The Morganville Vampires Collection (The Morganville Vampires #1-4) (41 page)

Hess put a warning hand on her arm. ‘Enough, Oliver.’

‘Not nearly enough. If you came to bargain, I think you have nothing to offer me that I can’t get elsewhere,’ Oliver said. ‘So please take yourselves—’

‘I’ll sign whatever you want,’ Claire blurted. ‘You know, swear myself to you. Instead of Amelie. If you want. Just let Shane go.’

She hadn’t been planning to do it, but when he’d mentioned
bargain
it had just taken on a life of its own inside her, and leapt right out of her mouth. Hess groaned and ran a hand over his hair, then covered his mouth, evidently to keep himself from telling her what an idiot she was.

Oliver continued to gaze at her with those steady, kind eyes.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘It would be love, then. For love of this boy, you would tie yourself to me for the rest of your life. Give me the right to use you as I see fit.
Do you have any idea what you’re offering? Because I would not offer you the conditional contracts that most in Morganville sign, Claire. No, for you, there would be the old ways. The hard ways. I would own you, body and soul. I would tell you when to marry and whom to marry, and own your children and all their issue. I was born in a time when this was custom, you see, and I am not in a charitable mood just now. Is this what you want?’

‘Don’t,’ Hess said sharply. He gripped Claire’s forearm and pulled her up to her feet. ‘We’re going, Oliver. Right now.’

‘She has the right to make her own choices, Detective.’

‘She’s a
child
! Oliver, she’s sixteen years old!’

‘She was old enough to conspire against me,’ he said. ‘Old enough to find the book that I spent half a hundred years pursuing. Old enough to cut off my one and only chance to save my people from Amelie’s intolerable iron grip.
Do you think I care about her
age
?’ Oliver’s friendly courtesy was all gone, and what was left was like a man-sized snake, with a cruel light flickering behind his eyes, and fangs flicking down in warning. Claire let Hess pull her out from behind the table, towards the door. He’d drawn his gun.

‘I may not let you leave,’ Oliver said. ‘You realise
that?’

Hess spun and raised the gun, pointed it straight at Oliver’s chest. ‘Silver bullets washed in holy water, with a cross cast right in.’ He clicked back the hammer. ‘You want to test the line, Oliver? Because it’s right here. You’re standing on it. I’ll take a lot of shit from you, but not this. Not that kind of contract, and not with a kid.’

Oliver hadn’t even bothered to stand up.

‘I take it you don’t want your coffee poured to go? A pity. Do watch your back, Detective. You and I will have a talk, one of these days. And Claire…come back anytime. If the hours run thin, and you want to make that deal, I will listen.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Hess said. ‘Claire, open the door.’ He held his gun trained on the vampire, unblinking, while Claire unlocked the three dead bolts and swung it open. ‘Get in the car. Move.’ He backed out behind her as she ran to the car and dived inside. Hess banged the door to Common Grounds closed, hard enough to crack glass, and slid over the hood of the car in a move she’d only ever seen in action movies, and was in the car and starting it before she could take a breath.

They raced off into the night. Claire checked the back seat, suddenly terrified she’d turn around to see Oliver grinning at her, but it was empty.

Hess was sweating. He wiped at the drops with the back of his hand. ‘You don’t fool around when you get yourself in trouble, I’ll give you that,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen anybody get that out of Oliver. Ever.’

‘Um…thanks?’

‘It wasn’t a compliment. Listen, under no circumstances do you
ever
go back to Common Grounds, get me? Avoid Oliver at all costs. And no matter what happens, don’t make that deal. Shane wouldn’t want it, and you’d live to regret it. You’d live a long time, and you’d hate every horrible second of it.’ Hess shook his head and took a deep breath. ‘Right. That’s the end of the line for you tonight. You’re going home, I’m seeing you safe inside, and I’m going home to hide in a closet until this blows over. I suggest you do the same.’

‘But Shane—’

‘Shane’s dead,’ Hess said, so quietly and matter-of-factly that she thought he meant it, that somehow someone had slipped in and killed him and
she
hadn’t even known
…but then he went on. ‘You can’t save him. Nobody can save him now. Just let go and watch yourself, Claire. That’s all you can do. You’ve pissed off both Amelie and Oliver in one night. Enough already. A little common sense would be welcome from you right about now.’

