Midnight Bites

by Rachel Caine

“Why should I? You already know her.”

  “I want to know how you see her.”

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, and I meant it. “She doesn’t know it, but she is. And she’s so—” Fragile. Vulnerable. “—stubborn. She just doesn’t know when to give up.”

  “You seem to have that in common.”

  We had a lot in common, weird as that might seem; she was from a sheltered, protected place, a family who loved her, a dad who would never betray her, but somehow that had given her an unshakable belief that she could survive anything. I had that, too, but it came from the opposite direction; I knew what it felt like to lose everything, everyone, and understand that it was just me against the darkness.

  But it was more than that. Complicated, what I felt for her.

  And I didn’t want to look too closely at it. “I try to look after her,” I said. That was meant to be a blowoff, but Goldman seemed to find it more interesting than I’d intended.

  “Does she need looking after, do you think?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “And your job, the job of all boyfriends, is to protect her,” he said. It almost sounded like my own voice, in my own head. “Is that what you believe?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. No-brainer.

  “What do you think Claire would say if she heard that?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, a little. “She’d smack me,” I said. “She doesn’t think she needs a bodyguard—she’s always telling me that.” The smile faded too fast, because a cascade of images burned through my brain, uncontrollable and violent: Claire smiling at me. Claire smiling at Myrnin. Myrnin turning crazy on us, as he always did. And Claire just . . . accepting that. Again.

  The scars on her neck, pale and small but obvious to me.

  “And yet, you’re angry at her,” Goldman said.

  “Bite me,” I snapped. The pressure was doing my head in, and I had to get up, move, stalk the room. My fist wanted to punch something; the wild energy in me didn’t have any way out except through flesh and bone and pain. “You need to stop pushing me, man. I mean it. I don’t want to be paying for repairs around here.”

  Goldman was unruffled. He sat comfortably and watched me as I paced the room. If he was scared I’d take it out on him, he didn’t look it. “Are you angry because I made an observation, or because of what I am?”

  “Both,” I said. “Hell, I don’t know. Look, can we just get this over with? Call it an hour and let me out of here.”

  “You can leave anytime you like, Shane. I’m not stopping you. But your treatment is mandated by the Founder. If you decide not to follow through on your commitments, she is within her rights to rescind your parole and put you behind bars.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “I know,” he said. There was a world of kindness in those two words, and it derailed the anger train from the tracks. I didn’t want to punch him, but I didn’t want to answer him, either. He was right; I couldn’t just walk out of here, not without consequences. . . . Jail didn’t scare me so much, but there was something that did: losing Claire. Going to jail meant not seeing her, and right now, she was the only light in the world shining in the dark where I lived.

  Even if sometimes I hated what I saw reflected in that light.

  I had my hand on the doorknob of the office. The place wasn’t locked; I could just turn my wrist, and step over the threshold, and live with all that meant.

  I turned my wrist and pulled the door open. The outer office beyond the door was a little cooler, and I closed my eyes as the soft breeze passed over my face.

  One step. That was all it would take. One step.

  I slowly closed the door and leaned my back against it. “I’m not a coward,” I said.

  “I think that is beyond dispute,” he replied. “But physical courage is one thing. Emotional courage to look inside yourself, that is another, and many don’t possess that kind of will. Do you?”

  “Not me. My friends all have it. I don’t,” I said. I was thinking about Michael, hanging on quietly, alone, ghostly in a house that had been his family’s home. Grimly trying to survive as half a vampire, hiding the truth from us, never letting me see his fear or his fury. Eve, always full of acid and fun, with all the fragile terror beneath; she never let Morganville win, even though every day she woke up knowing it could be her last. Claire, sure and steady and calm, somehow coming into our little fraternity of screwups and making us whole, each in our own way. Without her, I’d never have had the courage to defy my dad and side with Michael, even though I wanted to do it.

  Claire was all courage, to the core. Just not the kind of courage that hit things.

