Kiss of Death

“No idea, really,” Michael said. “Hey, Claire. How are the folks?”

“Okay,” she said. “My dad says I can officially move back in.” Not that she’d ever really moved out.

“I knew we’d wear them down,” Eve said. “After all, we really are amazingly cool.” And now it was Eve’s turn for the high five with Shane. “For a bunch of misfit geeks, slackers, and losers.”

“Which one are you?” Shane asked. She flipped him off. “Oh, right. Loser. Thanks for reminding me.”

Claire dug in her backpack and came out with the passes Myrnin had delivered. “Uh—I got these today. Somebody want to fill me in?”

Michael, at vampire speed, crossed the distance and snatched the paper out of her hand. He spread out the individual passes and stared at them with a blank, shocked expression. “But—I didn’t think—”

“Apparently, somebody agreed,” Claire said. “Eve?”

Eve frowned. “What? What is it?”

“Passes,” Michael said. “To leave town, to go to Dallas. To do the demo.”

“For you?”

“For all of us.” Michael looked up and slowly smiled. “You know what this means?”

Shane threw back his head and let out a loud wolf howl. “Road trip!” he yelled! “Yes!”

Michael put his arms around Eve, and she melted against him, her pale-painted face against his chest, hands around his waist. Claire saw her dark eyes flutter closed, and a kind of peaceful happiness came over Eve’s face— and then her eyes snapped open. “Wait,” she said. “I’ve never—I mean—outside? Of Morganville? To Dallas? You can’t be serious. Michael?”

He held up a pass with her name on it. “It’s signed. Official.”

“They’re letting us leave town? Are they insane? Because once I hit the shops in Dallas, I don’t think I’m ever coming home.” Eve made a face. “And I can’t believe I just thought of Morganville as home. How much of a saddie am I?”

“Eight out of ten,” Shane said. “But we do have to come back, right?”

“Right,” Michael said. “Well, I have to come back. I’ve got nowhere else to go. You guys ...”

“Stop,” Eve said, and put a hand over his mouth to enforce the order. “Just stop there. Please.”

He looked down at her, and their eyes locked. He took her hand away from his mouth, and then lifted the backs of her fingers to his lips for a long, slow kiss. It was just about the sexiest thing Claire had ever seen, full of sweetness and love and longing. From the expression on Eve’s face, it was just about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, too. “We’ll talk about it on the road,” Michael said. “The passes are good for a week. I’ll make some calls and see when they need me in the studio there.”

Eve nodded. Claire doubted she could put any words together, right at that moment.

“Hey,” Shane said, and tapped Claire on the nose. “Snap out of it.”

“What? What!”

“Seriously. You’ve got this chick flick hit-by-the-romance-hammer look. Stop it.”

“Ass.”

He shrugged. “I’m not one of those romantic guys,” he said. “Hey, date Michael if you want that.”

“No, don’t,” Eve said dreamily. “Mine.”

“And there goes my blood sugar level,” Shane said. “It’s getting late, Claire has school tomorrow, I’ve got a long day of chopping fine barbecue—”

“I think we’ll stay down here,” Michael said. He and Eve still hadn’t blinked or looked away from each other.

“I am really not sticking around for that.” Shane took Claire’s hand in his. “Upstairs?”

She nodded, hitched her bag on her other shoulder, and followed him up. Shane opened the door of his room, turned, and lifted her hand up to his lips. He didn’t quite kiss it. His dark eyes were wicked with laughter.

“Ass,” she said again, more severely. “You couldn’t be romantic if your life depended on it.”

“You know what’s lucky? Most bad guys don’t ask you to be romantic on command, so that probably won’t matter.”

“Only girlfriends do that.”

“Well, they can qualify as supervillains. But only if they have a secret underground base. Wait—you’ve got a mad scientist for a boss, and a lab—”

“Park it,” she said, and smacked his arm. “Are you going to kiss me good night, or what?”

“Romantic on command. See?”

“Fine,” Claire said, and this time she actually did feel a little annoyed. “Then don’t. Good night.”

She pulled away from him and walked away the few steps to her own room, opened the door, slammed it, and flopped on her bed without bothering to turn on the lights. After a few seconds she remembered that in Morganville that was never a smart choice, and switched on the bedside Tiffany lamp. Rich colored light threw patterns on the wood, the walls, her skin.

No monsters were hiding in the shadows. She was too tired to check under the bed or in the closet.

“Ass,” she said again, and put her pillow over her face to scream her frustration into it. “Shane Collins is an ass!”

She stopped at the sound of a soft knock on the door. She put the pillow aside and waited, listening.

The knock came again.

“You’re an ass,” she yelled.

“I know,” came Shane’s voice through the door. “Let me make it up to you?”

“As if you can.”

“Try me.”

She sighed, slid off the bed, and went to open up.

Shane was standing there, of course. He came inside, closed the door behind him, and said, “Sit down.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just sit down.”

She did, perching on the edge of the bed and already frowning. There was something really different in the way he was acting now—the flip side of how he’d been just a few moments ago, teasing and teen-boy.

This seemed much more ... adult.

“When you were in the hospital, after Dan ... well, you know.” He shrugged. “You were kind of drugged up. I’m not sure what you remember.”

She didn’t remember all that much, really. A boy had abducted her and hurt her pretty badly. She’d lost a lot of blood, and they’d given her something for the night-mares. She remembered everybody coming to see her—Mom, Dad, Eve, Michael, Shane. Even Myrnin. Even Amelie and Oliver.

Shane ... he’d stayed with her. He’d said...

She couldn’t really remember what he’d said.

“Anyway,” Shane said, “I told you this was for later. I guess it’s kind of later, so, anyway.”

He took out a small velvet box from his pocket, and Claire’s heart just ... stopped. She thought she might faint. The top of her head felt very hot, and the rest of her felt very cold, and all she could look at was the box in his hand.

He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

Was he?

Shane was looking at the box, too. He turned it in his fingers restlessly. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “It’s not—look, it’s a ring, but I don’t want you to think—” He opened the box and showed her what was inside.

It was a beautiful little ring, silver, with a red stone in the shape of a heart, and hands holding it on either side. “It’s a claddagh ring,” he said. “It belonged to my sister, Alyssa. My mom gave it to her. It was in Alyssa’s locker at school when she—when the house burned.” When Alyssa died. When Shane’s life completely collapsed around him.

Tears burned in Claire’s eyes. The ring glittered, silver and red, and she couldn’t look at Shane’s face. She