The Morganville Vampires Collection (The Morganville Vampires #1-4) (19 page)

‘Claire’s dorm was girls-only,’ Claire’s mom put in. She reached over to stroke Claire’s hair absently, the way she did when Claire was little. Claire endured it. Actually, she secretly liked it, a little, and had to fight not to relax against Mom’s side and let herself be hugged. Protected. ‘She was safe, wasn’t she? That Monica girl said—’

‘You talked to Monica?’ Claire said sharply, and looked wide-eyed at her mother. Mom frowned a little,
dark eyes concerned.

‘Yes, of course I did. I was trying to find out where you’d gone, and Monica was very helpful.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Claire muttered. The idea of Monica standing there smiling at her mom – looking innocent and nice, probably – was sickening.

‘She said you were staying here,’ Mom finished, still frowning. ‘Claire, honey, why would you leave the dorm? I know you’re not a silly girl. You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t have a reason.’

Michael said, ‘She did. She was being hazed.’

‘Hazed?’ Mom repeated the word like she had no idea what it meant.

‘From what Claire told me, it started small – all the freshmen girls get it from the older ones. Nasty stuff, but not dangerous. But she got on the wrong side of the wrong girl, and she was getting hurt.’

‘Hurt?’ That was Dad, who now had something to hold on to.

‘When she came here, she had bruises like a road map,’ Michael said. ‘To be honest, I wanted to call the cops. She wouldn’t let me. But I couldn’t let her go back there. She wasn’t just getting knocked around… I think her life was in danger.’

Mom’s hand had frozen in Claire’s hair, and she let out a little moan.

‘It’s not that bad,’ Claire offered. ‘I mean, look,
nothing broken or anything. I had a sore ankle for a while, and a black eye, but—’

‘A black eye?’

‘It’s gone. See?’ She batted her eyelashes. Mom’s gaze searched her face with agonising care. ‘Honest, it’s over. Done. Everything’s fine now.’

‘No,’ Michael said. ‘It’s not. But Claire’s handling it, and we’re watching out for her. Shane especially. He – he had a little sister, and he’s taken an interest in making sure Claire stays safe. But more than that, I think Claire’s taking care of herself. And that’s what she has to learn, don’t you agree?’ Michael leant forward, hands loosely clasped, elbows on his knees. In the glow of the lamps, his hair was rich gold, his eyes angel blue. If anybody
ever
looked trustworthy, it was Michael Glass.

Of course, he was dead and all, which Claire had to bite her tongue not to blurt out in sheer altered-state panic.

Mom and Dad were thinking. She knew she had to say something…something important. Something that would make them not drag her home by the ear. ‘I can’t leave,’ she said. It came from her heart, and she meant every word. Her voice stayed absolutely steady, too – for once. ‘Mom, Dad, I know that you’re afraid for me, and I – I love you. But I need to stay here. Michael isn’t telling you this, but they put themselves on the line for me, and I owe it to them to stay until
it’s settled and I’m sure they won’t get in trouble for me. It’s what I have to do, you understand? And I can do it. I
have
to.’

‘Claire,’ Mom said in a small, choked voice. ‘You’re
sixteen
! You’re a
child
!’

‘I’m not,’ she said simply. ‘I’m sixteen and a half, and I’m not giving up. I never have. You know that.’

They did. Claire had fought all her life against the odds, and both her parents knew it. They knew how stubborn she was. More, they knew how important it was to her.

‘I don’t like this,’ her dad said, but he sounded unhappy now, not angry. ‘I don’t like you living with older boys. Off campus. And I want these people who hurt you stopped.’

‘Then
I
have to stop them,’ Claire said. ‘It’s my problem. And there are other girls in that dorm getting hurt, too, so it isn’t just about me. I need to do it for them, too.’

Michael raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t answer. Mom wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. Eve appeared in the doorway wearing a huge apron with a red-lips emblem that read K
ISS
T
HE
C
OOK
, peered uncertainly at them, and gave Claire’s parents a nervous smile.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ she said.

‘Oh, we couldn’t,’ Mom said.

‘The heck we can’t,’ Dad said. ‘I’m starved. Is that chilli?

