Bite Club mv-10

by Rachel Caine

  But she, on the other hand, had undeniably sneaked away, in the middle of the night, without telling him.

  “There was a ladder under your window,” he continued. “And unless you were planning to do late-night house painting, I don’t know why you’d be out there climbing on a ladder. Front door’s perfectly good if you want to leave, far as I know.”

  “I had to…It was—” This was ridiculous. She hadn’t come in here to be confronted. “Who was in here with you? I heard her talking to you.”

  Shane raised his eyebrows and looked back at the TV, where a woman was lying around in skimpy lingerie, talking on the phone and winking at the camera. Some kind of phone sex ad. “You mean her? She’s been on five times an hour. Sometimes they even run the ads back-to-back.”

  “No, I mean—” What did she mean? How had this gone so wrong, so fast? “I mean, there was a girl in here. A vampire.” It had to be a vampire, to move so fast.

  Shane shook his head. “You’re kidding, right? You know how I feel about them. And I’m not a fang-banger.”

  “You said you’d stop saying that.” Because of Eve, of course. And Michael.

  “Yeah, well, nobody here but us breathers. Or is that something I can’t say, either?”

  She was losing the thread of all this. It was all slipping away, like a dream at dawn. “Shane, I saw her. I thought—”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I thought the same thing when you were gone without saying a word to me. Just be straight with me, okay? Was it Myrnin?”

  She was speechless, absolutely speechless. For one thing, she couldn’t lie about it—it had been Myrnin who’d shown up in her room in the middle of the night. And she had run off with him. And now, inexplicably, she felt guilty about it, too. She could feel a traitorous burn in her cheeks, but the words just wouldn’t come to save her.

  Shane’s face went still and cold. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  “Shane, I—”

  “Morganville’s changing you,” he said. “You used to be scared of them, but the more you’re around him, the more you think the vamps can be your friends. They aren’t. They can’t be. They’re ranchers. We’re cattle.”

  Where the hell was all this coming from? She knew how he felt about the vampires, about Morganville, but this seemed—so edgy. So bitter. “We’re here,” she said. “We have to make the best of it until we can leave. You’ve said so yourself.”

  Shane shook his head, still not looking at her. He looked drawn now, and a little bit haunted. “I need to get you out of this place before it’s too late. I should have done it before the barriers went back up around town, but now…now it’s going to be more difficult. Got to do it, though. You can’t be here anymore.”

  “Shane, what are you talking about? What makes you think I want to go right now?”

  Suddenly, his focus shifted, and she felt hot and cold all over at the passion and intensity in his eyes. “Why wouldn’t you want to go? Because of him? Myrnin?”

  “No!” She felt appalled now, entirely out of control. This had not gone anything like she’d thought. “God, Shane, are you jealous?”

  “Do I need to be? ’Cause you’re running away in the middle of the night with him, Claire.”

  “I—But it was—”

  He turned away. “Just go, Claire. I can’t talk right now.”

  She felt tears well up in her eyes, tears of anger and sheer, maddening frustration. It didn’t matter what she said now. Shane had just shut her out, as effectively as if he’d slammed the door between them.

  As she watched, he turned off the TV, pulled up the blanket, and rolled over on his side.

  Away from her.

  “Shane,” she whispered.

  No response.

  She couldn’t take it—she couldn’t. Maybe it would have been better to stay there, tell him everything, but she felt trapped. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, and she just wanted…wanted…

  She wanted out.

  Claire didn’t even make the conscious decision to run, but she did—out the door, into her own room, slamming and locking it behind her.

  And then she sank down to a crouch against the door, wrapped her arms around herself, and cried like her heart was broken.

  Which, in fact, it was.

  SEVEN

  Morning felt like the end of the world. Claire didn’t remember sleeping, but she supposed she must have a little. Outside her window the sun was shining, and when she pulled the sash up a warming breeze fluttered the white curtains. It was going to be a nice day.

  For the end of the world, anyway.

