.s.s was begging to be opened. But before he started s.h.i.+fting, the coward turned and walked away.

"That's right," she called after him. "You'd better tuck your tail and run." Then it hit her. "By the way, you were able to control yourself right then! You don't need to go to Paris. Stay with Miranda."

He didn't answer. Just kept walking. Angry, she started running back to her cabin, ready to find a crying Miranda. Much to her surprise, only silence met her when she entered the door.

Silence and a cold chill.

She stopped and looked around, waiting for ice pebbles to start dropping. But then the cold evaporated. Telling herself she'd imagined it, she started toward her bedroom, but spotted the note waiting on the kitchen table. Edging closer, almost afraid it was left by the ghost, she relaxed when she saw it was written in Kylie's handwriting.

Della, we didn't know when you'd be back. Miranda went to a witch meeting and I'm with Lucas. But if you need us, call, and we'll both be back in a snap. I'll listen to both you and Miranda whine.

Best buds forever!

Della sighed. "You two are the best." She almost pulled her phone out, but she didn't want to come off as needy. She'd see them when they got home. Walking into her bedroom, her gaze zeroed in on the bed.

Instantly, all she wanted to do was crawl in and lose herself to slumber. She didn't want to think. Didn't want to cry. Sleep and forget. An hour, maybe two. Since she'd been Reborn, that was all she really needed to refresh her.

She fell back on the bed, her eyes shut by the time her body hit and bounced on the mattress. Sleep lingered seconds away, so close she could touch it, but her phone, still tucked in her pocket, dinged with a text.

Don't look at it, a voice whispered inside her head. She moaned, then, unable to stop herself, she yanked her cell from her pocket and rolled over onto her stomach. She had to concentrate to get her eyes open.

The second she saw the number, she dropped her head, facedown, on the pillow. And the pain she'd been pus.h.i.+ng back rose up in her chest.

Lifting up again, she read the message.

Hey ... I think it would be easier to just say good-bye this way. I'll miss you. Bye, Steve.

He'd inserted an unhappy face. As if the unhappy face would make her feel better. She dropped her face back into the pillow and cried herself to sleep.

Two hours later, Della awakened to someone walking up the cabin steps. She lifted her heavy lids and took in a noseful of air to see if she could identify the visitor. The door to the cabin opened and Della recognized the fresh, herby smell that belonged to a certain witch. Remembering her brief encounter with Perry, Della's heart instantly went to aching for the girl.

Miranda inched open her door and stuck her head in. "You awake?"

Della sat up. "Yeah. But no hugs, okay?" The words were out of her mouth before she saw the look in the girl's puffy eyes.

Della hadn't been the only one crying tonight. Right then, she wished she'd kicked Perry's a.s.s.

Miranda didn't deserve this.

And Miranda deserved better than Della. The witch deserved Kylie. Kylie knew how to deal with heartbreaks. Della always said the wrong thing. Even when she tried really hard.

"Are you okay?" Miranda asked her.

The witch was hurting, breaking inside, Della could almost hear it, and yet the sincerity in Miranda's voice said the girl was worried about her.

"You know me, nothing fazes me." Her heart did tumbles at that huge lie.

"What did Steve want?" Miranda asked.

"To end it," Della said, biting back any sound of weakness.

"I wish I was more like you," Miranda said.

No you don't. "How are you?" Della asked, because it seemed the right thing to say, but she really didn't have to ask. Miranda's pain hung in the air like a cloud.

"Hur ... ting." Miranda's breath shook as she drew in air.

d.a.m.n it, Miranda was her friend. "Okay, one hug," Della conceded. She could suffer through one, then hopefully Miranda would go to bed.

The witch barreled into the room, dropped down on the bed, and wrapped her arms around Della. And it wasn't the just-one-and-go-to-bed kind of hug. It was the kind that said she didn't want to let go.

And as crazy as it felt, neither did Della. She wanted to hang on to the way things had been. It's going to be okay. She heard Chase's words, but Della knew "okay" meant Steve wouldn't be around. And neither would Perry.

Chapter Nineteen.

"I just ... don't get this whole ... take time off c.r.a.p," Miranda cried into Della's shoulder. "People don't do that."

Yeah, they do. The witch's hot tears seeped into Della's s.h.i.+rt and she thought of all the people lately who'd walked out of her life. Then, finally uncomfortable with the clinging, she managed to pull out of Miranda's arms. Hugs should never last more than fifteen seconds.

"It's going to be okay." Della repeated Chase's words, but without the same conviction as when he'd said it. What she wanted to say was all this sucked. And at the top of the sucky list was the fact that Della sucked at consoling people.

"No, it won't!" Miranda snapped. "I told him I would wait on him. Three weeks, months, years. I don't care. But he said no, that it wasn't fair to ask me to wait. Then he said that if I still loved him when he came back, that we'd walk off into the sunset and be happy."

"The sunset? Who even says s.h.i.+t like that?" Della bellowed, saying the first thing that came to her mind, and from the expression in Miranda's eyes, perhaps it was the wrong thing.

Miranda took some hiccupy breaths, sobbed into her hands for a good minute, then looked up with mascara-induced racc.o.o.n eyes.

"Do you want me to walk you to bed?" Della asked, hoping the witch would say yes before Della said something that made it worse.

Miranda either didn't hear her, or couldn't in her mental state. "I asked him about him still loving me. Do you know what he said?"

"Something terrible, I'm sure," Della answered.

"He said that he couldn't imagine not loving me."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Della said, still giving it her best shot, but cringing at her lack of consoling ability.

"Then he said we needed to look at this rationally." Miranda let out a high-pitched moan. "He's acting like such a ... an adult!" She spit the last word out like it tasted bad on her tongue.

"Yeah, who wants that?" Della said.