She sat in dull, grim silence the rest of the way home.

Hess was as good as his word. He walked her from the car up the steps, watched her open the front door, and nodded wearily as she stepped inside. ‘Lock it,’ he said. ‘And for God’s sake, go get some rest.’

Michael was right there, warm and comforting, when she closed the door. He was holding his guitar by the neck, so he’d clearly been playing; his eyes were red-rimmed, his face tense. ‘Well?’ he asked.

‘Hello, Claire, how are you?’ Claire asked the air. ‘No death threats, right? Thanks for going out in the dark to bargain with two of the scariest people on earth.’

He at least had the good manners to look embarrassed about it. ‘Sorry. You OK?’

‘Duh. No fang marks, anyway.’ She shuddered. ‘I do
not
like those people.’

‘Vampires?’

‘Vampires.’

‘Technically, not people, but then, neither am I, now that I think about it. So never mind.’ Michael put an arm around her and steered her towards the living room, where he sat her down, put a blanket around her shoulders. ‘I’m guessing it didn’t go well.’

‘It didn’t go at all,’ she said. She’d been depressed
on the ride home, but having to actually report on her failure was a whole new level of suck. ‘They’re not letting him go.’

Michael didn’t say anything, but the light died in his eyes. He went down on one knee next to her and fussed with the blanket, tucking it tighter around her. ‘Claire.
Are
you OK? You’re shaking.’

‘They’re cold, you know,’ she said. ‘They make me cold, too.’

He nodded slowly. ‘You did what you could. Rest.’

‘What about Eve? Is she still here?’

He glanced up at the ceiling, as if he could see through it. Maybe he could. Claire really didn’t know what Michael could and couldn’t do; after all, he’d been dead a couple of times already. Wouldn’t do to underestimate somebody like that. ‘She’s asleep,’ he said. ‘I…talked to her. She understands. She won’t do anything stupid.’ He didn’t look at Claire when he said that, and she wondered what kind of talking that might have been.

Her mother had always said, when in doubt, ask. ‘Was it the kind of talk where you gave her something to live for? Like maybe, um, you?’

‘Did I… What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I just thought maybe you and her—’

‘Claire,
Jesus
!’ Michael said. She’d actually made him flinch. Wow. That was new. ‘You think banging
me is going to make her forget about charging out to commit cold-blooded vampire slaying? I don’t know what kind of standards you have on sex, but those are pretty high. Besides, whatever’s between me and Eve…well, it’s between me and Eve.’
Until she tells
me about it later
, Claire thought. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I…persuaded her. That’s all.’

Persuaded. Right. The mood Eve had been in when Claire left? Not too likely…

And then Claire remembered the voices whispering to her in the alley, and her blind, stupid assumption of safety leading her into danger. Could Michael do that?

Would
he?

‘You didn’t—’ She touched her temple with one finger.

‘What?’

‘Screw with her head? Like
they
can?’

He didn’t answer. He fussed with the blanket around her shoulders some more, fetched her a pillow, and said, ‘Lie down. Rest. It’s only a couple of hours until dawn, and I’m going to need you.’

‘Oh, God, Michael, you didn’t. You
didn’t
! She’ll never forgive you!’

‘As long as she lives to hate me later,’ he said. ‘Rest. I mean it.’

She didn’t intend to sleep; her brain was whirling
like a tyre rim scraping pavement, shooting off sparks in every direction. Lots of energy being expended, but she wasn’t going anywhere fast.
Have to think of
something. Have to
…

Michael started playing, something soft that sounded melancholy, all in minor keys, and she felt herself begin to drift…

…and then, without any sense of going, she was gone.

The blanket around her smelt like Shane.

Claire burrowed deeper into its warmth, murmuring something that might have been his name as she woke; she felt good, relaxed, safe in his embrace. The way she’d been the other night when they’d spent it here on the couch, kissing…

All that faded fast when the events of the past day flooded back, stripping away the comfort and leaving her cold and scared. Claire sat up, clutching the blanket, and looked around. Michael’s guitar was back in its case, and the sun was over the horizon. So, he was gone again, and she and Eve…she and Eve were on their own.