  She rolled over in bed and found herself facing a lot of empty space—space that Shane had occupied sometimes, whether they were just lying together talking or watching TV or…doing other things. But no Shane. Not today. That side of the bed was smooth.

  Claire rolled back over to face the other side, which was just a view of the blank wall and a dresser. On the dresser was a picture of her and Shane, arms around each other, laughing.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. They felt raw and red, swollen from crying, and she knew she looked as miserable as she felt.

  Get up, she told herself. You can’t just lie around here all day, feeling sorry for yourself.

  But if she got up, she might run into Shane in the hall or downstairs in the kitchen or……

  Get up. You live here, too.

  She didn’t want to, but the idea of wallowing around in her misery didn’t sound so great, either. She was tired of crying, and her head hurt. She needed something to drink, something to eat, and to tell Eve all about it.

  Crawling out from under the covers, Claire realized that she was still wearing the clothes she’d thrown on to follow Myrnin; she hadn’t bothered, in her generally awful mood, to undress. She took a fresh set with her to the bathroom (she noted that Shane’s door was closed as she passed) and showered and dressed and fixed her hair. When she realized that she was actually taking longer than Eve generally did, mainly to avoid any possibility of coming into contact with him, she sucked in a deep breath, dumped the old clothes in the laundry basket, and reached for the bathroom doorknob.

  Her cell phone went off, scaring her so badly, she banged her elbow into the sink while reaching into her pants pocket. Ow. That hurt, hurt bad enough to make her take an extra second of deep breaths to stare down at the lit-up screen. She didn’t recognize the number, not even the area code. Probably a wrong number.

  She answered, and a voice on the other end, sounding brisk and businesslike, said, “May I speak with Claire Danvers, please?”

  “I’m Claire.” She swallowed a bubble of anxiety. Could it be about her dad? No, he was doing better—he’d said so himself. Everything was all right.

  Then why was some stranger calling her? Now?

  “My name is Mr. Radamon, and I am in charge of the Atomic, Biophysics, Condensed Matter, and Plasma Physics program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Did you receive our letter?”

  Claire went entirely blank. “Your…letter?”

  “You applied for admission into our program last year,” Mr. Radamon said. He sounded so…normal. So human. Somehow, she’d expected an MIT honcho to sound more godlike, with thunder rolling in the background. “We replied about six months ago with an acceptance letter to your home address. I just wanted to be sure you got it.”

  “Oh. Oh, no, I didn’t. My parents—my parents had to move. My dad is sick.” MIT. MIT was on her phone. She took it away from her ear and started at it in dreamlike disbelief. “You said…I was accepted?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We do have an opening. But, of course, we need to confirm that you’ll be able to attend at the beginning of next year. If you can’t, we’ll have to give the opportunity to another applicant. You understand?”

  “Of course,” Claire said, and felt a wave of hot excitement roll over her, followed by an ice-cold wave of realization. “You said…next year? As in January?”

&nb
sp; “Yes, January,” he said. “I hope that gives you enough time to make your arrangements. I’m sorry to hear your father is ill. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  Claire honestly didn’t know what to say, and wasn’t sure she could say anything. She’d been dreaming of this moment for years, thinking about how cool and perfect she was going to sound, how she’d impress them with her adult attitude and control.

  All she wanted to do was cry. I can’t. I can’t go. They won’t let me, and this is my chance, my only chance…. MIT had been her dream ever since she’d been able to understand what they did there, what they taught, what they achieved. There, she’d learn things that even Myrnin couldn’t fathom. She’d discover the secrets of the universe.

  All she had to do was get the hell out of Morganville. Which she couldn’t do.

  “Miss Danvers?” said the voice of the future on the other end of a very long line. “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m here.” All the way here. “Mr. Radamon, I’m sorry. I’ll need to get back to you a little later. I need to, uh, talk to my parents before I tell you for sure. Would that be okay?”

