She didn’t hear his footsteps anymore, and turned to look. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching the street.
There was a vampire standing at the corner, under the glow of a streetlight. Brandon. Just standing there, arms folded, he was leaning against the lamppost like he had all the time in the world.
He blew them a kiss, turned, and walked away.
Shane shot him the finger and practically shoved Claire across the threshold. “Don’t you ever stop out there!”
“You said I got a free pass!”
“It doesn’t come with a written guarantee!”
“What did you promise him?” she yelled.
Shane slammed the door, hard, and started to push past her to go down the hall, but just as he got there, Michael stepped into his path. And Michael looked pissed.
“Answer her,” he said. “What the hell did you do, Shane?”
“Oh, now you care? Where the hell were you, man? I called! I came and looked for you. Hell, I even picked the lock to your room!”
Michael’s blue eyes flickered from Shane to Claire and back. “I had things to do.”
“Dude, today you had things to do? Whatever, man. You weren’t around, and I had to make the call. So I made it.”
“Shane.” Michael reached out and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him to a stop. “It sounds like she deserves an answer. We all do.” Behind him, Eve stepped around the corner, arms folded.
Shane let out a short, harsh laugh. “Ganging up on me with the girls? Low blow, man. Low blow. What happened to male bonding?”
“Eve says you talked to Brandon.”
Claire watched the fight go out of Shane’s shoulders. “Yeah. I did. I had to. I mean—look, they threw acid on her and the damn cops wouldn’t even—I had to go to the source. You taught me that.”
“You made a deal with Brandon,” Michael said, and Claire heard the sick tremor in his voice. “Oh, dammit to hell, Shane. You didn’t.”
Shane shrugged. He wasn’t meeting Michael’s eyes. “Dude, it’s done. Don’t make a thing out of it. It’s only twice. And he can’t drain me or anything.”
“Shit!” Michael turned and slammed his hand hard into the wooden doorframe. “You don’t even know her, man! You can’t make a crusade out of this!”
“I’m not!”
“She’s not Alyssa!” Michael yelled, and that was the loudest shout she’d ever heard in her life. Claire flinched and stepped back, and saw Eve do the same behind him.
Shane didn’t move. It was like he couldn’t. He just stood there, head down.
And then he took a deep breath, raised his head, and met Michael’s furious eyes.
“I know she’s not Alyssa,” he said, and his tone was still, quiet, and completely cold. “You need to back the hell off, Michael, and you need to stop thinking I’m the screwed-up kid you knew back then. I know what I’m doing, and you’re not my dad.”
“I’m the closest thing you have to family around here!” Michael came off of the yelling, but Claire could hear the anger bubbling in his voice. “And I’m not letting you play the hero. Not now.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d step up and watch my back!”
Shane shoved past him this time, pounded up the stairs, and slammed the door to his room. Michael stood there, staring after him until Claire took a step forward. She froze when he looked at her, afraid he’d be angrier at her than he had been at Shane. After all, it had been her fault….
“Come sit down,” Michael said. “I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do. Sit. Eve, hold her down if you have to.” He took her hand for a second, squeezed it, and stood aside for her to move to the couch. She sank onto it with a sigh of relief and rested her forehead on her hands. God, what a miserable day. It had started out so—and Shane—but—
“You understand what Shane did, right?” Eve asked, plopping next to her. “How he, you know, made the deal?”
“No.” She felt hot, and miserable, and she definitely didn’t want food. But Michael wasn’t exactly in the mood to take no for an answer. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Shane traded two sessions to Brandon in exchange for him leaving you alone.”
“He—what?” Claire looked up, mortally confused. Was Shane gay? She hadn’t even thought about the possibility….
“Sessions. You know, bites.” Eve mimed fangs. “The agreement is that Brandon can fang him—twice. He just can’t, you know, kill him. It’s not about food, it’s pleasure. And power.” Eve smoothed her pleated skirt and frowned down at her short, black fingernails. “Michael’s right to be angry about it. Not killing somebody is a hell of a long way from not hurting them. And Brandon’s got a lot of experience at making deals. Shane doesn’t.”
Somehow, she’d known that—from the way Shane had acted, the way Brandon had been watching them, the way Michael had been so angry. It wasn’t just that Shane had told Brandon to back off, or made some dumbass promise. Shane had traded his life for hers—or at least, he was risking it.
Claire gasped, and fear prickled her skin so hard it was like rolling in needles. “But if he gets bitten, is he—won’t he—?”
“Turn into a vampire?” Eve shook her head. “It can’t work that way, or Morganville’d be the Undead Metroplex by now for sure. All my life, I’ve never seen or heard of anybody turned into a vampire from a bite. The suckers around here are really old. Not that Shane wouldn’t look completely hot with a nice set of fangs, but…” She fiddled with the pleats on her skirt. “Shit. This is stupid. Why not me? I mean, not that I exactly want to—not anymore—but…it’s worse for guys.”
“Worse? Why?”
Eve shrugged, but Claire could see she was avoiding the question. “Shane’s definitely not going to be able to handle it. Boy can’t even let somebody else have the last corn dog, and he doesn’t even like corn dogs. He’s a total control freak.” She fidgeted for a few more seconds, then added, softly, “And I’m afraid for him.”
As Michael came back into the room, Eve jumped up and ran around moving things, stacking things, until Michael gave her a none-too-subtle signal to leave. Which she did, making some excuse Claire didn’t hear, and clattered upstairs to her room.
Michael handed Claire a bowl. “Chili. Sorry. It’s what we’ve got.”
She nodded and took a spoonful, because she’d always pretty much done what she was told…and the second the chili hit her tongue, she realized that she was starving. She swallowed it almost without chewing, and was scooping up the next bite before she knew what she was doing. Shane needed to go into the chili business.
Michael slipped into the leather armchair to the left and picked up the guitar he’d laid aside. He started tuning it as if the whole scene with Shane hadn’t even happened. She ate, stealing glances at him as he bent over the instrument, drawing soft, resonant notes. “You’re not mad?” she finally asked, or mumbled.
“Mad?” He didn’t raise his curly blond head. “Mad is what you get when somebody flips you the finger on the freeway, Claire. No. I’m scared. And I’m trying to think what to do about it.”
She stopped chewing for a few seconds, then realized that choking on her food wasn’t likely to make things any better.
“Shane’s hotheaded,” Michael said. “He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t think. I should have thought for him, before I brought you in here.”
Claire swallowed. The food had suddenly gone a little sour in her mouth, so she put the spoon down. “Me?”
Michael’s fingers stilled on the guitar strings. “You know about his sister, right?”
Alyssa. That was the name Michael had thrown out. The one that had hurt Shane. “She’s dead.”
“Shane’s not a complicated guy. If he cares about somebody, he fights for them. Simple. Lyssa—Lyssa was a sweet kid. And he had that whole big-brother thing working. He’d have died for her.” Michael slowly shook his head. “Nearly did. Anyway, the point is that Lyssa would have been your age by now, and here you are getting hurt by the same bitches who killed his sister, trying to get him. So yeah. He’d do anything—anything—not to have to live through that again. You may not be Lyssa, but he likes you, and more than that, he hates Monica Morrell. So much he—” Michael couldn’t seem to say it. He stared off into space for a few seconds, then went on. “Making deals with the vampires in this town will keep you alive on the outside, but it eats you on the inside. I watched it happen to my folks, before they got out of here. Eve’s parents, too. Her sisters. If Shane goes through with this, it’ll kill him.”