C. Hunter - Reborn

She glanced back at her two best friends, both looking … goo-goo-eyed at their boyfriends, and decided to talk to Derek without them.

Taking off, she caught up with Derek right as he entered the path back to his cabin. “Derek,” she called, shaking off the warm, fuzzy feeling left over from her encounter with Steve. Damn that boy had a way of getting to her.

Derek stopped and turned around. “Yeah?” he asked.

“I … Do you have a minute?”

He almost frowned. “Just a minute, I’m meeting someone. What do you need?”

Was he meeting Jenny? Probably. Everyone seemed to be in love or on their way to it. Except her, she told herself, not willing to accept that her and Steve’s “thing” was more than a passing fancy. And it would pass, because that’s what she wanted.

She looked at Derek. “I’m…” How did she explain it? She forced herself to just spit it out, and as she did, she realized how hard it was to ask anyone for help. “I’m looking for a missing person. I want you … I was hoping you would flex your PI muscles to help me find him.”

“My PI muscles?”

“Your gift of doing investigation,” she clarified. “I know you used to work at a PI agency and I wanted to ask for your help.”

“Who is it you’re looking for?”

“My uncle,” she said.

“How long has he been missing?” Derek asked.

Della did the math in her head. “Around nineteen years.”

Derek’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“My dad had a twin that he never talked about, and I just learned about him. Supposedly, he died in a car crash.”

Derek’s mouth dropped a little more and his brow pinched in confusion. “If he’s dead, why…”

“I think maybe he was turned and faked his own death like most vampire teens do.”

“Are you sure he was turned?”

“No, but the vampire virus runs in families and it would make sense that … that it was what happened.”

“Not really. I’d say the odds of him being killed in a car crash are fifty times greater than him being turned. And the virus doesn’t always run in families. That’s only with about thirty percent of vampires,” Derek said. “Chris and I were just talking about that.”

“I know, but I have a cousin who’s vampire, too. So … so that has to up the odds some. And my sister heard my dad say his brother got cold and then went off and got himself killed in a car crash.”

“Cold as in physically cold?” Derek asked, for the first time seeming as if he believed her.

“I don’t know. My sister just overheard him saying that, so I can’t go ask my dad. But I was hoping you could research it. See if you find out anything on him.”

Derek made a what-the-hell face, and Della feared he was about to tell her no.

“Please,” she said. God, she hated begging.

He sighed. “I don’t mind trying, but nineteen years is a long time ago. Normally, I find stuff on the Internet, and being that long ago, chances of finding anything there is slim to none.” He paused as if to take everything in. “Wait, why don’t you go to Burnett? He could probably…”

“I don’t want Burnett involved until I know for sure he’s registered, or as a last resort.”

Derek frowned. “You think he could be rogue?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t want to bring the FRU down on him.”

Derek nodded and then looked at his watch as if he had to be somewhere. “Do you have his name and birthday, and the day he died?”

“Everything but the day he died,” Della said. “Oh, and I have a picture.” She went to pull it out of her pocket.

Derek held up his hand. “I have to … I’m supposed to meet Jenny. Can you scan the picture and e-mail it to me? And send any info you have on him. Where he was living. If he’d lived anywhere else recently. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll try.”

Hope welled up in Della. “I’ll go home and send it to you right now.”

He turned to go, but Della was suddenly so giddy with the possibility of this actually being true that she grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you!” It only took a second for her to realize how odd that was—her initiating something that almost resembled a hug.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and pulled away, looking at her a little strangely. But for once, she didn’t care. The thought that she honestly might find an uncle—a man who looked just like her father—and have a family member who understood the whole vampire life was like unfriggin’ believable.

Maybe then she wouldn’t grieve so much for her own family. Maybe she could go back to thinking life didn’t suck so much.

That night Della couldn’t sleep. She should be exhausted, since she’d been too busy allegedly stealing her dad’s brandy the night before, and had only napped an hour during the day, but her mind kept running on the possibility of finding her uncle. She got out the picture and stared at his face. He looked so much like her dad. They must be identical twins.

She couldn’t help but wonder if the man’s approval would make her feel as proud as her father’s.

It suddenly occurred to her that her cousin Chan might know something about him. Perhaps his mom had mentioned the uncle when her dad wouldn’t? She jumped up and snagged her phone off her dresser and called. She didn’t even worry about the time; considering he was vampire, and living on the edge of rogue, he didn’t try to conform his sleeping habits to match the human ways.

His phone rang and rang. It finally went to voicemail. “Hey, it’s Della. I have something I wanted to ask you. Can you give me a call?”

She hung up, but brought the phone to bed with her. Would he call her right back? She lay there staring at the phone for another hour, remembering he’d tried to call a week ago and she’d never called him back. Finally, feeling too antsy to just lie there, she decided to take a run. Maybe if she wore herself out, she might be able to sleep.

After donning a pair of jeans, she pulled on a top, and then the idea that she might run into Steve had her dashing to the bathroom to comb her hair and rinse out her mouth.

She popped her phone into her back pocket, then quietly opened the window and took off. The night held a chill, but it didn’t bother her. The moon, a silver crescent, hung a little low. A few clouds flickered in the black sky as if begging for attention. She ran to the edge of the woods, looking for a certain bird watching her from above. She slowed down to check and see if her hearing was on or off.

She heard birds calling, a few fluttering feathers in their nests above in the trees. A few crickets sang from beneath the brush, and something, a rabbit or a possum, stirred in the grass about fifty feet away. Her hearing was on. But glancing up, she didn’t see the particular bird she sought. Steve normally chose to shift into a peregrine falcon—because it was the fastest bird, he’d told her once.

As she started to move, her feet still hitting the ground, she maneuvered between the trees, dodging the branches, to spend some of the energy bubbling inside her. She recalled running earlier and finding Chase. Her mind flashed to the image of him playing ball without his shirt on.

She took a deep breath, tasting the air to make sure the panty perv wasn’t out tonight. The only scents she drew in were natural scents: the damp forest ground, and the smell of fall—that earthly smell of the leaves losing the battle to hold on to life, and turning from green to golds, reds, and oranges. As pretty as some people thought fall was, it was about death. And that was kind of sad.

She made the lap through the woods twice—never going into full flight. The large gate to her right marked the edge of Shadow Falls’s property. Her heart thumped in her chest. She inhaled, her nose picking up new scents … animals. A deer moved close by in the woods, its hooves stomping into wet earth as it darted between the trees with grace. Above she sensed a bird. She heard the wings flying over her. Glancing up, she saw the falcon pass in front of the glimmer of light from the moon.