Dinner was uncomfortable. Dad made noncommittal grunts about the quality of the chilli. Shane looked like he was barely holding on to his laughter most of the time. Eve was so nervous that Claire thought she would jitter right out of the chair, and Michael… Michael was the calm one. The adult. Claire had never felt more like the kid at the big table in her life.

‘So, Michael,’ Claire’s mother said, nibbling at a spoonful of chilli, ‘what is it you do?’

Haunts the house where he died
, Claire thought, and bit her lip. She took a fast sip of her cola.

‘I’m a musician,’ he said.

‘Oh really?’ She brightened up. ‘What do you play? I love classical music!’

Now even
Michael
looked uncomfortable. Shane coughed into his napkin and drained Coke in huge gulps to drown out his hiccupping laughter.

‘Piano and guitar,’ he said. ‘But mostly guitar. Acoustic and electric.’

‘Humph,’ Claire’s dad said. ‘Any good?’

Shane’s shoulders were shaking.

‘I don’t know,’ Michael said. ‘I work hard at it.’

‘He’s
very
good!’ Eve jumped in, eyes bright and
flashing. ‘Honestly, Michael, you should quit being so humble. You’re really great. It’s just a matter of time before you really do something big, and you know it!’

Michael looked…blank. Expressionless. That didn’t quite hide the pain, Claire thought. ‘Someday,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘Hey, Shane, thanks for dinner. Good stuff.’

‘Yeah,’ Eve said. ‘Not bad.’

‘Spicy,’ Dad said, as if that was a flaw. Claire knew for a fact he ordinarily added Tabasco to half of what he ate. ‘Mind if I get a refill?’

Eve jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. ‘I’ll get it!’ But Dad was at the end of the table, closest to the kitchen, and he was already on his feet and heading that direction.

Michael and Shane exchanged looks. Claire frowned, trying to figure out what they were looking so alarmed about.

They sat in silence as the refrigerator opened, bottles rattled, and then it closed. Dad came back, one cold-frosted Coke in his hand.

In his other hand he held a beer. He sat it in the centre of the table and glared at Michael.

‘You want to explain why there’s beer in a refrigerator with a sixteen-year-old in the house?’ he asked.

‘Not to mention that none of you is old enough to be drinking it!’

Well, that was that. Some days, Claire thought, you just couldn’t win.

She had two days, and only because Dad agreed to allow her to go to the admissions office and file transfer paperwork. Michael tried his best, but even angelic good looks and complete sincerity weren’t good enough this time. Shane had stopped finding it amusing at some point, and started yelling. Eve had gone to her room.

Claire had cried. A lot. Furiously.

She was so angry, in fact, that she barely cared that Mom and Dad were going to be driving out of Morganville in the dark, unprotected and unwarned. Michael took care of that, though, with a story about carjackers stealing SUVs in the area. That was the best anyone could do, and more than Claire wanted, anyway.

Dad had looked at her like she was a
disappointment
.

She’d never, ever been a disappointment before, and it totally pissed her off, because she didn’t deserve it, not one bit.

Michael and Shane stood in the doorway, watching her parents hurry to their SUV in the dark. Shane, she saw, had a big hand-carved cross, and he was ready to charge to the rescue, even though he was mad as hell. He didn’t need to, though. Mom and Dad got in their
truck and drove away, into the hushed Morganville night, and Michael closed and locked the door and turned to look at Claire.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That could have been better.’

‘You think?’ she shot back. Her eyes were swollen and hot, and she felt like she might vibrate apart; she was so mad. ‘I’m not leaving! No way!’

‘Claire.’ Michael reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Until you’re eighteen, you really don’t have the right to say that, OK? I know, you’re almost seventeen, you’re smarter than ninety per cent of the people in the world—’

‘One hundred per cent smarter than anybody else in this house,’ Shane said.

‘—but that doesn’t matter. It will, but it doesn’t right now. You need to do what they say. If you decide to fight them, it’s going to get ugly, and Claire, we can’t afford it.
I
can’t afford it. You understand?’ He searched her eyes, and she had to nod. ‘Sorry. Believe me, it isn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but at least you’ll be out of Morganville. You’ll be safe.’

He hugged her. She felt her breath leave for a second, and then he was gone, walking away.

She looked at Shane.

