Kiss of Death

The Texas Star Truck Stop was worse on the inside than the outside.

As Claire pushed open the door—with Shane trying to open it for her—a tinny bell rang, and when she looked up, Claire found herself being stared at—a lot.

“Wow,” Shane murmured, close behind her as he entered the store. “Meth central.”

She knew what he meant. This was a scary bunch of people. The youngest person in the place, apart from them, was a pinched, too-tanned skinny woman of about thirty wearing a skimpy top and cut-off shorts. She had tattoos—a lot of them. Everybody else was older, bigger, meaner, and uncomfortably fixed on the newcomers.

And then Eve stepped in, in all her Goth glory,bouncing from one Doc Marten-booted foot to the other. “Bathroom?” she asked the big, bearded man behind the counter. He frowned at her, then reached down and came up with a key attached to a big metal bar. “Thank you!” Eve seized the key and dashed off down the dark hall marked as RESTROOMS; Claire wasn’t sure she’d have the guts, no matter how much she had to pee. That did not look safe, never mind clean.

Michael stepped in last, and took it all in with one quick, comprehensive look. He raised his eyebrows at Shane, who shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Fun, huh?”

“Let’s get a table,” Michael said. “Order something.” Under the theory, Claire guessed, that if they spent money, the locals would like them better.

Somehow, she didn’t think that was going to work. Her gaze fell on signs posted around the store: YOU DRAW YOUR GUN, WE DRAW FASTER. GUN CONTROL MEANS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT. NO TRESPASSING— VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT; SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.

“I don’t think I’m going to be hungry,” she said, but Michael was right. This really was their only option, other than sitting outside in the car. “Maybe something to drink. They have Coke, right?”

“Claire, people in Botswana have Coke. I’m pretty sure Up the Road Apiece, Texas, has Coke.”

By the time they’d gotten seated at one of the grungy plastic booths, still being stared at by the locals, Eve finally joined them. She looked more relaxed, bouncy, and more—well, Eve. “Better,” she announced, as she slipped into place next to Michael. “Mmm, much better now.”

He put his arm around her and smiled. It was cute. Claire found herself smiling, too, and snuggled up against Shane. “How was the bathroom?”

Eve shuddered. “We shall never speak of it again.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“You want a menu?”

“Absolutely. They might have ice cream.”

The last thing bouncy, happy Eve needed was a sugar rush, but ice cream did sound good.... Claire looked around for a waitress and found one leaning against the cracked counter, whispering to the man on the other side. They were both staring straight at Claire and her friends, and their expressions weren’t exactly friendly.

“Uh, guys? Maybe ixnay on the ice cream-ay. How about we wait in the car?” she asked.

“And miss ice cream? Hella don’t think so,” Eve said. She waved at the waitress and smiled. Claire winced. “Oh, relax, CB. I’m a people person.”

“In Morganville!”

“Same thing,” Eve said. She kept on smiling, but it started getting a little strained as the waitress continued to stare but didn’t acknowledge the wave. Eve raised her voice. “Hi? I’d like to order something? Hellooooooo?”

The waitress and the guy behind the counter seemed frozen in place, glaring, but then they were blocked out by someone stepping into Claire’s line of sight—more than one someone, in fact. There were three men, all big and puffy, and with really unpleasant expressions.

Shane, who’d been slumped lazily next to her, straightened up.

“Don’t y’all got no manners where you come from?” the first one asked. “You wait your turn. Sherry don’t like being yelled at.”

Eve blinked, then said, “I wasn’t—”

“Where you from?” he interrupted her. The men formed a redneck wall between the table and the rest of the room, pinning the four of them in place. Shane and Michael exchanged a look, and Michael took his arm away from Eve’s shoulders.

“We’re on our way to Dallas,” Eve said, just as cheerfully as if the situation hadn’t gone from inhospitable to ominous. “Michael’s a musician. He’s going to record a CD.”

The three men laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound, and it was one Claire recognized all too well—it was deeper in register, but it was the same laugh Monica Morrell and her friends liked to give when stalking their prey. It wasn’t amusement. It was a weird sort of aggression—laughing at you, not with you; sharing a secret.

“Musician, huh? You in one of those boy bands?” The second man—shorter, squattier, wearing a dirty orange ball cap and a stained University of Texas sweatshirt with the arms cut off. “We just love our boy bands out here.”

“I ever meet those damn Jonas Brothers in person, I’ll give ‘em what for,” the third man said. He seemed angrier than the others, eyes like black little holes in a stiff, tight face. “My kid can’t shut up about ’em.”

“I know what you mean,” Eve said with a kind of fake sweetness that made Claire wince, again. “Nobody’s really been worth listening to since New Kids on the Block, am I right?”

“What?” He fixed those dead, dark eyes on her.

“Wow, not a New Kids on the Block fan, either. I’m shocked. Okay, I’m thinking not Marilyn Manson, then.... Jessica Simpson? Or...” Eve’s voice faded out, because Michael’s hand had closed over her arm. She looked over at him, and he shook his head. “Right. Shutting up now. Sorry.”

“What do you want?” Michael asked the men.

“Your little freak vampire girlfriend needs to learn how to keep her mouth shut.”

“Who you calling little?” Eve demanded.

Shane sighed. “Wrong on so many levels. Eve. Shut up.”

She glared at him but made a little key-and-lock motion at her lips, folded her arms, and sat back.

Michael had locked gazes with the third man, the angry one, and they were staring it out. It went on for a while, and then Michael said, “Why don’t you just let me and my friends have our ice cream, and then we’ll get back in our car and leave? We don’t want a problem.”

“Oh, you don’t, you whiny little bitch?” The angry man shoved the other two aside and slapped his palms flat against the table to loom over Claire and her friends. “Why’d you come in here, then?”

Eve said, in a very small voice, “Ice cream?”

“Told you to shut the hell up.” And he tried to hit her with a backhanded smack.

Tried because Michael leaned forward in a flare of motion, and had hold of the man’s wrist in a flicker of time so fast Claire didn’t even see it. Neither did the angry man, who looked just kind of confused by being unable to move his hand, then put it all together and looked at Michael.

“Don’t,” Michael said. It was soft, and it was a warning, through and through. “You try to hurt her again and I’ll pull your arm off.”

He wasn’t kidding, but the problem was, none of them was kidding. While he was holding the angry one, the guy in the orange cap reached in his pocket, flicked open a big, shiny knife, and grabbed Eve by the hair. She squeaked, raised her chin, and tried to kick him. He was good at avoiding her. It looked as if he’d had practice. “Let Berle go,” Orange Cap said. “Or I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than slap this one. I can get me real creative.”

Shane was cursing softly under his breath, and Claire knew why; he was stuck in the corner, she was in front of him, and there was no way he could be effective in helping Michael out from that angle. He had to just sit there —something he wasn’t very good at doing. Claire stayed very still, too, but she looked Orange Cap in the eyes and said, “Sir?” She said it respectfully, as her mom had taught her. “Sir, please don’t hurt my friend. She didn’t mean anything.”

“We don’t like smart-mouthed freaks around here,” he said. “We got our ways.”

“Yes sir. We understand now. We were just trying to have a little fun. We won’t be any trouble, I promise. Please let my friend go.” She kept her tone calm, sweet, reasonable—all the things she’d learned to do when Myrnin