  “I think you are stronger than you know,” Goldman said, and leaned forward now, watching me intently as I sat back down on the couch. “And much smarter than anyone gives you credit. I will make you this deal. We can sit for the rest of the hour in silence, if you wish, and I will say that you are progressing with your therapy. Or you can speak. It’s your choice. I won’t ask you again.”

  It was a long ten minutes before I finally said, pushing the words out against an overwhelming weight, “It was how she looked at him.”

  “At who?”

  “At her boss. Crazy-ass Myrnin. I saw her looking at him, and he was looking at her, and it was—” I shook my head. “Nothing, it was nothing.” No, that wasn’t true—I was lying out loud. Worse, I was trying to lie to myself. “She likes him. Maybe even loves him, in a crazy-uncle kind of way.”

  “You think she doesn’t love you?”

  “That’s not the point. She can’t love him.”

  “Because he is a vampire?”

  “Yes!”

  “You said before that she loves him like an uncle. Do you believe it is more than that?”

  “Not from her,” I said. “From him . . . yeah, maybe.”

  “How did it make you feel, knowing that?”

  What a shrink question. “Lost,” I said. That surprised me, but it was true. “I felt lost. And angry.”

  “At Claire.”

  I didn’t answer that one, because it was too scary. I could not be angry at Claire; I just couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault, any of this; she was a loving person, and that was part of why I loved her, too.

  So why did it hurt so much to think that she might smile at Myrnin, love him even a little bit?

  Because he’s a vampire. No, because you want her to be all yours.

  “Have you considered,” Goldman said, “that the reason the vampire Gloriana found it so easy to release that anger inside you to make you fight is that you so rarely confront it?”

  “What the hell does that mean—is it shrink code for yell and break stuff and act like a douche bag? Because I’ve already done all that.” More often than I liked to admit, even to myself. “I’m all about confrontation.”

  “Yes,” he said, and smiled. It made him look kindly and twinkly and likable, which sucked, because vampires weren’t supposed to look that way. “You most certainly have that behavior down. But what about talking honestly with Claire? Have you done that?”

  Had I? I talked to her, sure—every day. And sometimes we talked about how we felt, but it was surface stuff, even if it was true. “No,” I said. The pressure inside me lightened up, weirdly enough. I no longer wanted to punch something to get rid of it. “I mean, she knows I don’t like the guy. . . .”

  “Have you told her, explicitly, how you see her relationship with Myrnin, and how it makes you feel?”

  That was an easy one. “No.” Hell no.

  He was still smiling, all grandfatherly and very slightly amused. “Because strong men don’t do such things, yes?”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “What if I told you that being honest with her, deeply honest, would make her love you even more?”


  That was utter crap. If Claire knew me, really knew me, knew all the toxic muck that was sludged up inside me, she’d get the hell away from me, no question about it. I shook my head, not even meaning to do it.

  Goldman sighed. “Very well, then,” he said. “Baby steps. At least you’ve admitted it to me. We have at least another two months left together. I consider this a very fine start.” He glanced down at his watch. “And I believe that it’s time for my next appointment. Very good work, Mr. Collins.”

  I shot out of the couch like it had an ejection seat, and had my hand on the doorknob when he said, “One more thing, if you don’t mind: I’d like to assign you some homework.”

  “Yeah, ’cause that never gets old,” I said, but I was already resigned to doing a searching moral inventory, or whatever psychobabble crap he was about to pull out of his dusty immortal bag of tricks.

  He surprised me. “I’d like you to try, for the next twenty-four hours, to solve any problem that arises without allowing your anger free rein. If you’re presented with an opportunity to fight, I’d like you to back down. If someone tries to verbally engage you, defuse the situation. If you’re insulted, walk away. Just for twenty-four hours. Then you can engage in fisticuffs to your heart’s content.”

  I turned and stared at him. “I have actually gone a whole day without punching somebody, you know. Sometimes even two days.”