‘Well, I’m not hugging you,’ he said. He was standing close to her, so close she had to crane her neck way up to meet his eyes. And for a long few
seconds, they didn’t say anything; he just…watched her. In the living room, she heard Eve talking to Michael, but here in the hallway it was very quiet. She could hear the fast pounding of her heart, and wondered if he could hear it, too.

‘Claire—’ he finally said.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m sixteen. Heard it already.’

He put his arms around her. Not the way Michael had, exactly – she didn’t know why it was different, but it was. This wasn’t a hug; it was – it felt –
close
.

He wasn’t holding himself back, that was it. And she relaxed against him with a breathless sigh, cheek against his chest, almost purring with relief. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She felt so
small
next to him, but that was all right. It didn’t make her feel weak.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ he whispered, and she leant back to look up at him again.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ She thought – really thought – that he was going to kiss her, but just then, she heard Eve call, ‘Shane!’ and he flinched and pulled back, and the old Shane, the cocky Shane, was back. ‘You made things exciting around here.’

He loped off down the hall, and she felt a pure burst of fury.

Boys
. Why were they always such dumbasses?

The night did its usual tricks – creepy creaking
sounds upstairs, wind hissing at the windows, branches tapping. Claire couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get used to the idea that this room, this lovely room, was hers for only two more nights, and then she’d be carted off, humiliated and defeated, back home. No way would her parents let her go anywhere now. She’d have to wait out the next year and a half, which meant that her admission paperwork would have to be re-done, and she’d have to start all over…

At least it didn’t matter now if she blew off classes, she thought, and punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape. Several times.

If she’d been asleep – even a
little
asleep – she’d have missed the knock on the door, as light as it was, but she was wired and full of restless energy, and she slipped out of bed and went to unlock it and swing it open.

It was Shane. He stood there, clearly wanting to come in, not daring to come in, as uncertain as she’d ever seen him. He was wearing a loose T-shirt and sweatpants, feet bare, and she felt a white-hot wave of –
something
– sweep over her. This had to be what he slept in. Or…maybe less than that.

OK, she
really
needed to stop thinking about that.

She became aware, a hot second later, that she was standing there in a thin oversized T-shirt – one of Michael’s old ones – with bare legs from mid-thigh down. Half-naked wouldn’t be overstating it.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ Shane said. ‘Did I wake you up?’

‘No. I couldn’t sleep.’ She was acutely aware of the bed behind her, covers all twisted. ‘Um, do you want to, um…come in?’

‘Better not,’ he said softly. ‘Claire, I—’ He shook his head, brown hair swinging loose around his face. ‘I shouldn’t even be here.’

But he wasn’t leaving, either.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sitting down. If you want to stand there, fine.’

She went to the bed and sat, careful how she did it. Legs together, prim and proper. Her toes barely brushed the carpet. She felt alive and tingling all over.

She looked down at her hands, at the ragged fingernails, and picked at them nervously.

Shane took two steps into the room. ‘For the next two days, I don’t want you leaving the house,’ he said. Which was
not
what she was expecting him to say. Not at all. ‘Your dad already thinks we’re getting you drunk and staging orgies in the hallway. Last thing I want is to send you home with fang marks in your neck. Or in a coffin.’ His voice dropped lower. ‘I couldn’t stand that. I really couldn’t. You know that, right?’

She didn’t look up. He came a step closer, and his bare feet and sweatpants came into her vision. ‘Claire. You’ve got to promise me.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not some little kid. And I’m not your sister.’

He laughed, low in his throat. ‘Oh, yeah. That, I know. But I don’t want to see you get hurt again.’

His hand cupped her chin in warmth, and tilted her face up.

The whole world hushed, one perfect second of stillness. Claire didn’t even think her heart beat.

His lips were warm and soft and sweet, and the sensation just blinded her, made her feel awkward and scared.
I’ve never…nobody ever…I’m not doing it right
…
She hated herself, hated that she didn’t know how to kiss him back, knew he was measuring her against all those other girls, those better girls he’d kissed.

It stopped. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like a bird fluttering in her chest. She was flushed and hot and
warm
, so warm…

Shane pressed his forehead to hers and sighed. His breath warmed her face, and this time she kissed him, letting her instincts guide her, letting him pull her to her feet. Their hands were clasped, fingers laced, and parts of her – parts she’d only ever warmed up alone – were going full blast.