by Rachel Caine
“It’s over,” he said. “And I’m dealing. Shane will, too.” Because that’s the guy code, Claire thought in mild disgust. Deal until you break into a million little pieces. “Come on. Let’s go see him.”
She was almost … reluctant, somehow. Not to see Shane, but to see him so weak. But she was relieved to see, as they entered Theo’s ward room with its neat camp beds and sheets hung between, that Shane was one of two patients, and he looked … better. Theo, or someone, had cleaned him up, so he didn’t look like he’d bathed in his own blood anymore. Even his hair was clean, though still damp.
There was a needle in his arm, and an IV stand with blood bags. Claire winced. She knew how much he hated needles.
She held his hand as she sank down in the chair next to him. “Hey,” she said, and leaned over to brush his messy hair off his forehead. His skin was still ivory pale beneath the tan, but no longer that scary paper white. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes.” He didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled, a little. His hand squeezed hers a little. “You’re here, aren’t you?” That sounded like a blow-off question, but it wasn’t, she realized. There was something else behind it.
“Yes, I’m here, I’m right here,” she said, and kissed his cheek. His face didn’t have the pinprick stings of the draug on it, but she’d seen them on his neck and chest—they’d suspended him in the water with his face up, the better to keep him alive while they … No, she really couldn’t think about it. Not now. “Michael said you—you might have felt what they were doing to you. Did you? Feel it?”
He took a little too long to answer. It might have been weariness, or it might have been a lie. Very hard to tell. “Not so much,” he said. “It was more like I was … dreaming. Or they were making me dream.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“I don’t think—” He opened his eyes and looked at her, just for a second, then closed them again. “Claire, I don’t think I can talk about it right now.”
That … hurt. It hurt a lot. She had a sudden dread that he was going to tell her something awful, like I dreamed I was in love with Monica Morrell and I liked that better. Or maybe … maybe just that he’d had some happy dream that didn’t include her at all. Because she knew, oh yes, that Shane could do better than her; there were taller girls, prettier girls, girls who knew how to flirt and tease and dress for maximum success. She didn’t fool herself about that. She didn’t know why Shane loved her, really.
What if the dream had shown him that he really didn’t need her, after all?
Michael leaned over to her and whispered, “We’re going to leave you two alone, Claire. If you need us, you know we’ll be close.”
She nodded and watched them go; Eve seemed reluctant, and she made a little call me gesture on her way out the door. Claire swallowed through a suddenly desert-dry throat and asked, “Why don’t you want to tell me about it, Shane?”
“It might scare you,” he said. His voice sounded thin, and a little shaky. “Scares the hell out of me.” After a short hesitation, he continued, “Some of it was good. The two of us, we were good, Claire.”
“Us,” she repeated. The fist around her heart let up, just a little. “The two of us?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, and she realized that there were tears forming at the corners of his tight-shut eyes. Tears. She caught her breath and felt a stab of real pain. “I just—it was good, Claire, it was really good, and I didn’t want to—I don’t want to—I don’t know what I—”
He stopped and turned his head away from her, then rolled over on his side.
Hiding from her.
If it was really good, she wanted to ask, why are you crying? But she didn’t, because she couldn’t stand to see him hurt like this. She was overflowing with questions, all kinds of questions, because she couldn’t understand how if something had been good it could do so much harm.
But he wasn’t going to tell her; she knew that.
And maybe, just maybe, he was right that she shouldn’t even ask. Not right now, when it was so fresh and raw, an open wound.
In the end, she snuggled in next to him, her warmth easing his shakes. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she heard him whisper, “Please tell me you’re really here.”
“I’m here,” she whispered back. Her heart ached for him, and she tightened her arms around him. “I’m right here, Shane. Honestly, I am.”
He didn’t answer.
In the morning, Shane seemed … better. Quiet, and with a wary look in his eyes that scared her a little, but he looked good. The red marks on his skin were healing up, and the transfusion seemed to have done a good job of restoring his healthy coloring. Theo had insisted on adding glucose in the last hour, even though Shane had begun griping about having the needle in.
