Kitten stood outside the door to the girls’ room and braced herself for what she knew was gonna happen next. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped inside.

Acacia was lying on the couch, book in hand and facing the doorway. Just as Kitten thought, she had waited up for her. Although she never showed it, Acacia did worry for her friends. Kitten smiled sadly to herself as she thought of how she wished Acacia would worry more for herself.

Acacia didn’t even look up from her book, as she asked in a tone that sounded like she didn’t care one way or the other, “Where were you?” She glanced toward the window, then back at the book, before adding with a slightly critical note creeping into her voice, “All night?”

“I was, uh, blowing off some steam,” Kitten answered. It was the truth, she had been. The only parts she left out were that while she was blowing off steam she was attacked by strange people, helped out by a Shane, and then talked to that person until the first light of day, revealing her innermost secrets. Trifling matters, really, nothing worth mentioning.

“Until dawn?” Acacia asked, almost as if she were reading Kitten’s mind. Her eyebrow was raised even though she still hadn’t looked up from the book.

“Well, uh, yeah” Kitten replied none too convincingly, before quickly changing the subject. “I-Is Rina back yet?”

At the mention of Rina, Acacia took on a change of disposition. No longer stoic, she snorted irritably and said, “Oh, she’s back alright and being three times more annoying than usual. I don’t know what you did, but she’s been complaining my ear off ever since she got back. And as if that wasn’t enough, she took turns complaining, then blubbering, and then complaining while blubbering! My patience is wearing dangerously thin. Do something about her.”

While the change of topic did get Acacia’s mind off Kitten’s unusual lateness, it certainly didn’t do anything to improve her mood. Moreover, she knew to take Acacia’s warning seriously. The girl had an explosive temper, and Kitten was pretty sure that Rina was the only person she knew who was gutsy enough to push her past the critical point. And on purpose, too!

Kitten was just about to reply, when Rina herself suddenly burst in upon them. She took one look at Kitten, standing by the door, and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. “And just where have you been?” she snapped. Kitten opened her mouth to answer, but was once again cut off.

“Oh no, don’t tell me. I’m pretty sure I already know. Did you go back to the party after I left? So was it Casey you left with or Logan? Or maybe both?” she said, caustically. Her hands had gone down to her hips and she was pacing as she glared at Kitten.

Meanwhile, said person had been stunned into speechlessness for a second. Kitten had always known Rina could be temperamental at times, but she hadn’t thought she was blind! She was sure she had made it perfectly clear to anyone who had cared to listen, that she felt nothing but loathing for the Shane boys, Big and Little.

“Now wait a--” Kitten started, after having regained her voice, but was interrupted yet again.

“Oh, but what was I thinking!” she intoned in a sarcastically sweet voice, “You couldn’t have gone with both. After all, Casey just got so-o-o jealous when he saw you and Logan together now didn’t he?”

“Hold on a sec--”

“Or maybe you stayed at the party and had them introduce you to their parents. So are you calling them by their first names yet, or did you just skip that and go straight to calling them Mom and Dad?”
Kitten was starting to get pissed off. She had no idea where these wild accusations were coming from. She had thought that Rina would be mad, since her plan was ruined, but this was a little too much in Kitten’s opinion.

Acacia was busy reading the book she had yet to look away from, despite the tension surrounding her. Though she was aware of Rina’s continuous ranting, she chose to ignore it and kept reading. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it all before. But she happened to glance up as she turned the page and caught the expression of annoyance on Kitten’s face, as well as a little confusion. Looking back down at her book, Acacia addressed Kitten in a low voice, knowing that Rina wouldn’t hear her over her own deluded tirade. “She’s been doing that all night. Every hour on the hour, she would come out here to tell me about some crazy new fantasy she’d conjured up about why you were late. The longer you were gone, the worse they got.”

“No kidding” Kitten grumbled as Rina, who had taken to wild hand gestures, practically shouted, “So have you decided on the names for all your children yet? So what’s it gonna be, five or eight?!”