  “Yes, but you channel your anger in other ways, smaller ones you may not even realize. Perhaps by thinking hard about it, you may realize how much you allow it to drive your actions and shape the world around you.” He nodded then. “That’s all. Just try it, for one full day. I’ll be interested to hear how it feels.”

  I shrugged and opened the door. “Sure, Doc. No problem.”

  • • •

  I didn’t even make it out of the building before my first challenge came up. It was a big one.

  Physically, Monica Morrell was a pretty girl—not as beautiful as she thought she was, but on a scale of ten she was at least a seven, and that was when she wasn’t really trying. Today, she was definitely working for an eight point five, and was probably getting it. She had on a short pink dress and looked . . . glossy, I guess. Girls would probably be able to tell you all the technical details of that, but the bottom line was, she turned heads.

  And my first impulse, my very first, was to punch her right in the pink lip gloss.

  That was so familiar to me that it honestly kind of surprised me when I considered it, in light of Goldman’s homework assignment. She hadn’t even seen me yet, hadn’t smirked or made a snarky, cold comment; she hadn’t reminded me of my dead family, or dissed my girlfriend, or done any of a thousand things she was bound to pull out to trip my triggers. It was just a reflex, me wanting to hurt her, and I was pretty sure that most people didn’t have that kind of wiring.

  I took a deep breath, and as she looked up and saw me getting off the elevator, I held the door for her. I didn’t smile—it probably would have looked like I wanted to bite her—but I nodded politely and said, “Morning,” just like she was a real person and not a skanky murderous bitch who didn’t deserve to breathe.

  She faltered, just a little strange flinch as if she couldn’t quite figure out what my game was. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I never would have seen the odd expression that flashed across her face, and even then, it took me a few more seconds to realize what it meant.

  She was afraid.

  The flash of fear vanished, and she tossed her shiny hair back and walked past me into the elevator. “Collins,” she said. “So, did you rig it to explode?” She said it like she was unimpressed, and stabbed a perfectly manicured finger out at one of the floor buttons. “Or are you just going to throw paint on me before the doors shut?”

  I considered saying a lot of things—maybe about how she deserved to die in fire—and then I let go of the door, stepped back, and said, “Have a nice day, Monica.”

  She was still staring at me with the best, most utterly confused expression when I turned and walked away, hands in my pockets.

  Frustrating? Yeah, a little. But oddly fun. At least I can keep her guessing, I thought. And it felt like a little victory, just because I hadn’t done the first thing that popped into my head.

  Walking toward home, I nodded to people I knew, which was pretty much everybody. I didn’t hit anybody. I didn’t even say anything snide. It was kind of a miracle.

  I decided to test my luck a little, and stopped in at Common Grounds.

  If I’d been relatively unpopular around Morganville before, I’d taken things to a whole new level. Down a level. I walked into the coffee shop like I had a thousand times before, and this time, conversation pretty much stopped dead. The college students ignored me, as they always did; I was a townie, unimportant to their own little insulated world. It was the Morganville natives who were reacting like Typhoid Mary had just sailed in the door. Some got real interested in their lattes and mochas; others whispered, heads together, darting looks at me.

  Word was out that I was on probation with the Founder. Somewhere, some enterprising young buck was taking bets on whether I’d survive the week, and the odds were not going to be in my favor.

  My housemate Eve was behind the counter, and she leaned over it and waved at me. She’d put some temporary blue streaks in her coal black hair, which gave her some interesting style, particularly when paired with the livid blue eye shadow and matching, very shiny shirt. Over her outfit, which was probably more cracked out than usual, she wore the tie-dyed Common Grounds apron. “Hey, sunshine,” she said. “What’s your poison?”

  Knowing Eve, she meant that literally. “Coffee,” I said. “Just plain, none of that foo-foo stuff.”

  She widened her eyes, and leaned over to stage-whisper, “Honestly, men do sometimes have cream in their coffee. I’ve seen it on the news. Try a latte sometime—it’s not going to reduce your testosterone level or anything.”

