a sitting area with a plasma television tuned to a news channel, juice and sodas and water, and trays of crackers and cookies and fruit. Claire took an orange and a bottle of water. Shane went straight for the sugar shock—Coke and cookies.
Claire rubbed her fingers over the purple stretch bandage around her elbow. “Is it always like that?”
“Like what?” Shane mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate chips. “Scary? Guess so. They try to make it nice, but I never forget whose mouth that blood ends up in.”
She felt a surge of nausea, and stopped peeling her orange. Suddenly, the thick pulpy smell was overwhelming. She chugged some water instead, which went down cool and heavy as mercury.
“They use it for the hospitals, though,” she said. “For accident victims and things like that.”
“Sure. Reusing the leftovers.” Shane crammed another cookie into his mouth. “I hate this shit. I swore I’d never do it, but here I am anyway. Tell me again why I stay in this town?”
“They’ll hunt you down if you leave?”
“Good reason.” He dusted crumbs from his fingers. She peeled the rest of her orange, broke loose a slice, and ate it with methodical determination—not hungry, no sir, but well aware she was still shaky. She ate three more slices, then passed Shane the rest.
“Wait,” she said. He paused in the act of biting into the orange. “You’ve never done this before, have you? I mean, you left town before you were eighteen, so you didn’t have to. And then you’ve ducked it since coming back. Right?”
“Damn straight.” He finished the orange and chugged the rest of his Coke.
“So you’ve never been inside the Bloodmobile.”
“I didn’t say that.” Shane got that grim look again. “I went with my mother once—didn’t have to donate, but she wanted me to get used to the idea. I was fifteen. They dragged in this guy—he was crazy, out of his head. Strapped him down and started draining him. They hustled the rest of us out of there, but when we left, he was still there. I watched. They drove away with him. Nobody ever saw him again.”
Claire swallowed more water. She felt weak, but she wanted out of here. The comfortable room felt like a trap, a windowless, airless box. She tossed the rest of her water and the orange peel in the trash. Shane three- pointed his Coke can and took her hand.
“Is Eve going to stay at the hospital?” she asked.
“Not all night. It’s pretty uncomfortable; her dad’s sobered up, and he’s doing the amends thing.” Shane’s mouth twisted. He clearly didn’t think much of that. “Her mom just sits there and cries. She always was practically a bag of wet tissues.”
“You don’t like them much.”
“You wouldn’t, either.”
“Any sign of Jason?”
Shane shook his head. “If he’s showing up to do his family duty, he’s sneaking around in the dead of night. Which, come to think of it, would probably work for him. Anyway, Michael said he’d bring Eve home. They’re probably already there.”
“I hope so. Did Michael say where he was, you know, before?”
“When he was missing? Something about this damn ball,” Shane said.
I should ask him about the invitation. She almost did—she opened her mouth to do it—but then she remembered how Shane had looked last night, how deeply Ysandre had shaken him.
She didn’t want to see him look like that again.
Maybe she ought to just leave it. He’d talk about it when he wanted to talk.
There were two doors—one that said EXIT, one that had nothing on it at all. Shane passed the unmarked door, hesitated, and backed up.
“What?” Claire asked. Shane took hold of the handle and eased the door open.
“Just a hunch,” he said. “Shhhh.”
On the other side was another waiting area, and there were people standing in line. This part of the DonationCenter was darker, with fewer overhead lights. Three people were standing in front of a long white counter, like at a pharmacy, and behind it stood a tall woman wearing a lab coat. She didn’t smile, and she was about as warm as a flask of liquid nitrogen.
“Oh crap,” Shane breathed, and about the same time Claire realized that the blond guy first in line at the counter was Michael. He wasn’t home. . . . He was here.
He finished signing something and shoved the clipboard back, and the woman handed him over a plastic bottle, about the size of the bottled water Claire had been drinking.
This one didn’t hold water. Tomato juice, Claire told herself, but it didn’t look at all like juice. Too dark, too thick. Michael tilted it one way, then another, and his face—he looked fascinated.
No, he looked hungry.
Claire wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Michael unscrewed the cap on the bottle as he stepped out of line, put the blood to his lips, and began to drink. No, to guzzle. Claire was distantly aware that Shane’s grip on her hand was so tight it was painful, but neither of them moved. Michael’s eyes were shut, and he tilted the bottle back and drank until it was empty except for a thin red film on the plastic.
He licked his lips, sighed, and opened his eyes, and looked straight at the two of them.
His eyes were a bright, brilliant, glowing red. He blinked, and it went away, replaced by an eerie shine. Another blink, and it was all gone, and he was back to being Michael again.
He looked as horrified as Claire felt. Betrayed and ashamed.
Shane shut the door and dragged Claire toward the exit. They hadn’t reached it before Michael came barreling in after them.
“Hey!” he said. His skin had taken on a flush, a faint pink tone, that Claire remembered seeing before. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think we’re doing? They hauled me here in cuffs, man,” Shane snapped. “You think I’d be here if I had a choice?”
Michael stopped in his tracks, and his gaze flashed down to the stretchy bandages on their arms. Recognition flashed, and then he looked . . . sad, somehow. “I—I’m sorry.”
“What for? Not like we didn’t already know how much you crave the stuff.” Still, Claire heard the betrayal in Shane’s voice. The revulsion. “Just didn’t expect to see you chugging it down like a drunk at happy hour, that’s all.”
“I didn’t want you to see it,” Michael said quietly. “I drink it here. I only keep some at home for emergencies. I never wanted you to watch—”
“Well, we did,” Shane said. “So what? You’re a bloodsucking vampire. That’s not a news flash, Michael. Anyway, it’s no big thing, right?”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “No big thing.” He focused on Claire, and she couldn’t fit the two things together— Michael with those terrifying red eyes, gulping down fresh blood, and this Michael standing in front of her, with that sad hope in his expression. “You okay, Claire?”
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to talk, not even a word.
“I’m taking her home,” Shane said. “Unless that was your appetizer, and now you’re looking for the main course.”
Michael looked sick. “Of course not. Shane—”
“It’s all right.” The fight dropped out of Shane’s voice. He sounded resigned. “I’m okay with it.”
“And that bugs the crap out of you, doesn’t it?”
Shane looked up, startled. The two of them stared it out, and then Shane tugged on Claire’s arm again. “Let’s go,” he said. “See you at home.”
Michael nodded. “See you.”
He was still holding the empty bottle, Claire realized. There was a tiny trickle of blood left in the bottom.
As the door shut between them, she saw Michael realize what he had in his hand, and throw it violently in the trash can.
“Oh, Michael,” she whispered. “God.” In that one gesture, she realized something huge.
He really did hate this. He really did, on some level, hate what he’d become, because of what he saw in their eyes.
