Bitter Blood

“My dad says you’re a traitor,” said another boy, and he had a very different tone—quiet, sure, dangerous. “My uncle Jake disappeared the other night. Just another casualty in a town full of them, right? And you helped. You helped put the vamps right back on top where they’ve always been. Just like all the Founder House families. You’re nothing but whores giving it up to the vamps for money.”

Eve lunged at him. Claire darted around the end of the limo with a sinking conviction that she’d never be fast enough to stop her, and she was right: Eve landed a solid slap right across his face. “Don’t you ever, Roy Farmer!” Eve shouted at him. “Don’t you—”

He hit her back, clocking her, hard, right on the point of her jaw, and before Claire could even draw a breath. It was as if some invisible signal had gone out to all the other kids—her age or just a couple of years older—to attack.

“No!” Claire screamed as Eve was grabbed, dragged forward, and thrown to the ground. It all happened so fast, and in such chaos, that she didn’t know where to aim a shove or a punch to get to her friend’s rescue. Everyone was moving all at once, and Eve was in the middle of it, and it was all just insane.

It seemed as if it went on forever until Claire grabbed hold of one girl by the hair and yanked. The girl, foot raised to deliver a furious kick, lost her balance and fell backward, and Claire dragged her a few feet away as she screamed and twisted and clawed. Whatever the girl was screaming, it involved a lot of curse words, and Claire wasn’t paying attention. She shoved the girl into a thorny shrub and lunged back toward the circle of attackers. Stopping one hadn’t put an end to the beating. The weapons she had were for vampires, not humans, and she couldn’t use them on people who couldn’t heal…though if this went on any longer, she might have to inflict real and lasting damage to save Eve’s life.

Deep breath. She let herself take a second’s pause, and identified the ringleader, the one Eve had slapped; he was the one laying into her with real viciousness. Claire quickly stepped up behind him, tried to channel Shane as hard as she could, and did two moves he had taught her: first, a hard, fast punch to the kidneys; second, putting the toe of her shoe in the bend of his knee as he twisted in her direction.

It worked. He broke off the attack and fell to his knees; then he got up, staggering, and turned on her. The others were still going after Eve, but as he came after Claire, they began to break off and follow.

She danced backward, screamed for help (probably uselessly), and tore off, running.

They followed.

Everybody in Morganville was pretty good at running, of course, but Claire had motivation; she slowed down just enough to make them believe they could catch her, and still stayed out of easy grabbing range. The ringleader of the group—what was his name? Roy something?—Roy was fast, and she had to work to stay just a few inches past his lunges. If he caught up with her, she had no doubt he’d take out his rage on her just as he had with Eve.

Let her be okay. Please, let her be okay!

Her legs were starting to burn; Claire could run a fair distance, but adrenaline and fear were taking their toll, and she knew that the kids baying like hounds behind her weren’t going to get tired as fast—they had mob mentality to urge them on. There was another intersection ahead, but she didn’t see anyone on the street. No, wait—there was a car, cruising up to the stoplight.

A red, flirty sports car with an open roof.

Monica Morrell’s car.

Monica had a scarf looped over her head to prevent the dry wind from blowing her glossy dark hair all over the place, and she was wearing big rock-star sunglasses; when she turned toward the noise of Claire’s pursuit, it was impossible to read her expression.

Claire took a chance. Jumping over the door of the car and into the passenger seat, she narrowly missed flattening Monica’s expensive designer purse.

Monica stared at her for a second in silence, then looked past her as Roy Farmer skidded to a stop a foot away from the car, breathing hard and crimson with fury.

“What?” Monica demanded. “Touch my car and die, Roy Toy.” And then, without turning her head to even look at the light, or oncoming traffic, she gunned the convertible straight through the intersection with a burning squeal of rubber. The mob—well, it wasn’t actually a mob, Claire realized, so much as six teens fired up with rage—fell behind fast, even though they took a couple of steps in pursuit. Monica watched in the rearview for a couple of seconds, speeding up to a limit-breaking sixty miles per hour and blasting through two more stop signs without slowing down, then said, “Any particular reason for that? Not that I care, except somehow trash blew into my passenger seat.”

“Thanks,” Claire said, because regardless of the insult, Monica really had just done her a solid. She was having trouble catching her breath both from the run and from real worry. “Right turn!”

“Not heading that way, sunshine. I’m going shopping.”

Claire grabbed the wheel and forced it, and Monica swore—honestly, she knew words Claire had never heard of, in interesting and colorful combinations—and smacked Claire’s hand away to manage the turn carefully. “I swear to God, if you make me dent this car, I will end you!”

“They got Eve,” Claire said. “Right turn! Make the block!”

“Why should I?”

“They beat her up. She’s hurt. They could go back!”

“And I care because…?”

“Monica, they could kill her! Just do it!”

Monica hesitated just long enough to make Claire consider diving out of the car while it was speeding, but then she hit the brakes and fishtailed into a hard right, then another one, then U-turned to squeal to a halt in the intersection where Eve’s hearse still idled.

Monica didn’t say anything at all. Claire took one look at Eve lying on the pavement in a pool of her own blood, time just seemed to freeze into a block of ice for a long breath. Then it shattered, and Claire scrambled out to kneel beside her. Eve’s eyes were closed. She was breathing, but her skin looked ashen, and she was bleeding freely from cuts on her head; Claire didn’t dare move her, but she could see the livid red marks on her arms where she’d been kicked and stomped. There could be internal injuries, broken bones….

Ambulance, she thought, but even as she reached for her phone, she heard Monica saying, “Yeah, 911? There’s somebody bleeding all over the sidewalk at Fifth and Stillwater. Just look for the hearse.”

Claire looked up at her as Monica shut off her cell phone and tossed it into her purse. Monica returned the glance, shrugged, and checked her lipstick in the mirror. “Hey,” she said. “Never let it be said I’m not civic-minded. That sidewalk might stain.”

Then she drove off with a roar of the convertible’s engine.

Claire was right about Roy leading the others back, but by the time they arrived, half of his friends had come to their senses, and the ones still with him weren’t enough to really work up a good frenzy. They were further held back by the sound of the ambulance siren piercing the air and moving closer. Claire sat back on her heels as she stared at Roy. He was a nondescript boy, nothing really—an okay kind of face, neutral hair, standard high school clothes. The only thing that really made him stand out at all was the blood on his hands, and even as she noticed, he must have, too, because he pulled out his shirttail and scrubbed the skin clean, then tucked the fabric back into his pants. Evidence gone, except for the bruises on his knuckles.

He pointed at Claire as the ambulance pulled to a stop, siren winding down, behind the hearse. “This ain’t over,” he said. “Captain Obvious says vamp lovers get what they deserve. You do, too, for sticking up for her.”

She had an almost-uncontrollable desire to scream at him, but she could see it wouldn’t do any good. They were all looking at her as if she were the monster and as if Eve were some kind of pervert that deserved to die. Shane might have known what to say, but Shane wasn’t here. Michael wasn’t here. It was just her, alone, holding the limp and bloody hand of her best friend.

She met his gaze squarely and said, “Bring it, Roy Toy.”

“Later,” he promised, and jerked his head at his posse. They headed out at a jog and split up.

It was only as the ambulance attendants asked her to move back and started evaluating Eve’s condition that she realized exactly what Roy had said.

Captain Obvious says…