  “B—” I was about to automatically say Bite me, which would have been right and proper and comfortable between the two of us; it wasn’t an angry response, just the usual thing I said when Eve snarked on me. I loved her, but this was how we talked. Probably wasn’t covered by Goldman’s rules, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, I’d try to change it up. “Okay,” I said.

  That got me a blank stare. “I’m sorry?”

  “Okay,” I repeated. “I’ll try a latte, if you think they’re good.”

  “You’ll—” Eve cocked her head slowly to one side, her blunt-cut hair brushing her shoulder. “Wait, did you just say you want me to make you a drink that isn’t something you get at a truck stop?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No. No, not at all,” she said, but she was frowning a little. “You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, good,” I said. “Just trying something different today.”

  “Huh.” Eve studied me for a few long seconds, and then smiled. “It’s kind of working for you, boy.” She winked at me and got busy doing complicated things with espresso and steamed milk, and I turned to look at the crowd sitting around the tables. A few local business types, cheating a few minutes away from the office; the college kids with their backpacks, headphones, and stacks of textbooks; a few pale, anemic people sitting in the darker part of the room, away from the windows.

  One of them rose and walked toward me. Oliver, owner of the place, who redefined the term “hippie freak”—he had tied his long graying hair back in a ponytail, and was wearing a Common Grounds apron that made him look all nice and cuddly. He wasn’t, and I was one of those who knew just how very dangerous he really was.

  He also wasn’t my biggest fan. Ever, I mean, but especially now.

  “Collins,” he greeted me, not sounding too thrilled to be taking my money for caffeine. “I thought you were due for therapy.” He didn’t bother to lower his v
oice, and I saw Eve, who’d overheard, wince and keep her attention strictly on the drink she was mixing.

  “Already been,” I said. I couldn’t sound cheerful, but I didn’t sound angry, either. Kind of an achievement. “You can check with the doc if you want.”

  “Oh, I will,” he said. “This needless charity toward you is not my idea, and if you fail to meet the conditions of your parole . . .”

  “I’ll be in jail,” I said.

  Oliver smiled, and it was a scary thing. “Perhaps,” he said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. You’ve had too many chances. Amelie’s patience may be unlimited, but I promise you, mine is not.”

  “Back—” . . . off, man. I’m not impressed with the size of your . . . Yeah, that wasn’t playing by Theo’s rules so much. I bit my tongue, tasted blood, and really wanted to toss off a few incendiary rounds in his direction. Instead, I took a breath, counted to five, and said, “I know I don’t deserve the break. I’ll do my best to earn it.”

  His eyebrows rose sharply, but his eyes remained cold. “It was given over my objections. Again. You needn’t waste your sudden change of heart on me.”

  Well, I’d tried.

  Eve cleared her throat, loudly, and pushed my drink at me. “Here,” she said. “Hey, is Claire meeting you?”

  “No, she’s got classes. Thanks for this.” I passed over a five, and she made change. Oliver watched the transaction without commentary, thankfully; I’d just about used up my entire reserve of polite vampire-appropriate conversation that didn’t involve the words drop deader.

  I carried the drink over to an open table and sat down. I had a good view of the street, so I people-watched and surfed my phone. The latte, surprisingly, wasn’t bad. I saw Eve watching me, and gave her a thumbs-up. She did a silent cheer. Score so far: Shane three, temper zero, I thought, and was feeling kind of smug about it when a shadow fell across me. I looked up to see three Texas Prairie University jocks—which wasn’t saying much, in the great athletic world—looming over me. They were big dudes, but not that much bigger than I was. I automatically did the precalculations. . . . Three to one, the one in the middle was the ringleader, and he had a mean look. Sidekick one was vacant-looking, but he had a multiply broken nose and was no stranger to mixing it up. Sidekick two was unmarked, which meant either he wasn’t much of a fighter or he was ridiculously good.