“Of course I do! But—’”
“Look.’” Eve pulled out some more stuff and dumped it on the pile of stakes—lighter fluid, a Zippo lighter. “The time for playing nice is over. If we want to get Shane out of there, vampires have to die. That means we start a war nobody wants, but tough. I’m not watching Shane burn. I won’t do that. They want this. Oliver wants it. Fine, he can have it. He can choke on it.’”
“Eve!’” Claire dropped the cross and stake, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her. “You can’t! You know it’s suicide—you’ve told me that before! You can’t just…kill vampires! You’ll end up in a cage right next to—’”
Oh, God. She hadn’t seen it before, but now she knew what was different about Eve. What was missing in her eyes.
“You want to die,’” Claire said slowly. “Don’t you?’”
“I’m not afraid of it,’” Eve said. “No big deal, right? Tra-la, off to paradise just like my parents always told me, pearly gates and all that. Besides, nobody’s going to help us, Claire. We have to stick together. We have to help ourselves.’”
“What if I find some evidence?’” Claire asked. “Detective Hess said—’”
“Detective Hess stood there and did nothing. That’s what they’re all going to do. Nothing. Just like Michael.’”
“God, Eve, stop it! That’s not fair. Michael can’t leave the house! You know that!’”
“Yeah. Not much help, is it?’” Eve began stuffing her arsenal of vampire-killing equipment into a black gym bag. “It’s time for a little payback around here. There are other people who’re tired of sucking up to the vamps. Maybe I can find them if you’re going to punk out on me. I need people I can rely on.’”
“Eve!’”
“With me or out of the way.’”
Claire retreated to the doorway, and bumped into a warm body. She yelped and lunged forward, turning to face…
Michael.
His face was like a chalky mask, and his eyes were big and wounded and angry. He took Claire’s hand and pulled her through the doorway, out into the hall.
Then he took hold of the doorknob, and looked at Eve. “You’re not going anywhere,’” he said. “Not while I can stop you.’”
He slammed the door and locked it with an old-fashioned key. Seconds later, Eve hit the other side with a bang and began rattling the knob. “Hey!’” she screamed. “Open it! Right now!’”
“No,’” Michael said. “I’m sorry, Eve. I love you. I’m not letting you do this.’”
She screamed and battered harder. “You love me? You asshole! Let me go!’”
“Can you really keep her in there?’” Claire asked anxiously.
“I can for tonight,’” Michael said, his eyes fixed on the door as it vibrated under the force of her kicks and blows. “The windows won’t open, or the doors. She’s stuck. But when the sun comes up…’” He turned to look at Claire. “You said if you could find evidence, Detective Hess would step in for Shane?’”
“That’s what he said.’”
“It’s not enough. We need Amelie on his side. And Oliver.’”
“Oliver’s the one who put him in the cage! And Amelie—she walked away. I don’t think we can get anything from her, Michael.’”
“Try,’” he said. “Go. You have to.’”
Claire blinked. “You mean—go out there? At night?’”
Michael looked exhausted suddenly. And very young. “I can’t do it. I can’t trust Eve enough to let her out of her room, much less go out and talk to some of the most powerful vampires in town. Call Detective Hess, or Lowe. Don’t go alone…but Claire, I need you to do this. I need you to make it right. I can’t—’”
It was written all over his face, the things he couldn’t do. The limits he’d crashed into with so much force it had left him broken and bleeding in the wreckage.
“I know,’” Claire said. “I’ll try.’”
It was dark, it was Morganville, and she was sixteen years old. Not the best idea ever, going out of the house again, but Claire put on her darkest pair of jeans, a black shirt, and a big, gaudy cross that Eve had given her. She felt queasy at the idea of stakes. Doubly queasy at the idea of actually stabbing somebody with one.
I still have Protection, Amelie said so.
She hoped that would actually mean something.
Claire called Detective Hess’s number from the card Eve had left pinned to the board in the kitchen. He answered on the second ring, sounded tired and depressed.
“I need a ride,’” Claire said. “If you’re willing. I need to talk to Amelie.’”
“Even I don’t know how to get to Amelie,’” Hess said. “Best-kept secret in Morganville. I’m sorry, kid, but—’”
“I know how to get to her,’” she said. “I just don’t want to walk. Given—the time.’”
There was a second of silence, and then the sound of a pen scratching against paper. “You shouldn’t be out at all,’” Hess said. “Besides, I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere. You need to find somebody who can back up Shane’s story. That means one of his dad’s biker buddies. There may be one or two running around loose, but I don’t think talking sweet to them’s going to get you much.’”
“What about his dad?’”
“Trust me, you’re not going to find Frank Collins. Not before the powers that be do, anyway. Every vampire in town is out tonight, combing the streets, looking for him. They’ll find him eventually. Not a lot of places he can hide when it’s an all-out effort.’”
“But—if they catch him, that’s kind of a good thing. He could tell them Shane didn’t do it!’”
“He could,’” Hess agreed. “But he’s just crazy enough to think burning in a cage alongside his kid is going out in a blaze of glory. Some kind of victory. He might say Shane was part of it just to punish him. We can’t know.’”
She couldn’t deny that. Claire swallowed hard. “So…are you going to give me a ride or not?’”
“You’re determined to go out,’” Hess said. “In the dark.’”
“Yes. And I’ll walk if I have to. I just hope I don’t—have to.’”
His sigh rattled the phone speaker. “All right. Ten minutes. Stay inside until I honk the horn.’”
Claire hung up the phone and turned, and nearly bumped into Michael. She yelped, and he reached out and steadied her. He kept hold of her arms even after she didn’t need the steadying support anymore. He felt warm and real, and she thought—not for the first time—how weird it was that he could seem so alive when he really wasn’t. Not exactly. Not all the time.
He looked like he had something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. And finally, he looked away. “Hess is coming?’”
“Yeah. Ten minutes, he said.’”
Michael nodded. “You’re going to see Amelie?’”
“Maybe. I’ve got exactly one shot. If that doesn’t work, then…’” She spread her hands. “Then I guess I talk to Oliver instead.’”
“If…you do see Amelie, tell her I need to talk to her,’” he said. “Will you do that for me?’”
Claire blinked. “Sure. But—why?’”
“Something she said to me before. Look, obviously I can’t go to her. She has to come here.’” Michael shrugged and gave her a tiny curve of a smile. “Not important why.’”
That raised a little red flag in the back of her mind. “Michael, you’re not going to do anything, well, crazy, right?’”
“Says the sixteen-year-old about to walk out the door in the dark to go see a vampire? No, Claire. I’m not going to do anything crazy.’” Michael’s eyes glittered suddenly with some fierce emotion. It looked like rage, or pain, or some toxic mix of both. “I hate this. I hate letting you go. I hate Shane for getting himself caught. I hate this—’”
What Michael was really saying, Claire understood, was I hate me. She totally got that. She hated herself on a regular basis.
“Don’t punch anything, okay?’” Because he had that look again. “Take care of Eve. Don’t let her go crazy, okay? Promise? If you love her, you need to take care of her. She needs you now.’”