Shane, she thought, and forced herself to stand upright just a little longer. Shane needs me. I’m not letting this happen.
“You’re bluffing,’” Coffee Bar Jerk said, and came around the bed. Claire took a swing at him, missed, and smacked the bat into the wood so hard it rattled her teeth.
He grabbed the bat on the backswing and easily twisted it out of her grip. He tossed it to one of the other two guys, who caught it one-handed. “That,’” he said, “was really stupid. This could have been real nice and easy, you know that, right?’”
“I have Amelie’s Protection,’” Claire said.
He grabbed her by the throat of her sheer black skull-printed shirt, and dragged her forward. Her legs folded when she tried to pull away.
“I don’t care,’” he said. “I’m not from this stupid town. None of us are. Monica said that was the way to go, to get around the dumbass rules, whatever they are. Whoever Amelie is, she can kiss my ass. After you’re done doing it.’”
The door to the hall gave a dry, metallic pop, and swung slowly open. Claire blinked and tried to focus her eyes, because there was someone standing there. No, two someones. One had red hair. Wasn’t there something about red hair…? Oh yeah. Sam had red hair. Sam the vampire. Sam I Am. Michael’s grandpa, wasn’t that just too weird?
The door no longer had a knob on the outside. The one on the inside fell out with a dull thud to the carpet and rolled under the bed.
“Claire!’” Oh, that was Eve. “Oh my God…’”
“Excuse me,’” Sam said, “but what did you say about Amelie?’”
Coffee Bar Jerk let go of Claire’s top, and she slid back down the wall. She fumbled around for something to use for a weapon, but all she came up with was another set of filthy socks that had missed the laundry. For some reason, that seemed funny. She giggled and rested her head against the wall to let her neck relax. Her neck was working too hard.
“I said that Amelie can kiss my ass, Red. And what are you going to do about it? Stare me to death?’”
Sam just stood there. Claire couldn’t see anything about him change, but it was like the room just went…cold. “You really don’t want to do this,’” Sam said. “Eve, go get your friend.’”
“Yeah, Eve, come on in, we’ve got a nice big bed!’” Ian giggled. “I hear you know how to have a real good time.’” He tossed the bloody sock he’d been pressing to his nose down on the floor and got ready to grab Eve if she came inside. Sam looked at the discarded sock for a second, then picked it up and squeezed it, drizzling blood into the palm of his hand.
And then he licked it up. Slowly. Meeting the eyes of every guy facing him.
“I said,’” he whispered, “you really don’t want to do this.’”
Claire heard a great big buzzing in her head, like a hive full of bees. Oh, I’m going to pass out, because that was gross.
“Shit,’” Ian whispered, and backed up. Fast. “You’re sick, man!’”
“Sometimes,’” Sam agreed. “Eve, go get her. Nobody’s going to touch you.’”
Eve cautiously edged past him, hurried to Claire, and gave her a fast embrace before she hauled her upright again. “Can you walk?’”
“Not very well,’” Claire said, and gulped down nausea. The world kept coming in hot and cold flashes, and she felt like she was going to throw up, but somehow it was all smeared and funny, even the terror in Eve’s eyes.
Not so funny when Coffee Bar Jerk decided to grab Eve, though.
He lunged over the bed, reaching for Eve’s wrist—Claire was too fuzzy to know why he was doing it. Maybe he was hoping to use her as some kind of shield against Sam. But whatever he meant, it was a bad decision.
Sam moved in a flicker, and when Claire blinked, Coffee Bar Jerk was up against the wall, eyes wide, staring at Sam’s face from a distance of about three inches.
“I said,’” Sam whispered, “nobody was going to touch her. Are you deaf?’”
Claire didn’t see it, but she imagined he probably flashed some fang right about then, because Coffee Bar Jerk whimpered like a sick dog.
The other boys moved out of Eve’s way without even trying to stop her.
“Monica,’” Claire said. “I think it was Monica. She got Ian to ask me.’”
“What?’”
“Monica got him to ask me. Told them to do this.’”
“Bitch! Okay, I take it all back. She needs a good blowtorching.’”
“No,’” Claire said faintly. “Nobody deserves that. Nobody.’”
“Great. Saint Claire, the patron saint of the kick-me sign. Look, keep it together, okay? We need to get out of here. Sam! Come on! Leave them!’”
Sam didn’t seem inclined to listen. “Manners, boys,’” he said. “Looks to me like nobody ever taught you any. It’s time you had a lesson before somebody else gets hurt.’”
“Hey, man—’” Ian was holding out his hands in surrender. “Seriously. Just having fun. We weren’t going to hurt her. No need to go all Charles Bronson. We didn’t even really touch her. Look. Clothes still on.’”
“Don’t even try.’” Sam continued to stare at Coffee Bar Jerk, who was looking less like a predator, and more and more like a scared kid faced with the big, bad wolf. “I like these girls. I don’t like you. Do the math. Consider yourself subtracted.’”
“Sam!’” Eve’s voice was loud and flat. “Enough with the macho hero stuff. We came to find you. Let’s get out of here and talk.’”
“I’m not leaving,’” Sam said, his eyes fixed on the boy he was holding. “Not until Disney Princess here apologizes, or his head comes off, one of the two.’”
“Sam! What we need to talk about is important, and Disney Princess is not!’”
For a second Claire thought nothing Eve could say would get through, but then she saw Sam smile—it wasn’t a nice smile—and he let Coffee Bar Jerk slide back to the floor. “Fine,’” he said. “Consider yourself horribly tortured. Make sure you think about all the ways I could have hurt you, because if I hear about anything like this happening again, I want you to know what’s coming.’”
Coffee Bar Jerk nodded shakily, and kept his back to the wall as he slid over to join his posse.
Sam turned toward the girls, and came forward to touch Claire lightly on the shoulder. “Are you all right?’”
Claire nodded, a loose flop of her head. That was a mistake; she nearly pitched over, and it took all of Eve’s strength to keep her on her feet.
When she was able to open her eyes and focus again, Sam had moved away, to the door.
“What?’” Eve asked. “And by the way, you’re blocking the escape hatch.’”
“Hush,’” Sam said softly, barely loud enough to be heard over the pounding, relentless beat of the music.
And then Claire heard the screaming.
In a blink, Sam was gone from the doorway. Eve moved out into the hallway, craning her head to look over the rail, and Claire looked, too.
It was chaos down there, and not the happy chaos of a dance. Knots of screaming, pushing people, desperately jamming up the exits from the big open room, all in black clothes, white faces, some splashes of red here and there…
Blood. There was blood.
Sam grabbed both her and Eve by the shoulders, swung them around, and pushed them back inside the room. He looked at Ian, who was still cowering against the wall. “You. O Positive. How many exits?’”
“What?…Oh shit, did you just call me by my blood type?’”
“How many exits?’”
“The stairs! You have to take the stairs!’”
Sam cursed under his breath, went to the closet, and yanked it open. It was a walk-in, pretty large, filled with junk. He shoved Claire and Eve inside and held the door open. “You,’” he said to the four boys. “If you want to live, get in. Touch these girls and I’ll kill you myself. You know I’m serious, yeah?’”
“Yeah,’” Ian said faintly. “Not a finger on ’em. What’s happening? Is it, like, one of those shooting things?’”