None.
That was what Shane had been trying to tell her all along. We don’t mean anything to them except as a life-support system, Claire thought. Individually, we’re nothing. Servants. No, cattle with opposable thumbs, occasionally useful.
She clutched her phone hard, stood up, and went down the steps, two at a time. Burning in her stomach was a mixture of nerves, nausea, and a new sense of purpose.
She went straight to the camera store that she and Shane had visited; the engagement party flyer wasn’t posted, but Claire hadn’t really expected it to be. The man behind the counter—the same one—straightened as she entered and put both hands on the glass top. “What do you want?” he asked. The indigo dye of the stake tattoo showed against the pale skin of his forearm, peeking out from under his rolled-up shirtsleeve.
Claire pulled off her cap and gloves, jammed them in a pocket, and said, “I don’t know.” That was honest. She’d come here on impulse, but now that she was facing him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask. “What’s the deal with the tattoos?”
He rolled down his sleeves, staring at her with cold suspicion. “Chicks dig them,” he said. “I don’t do tats. This is a camera store. You might want to check down the street.”
“Captain Obvious used to be your friend.”
He didn’t answer that at all. He was frowning now, and she was wondering if she’d made a terrible, impulsive mistake.
“I just—” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “Shane may be in danger. Real danger. From the top. Can you protect him?”
“Sorry?” His eyebrows rose. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just run a—”
“Camera store, yeah, I heard you. Listen. I need to know—can you, I don’t know, watch out for him? Please?”
“You think I’m going to fall for your innocent act? You’ve been in the vampires’ corner since day one around here. No chance, sweetheart. And if you keep poking around here, you’re going to get hurt.”
“It’s not for me,” she said. “It’s for Shane. And I think you know he’s never been in the vampires’ corner. So please. Just—help him if you see he’s in trouble. That’s all I’m asking.”
“What about you?” he asked, and gave her an evil little smile. “What if you’re in trouble?”
Claire shrugged and put her gloves and hat back on. “I guess I’m on my own. Right?”
He was still watching her, trying to figure her out, as she walked out into the weak winter sun. There were still pools of dirty water at the edges of the uneven parking lot, and the ground remained soaked.
When she looked back, the camera shop owner nodded, once.
She put her hands in her pockets and walked home.
Home was chaos, and for a moment, Claire was truly worried that something awful had happened; Eve was stomping around the house slamming things around, and Shane was saying, in a thin and raspy voice, “It’s not a big deal, man; calm down.”
“I’m not your man and I will not calm down!” Eve yelled, and gave a piercing, full-throated shriek of frustration.
Claire dumped her stuff in the hall and raced into the living room, expecting to see . . . Well, she didn’t know what she expected to see, except disaster in some form.
What she saw was a cake sitting on the dining table that was . . . well, a disaster. In cake form.
The two-tiered dessert itself was uneven and leaning, the icing was messy, the red flowers had melted into the white and left unsettling bloodlike stains, and, worst of all, as Claire got closer, she realized that the writing on top said MICHAEL & EVA in a big, lopsided, amateurish outline of a heart with an arrow through it.
Eva. Not Eve.
Eve kicked the sofa with her Doc Martens boots and burst into tears, and really, Claire didn’t blame her a bit. Shane was looking helpless as he stood there watching her, not sure what to do.
So he did, of course, the wrong thing, and said, “Look, it’s just a cake. I’m sure it’s still delicious.”
Eve glared at him. Claire walked over and put her arms around her friend, and sent Shane an irritated look.
“What did I do?” he croaked. His throat was turning a spectacular sunset purple now, with hints of blue. “Cake! It’s cake! Delicious cake!”
“Honey, it’s okay, really,” Claire said. “We can—fix it.”
“We can’t,” Eve managed to gasp out between sobs. “I shouldn’t have made the trim red—it’s all runny. . . .”
It did look a little bit slaughterrific, actually, but Claire put on a brave face. “So we scrape it all off, get some store-bought icing, and put it on,” she said. “Can’t be any worse, right? And we decorate it ourselves. It’ll be fun!”
“It’s horrible!” Eve cried, and buried her face in Claire’s puffy coat. “It looks like Dracula’s wedding cake!”
“Which should be a plus, shouldn’t it?” Shane asked. “I mean, thematically?”
“Really not helping, Shane!” Claire said.
“I am helping! I even carried it in!”
“Yeah, good job.” Claire sighed and shook her head. “Go upstairs or something. We’ll find a way to fix this. Eve—just calm down and relax, okay? Breathe. I’ll get the frosting and be back in a little while.”
She got Eve to sit on the couch. She’d stopped sobbing, which was good, but she was staring at the cake with a dead-eyed, horrified look. The sooner the icing was scraped and the whole cake redone, the better.
Shane said, “Want me to go with?”
Her first impulse was to say no . . . but he’d survived the morning running around with Eve, and Eve was more consumed with party planning than watching his back. Besides, it was still broad daylight. The safest he’d be, even from Amelie.
He gave her puppy-dog eyes and said, “Please?”
She could never resist the puppy-dog eyes, and he knew it. “All right,” she said. “But wear a scarf. Your throat makes you look like a zombie.”
“I hear zombies are hot right now,” Shane said, straight-faced. “They’ve got their own TV show and everything. Okay. Scarf.”
She supervised, making sure the scarf was looped high enough to cover up the worst of the bruising. “Just tell anyone who asks that you got a wicked new tattoo and you’re still healing up,” she said. She stopped and brushed her fingertips lightly over the discolored skin. “Does it hurt?”
He bent his head and lightly kissed her forehead. “Only when I laugh.”
“I’ll try not to be funny.”
“Epic fail, beautiful.” She tingled all over when he called her beautiful. He didn’t do it often, but when he did, he said it in this tone that was . . . just so incredibly intimate. “You know I need to watch your back, right?”
“I’m buying icing, Shane. I’m not going on safari. Besides, you’re the one with the target on his back, not me.”
“Then you can protect me.” He kissed her on the nose, lightly.
The idea of her—small, not-very-physical Claire—protecting big, strong, very physical Shane . . . Well, that was just funny, somehow, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
But he kept looking at her, very warm and very serious, and after her giggles faded, he said, “I mean it, Claire. I trust you.”
She put her hand on his cheek and, without speaking, led him out the door.
At the grocery store, the first thing Claire noticed was that there was some kind of a crisis . . . not a we’re-out-of-milk crisis, but something bigger. Management-style. As she and Shane walked in the door, they were almost knocked down by a very agitated man with that store-manager look about him. He was on his cell phone. His tie was pulled askew, and there were sweat stains under his arms. He was saying, “Yes, I know you need payment for deliveries, and I’m trying to reach our owner—I’ve been trying for days! . . . No, I don’t have another number. Look, I’m sure nothing’s wrong. I’m going over there myself to see. If you can just go ahead and make the scheduled delivery . . .” His voice faded out as he kept walking, heading for the office. Claire exchanged a look with Shane, who shrugged, and then they went in search of cake supplies.