by Rachel Caine
“Why?” I felt a little weak at the knees, and I wasn’t at all sure it was due to a sudden drop in blood pressure. “Why wouldn’t I? With you?”
He put his arms around me and kissed me. That was a whole different kind of hunger, one I understood way better. Michael backed me up against the car and kissed me like it was the last night on earth, like the sun and stars would burn down before he’d let me go.
The only thing that slowed us down was Shane saying, very clearly, “I am driving off and leaving you here, I swear to God. You’re embarrassing me.”
Michael pulled back just enough that our lips were touching, but not pressed together, and sighed. There was so much in that sound, all his longing and his fear and his need and his frustration. “Sorry,” he said.
I smiled. “For what?”
He was still holding his thumb over the wound on my wrist. “This,” he said, and pressed just a little harder before letting go. It didn’t bleed.
I purred lightly, and nipped at his mouth. “I’m Catwoman,” I reminded him. “And it’s just a scratch.”
Michael opened the car door for me, and handed me in like a lady.
Like his lady.
He got in, shut the door, and slapped the back of Shane’s seat. “Home, driver.”
Shane sent him a one-fingered salute. Next to him, Claire gave me a completely non-ethereal grin and snuggled in close to him as he drove.
Miranda said, dreamily, “One of us is going to be a vampire.”
“One of us already is,” I pointed out. Michael put his arm around me.
“Oh,” she said, and sighed. “Right.”
Except that Miranda never forgot a thing like that.
“Hey,” Michael said, and squeezed my shoulders lightly. “Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Okay?”
“Tonight’s tonight,” I agreed. “And tonight’s good for me.”
MURDERED OUT
One of the hard-to-find exclusive stories written specifically for the U.K. editions (which at the time were being published a month or two after the U.S. releases, meaning that die-hard fans rushed to buy internationally), it was offered as an extra to help the U.K. publisher convince fans there to wait for the local edition, and it seems to have worked!
I didn’t give Shane his own car early on in the series for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it was fun for him to have to ask nicely for rides. The fact that he couldn’t quite earn enough to buy his own said something about Shane’s job-related experiences, too. But finally, at this particular point (after Kiss of Death, before Bite Club), Shane is ready to make the commitment.
I mostly love this story for the small-town details I got to put into it, and the introduction of Rad, the mechanic. Fun factoid: This story was inspired by my getting the rims on my car (a Smart car, which Shane would never drive, but Claire totally would) painted black. The shop salesperson said, “Oh, you mean you’re murdering it out.” I’d never heard the term before, and loved it.
Normal life in Morganville. As far as normal ever was, Shane Collins thought; nobody was overtly rioting, getting arrested, or killing anyone.
Not on this street, anyway.
Being out in the open around dark was not his favorite survival strategy, but even though the Morganville Multiplex Cinema (three whole screens) tried to cram as many morning and afternoon showings in as practical, it wasn’t always possible to avoid getting out later than was healthy for a regular human in Morganville, Texas.
“There’s a reason those twilight shows are cheaper than the others,” he said to Claire Danvers, who was walking with her small hand in his large one, head down. Claire was thinking, but then, she was always thinking. It was part of what he loved about her. “I wish Eve would have come with us. At least then we’d have had wheels.”
“We’ll be all right,” Claire said. She sounded confident about that. He wasn’t, only because he was the guy, and therefore, by his logic, their survival on the way home sort of landed squarely on his shoulders. Claire was his girlfriend. That meant she was his to protect. He knew that if he said that out loud, she’d smack him, and mean it, but it was just how he felt about it.
And he was smart enough not to tell her.
“She and Michael were going out,” Claire said. “To that restaurant she likes. And then I guess they were going to the show, so it doesn’t make sense for her to see it twice in one day.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It wasn’t that good. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I am all about the exploding things. But there’s a pretty fine line between awesome and explode-o-porn.”
Claire laughed, a silvery little thing that made him want to stop, put his arms around her, and kiss the hell out of her, right here in front of Bernard’s Best Resale Shoppe. He didn’t, only because the sun was scraping the horizon, they had five blocks left to walk to get home to the Glass House, and anyway, kissing her would only make him want to kiss her even more.
Which would make them appetizers for the vampires already getting ready for their nightly strolls.
That was the thing about Morganville. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here. And honestly, Shane couldn’t exactly define why it was he did live here. He could have left, he supposed. He had, once, and come back to do a job for his father, Fearless Frank the Vampire Hunter. But now he stayed because . . . because at least in here he understood things. He knew the rules, even if the rules were crappy and the game of survival was rigged.
He stayed because there were people here he loved. Claire, for a start, and as much as he felt for her, that would have been enough right there. But then there was Eve Rosser, who was like his annoying/sweet Gothed-out sister. And there was Michael Glass, who was his best friend.
Had been, anyway, before he’d opened the door to the wrong vampire, and now—now it was complicated. Having a best friend with fangs had never been in Shane’s life strategy.
One thing about strategy, boy, Fearless Frank had once told him, on one of his more sober days. It never fails to go to hell once you’re knee-deep in the fight.