‘Right,’ she whispered. ‘Time to get to work.’ She still needed to find some kind of viable strategy to break Shane out of that cage on Founder’s Square. Which meant research…maybe Detective Hess could
tell her something about how many guards there were, and where. Clearly, there was some kind of security process for keeping out the human losers like her, but any security could be broken, right? At least, that’s what she’d always heard. Maybe Eve knew something that could help.

If Eve wasn’t back on suicide watch this morning, anyway. Claire thought wistfully about a hot shower, decided maybe it could wait, and wandered into the kitchen to put on coffee. Eve wasn’t going to be happy, but she’d be even less happy without caffeine. Claire waited while the pot filled, then carried a black mug full of the stuff upstairs. The key to Eve’s door was hanging on a hook, with a note taped to it. Michael’s handwriting. It read,
Don’t let her leave the house
. By implication, of course, it meant Claire was supposed to stay here, too.

As if she could even think about doing that, with Shane’s last hours running out. And who knew what was happening to him out there? She thought about the cold fury in Oliver, the indifference in Amelie, her stomach twisting. She grabbed the key, turned it in the lock, and opened Eve’s bedroom door.

Eve was sitting, fully dressed and made-up in zombified glory, on the edge of her bed. She’d put her hair into two pigtails, one on each side, and she’d done her make-up with great care. She looked like a
scary porcelain doll.

An
angry
scary porcelain doll. The kind that they made horror movies about, with stabby knives.

‘Coffee?’ Claire asked weakly. Eve looked at her for a second, took the coffee, got up, and walked out of the bedroom towards the stairs. ‘Oh boy.’

By the time Claire made it downstairs, Eve was standing in the middle of the living room, looking up at nothing. She’d put the coffee down, and her hands were on her hips. Claire paused, one hand still clutching the banister, and watched Eve turn a slow circle as if she was looking for something.

‘I know you’re there, you coward,’ she said. ‘Now hear this, crazy supernatural boy.
If you ever fuck
with me again, I swear, I will walk out this door and
never come back
. You get me? One for yes, two for no.’

He must have said yes, because some of the stiffness went out of Eve’s shoulders. She was still mad, though. ‘I don’t know what’s lower, you playing vamp tricks on me, or locking me in my room, but either way, you are so busted, man. Being dead can’t save you. When you get back tonight, I am completely kicking your ass.’

‘He was sorry,’ Claire said. She sat down on the first step as Eve turned a glare of righteous anger in her direction. ‘He knew you were going to be
mad, but he couldn’t… He cares about you, Eve. He couldn’t just let you go out and get yourself killed.’

‘Last time I checked, I was over eighteen and nobody’s
property
!’ Eve yelled, and stomped her foot. ‘I don’t care if you’re sorry, Michael… You’re going to have to work really hard to make this up to me! Really hard!’

Claire saw the breeze ruffle Eve’s hair. Eve closed her eyes for a second, swaying, mouth open in a round, red O.

‘OK,’ she said weakly. ‘That was different.’

‘What?’ Claire asked, and jumped to her feet.

‘Nothing. Um, nothing at all. Right.’ Eve cleared her throat. ‘What happened last night? Did you get them to let Shane go?’

Claire’s throat just locked up on her in misery. She shook her head and looked down. ‘But it’s no use going out there with stakes and crosses,’ she said. ‘They’d be ready. We need another plan.’

‘What about Joe? Detective Hess?’

Claire shook her head again. ‘He can’t.’

‘Then let’s go talk to some people who can,’ Eve said reasonably. She picked up her coffee and drained it in long, chugging gulps, set the mug aside, and nodded. ‘Ready.’

‘Who are we going to see?’

‘It may shock you, but living in Morganville
my entire pathetic life isn’t a complete waste. I know people, OK? And some of them actually have backbones.’

Claire blinked. ‘Um…OK. Two minutes.’

She dashed upstairs for the fastest shower and change of clothes in her life.

It stood to reason that Eve would know places to go that Claire didn’t, but for some reason it surprised Claire where those places were. A Laundromat, for instance. And a photo-processing place. In each case, Eve made her wait in the car while she talked to somebody – a human somebody, Claire was almost sure. But nothing came out of it, either time.

Eve got back in her big, dusty Cadillac looking grim and already wilting in the morning’s heat. ‘Father Jonathan’s on a trip,’ she said. ‘I was hoping we could get him to talk to the mayor. They go back.’

