But as it happened, she didn’t have to.
“I will,” Michael said.
There was a collective intake of breath. Nobody—Claire included—could quite believe he’d spoken up. It even made Oliver turn and lose his bitch face.
“Don’t do me no favors, Glass Ass,” Jason snapped.
“I’m not.” Michael turned to Amelie. “He’s a pathetic little worm, but he’s just a criminal. He deserves to be punished. Not killed like some rabid dog.”
“He’s a killer,” she said.
“Well, if he is, he’s not the only one in this room, is he?”
Amelie showed her teeth briefly in a smile. “Will you take his parole, Michael? Will you put him into your own household and shelter him with those you love?”
Michael didn’t answer. He wanted to—Claire could see it—but he just . . . couldn’t.
Finally, he shook his head.
“If you won’t trust him with those you love, how can I trust him with anyone else’s family?” Amelie said, and nodded to Oliver.
Claire blurted, “Wait!”
“May we pleasehave done with interruptions from the children’s section?” Oliver said.
“Why is he here?” Claire asked, talking so fast that she stumbled over the words. “Why is he here? Who brought him here?”
“Who cares?”
Amelie held up a warning hand. “It’s a reasonable question. Who brought him to us?”
“Nobody,” one of the guards said from the door. “He came through the portal.”
“ What?” Amelie crossed to Jason in a flash, knocked Oliver out of the way, and slammed the boy back against the closest wall. “Tell me how you came to work the portals.”
“Somebody showed me,” Jason said. “He showed me a lot of things. He showed me how to kill. How to hide. How to get around town without anybody knowing.”
“ Who?”
Jason laughed. “No way, lady. I’m not telling. That’s all I’ve got left to bargain with, right?”
Amelie’s face twisted with anger, and she was about two seconds from snapping some bones for him. “Then you have nothing, because I will have it out of you one way or another.”
Sam Glass, who hadn’t said a thing, slowly rose to his feet. “Amelie. Amelie, stop.”
“Not until this worm tells me who showed him the portals!”
“Then I’ll tell you,” Sam said. “I showed him. I showed him everything you showed me.”
Silence. Even Oliver looked as if he didn’t quite understand what he’d just heard. Amelie stood there like an ivory statue, holding Jason in place with one flattened hand on his chest.
“Why?” she whispered. “Sam, why would you do such a thing?”
It felt, to Claire, like suddenly the room was empty and they’d all turned to ghosts, except for Amelie and Sam. There was something so powerful in the stare between them that it just vaporized the rest of the world. “I did the best I could,” he said softly. “You left me no choice. You wouldn’t see me. You wouldn’t speak to me, all those years. I was alone, and I—I wanted to do something good.” He took in a deep breath and walked toward her, coming close enough to touch, although he didn’t reach out. “Jason was a victim. Brandon brutalized him, and no one did anything to stop it. So yes, I taught the boy to fight, to defend himself from Brandon. I taught him to use the portals to help him escape when he needed to get away. I couldn’t stop Brandon, not without you, but I could try to save his victims. I thought I was helping.”
“Don’t worry, man; I wasn’t going to throw you under the bus.” Jason laughed. “Fuck it, you were the only one who was ever good to me. Why should I?”
“The boy rewarded you by showing my father everything you taught him,” Amelie said softly. She broke the stare with Sam and looked at Jason’s face. “Didn’t you?”
“It was what I had to trade. You set up the rules, lady. I just followed them.”
Amelie grabbed Jason by the hair and shoved him at Sam, who caught him in surprise, and then held him when Jason tried to break free. “He’s yours,” she snapped at Sam. “You created this. Deal with it.” She spun to Oliver. “You were right. Bishop does know how to use the network.”
“Then we can take advantage of that,” Oliver said. “Since he assumes we do notknow that he does.”
They’d effectively dismissed Sam and Jason. Sam stared at Amelie with so much pain in his face that it made Claire hurt to look at it, then shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said, and nodded to Michael and Claire. “All of us. Now.”
No one tried to stop them. When Jason tried to make one last clever little comment, Sam slapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him out. “Shut up,” he said. “You’re still alive. That’s a better outcome than you deserve.”
Claire portaled them directly into the Glass House. She breathed an involuntary sigh of relief at finding Shane sitting on the couch, staring at a flickering TV screen like it held the secrets of the universe, and Eve pacing the hallway in her clumpy boots.
Eve spotted them first, screamed, and threw herself on Claire like a warm Goth blanket. “Oh God, everybody thought you were dead! Or, you know, Bishoped, which would have been worse, right? What happened? Where did you go?”
Over Eve’s shoulder, Claire saw that Shane had gotten to his feet. “You all right?” he asked. She nodded, and he closed his eyes in sudden relief. Claire patted Eve’s back, in thanks, love, and a little bit of get-the-hell-off-me .Eve got the message. She backed up, sniffling a little, and couldn’t keep a smile from ruining her sad-clown makeup.
“Sorry about that,” Claire said. “I . . . well. It wasn’t exactly my idea, and I can’t really explain. . . .”
“But you’re okay. No fang marks or . . . ” Eve’s gaze darted past Claire, and she stopped talking. Stopped moving, too.
Shane, on the other hand, moved fast, putting himself between Claire and Jason. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Fuck you too, Collins.”
“Shut up,” Sam said, and gave Jason a warning shake that must have rattled his bones. “He’s here because I didn’t want to kill him. Any other questions?”
Eve still wasn’t saying anything. Claire couldn’t blame her; she had the same kind of conflicted emotions passing over her face that Shane had when he thought about his dad. Love/hate/loss. That sucked, when Jason was standing right there. She hadn’t really lost him. Not yet.
Michael went to her, the same way Shane had gone to Claire—to get between her and her brother. “He’s not welcome here,” Michael said, and that put the force of the Founder House behind it. Claire felt a pressure building, getting ready to evict Jason and—presumably—Sam, if Sam didn’t let go of him.
“Wait,” Sam said. “You send him out there, he’s dead from all sides, and you know it. Bishop has no use for him, hasn’t since Jason’s assassination attempt failed. Amelie would kill him without blinking. You really want to do that to your girlfriend’s brother?”
“Michael, don’t,” Eve said. “He won’t hurt us.” And everyonerolled their eyes at that. Even Jason, which was borderline hilarious.
“Look,” Jason said, “all I want is a way out of this stupid town. You arrange that, and I’ll never show my face around here again. You can keep your stupid hero life-style. I just want out.”
“Too late,” Shane said. “Last bus already left, man. And we’re thirty minutes away from Bishop’s big town hall meeting. You can run, but you can’t hide. Anybody who isn’t there is dead. He’s going to send out hunters. It’ll be open season.”
“I could stay here,” Jason said quickly. “Upstairs. In the secret room, right?”
They all looked at one another.
“Oh, come on,it’s not like I’m going to run up your phone bill and watch pay-per-view. Besides, if I was going to kill you in your sleep, I would have already done it.” He made a kissy-face at Shane. “Even you, asswipe.”