Kitten was tired. It wasn’t the fight or the run back to the hotel that did it. Those things didn’t even put a dent in her stamina, which was ten times that of a normal human being. No, it was just plain lack of sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stayed up all night. She loved to sleep and right then all she wanted to do was flop down onto her bed and sink into unconsciousness. She could not think of anything more blissful than that at the moment. Except maybe peaches n’ cream for breakfast, heavy on the cream with lots of sugar.

But instead of sleeping, she was here, standing by the door, listening to Rina’s various and completely ridiculous hallucinations. Suddenly, Kitten was mad herself. When she was tired, she was irritable and having Rina scream at her for no reason made her even more irritable. Now, she’d finally snapped.

“I don’t know what the hell you’ve been smoking, but it’s obvious that you must be high if you actually believe all that crap you’ve been spouting off for the last ten minutes!” Kitten yelled, stopping Rina short in the middle of her rant. “You’ve got some nerve, accusing me of having some sort of liaisons with those two! Who was it that wanted me to come here with her in the first place, huh? And who was it that insisted I go to that party tonight? It certainly wasn’t me, that’s for sure! Don’t blame me just because the guy you chose turned out to be a complete ass!!”

Kitten had only just begun and was about to continue, when she suddenly saw Rina’s face crumple. She fell to her knees on the floor and promptly started bawling. “I-I’m s-sorry!--sob, sniff-- I-I was just so a-angry and frustrated. I didn’t m-mean to t-take it out on you. I’m s-s-sorry!”

She began crying even harder then. Now Kitten didn’t know what to do. She exchanged glances with Acacia and could see that she was just as startled at Rina’s sudden attitude change. Kitten and Acacia had known Rina for many years, but they still hadn’t gotten used to her volatile nature.

“N-nothing ever goes how I want it,” Rina continued, through her sobs, “I g-guess I just--I guess I just messed up again. All I w-wanted was to be able to do something for you and A-Acacia!” With that, she broke down into another torrent of tears.

Kitten shifted from foot to foot awkwardly. Not exactly being an overly emotional person herself, she hadn’t any idea how to handle crying people. Unfortunately, Acacia had as little, if not less, experience in that department than Kitten.

Finally, Kitten walked over to Rina, who gave a yelp of surprise as the other girl grabbed her wrist and hauled her to her feet. “Quit your caterwauling! What happened tonight wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. If there’s someone to blame in all this, it would be that stupid guy. What did you ever see in that idiot anyway? I mean, besides the Mt. Everest-sized pile of money behind him” Kitten asked, annoyance rising in her at the mere thought of the man.

“Well” Rina replied, tears still choking her, “I guess that was about it. But that aside, I still failed. Everything still managed to go wrong.--sniffle, sniff--”

“Oh, that” Acacia piped up now, “Don’t worry about it. None of your plans ever go right anyways, so it’s not like we were expecting anything different this time.”

Rina sent her a frosty look that clearly said she was not helping. Kitten smacked a hand to her face in disgust. If that was Acacia’s attempt at being supportive, it was a sad effort indeed. Although, inwardly, Kitten had to agree with her.

Rina stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms. All traces of her tears vanished as she snapped, “Fine then. If that’s the way you feel about it, see if I ever plan anything for you again! I’m going to bed!” That said she stomped off to her room.

Kitten needed a minute to recover from the complete 180 turn Rina’s attitude had taken. For the second time. In just the last ten minutes she’d gone from infuriated, to depressed, to offended. Seriously, was she ever going to get used to that?

“Finally” Acacia muttered, after they heard Rina’s door slam. She put down her book and pulled the blanket, still on the couch from the night before, over herself. She lay down and rolled over, before saying to Kitten, “Goodnight.” Apparently the fact that it was already morning mattered little to her.

It crossed Kitten’s mind then, that maybe--just maybe--Acacia’s earlier comment wasn’t meant to be supportive after all. Too tired to think, much less press the matter, Kitten left Acacia to herself and managed to make it back to her own room before falling onto the bed. She was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

----

The girls did not even twitch a muscle earlier than noon. And then it was only their empty stomachs that dragged them from their beds. After Rina and Acacia watched Kitten put away enormous amounts of food with some awe, the three decided to take a walk on the beach. Not before a few comments were made upon Kitten’s eating habits, to which she gave noncommittal answers. Rina and Acacia had seen her eat before, but the extreme quantities she could down while still staying so skinny never ceased to amaze them. Especially Rina. They made it down to the beach without further comment, though, much to Kitten’s relief.