“Hey.” Claire nudged him. He nudged her back. “You’re walking a little too fast.”
“What’s long, your widdle short legs can’t keep up?”
“Watch it. I am proportional.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Just the way I like it.”
“Stop that.” He loved seeing her blush like that, a creep of hot pink that bloomed from her cheeks and spread all the way down her throat, into the neck of her shirt.
“Stop what?”
“You know what!”
“What can I say? Explode-o-porn. It makes me crazy.” He waggled his eyebrows again. She laughed and blushed at the same time. All right, that did it. Sunset or not, he couldn’t not kiss her.
He reached down, put his arms around her, and pulled her close. As he bent his head, hers came up, lovely and sweet and beautiful, her dark eyes shining. Her lips shimmered in the slanting orange light, until his were on them.
And oh God, it was good. Good enough to make him forget Morganville altogether, for the space of a long, sweet, damp kiss. And several seconds after, before a streetlight clicked on overhead with a hiss of burning filament, and reminded him why making out on the corner was a very bad idea.
The streets were deserted, except for a few people hurrying by in cars. He and Claire were the only pedestrians. Even so, it wasn’t that far to the house, and they had time. Barely.
Until Claire, hurrying to keep up with his long strides, tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and went down, hard. He bent down next to her as she quickly pushed herself back up, hands and knees, gave him a wide-eyed look of shame, and started to rise.
Her ankle folded up under her. “Ow!” she yelped in surprise, and looked down at it. “Ow ow ow!” She took her weight off it, leaning on his arm, and he helped her lim
p over to a battered old wrought-iron bench. It creaked as they sat down on it, and he immediately slid off to crouch down, take her ankle in both his hands, and carefully probe it. She flinched as he started to move it around, and her face went white, but she didn’t scream, and he didn’t feel anything broken.
Not that she couldn’t have broken one of the smaller bones in her foot. Happened all the time. Nothing they could do about it, even at the hospital, but he thought this was probably a sprain. A bad one. He could already see the smooth matte surface of her slender ankle starting to swell up.
She took out her cell phone and dialed without him saying a word, but closed it up after a moment. “Eve’s phone goes to voice mail.”
“Try Michael’s.” She did, and shrugged helplessly when she didn’t get an answer. They both knew what that meant—Michael and Eve were having private time, and there would be no rescue coming from that quarter. For once. “Taxi?” Even as he said it, Shane shook his head. “Never mind; he won’t get out this close to dark.”
They really didn’t have time to debate it. What had been sort of theoretically dangerous before, when they were two healthy young people capable of running and fighting, had turned into a calculation. Claire, injured, was going to be irresistible bait. And not every vampire would check whether she had another vamp’s Protection before digging in.
Amelie might be furious about it, later, but that wouldn’t help Claire right now. And Shane didn’t have any Protection at all, except the fact that he was tough to kill.
“Right,” he said, and stood up. “No arguments, okay?” He didn’t wait for agreement, because he knew he probably wouldn’t get it. He reached down, picked her up, and settled her in his arms. She wasn’t featherlight, but he’d carried heavier suitcases. And suitcases hardly ever put their arms around your neck, or let their head fall into the crook of your neck. All in all, the kind of burden he was happy to carry.
“You okay?” he asked her. He felt her nod, breath warm against his throat. “All right, you just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
She laughed and snuggled closer. “You need a car,” she said.
Didn’t he just?
• • •
They made it home without incident, thankfully, although Shane was almost sure they’d been followed the last block. By that time it had been nearly full dark, and he’d felt stares on him from half a dozen dark spots.
He managed to balance Claire’s weight, unlock the front door, and kick it open with a bang as he stepped across the threshold. There was a weird kind of sensation to it, every time, as the house itself recognized him. Welcomed him home.
It meant that no vampire would be lunging in after him, at least.
He didn’t trust it, though. He slammed the door shut, jammed a dead bolt home with his elbow, and yelled, “Yo, heads up! Little help here!” Because his arms were about to fall off. He moved forward, trying not to bang Claire’s injured ankle against the walls or the furniture, and by the time he’d emerged at the end of the hallway, Michael Glass was just hitting the floor at the bottom of the staircase. He was dressed, but there was something about it that looked like he’d done it on the way down. He took one look at Claire, cradled in Shane’s arms, and drew in a deep breath.
“It’s not like that,” Shane said. “Nobody fanged her. She fell. It’s her ankle.”
“Couch,” Michael said, and shifted aside his guitar, game controllers. “You carried her home? In the dark?”
“Not like you were answering your cell, asshat.”
Michael looked up at him, then up at the stairs, where Eve was just pelting down them, a black dragon-printed robe belted around her. From the flash of legs, that was pretty much the extent of the outfit. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”
The Guy Code ruled the moment, and all Shane could say to that was, “No problem,” as he eased his girl down on the battered sofa cushions. She immediately squirmed up to a sitting position and pulled up the leg of her jeans.
Her ankle was swollen, all right. And starting to bruise.