‘Father Jonathan? There’s a priest in town?’

Eve nodded. ‘The vampires don’t care about whether or not he celebrates Mass, as long as he doesn’t display any crosses. Communion’s kind of interesting; the vamps keep the wafers and wine
under guard. Oh, and forget about the holy water. If they ever caught him making the sign of the cross over anything liquid, they’d make sure his next congregation has an address behind the pearly gates.’

Claire blinked, trying to get her head around it. ‘But…he’s on a trip? Out of town? What?’

‘Gone to the Vatican. Special dispensation.’

‘The
Vatican
knows about Morganville?’

‘No, idiot. When he leaves town, he’s like anybody else: no memory of the vamps. So I don’t think we can count on the Vatican Strike Team storming in to save Shane, if that’s what you were thinking.’

It wasn’t, but it was kind of comforting to imagine paramilitary priests in bullet-proof armour, with crosses on the vests. ‘So what now, then? If you can’t get to Father Jonathan?’

Eve started the car. They were parked in the tiny photo-store parking lot, next to a big industrial-sized Dumpster. They were the only car in the parking lot, although a white van was just turning into the lot and squealing to a stop, in the space next to them. It was still pretty early – before nine a.m. – and what passed for traffic in Morganville was slowly filtering around the streets. The photo-processing place claimed to be open twenty-four hours; now, that was a job Claire figured she didn’t want. Did vampires
take pictures? What kind? Maybe the trick was not to look at what came spitting out of the machine, just shuffle the prints into an envelope and hand them over…but then, that was probably the trick outside of Morganville, too.

She checked the clock again. ‘Eve! What about your job?’

‘I can get another one.’

‘But—’

‘Claire, it wasn’t that good of a job. Look at what I had to put up with. Jocks. Jerks. Monica.’

Eve started to back out of the parking lot, then slammed on the brakes when another car pulled in behind her, blocking her in. ‘Dammit,’ she breathed, and fumbled for her cell phone. She pitched it to Claire. ‘Call the cops.’

‘Why?’ Claire twisted to look out the back, but she couldn’t see who was driving the other car.

She was looking in the wrong place. The threat wasn’t the car behind them; it was the white van next to the passenger side of the Cadillac, and as she started punching 911, a sliding panel came open, and someone reached out and pulled on the handle of Claire’s door.

It was locked. She wasn’t a total idiot. But two seconds later, it didn’t matter, because a crowbar hit the window behind her, smashing it into a million
little sparkly pieces, and Claire reflexively jerked forward, hands over her head. She fumbled the phone into the floorboards, and tried frantically to find it. Eve was cursing breathlessly.

‘Get us out of here!’ Claire yelled.

‘I can’t! We’re blocked in!’

Claire grabbed the phone triumphantly, finished pushing buttons for 911, and pressed SEND just as a hand reached in from the back seat and slammed her face-first into the dash.

After that, things got a little distant and fluffy around the edges. She remembered being taken out of the car. Remembered Eve yelling and fighting, then going quiet.

Remembered being bundled into the van and the door sliding shut.

And as her head began to clear up again, except for a monster-sized headache centred right over her eyes, she remembered the van, too. She’d seen it before. She’d
been
in it before.

And just like before, Jennifer was driving, and Monica and Gina were in the back. Gina was holding her down. The girls looked flushed. Crazy. Not good.

‘Eve,’ Claire whispered.

Monica leant closer. ‘Who, the freak? Not here.’

‘What did you do to her?’

‘Just a little cut, nothing too serious,’ Monica
said.

‘You ought to be worried about yourself, Claire. My daddy wanted to get a message to you.’

‘Your…what?’

‘Daddy. What, you don’t have one of those? Or do you just not know which John was the sperm donor?’ Monica sneered. She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and an orange top, and she looked as glossy as a magazine page. ‘Oh, don’t bother, mouse. Just stay down… You won’t get hurt.’

Gina pinched Claire, hard. Claire yelled, and Monica grinned in response. ‘Well,’ she amended, ‘maybe hurt a
little
. But a tough chick like you can take it, right, genius?’