  “Oh yes, absolutely. I’m sorry to spring this on you without any warning.” He chuckled. “I know how exciting it can be to get this kind of news. I think I yelled my parents’ house down when I got my acceptance letter. Most exciting moment of my life. Well, congratulations, Ms. Danvers. Please call me back when you have all your arrangements in hand. I’ll need to hear from you within the week, of course.”

  “Of course,” she repeated numbly. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”

  “No thanks necessary; you were a brilliant candidate, and your scores are extremely impressive. We look forward to having you on the team here.”

  She must have said something else, something nice and appreciative, but honestly, Claire couldn’t think of anything except the giant letters flashing in front of her eyes…one set was MIT, and the other was OMG. She’d expected to feel a tremendous rush, but all she felt was…conflicted. And deeply, deeply scared.

  The world had just opened up for her. Doves and angels and choirs singing. And all she could feel about it was…dread. Dread because she didn’t think Amelie would release her in the first place, but even if she did…even if she did, what about Shane? If Shane was even talking to her ever again.

  God, it was such a mess.

  She took another five minutes, sitting in silence, staring at her turned-off phone. Wondering who she should call. Her parents would support her no matter what; no help there. She wanted to talk to Shane, suddenly, but…but after last night…

  She had nobody she could talk to.

  Well, she would have said something to Michael, who was in the living room, getting his stuff, but by the time she got her courage together, he was on his way. He just waved as he put on a sun-blocking black coat and hat and headed out the back door.

  She shut her mouth, still trying to figure out how she felt. Mostly she just seemed…confused.

  Eve was in the kitchen making pancakes. Alone.

  “Morning, girlfriend,” Eve said, and dumped some lumpy batter into a hot pan, where it immediately started to sizzle. “You look like you need carbs.”

  “Totally,” Claire said, and sat down to rest her forehead in both hands. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, no problem. Here.” Eve grabbed a mug, filled it with coffee, and slid it to her on the table. “Caffeine. Makes the world all bright and sparkly, or maybe that’s just me. Look, I gave you the fun mug.”

  In Eve’s world, it was. It was a coffee mug with a dead-guy chalk outline on it, and it said he had decaf.

  Claire mixed the coffee with all the things that made coffee drinking possible for her—milk, sugar, a little cinnamon—and sat nursing it, staring into the light brown surface but not seeing anything. She couldn’t think. All she could do was…feel awful.

  She needed to tell Eve, but saying it out loud would make it all real. MIT wants me to go there. Because part of her was so excited it was vibrating apart, and the other part, the practical part…that was crying. Did she want to go…leave behind Morganville? Well, yes, obviously. But that meant leaving the people, too. Eve. Michael. Myrnin. Shane.

  She wanted to talk about that, badly, but she just…couldn’t. Not yet.

  “Incoming!” Eve said, and as Claire looked up, slid a plate in front of her with two thick, steaming pancakes. A pat of butter melted like lava on top, and Eve thumped down a bottle of syrup. “Everything gets better with pancakes. It’s a law of the universe. Bonus for bacon, but we’re out.”

  Eve had a plate, too, and sat down opposite her. Claire hadn’t noticed, but Eve was makeup-free this morning, and her Goth-black hair was tied back in a simple ponytail. Even her clothes were subdued, or as much as Eve ever got—a form-hugging tee with a black-on-black skull design and a pair of black jeans. She picked up her fork and dug into her own plate.

  Claire just watched the butter melt and poked at the pancakes a little. She dragged her fork through the syrup and spelled out MIT. Finally, she took a bite. They were good, really good, but as soon as she started to chew, tears came to her eyes and she could hardly swallow. She coughed to cover it, but Eve was watching her with a steady kind of focus that made it unnecessary.

  “Hey,” Eve said. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?”

  Not about that. Not yet. But the other thing, yes. “Shane hates me,” Claire said in a very small voice, and dragged her fork through the moat of syrup around the fortress of pancakes.

  “Seriously?” Eve waited for Claire’s nod before eating a bite of pancakes. She chewed and swallowed before she said, “Sorry, Claire Bear. He doesn’t.”

