Kiss of Death

UnHappy Meals. At least she hadn’t gagged them. Claire supposed she would, if they started screaming. Note to self: don’t scream. Good advice.

Shane twisted around in his seat to peer at her over the top of the seat. “Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Eve?”

Eve was fuming, her cheeks bright, her eyes hot with fury. “Fine,” she snapped, biting off the word and leaving a sharp, broken silence. After a second, she softened a little. “Pissed off. Really pissed off. What kind of stupid trip is this? So far, I’ve been assaulted, insulted, arrested, and now I’m tied to a chair by a bunch of vampires in case they crave a little O negative at lunch. And my boyfriend is out there somewhere, dodging sunbeams. This sucks! ”

“Ah—” Claire didn’t quite know how to answer that. She looked at Shane, who shrugged. “He’ll be okay.”

“I know,” Eve said with a sigh. “I’m just—I need him right now, you know? Shane was all gallant and came with you. I feel... abandoned, that’s all.”

“You’re not abandoned,” Shane said. “Dude, don’t bag on Michael. It’s a whole different problem when you’re flammable.”

Eve turned her face away, toward the window, and said, “I know. I’m just—Gah, seriously, I hate being helpless! We have to do something,” she said. “We have to get out of this.”

But, as Morley dropped into the driver’s seat of the bus, slammed the doors closed, and put the beast in gear, Claire wasn’t at all sure what options they really had. Morley wasn’t interested in bargains, and they had nothing to trade, anyway. No way they could threaten him, not even with Amelie; he’d already given Amelie the finger on his way out of Morganville, and he clearly wasn’t worried about her coming after him—or, if so, what would happen when she did. Claire didn’t have anything else in her bag of tricks; nothing at all.

“Wait it out,” Shane said, as though he knew what she was thinking—and he probably did, actually. He was starting to get really good at that. “Just wait and watch. Something will happen. We just need to be ready to move when it does.”

“Fantastic,” Eve muttered sourly. “Waiting. My favorite. Next to skinny-dipping in acid and having vampires suck my blood. ”

“Sorry,” Shane said to Claire.

“For what?”

“That you’re sitting next to Little Miss Sunshine. It’s not going to be a fun trip.”

He was right about that. It wasn’t.

8

Eve mostly sat in silence, but she was just crackling with anger. Claire could feel it coming off her like static electricity. She wasn’t cooling off anytime soon, either; Claire thought she was being angry to keep from being scared, which wasn’t a bad choice. Being scared under these circumstances wasn’t going to get them anywhere. It certainly hadn’t helped Orange Cap and Angry Guy much, or the five other people Claire could spot who were bound and gagged, waiting for a vamp to get hungry.

She saw it happen once, but in the medically approved way; Jacob Goldman—Patience’s vampire brother, and under other circumstances kind of an okay guy—had fixed somebody up with a tourniquet and drawn out about ten tubes of blood from one of the men sitting two rows up. He was good at it. Theo, his dad and a doctor, had probably taught him how to do it. She supposed there was one advantage to having a vampire draw your blood—he wasn’t likely to miss a vein and have to try again.

Jacob looked unhappy about what he was doing, and at the end, even patted his victim on the shoulder in a gentle, reassuring way. Claire half expected him to hand over a lollipop-although since the man was gagged, that probably wouldn’t make much sense.

“Not happening,” Eve whispered next to her. “No, not happening. This cannot be happening. Where the hell is Oliver? Isn’t he supposed to be our chaperone?”

Claire didn’t know and couldn’t begin to reassure Eve, because there was a creeping sense of doom coming over her, too. Michael wasn’t showing up, and neither was Oliver, and that had to be bad. It just had to be, somehow. Oliver, at least, could stand the sun; she’d seen him outside the jail before Morley had made his dramatic entrance. So why wasn’t he stepping in?

Because you’re not important, Claire’s little, traitorous voice whispered. Because you’re just human. Fast food on legs.

No, that wasn’t true. Even Oliver had treated them—well, not exactly nicely, but he had developed a kind of basic respect for them. Maybe, in Eve’s case, even a little liking.

He wouldn’t just stand by and watch things happen.

Unless he thought he couldn’t win, the little voice responded, and ugh, the little voice was way too logical for Claire to argue with. Oliver wasn’t the self-sacrificing type, except maybe—maybe—where it applied to Amelie—and only in little glimpses.

But Michael was, and Michael would have shown up unless something had stopped him.

Or someone.

Claire cleared her throat. “Jacob? Can I ask you something?”

Jacob slipped the blood vials into a pocket of his jacket and came back down the aisle of the bus. He swayed gracefully with the motion of the road, not even bothering to check his balance against the tops of the seats, the way a human probably would have. He crouched down next to Claire, bringing them to eye level.

“I’m so sorry,” he said immediately. “This was not what we’d planned. We never intended to do it this way, but we couldn’t get to either the blood bank or the Bloodmobile—they were both well guarded. We had to choose— leave without supplies, or ...”

“Or pick them up at the convenience store?” Claire tried to keep the judgy tone out of her voice, but it was hard. “That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

Jacob nodded, waiting.

“Have you seen Michael?”

Jacob’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, and he was an even worse liar than Claire expected. “No, did he come with you?”

“Jacob, you know he did.” Claire said it softly, and hoped that Eve couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Did something happen to him?”

Jacob stared at her for a few long, sick seconds, then said, “I don’t know.”

He stood up and walked away. Claire bit her tongue on an almost-overpowering urge to yell something after him; it probably would have just gotten her gagged, anyway.

Shane was turned in his seat, as much as his bonds would allow, and he was staring at her. He knew, too.

Claire risked a glance over at Eve, but she was staring out the window. Not crying, not anymore. She just looked... distant, as if she’d removed herself from everything happening around her.

Shane was right. There was nothing to be done now except wait.

Claire was bad at it, but she spent the time trying to think through the problem. What would Myrnin do? Probably invent some device made out of fingernails and coat threads that would cut through plastic handcuffs. Then again, Myrnin would be cheerfully chugging down the blood, so maybe he was not such a good example to follow. Sam. What would Michael’s grandfather have done? Still a vampire, but he’d never have gone along with this stuff. He’d have stood up for people. He had his whole life, both as a human and a vampire.

And he’d have never been handcuffed to a seat, genius, Claire’s little voice reminded her. How about Hannah Moses? That was a good suggestion, for once. Claire couldn’t imagine how Hannah, who’d been a big-time soldier, would have gotten out of this, but it probably would have involved a concealed knife—which, of course, Claire didn’t have.