Gina pinched Claire again, and Claire gritted her teeth and managed to keep it to just a whimper this time. Easier, since she was already prepared for the pain. Gina looked disappointed. Maybe she should scream her lungs out no matter what, save herself the trouble of Gina having to work harder for it…

‘You were following us,’ Claire said. She felt nauseated, probably from smacking her head into the dashboard, and she was deeply worried about Eve.
A little cut
. Monica wasn’t the type to do anything halfway.

‘See? I told you she was a genius, didn’t I?’ Monica sat down in one of the padded leather seats that
lined the van, and crossed her legs. She had on cute platform shoes that matched her orange tank top, and she inspected her nails – also done in orange – for signs of chipping. ‘You know what, genius? You’re right. I was following you. See, I wanted to bring you in quietly, but no, you and Zombie Girlfriend had to make it all difficult. Why aren’t you in class, anyway? Isn’t that, like, against your religion or something, cutting class?’

Claire struggled to sit up. Gina glanced at Monica, who nodded; Claire edged away from Gina and put her back up against the sliding door of the van. She rubbed her stinging arm where Gina had given her pinches. ‘Shane,’ she said. ‘That’s what your dad wants to see me about, isn’t it?’

Monica shrugged. ‘I guess. Look, I don’t like Shane; that’s no secret. But I never intended for his sister to get killed in that fire. It was a stupid school thing, OK? No big deal.’

‘No big deal?’ Of everything Monica had ever said to her – and there’d been some jaw-droppers – that was maybe the worst. ‘
No big deal
? A kid died, and you destroyed their whole family! Don’t you get it? Shane’s mom—’

‘Not my fault!’ Monica was suddenly flushed. Not used to being blamed, Claire guessed; maybe nobody ever had blamed her except Shane. ‘Even if she
remembered, if she’d kept her mouth shut, she’d have been fine! And Alyssa was an accident!’

‘Yeah,’ Claire said. ‘I’m sure that makes it all better.’ She felt gritty and tired, never mind the sleep she’d had, or the shower. The floor of the van was filthy. ‘What the hell does your father want with me, anyway?’

Monica stared at her in silence for a few seconds, then said, ‘He doesn’t think Shane killed Brandon.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No. He thinks it was Shane’s dad.’ Monica’s perfectly lipsticked mouth curved into a slow smile. ‘He’d like for you to tell Shane’s dad that and see what happens.’ Cause if he was any kind of a father, he wouldn’t stand by and let his baby boy take the heat for him. Literally.’

‘So he wants me to tell Shane’s dad the mayor is willing to make a deal?’

‘Shane’s life for his father’s,’ Monica said. ‘No real dad could resist something like that. Shane’s not important, but Dad wants this over. Now.’

Claire had a very bad feeling squirming in the pit of her stomach, like she’d swallowed earthworms. ‘I don’t believe it. They’d never let Shane go!’ Not if Oliver had any say in it, anyway.

Monica shrugged. ‘I’m just delivering a message. You can tell Frank whatever you damn well want,
but if you’re smart, you’ll tell him something to get him out in the open. Get me? Amelie’s Protection only goes so far. You can still be hurt. In fact, Gina would probably enjoy that a lot, even if she gets a slap on the wrist for punishment.’

‘And think about your friend, back there all by herself,’ Gina said. She was smiling, a wet, crazy sort of smile. ‘All kinds of things can happen to girls out on their own in this town. All kinds of
bad
things.’

‘Yeah, well, Eve should know,’ Monica said. ‘Look who her brother is.’

Claire’s head knocked back against metal as the van bumped over what felt like railroad tracks, setting off a nuclear vibration in her head with the already-fierce headache in the front. ‘So,’ Monica said. ‘You know what you have to do, right? Go to Shane’s dad. Convince him to trade himself for Shane. Or… you may find out just how unfriendly Morganville can really be.’

Claire didn’t say anything. The things she wanted to say would, she figured, get her killed; whether or not Monica and Gina would be punished for it later wasn’t much of a comfort.

She finally gave them one sharp, unwilling nod.

‘Home, James!’ Monica called up to Jennifer, who gave the OK sign and turned a corner. Claire tried to peer out, but she didn’t recognise the street.
Somewhere close to campus, though. She saw the bell tower next to the UC rising up on the right-hand side.

She grabbed for a handhold as Jennifer slammed on the brakes. Monica wasn’t so lucky; she spilt out of her seat and onto the floor, screaming and cursing. ‘Dammit! What the hell was that, Jen, Driving for Dummies?’

