Michael gave him a look as he finished buttoning his shirt. “I think it’s pretty obvious privacy’s an issue.”
“Not if you don’t decide to get crazy in a room without a locking door. Or, you know, a door.”
“It’s just that we were waiting on you guys, and we were nervous, and…it just happened,” Eve said. “And we’re married. We have the right to get crazy if we want to. Anywhere. At any time.”
“Okay, I get that,” Shane said. “Hell, I’d like a little spontaneous sexytime, too, but is it worth putting us all in danger? Because Morganville ain’t safe, guys. You know that. You go out of this house, or make us leave it, and something is going to happen. Something bad.”
“Have you taken up Miranda’s fortune-telling?” Eve asked. “I could say something about crystal balls….”
“Don’t need a psychic friend to tell me it’s nasty out there and bound to get worse. Michael, you’re on Team Vampire. Are you saying you don’t think it’s going toxic with Amelie and Oliver in charge?”
Michael didn’t try to answer that one, because he couldn’t; they’d all agreed on it already.
Eve jumped in, instead. “We could get a house in the vampire quarter,” she said. “Free. It’s part of Michael’s citizenship in town. It wouldn’t be a problem except—”
“Except that you’d be living in Vamp Central, and the only thing with a pulse in a couple of square blocks, surrounded by people who think of you as an attractively shaped plasma container?” Shane asked. “Problem. Oh, another problem: Mikey, you said yourself that being around us, meaning all of us, helped you cope with your instincts. Now you’re talking about isolating yourselves with a bunch of also-deads. Not smart, man. It’ll make you more vamp, and it’ll put Eve in more danger, too.”
“I never said we were moving to the vampire quarter,” Michael said. “Eve was just pointing out we could, not that we would. We could find something else, something close. The old Profit place is still for sale down the street. Amelie gave me a bequest, so I’ve got money to put down.”
“Michael…We are not moving into that pit,” Eve said. It sounded like an old argument. “It smells like cat urine and old-man clothes, and it’s so ancient, it makes this place look like the house of the future. I don’t think it has phone lines, never mind Internet. Might as well live in a cardboard box.”
“Always an option,” Shane said cheerfully. “And you’d have a huge bathroom. Like, the entire world.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“It’s what you pay me for.”
“Remind me to give you a negative raise.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Michael interrupted, and shut them both down, hard. “Besides, it’s not just the four of us anymore. It’s Miranda.”
The conversation came to a sudden and vivid halt, and they all waited to see what would happen. It was night; that meant Miranda had physical form.
But it didn’t necessarily mean she could hear everything.
Claire lowered her voice to an instinctive, fierce whisper. “Hey! Don’t be that way!”
“Look, I’m not saying I don’t have sympathy for her; I do, a lot. I used to be her,” Michael whispered back. “I know what it feels like being trapped in here. It drives you half crazy, and the only way you can survive it, the only way, is to be around people who think of you as…normal. But she doesn’t have that. We know what she is. We know she’s around all the time, and that means she tiptoes around us, and we tiptoe around her, and—it’s just not good, okay? It’s not.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” Miranda asked. They all flinched and turned. She hadn’t been there before, but now she’d appeared in the doorway to the hall, just like the spooky ghost she sometimes was. Claire was almost sure it was deliberate. “Leave?”
“You can’t,” Michael said. He did it gently, but there wasn’t any doubt in it, either. “Mir, you knew when you came here that last time”—when she’d been killed here, he meant—“that there’d never be a way to leave again. The house saved you, and protects you, but you have to stay inside.”
“Just because you did?” Miranda said. There was something different about her now, Claire realized; she was wearing a definitely not-Miranda outfit. No dowdy oversized dresses this time, or cheap fraying sweaters; she was wearing a skintight black sheer shirt with a black skull printed on it, and beneath that, a red scoop-neck that somehow managed to give her cleavage—just the suggestion, but still. For Miranda, that was…quite a change. “I’m not you, Michael.”
“Maybe not, but do you have to become Eve?” Shane asked. “Because I’m pretty sure you raided her closet.”
“I bought those for her!” Eve protested. “And anyway, she looks cute in them.”
She did. Miranda had also gathered her hair up in two thick ponytails on either side of her head, and used a little of Eve’s eyeliner. It was a little Goth, but not full-on, either. It suited her.
“It’s me, isn’t it?” Miranda said, ignoring both Eve and Shane this time. She was totally fixed on Michael, her eyes steady and wide. “It’s about me, being here all the time. You feel like you can’t hide from me. Well, that’s true. You can’t. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is, and you know it better than anyone. You can’t just…turn off, like some kind of light. You’re here, and you’re bored.”
“I know,” Michael said. “Mir—”
“That’s why you don’t want to stay here. Because I’m here. It’s not about them at all.”
“No, honey, it’s not really—” Eve bit her lip and glanced from Michael to Miranda and then back again. “It’s not that, I swear….”
“Don’t swear,” Miranda said, “because I know I’m right.”
“She is,” Michael said. When Eve turned toward him, he held up a hand to stop the outburst. “I’m sorry, but like I said, I’ve been there. I know how it feels. I can’t just…ignore her. And I can’t enjoy life in here knowing how miserable she is, or at least is going to be.”
“You were miserable?” Eve said in a small voice. “Really? With us?”
“No—I didn’t mean—” He made a frustrated sound and plumped down in one of the chairs, elbows on his knees. “It’s hard to explain. Being around you, the three of you, was all that made things bearable, most days. The world just keeps getting smaller and smaller until it smothers you like a plastic bag over your face. With her here, I—I remember how that feels. I dream about it.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Miranda demanded. “I saved Claire’s life, you know! I died for her!”
“I know that!” Michael snapped back. “I just wish you’d done it somewhere else!”
Even Shane sucked in a breath at that one and said, softly, “Bro—”
“No,” Miranda said. Her chin was trembling, and she blinked back tears, but she didn’t fall apart. Claire felt an aching urge to hug her, but Miranda looked as if she might break if anyone touched her. “It’s not his fault. He’s right. I made this happen, and it isn’t fair. Not to him, not to me, not to anybody. It’s a mess, and I did it. I thought—I just thought that it was perfect. That I’d finally have a real home, real family, people who—” Her voice broke and faded, and she shook her head. “I should have known. I don’t get those things.”
“I didn’t mean that—,” Michael said, but she turned and walked off.
None of them reacted at first. Claire thought nobody quite knew what to think, or to do, and then she saw Michael flinch and rise to his feet. She didn’t know why until she heard the front door opening.
“No!” he shouted, and flashed at vampire-speed out of the room.
“The hell?” Shane blurted, and rushed after him, followed by Eve and Claire. “What—”
Claire pushed past him as he stopped, and she sucked in a deep, startled breath.
Because Miranda was outside. On the porch. And Michael was standing there, holding on to her arm as she fought to pull free. He was holding on to the doorframe, stretched fully out, and Miranda must have had a tiger’s strength in that small body, because he was clearly having trouble keeping his grip. “Stop!” he yelled at her. “Miranda, I’m not letting you do this!”