She gulped and nodded.
'You made the choice, now you want to have it both ways — the benefits, but not the consequences. You can't, Claire. It's coming home to roost, and you'd better handle it now rather than later.' Michael's tone softened, just a little. 'Look, I'm not an asshole, I know how scared you are. But you're a player in this town now. You're not the fragile little thing we took in for protection. You're trying to protect us. That means you may not be as well liked anymore, and you're going to have to sack up about that.'
'What?' She felt dazed. Somehow, this wasn't how she'd expected all this to go. Especially Michael's cool, challenging look, and the lack of hugging.
'Signing the contract isn't the last choice you're going to have to make,' he said. 'It's the choices you make from now on that show whether you did the right thing or not.' He stood up, pale and strong and as gorgeous as an angel in the glow of Claire's flashlight. 'And stop lying to me. You ought to get off to a better start.'
'I — what?'
'You said what Amelie has you doing is just more studying,' he said grimly. 'And I can tell when you're lying. No, I'm not going to ask, because I can tell it scares you, but just remember, vampires can tell, all right?'
He swung the door open and ducked out. Claire stared after him, open-mouthed, but by the time she'd scrambled through and switched off the flashlight, Michael was already gone, out of the pantry. Crap. It's going to look like we were ...
What? Who could believe Michael would be snacking on an underage girl in the root cellar?
Still, Claire eased open the pantry door and checked to be sure the coast was clear before she dashed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Michael was sitting on the couch, Eve curled next to him with her head on his chest. They were watching something on TV, and Eve's gaze followed Claire as she hurried past them, mumbling an apology.
She stopped on the stairs and looked back at them. Two people she cared about, wrapped in a moment of warmth and happiness.
Michael was a vampire, and that meant that Michael was dying. Like Myrnin. He was going to suffer and lose his mind and hurt people.
He could even hurt Eve.
Tears pricked at her eyes, and she felt suddenly short of breath. When it had been just an abstract problem, just Morganville minus vampires equals safety, then that had been one thing, but it wasn't abstract. It was people she knew, liked, even loved. She wouldn't shed any tears over Oliver, but how could she not care about Michael? Or Sam? Or even Amelie?
Claire picked up her book bag and went upstairs.
Shane's door was shut. She knocked. He didn't answer for a long moment, and then said, 'If I ignore you, will you go away?'
'No,' she said.
'Might as well come in, then.'
He was flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling, hands under his head, and he didn't look at her as she entered and closed the door behind her.
'So is this how it's going to go?' she asked. 'I do something dumb like stay out late, you get mad and run away, I come and apologize and make everything better?'
Shane, surprised, looked at her, then said, 'Well, that kinda works for me, yeah.'
Claire thought about Michael, about the suddenly grown-up way he'd treated her. She sat down on the bed next to Shane, staring down at the floor for a few seconds to gather her courage, and then she pulled back her sleeve to expose the bracelet.
Shane didn't make a sound. He slowly sat up, staring at the shiny gold band with its Founder's symbol.
'We need to talk,' she said. She felt sick and terrified, but she knew it was the right choice. The only other thing to do was lie, and she couldn't keep on doing it. Michael was right about that.
Shane could have done anything — he could have run away, he could have thrown her out of his room. He could even have hit her.
Instead, he took her hand in his, bent his head, and said, 'Tell me.'
###
Eve wasn't so understanding. 'Are you out of your mind?' She picked up the handiest thing to throw — it happened to be the Playstation controller — and Shane quickly, carefully de-gamed her. Claire thought he probably wouldn't have moved that fast if Eve had grabbed, oh, say, a book.
'Let's be adults about this,' Michael said. They were downstairs again, together, although Shane and Michael were still clearly standing at opposite poles. It was getting late — eleven already —and Claire was feeling the strain of a very long, hard day. In fact, she yawned, which only made Eve shoot her a look of absolute exasperation.
'Oh, I'm sorry, are we keeping you awake? Michael, how the hell do we be adults about this when one of us isn't an adult?' Eve leveled a shaking finger at her. 'You're a kid, Claire. As in, you're still a wet-behind-the-ears dumbass who hasn't even been in this town a couple of months. You have no idea what you're doing!'
'Maybe I don't,' Claire agreed. Her voice was almost steady, which pleased and surprised her. She didn't like having Eve angry at her. She didn't like having anyone angry at her. 'The thing is, it's done. I made the choice, that discussion was over before we had it. I wanted you to know, though. I didn't want to — ' Her eyes met Michael's briefly. ' — lie to you.'
'Why the hell not? Everybody around here lies. Michael lied about being a ghost. Shane lies about shit all the time. Why not you, too?'
Shane groaned. 'Yo, Drama Princess, want to tone it down a little? Somewhere, Sandra Bernhardt wants her tantrum back.'
'Oh, like you don't throw a hissy every time somebody trips your angst switch!'
Claire looked helplessly at Michael, who was having a hard time not smiling. He shrugged and took a step forward. That meant, of course, that Shane backed up. 'Eve,' Michael said, ignoring Shane for the moment. 'Give the girl some credit. At least she told you, instead of letting you figure it out on your own.'
'Yeah, and she told me last!' Eve glared at the two boys, hands on her hips.
'Boyfriend,' Shane said, holding up his hand.
'Landlord,' Michael chimed in.
'Crap,' Eve sighed. 'I guess that does leave me in last place. Right, next time you sell your soul to the evil, I get first contact! Girl solidarity, right?'
'Um — okay?'
'Dumbass,' Eve sighed, defeated. 'I can't believe you did that. I worked so hard to get away from that Protection crap, and here you are, all ... Protected. I just wanted you to be — safe. And I'm not sure this is.'
'Yeah,' Claire said. 'Me neither. But I swear, it was the best thing I could think of. And at least it's Amelie. She's okay, right?'
They all looked at each other. Shane said, 'But you won't tell us what she's got you doing that keeps you out late.'
'No. I — I can't do that.'
'Then she's not okay,' Shane said. 'And neither are you.'
But none of them had any good suggestions on how to fix it, and Claire fell asleep on the couch with her head in Shane's lap as he and Michael and Eve kept talking, and talking, and talking. It was three a.m. when she woke up; Shane hadn't moved, but she was covered with a blanket, and he was sound asleep, sitting straight up.
Claire yawned, groaned at sore muscles, and rolled to her feet. 'Shane. Up. You need to go to bed.'
He woke up cute, softened by sleep. 'Come with?' He was only half joking. She remembered being curled up with him in her bed, the night she'd been so scared; he'd been careful then, but she wasn't sure she could count on that kind of self-restraint at three a.m., when he was half-asleep.
'I can't,' she said reluctantly. 'Not that I don't want to ...'
He smiled and stretched out on his side on the couch, leaving a narrow space between his warm, solid body and the cushions. 'Stay,' he said. 'I promise, no clothes will come off. Well, maybe shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?'
She kicked hers off and climbed over him to slip into that small pocket, and sighed in relief as his body pressed against hers. She didn't even need the blanket, but he put it over the two of them anyway, and then