Jen didn’t say anything. Her hands slowly came up in a position of surrender.

The door behind Claire slid open, and a big hand grabbed her by the back of the neck and hauled her backward into the hot sunlight.
Not a vampire
, she thought, but that wasn’t much of a comfort, because a burly, muscular arm stretched out past her, and it was holding a sawn-off shotgun. She recognised the blue flame tattoos licking down his arm and onto the back of his hand.

One of the bikers.

She looked around and saw three more, all armed, pointing weapons at the van – and then, she saw Shane’s father walking up, as easy as if the whole town and every vampire in it hadn’t been hunting him through the night. He even looked rested.

‘Monica Morrell,’ he said. ‘Come on down! See what you’ve won.’

Monica froze where she was, holding on to one of
the hanging leather straps. She looked at the guns, at Gina, who was kneeling with her hands in the air, and then helplessly at Claire.

She was afraid. Monica – crazy, weird, pretty Monica – was actually scared. ‘My father—’

‘Let’s talk about him later,’ Frank said. ‘You get your sweet ass down here, Monica. Don’t make me come and get you.’

She retreated farther into the van. Shane’s dad grinned and motioned two of his bikers inside. One grabbed Gina by the hair and dragged her out to sprawl in the street.

The other one grabbed Monica, struggling and spitting, and handcuffed her to the leather strap in the back. She stopped fighting, amazed. ‘But—’

‘I knew you were going to do the opposite of what I told you,’ Frank said. ‘Easiest way to keep you in the van was to tell you to get out.’ He opened the driver’s-side door and stuck a gun in Jennifer’s face. ‘You, I don’t need. Out.’

She slid down, fast, and kept her hands high as Frank pushed her towards the bikers. She sat down next to Gina on the curb and put her arms around her. Funny, Claire had never thought of those two as being friends in their own right, just as hangers-on for Monica. But now they seemed…real. And really scared.

‘You.’ Shane’s dad turned to look directly at Claire. ‘In the back.’

‘But—’

One of the bikers put his gun close to her head. She swallowed and scrambled into the van, claiming the leather seat that Monica had so recently tumbled out of. Shane’s father got in after her, then a sweaty load of bikers. One of them got in the driver’s seat, and the van lurched into gear.

It hadn’t taken but a minute, Claire figured. In Morganville, at this hour, nobody probably even noticed. The streets looked deserted.

She looked at Monica, who stared back, and for the first time, she thought she really understood what Monica was feeling, because she felt it, too.

This was a very bad thing.

The van lurched through a long series of turns, and Claire tried to think of an easy way to get to her cell phone, which was in the pocket of her jeans. She’d dropped Eve’s back at the car, when Monica had slammed her face-first into the dashboard… She managed to get her fingers hooked in her pocket, casual-like, and touched the metal case.
All I have to
do is dial 911
, she thought. Eve had probably already reported the abduction, if Eve was OK enough to talk. They could trace cell phones, right? GPS tracking or
something?

As if he’d read her mind, Shane’s dad came to her, stood her up, and patted her down. He did it fast, not lingering like some dirty old man, and found the phone in her pocket. He took it. Monica was yelling again, and trying to kick; one of the bikers was doing the same thing as Frank, although Claire thought it was more feeling up than patting down. Still, he found her cell, too – a Treo – and slid open the van door to pitch them out into the street. ‘Kill ’em!’ he yelled to the driver, who pulled the van into a U-turn and went back the other way. Claire didn’t hear the crunch, but she figured the phones were nothing but electronic bits.

The turning and lurching continued. Claire just hung on, head down, thinking hard. She couldn’t get word out, but Eve would have. Detective Hess, Detective Lowe? Maybe they’d come running.

Maybe Amelie would send her own people to enforce her Protection. That would be pretty fabulous right about now.

‘Hey,’ Monica said to Shane’s dad. ‘Stupid move, asshole. My dad’s going to have every cop in Morganville on you in seconds. You’re never going to get away, and once they have you, they’ll throw you in a hole so deep, even the sewer will seem like heaven.
Don’t touch me, you pig!
’ Monica writhed to
get away from the stroking hands of the biker next to her, who just smiled and showed gold-capped teeth.