“Oh, Dan, don’t be like that—”
“Play your own stupid pranks for a change.”
Monica gave him a searing glare of disappointment, and he shrugged and got in the van. In seconds, it fired up and drove away in a belch of smoke.
Leaving Monica behind. She shot Claire a look of fury mixed with outrage. “I was trying to help get those jackasses out of town. Being proactive and all mayorlike! What the hell were you two doing? Auditioning for starring roles in their stupid show?”
They’d attracted attention, of course. It wasn’t from surrounding houses, since no one bothered to look outside at mysterious fighting in the streets for entirely sensible reasons, but from the team from After Death that had come charging over with cameras, microphones, and gadgets. Angel immediately fixed his model’s smile straight on Monica. “Are these two bothering you, lovely lady?”
“Please,” Claire muttered, but it was too late; Monica was batting her eyes and putting on her best wounded-butterfly act as she crowded up next to her newly arrived knight in shining leather shoes.
“Oh yes,” she breathed. “Did you see? He beat up my boyfriend!”
“Call the police,” Angel ordered Tyler, who was still recording, but Tyler was distracted by Jenna, who was whacking her electronic meter device in obvious irritation.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s technology, not a drum!” he said, and took it from her. “What? What’s wrong with it?”
“I had a strong signal!” she said. “It was there, I swear it was, but it just vanished about thirty seconds ago. I think they scared it off.”
“You were reading something wrong.”
“I saw it! It was maxed out in that vacant lot—I’m telling you….”
“Oh—um, that was my boyfriend,” Monica said, and brought the overlapping chaos to a dead halt. “He had the van that just took off? He was broadcasting a signal to make you think it was some kind of ghost. He thought it was kind of funny.”
Angel was looking at Monica with a heartbroken expression. “Why would you do that?”
“It was Dan, not—”
“Why do teenagers do anything?” Jenna snapped. She stepped into Monica’s space, looking for the world as if she was feeling just as strong an impulse to slap the girl as Claire was. “Get lost, before I call the cops.”
“It’s not against the law!”
“You’re right. Get lost before I do something that is against the law, like putting my fist in your face.”
“Hey!” Monica stepped into Jenna’s space now, cheeks flushing a bright, hectic pink. “Do you know who I am?”
“Last year’s high school queen bee who’s no longer relevant but still thinks she is?” Jenna shot back, and Claire’s eyes widened at the accuracy of the thrust. So did Monica’s. “Look, sweetie, I’ve seen a dozen one-stoplight towns just like this, and there’s always somebody just like you who thinks you’re…well, somebody.”
Monica opened her mouth to reply, but didn’t. She was remembering that she was, in fact, nobody, at least by her own standards; she was just another bully now, with nothing to back it up. She didn’t even have her best friends to enable her. Even her Cro-Magnon boyfriend had bailed on her at the first sign of trouble.
And it hurt. In that moment, though she shouldn’t have, Claire felt a little twinge of sympathy.
“I’m running for mayor!” Monica rallied enough to snap back. “So careful what you say, because my first official act would be running you three out of town on a rail!”
Jenna shrugged and glared at Angel, who was still looking gravely disappointed, and said, “Come on, let’s retake that last bit over in the vacant lot. We can still save some of the footage.” She set out at a rapid pace around the corner, heading for the vacant lot. After a hesitation, Tyler followed her.
Angel shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, but you see how it is. We have work to do.” This time, there was no hand kissing, and not much flirting, either.
“Wait,” Monica said as he started to walk off. “You’re just going to leave me here? Alone? With them?”
Angel flashed her a perfect smile but kept walking. “I’m sure they’ll see you get home safe.”
“Oh yeah,” Shane said. “On my to-do list, right after discovering Atlantis. Enjoy your walk, Princess Mayor.” He put his arm around Claire and tipped her chin up to look into her eyes. “You okay? Not hurt?”
“No,” she said. “You?”
“The only way Dan can actually hurt me is to try to have a conversation. He may be on the college football team, but trust me, he’s just barely junior varsity on street fighting.”
Monica looked from the departing television people back to the two of them, then at the empty street. Looking for some kind of third option, Claire thought. “You could just go it alone,” Claire said, with a little too much sweetness. “I’m sure you’ll be safe. After all, everybody knows who you are.”
“Thanks to our posters,” Shane put in.
“You know, it’s your fault my life is such a hell, anyway, so spare me your little gestures!”
“So now you’re blaming us for your life falling apart, after a lifetime of earning it? Interesting.”
“My life was fine before you came here!” Monica spat.
Shane gave her a long, level look. “You know whose life wasn’t so fine? Pretty much everybody else’s. Including the vampires’, not that I’m counting that for a plus, but you get the idea.”
She ignored Shane. Oddly, because those two were almost always gasoline and a match. “I need an escort home,” she announced to the air somewhere between the two of them. “Tell me you’re going that way.”
Shane shrugged when Claire glanced at him. “Well, I guess we’d better. How can she be mayor if she’s dead in a ditch?”
“She just taunted you with the voice of your dead sister!”
“No,” Monica said.
“What?” Claire snapped; she was getting really angry now, angry enough to do or say something she couldn’t take back. And Shane, oddly, wasn’t.
“I didn’t do that,” Monica said, and met Shane’s eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. Dan and I were messing with their electronics, and we were planning to sneak over and make some rattling noises. But I swear, I didn’t pretend to be your sister.”
“She wouldn’t,” Shane said softly. “Not after Richard, anyway.” There was, Claire realized, some kind of understanding between the two of them now, something she didn’t quite get but could see; it wasn’t affection, and it sure wasn’t a crush, but a kind of mutual…caution. As if they understood each of them had a place that could be hurt, and neither was willing to go there anymore.
“Then what was that? Was it really—really—” She couldn’t finish the thought. She was feeling a little unstuck now, as if the world were bending around her…. She thought she’d seen enough of Morganville that something like that would never happen again.
“I don’t know,” Shane said, “but I intend to find out.”
Walking Monica home was just exactly as fun as Claire expected, which was not fun at all. She complained about having to walk in her heels (to which Shane, proving he was not totally off the Let’s Hate Monica bandwagon, suggested she mount her broom and fly home); she complained about the hot weather, and sweat ruining her outfit; she complained about the lack of cab service (Claire had to agree she had a point there—Morganville desperately needed cabs).
Claire had begun to tune her out by that point, since they were within sight of Monica’s luxury apartment complex (the only one in Morganville, in fact, with ten apartments that cost more than most of the town could even think about paying). Monica had sold the Morrell family home, which had mostly survived all the troubles of the past few years intact except for party damage, and made a tidy bank account to allow her to not work for at least a couple of years, though it probably wouldn’t last at the rate Monica blew through designer shoes.