  “You didn’t hear what he said to me last night.” That did it—the tears came now, for real, and she picked up her napkin and tried to wipe them away with shaking hands. God, what a mess she was.

  “I heard what he said this morning before he blew out of here. He was angry at himself, not you—or, at least, more than at you. He said you’d gotten dragged away by Myrnin last night and he’d acted like a dick about it. Isn’t that what happened?”

  “Well, sort of. He was right—I did go off with Myrnin.”

  “On a job.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not on a date.”

  “Oh, God, no!”

  “Then Shane acted like an ass, and he’s got nothing to be jealous about, and he knows it. I saw him, Claire. Believe me, he knows he was wrong. He feels bad.”

  “Then why—?” Why didn’t he come talk to me? Why didn’t he try? Why did he just…leave?

  “He’s cooling down. It’s a guy thing,” Eve said. “He’ll be okay when he gets back. And you? He said you were all angry about him watching sexy commercials on TV, which, frankly, is weird—you being mad about it, not him watching them, because I’m pretty sure teen boys get a pass on that. They can’t help hitting the pause button when the half-naked girls show up.”

  “No, that wasn’t it. It was—” She replayed it in her mind. A blur, a flutter of curtains. Whispers and laughter in the dark.

  In the end, nothing she could truly say wasn’t just a product of her tired mind and of jealousy.

  “I thought he was with somebody,” she finally said, miserably. “In his room. Some girl.”

  Eve ate a bite of pancakes, thinking about it, and then said, “And you honestly think he’s that big a jerk, that not only does he cheat on you, he brings her back here, to our house? Where, I might add, I would personally open up a ten-gallon drum of whup-ass on him and any skank he dragged in here. Not to mention what Michael would do.”

  “No, I—I don’t honestly think that. And, uh, thanks?”

  “It’s what friends do,” Eve said graciously. “He didn’t bring anybody back here—you know that. Besides, you were with us last night when he came home. What’d he do, smuggle her in under his coat?”

  “I think she was a vampire,” Claire
said in a rush, without looking at Eve. In her blurry peripheral vision, she could see that Eve had stopped in the act of raising her fork to her mouth. Syrup dripped off, but the plate caught the damage.

  Eve slowly put her fork back down.

  “You think Shane’s getting it from some vampire girl?”

  Claire’s frustration burned up suddenly, like flash paper. “I don’t know! I’m just telling you what it felt like, Eve! There was a woman talking and laughing, and I went in his room, and there was a blur and wind and then he was alone. You fill in the blanks!”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Eve said. “You know that’s totally frickin’ insane, right? Because for one thing, Shane hates the hell right out of vampires. For another, he loves you.”

  “Maybe she’s—I don’t know—making him do it. They can do that, right? Yvette did.”

  “The last one who tried it didn’t get very far, if you remember,” Eve said. “And I heard on good authority that Yvette’s ashes got sprinkled on the Founder’s rose garden, so there’s that. Shane’s strong, and I don’t just mean the muscles. I’ve never seen any bite marks on him. Have you?”

  Claire had to shake her head reluctantly. She definitely hadn’t seen any bites. She, on the other hand, had a collection of them, the worst from Myrnin. So maybe she was still, and badly, overreacting. Shane was acting jealous, but maybe he had reason, considering everything that had gone on with Myrnin.

  Maybe that was why he was turning antivamp again.

  “You’re kind of freaking me out, you two,” Eve said. “I mean, you’re the stable one. And Shane, he’s loyal to the point of stupid. If you two can’t keep it together…” She didn’t say it, but Claire knew she was thinking, What chance do Michael and I have? Claire had heard gossip when Eve wasn’t around. Nobody was giving their vampire-and-human Romeo-and-Juliet act anything like good odds to go the distance.

  And what was the distance, for a relationship where the vampire wasn’t going to get any older, while Eve would? She knew, without even thinking about it, that Eve had spent long nights considering all this, going over and over it. So had Michael, probably.