“I’ll get ice,” Eve said, and ran off to the kitchen. She hesitated in the doorway to call back, “Claire? You need anything?”
“Better balance? Oh, and Angelina Jolie’s lips?”
“Cute. Settle for aspirin and a Coke?”
Claire nodded. Eve disappeared through the swinging door.
“Thought you guys were going out to dinner,” Shane said. He couldn’t resist, really. And it was worth it to see Michael think about lying, because he was just bad at it.
“We were,” Michael finally said, which was the truth. “And then we didn’t.” Also the truth. “We can still make the movie if we hurry.”
“Don’t,” Claire said, and winced as she tried to move her ankle. “It’s explode-o-porn.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Michael looked honestly baffled. Shane really couldn’t blame him, and the resulting harassed look from Claire was pretty much fantastic.
Eve came back with a plastic bag full of ice and a couple of towels, and carefully packed it all around Claire’s ankle before running back to retrieve the aspirin and Coke. The medical treatment completed, all that was left was to not comment on what Michael and Eve might have been doing to not answer their phones.
That was almost impossible, in Shane’s view. Eve and Michael looked so obviously barely out of bed it was crazy. But there was the Guy Code, and then there was the Code of Housemates, which meant he couldn’t really say much at all about that unless he wanted to get the hell mocked out of him in return.
So instead, he sighed and said, “I really need a car.”
• • •
He kind of meant it, and kind of didn’t, but over the next few days he found himself looking more and more at the cars for sale in Morganville. There was one car lot that sold a bunch of brands, but there was no way he could afford the shiny new ones anyway. So he ended up looking at the clunkers—the rusting, beat-up models that people wanted to unload cheap. He had a little money saved up, but not much, and after seeing three cars in a row that were barely running and yet still out of his budget, he just about gave up.
Until he came across the little sign in the window of Bernard’s Best Resale, which said CAR FOR SALE, BEST OFFER. That was all. No number, no picture of the car, nothing. Which meant it probably was a dog, but he wasn’t exactly rich with choices.
Besides, he could use a new shirt or something.
The bell rang as he entered, and the thrift-shop smell hit him immediately—mothballs, and dry paper. Fans turned overhead, stirring the smell and spreading it around, and there was nobody else in the place, except Miss Bernard, dozing off behind the counter. She came awake with a snort as he walked over to the men’s shirt aisle, blinked behind her thick glasses, and patted her thin gray hair. “Collins, isn’t it? Shane Collins?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. The ma’am was automatic. Miss Bernard had been his second-grade teacher. And his fourth-grade. Not happy memories, but then, school in general hadn’t been his greatest time ever.
But it had been better than what had come after, mostly. So there was that.
“Well, Shane, what can I do for you? You need a nice new shirt for a date? Or a suit? How about a nice suit?”
He winced at the idea of him in a suit. Especially a suit from this place. “You’ve got a sign in the window,” he said. “A car? You’re selling a car?”
“Oh, that thing? Yes. I didn’t think anybody would ever ask about it.” She pursed her lips, blue eyes vague and yet somehow calculating. “You want to see it?”
“Sure.” He tried not to seem too eager about it.
Miss Bernard led him out the back door, to a shed that leaned precariously in the back. At one time it had probably held supplies, or maybe even horses. Now it was full of junk, and crammed into the middle of the junk . . .
A hell of a car.
Shane blinked at it. Under the layers of dust and cobwebs, it looked like a sweet vintage Charger—big, black, and intimidating. “Uh . . . that’s it?”
“Yes. It was my son’s. He’s gone.” Whether Miss Bernard meant dead or just departed from Morganville, Shane couldn’t tell, but he thought she meant dead gone. She looked very sad, and those big, vague eyes filled with tears for a moment. “He just loved this car. But I’m not as well-off as I used to be, and I could sure use the money.”
He felt very uncomfortable, seeing her like this, so he focused on the car. “Does it run?”
“I expect so. Here.” She retrieved a set of keys from a hook on the wall and handed them over. “Start it up.”
It took some reconfiguring of the junk pile to even open the driver’s side door, but once he was in it, Shane felt something kind of like instant love. The car was old, a little shabby, but it felt right.
The starter ground a little, sluggish from its long sleep, and finally the engine caught fire with a cough and a belch of exhaust, and settled into a low, bass rumble.
Sweet.
Shane stuck his head out and said, “Can I take it around the block?”
Miss Bernard nodded. He didn’t ask twice, just backed it out, down the alley, and cruised around, getting the feel of it. It was a hell of a nice car. Little bit of a shimmy on the turns, probably needed some work on the suspension, and a tune-up. But overall . . .
Yeah, it was going to be way out of his range. He could just feel it.
As Shane turned it back to the store, he ended up sitting at a stoplight. A battered old wrecker pulled in next to him, and a voice called, “Hey, that your car?”
“Just test-driving it,” Shane called back. The driver was Radovic, the dude from the motorcycle shop; he worked part-time at Doug’s Garage. Everybody called him Rad. He looked like central casting’s idea of a tough biker dude, all right.