After awhile, Rina started fanning herself with one hand and said, “Man, it’s hot out here today!”

“Yeah, I guess it is kinda hot” Kitten replied, feeling herself starting to sweat a little.

“Really? I didn’t notice” Acacia put in. She was walking a bit behind the other two and Rina turned to stare at her like she was crazy. But the fact was Acacia did not seem to be at all affected by the sun beating down on them. She wasn’t sweating a drop and the hot sand beneath her bare feet might as well have not been there, for all the notice she took of it.

Kitten turned to look at her as well, watching her curiously. This wasn’t the first time they had observed that Acacia seemed to be oblivious to the heat of a day. In fact, the hotter the day was, the more cheerful she became. Although only those who knew her could tell. When Kitten and Rina had pointed this out to her, however, she said she didn’t know what they were talking about.

Now Rina snorted disgustedly and said, “Well you’re insane! How can you not feel how hot it is?!”

Suddenly, she stopped and started to sway like a branch in the breeze. She was sweating profusely and when she tried walking again, she stumbled around in a zigzagging line.

“It’s hot! It’s too hot! I need some shade!!” Rina wailed before staggering over to a shady place where some palm trees grew along the beach. She flopped down onto the sand under one of the trees, breathing like she’d just run a marathon.

Kitten’s gaze had turned back to Rina when she had stopped and now she was wondering what in the world was wrong with the girl. Sure it was hot out, but it wasn’t that hot. There was a light breeze coming from up off the ocean that provided small relief from the heat. It wasn’t as if they were in the Sahara desert and had been walking for days. It’d only been seven minutes!

Another thing Kitten had noted was Rina’s strangely weak constitution for heat. She never could take being out too long on a hot day, but for the past couple of years she seemed to be getting worse. She was already having a breakdown in the small amount of time they’d been on the beach.

And yet, during the winter Rina could walk around wearing a jean jacket over a tank top and be perfectly fine. Sometimes she even wore jeans with holes in them--one time Kitten had actually seen her in shorts--in the middle of December!

Acacia, on the other hand, hated winter. She couldn’t stand the cold any better than Rina could stand the heat. Just another glaring difference between the two, Kitten thought. She herself was pretty normal when it came to the weather. Which was rather funny if one thought about it, considering that was the only respect in which she was normal.

Acacia and Kitten went to sit down on either side of Rina. “Why? Why did I come here? I’m going to die before I get home!” she moaned.

“Oh please, don’t be so melodramatic” Kitten said, “And you came here to catch a big snotty fish who thinks he’s all that, remember?”

“Oh yeah…why did I want to do such a stupid thing again?”

The conversation continued, but Acacia had zoned out. She was looking upwards, at a bird flying high in the sky. She couldn’t tell what kind of bird it was, but as she watched, it dipped low over the ocean then dived down and grabbed a fish in its talons before winging its way back up and towards land. She figured it must have been some sort of raptor. Acacia continued to stare at the sky above her, even after the bird was long gone.

Acacia. Suddenly, Acacia sat straight up. Was it her imagination, or had a voice, not her own or one of the others’, just whispered her name? Acacia! Now she was sure she’d heard it that time! But for some reason the voice didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere. It just seemed to ring inside her head.

“Acacia!!” Kitten bellowed in her ear. “Geez, have you gone deaf or did you fall asleep over there? I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past three minutes!”

“Well, if I wasn’t deaf before I certainly am now” Acacia grumbled, sticking a finger in the ear Kitten had yelled into.

“If you’ve finished your explorations of the solar system, we’d like to be on our way here on Earth,” Kitten said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well ya didn’t have to scream my ear off to tell me that” Acacia shot back.

As they were returning to the hotel--Rina insisted she couldn’t handle the heat any longer--Acacia dropped back behind the others and looked out toward the sea for a moment. Something strange had happened to her, she knew, but she didn’t understand what. She ran to catch up with Rina and Kitten deciding to keep the ’incident’ to herself. There was no need to have them worrying over her sanity, too.