Claire had finally left him, but not alone; Eve had shown up bright and early, coffees in hand and balancing a small tray of baked goods. Shane had accepted the coffee, and had been eyeing the cookies as Claire finally left to visit the incredibly awkward chemical toilets and do what sponge bath she could with shower gel and a bottle of water. She felt better, too, for having done it. She’d slept unbelievably deeply, not moving all night; that had been the deadening effects of the adrenaline draining away, she guessed.
Shane hadn’t said a lot to her this morning, but then, he’d just woken up. He will, she thought. He’ll be himself again today.
She was on her way back to the room when Myrnin stepped out of one of the hallways, saw her, and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were wide and black, and his expression tense and cautious. “Claire,” he said. “I hear he is better.” No question who the he was that Myrnin referred to, either.
“No thanks to you at all,” she snapped, and started to bypass him. He got in front of her.
“Claire, I didn’t—you must believe me, I never meant him harm. I thought …”
“You thought wrong, didn’t you? You were willing to let my boyfriend die out there. Now get out of my way.”
“I can’t,” he said softly. “Not until you understand that I did not want him dead. In no way is that true. I believed he was dead already, and I tried to spare you the pain of—”
“Shut up. Just shut up and get out of my way.”
“No!” In a shockingly fast move, he backed her against the wall, hands braced on either side of her head as he leaned in on her. “You know me, Claire. Do you believe me so petty, so … pathetic that I would do this for selfish personal reasons? The draug are not to be played with. You’ve taken huge and violent risks, going back there, and you must understand that I am a vampire. It is not in my nature to be so … careless with my own safety. Not for a single human.”
She stared at him for a long few seconds, and then said, very quietly, “Including me?”
There was a flicker in his expression, a bit of agony, and he pushed off and walked away from her. She’d hurt him. Good. She’d meant to. “Yes,” he finally said, sharply, and rounded on her from a few feet away. “Yes, even you. Stop thinking of me as some … personal tame tiger! I am not, Claire.”
“And I’m not your puppet,” she said. “Or your assistant anymore. I quit.”
“It would not be the first time, would it?” Oh, he was angry now, eyes flashing with strobes of red. “If you are not adult enough to understand why I tried to minimize our losses, then I have no use for you, girl. Cling to your friends and your follies. I am done coddling you.”
She laughed. “Wait—you coddle me? Are you kidding? I’m the one who follows you around and picks up the pieces of crazy you drop all over the place, Myrnin. Me. You don’t take care of me. I take care of you. And the least you could have done for me was to go back for Shane. But you didn’t.”
The strobing faded away, leaving his eyes black and a little cold. “No,” he said. “I didn’t. And I didn’t because in my experience, there’s never been anything left to rescue. I couldn’t allow you to see him like that, Claire, reduced to bones and
blood. That was a kindness.”
She started to fire back at him, but couldn’t find the words. He was serious about that. Very serious.
“Furthermore,” he said, “I realized why they’d taken him. You didn’t.”
“Myrnin, just—I don’t know what you’re talking about, but just—”
“They were using him to get to you, Claire.” He let her think about that in silence for a long moment, and then continued, “You are perfectly right to hate me. Feel free. But I am glad he is all right, all the same. They were using him to lure you back, and it worked. Magnus wants you. You might give some consideration to that, because I think it is quite important.”
Magnus. Standing there, watching her. Waiting not for Shane, not for Michael, but for her.
Claire felt cold creep up her spine, and chill bumps shivered over her arms.
“Hey,” Shane said. He was leaning against the doorway, looking almost back to his old self again; he had color back in his face, and he’d changed into fresh clothes—his own, brought back by Eve. She’d managed to grab his favorite ironic saying T-shirt; this one read ZOMBIE BAIT. “Are you two crazy kids fighting about me?” There was no amusement in his expression, Claire thought. “Because don’t. Myrnin was right. You should have left me and called it good.”
“Shane—”
“You’re mad because he did something smart, not because it was stupid. You came back, yeah, but you got help, and that was important. If you’d tried it alone, you wouldn’t have made it, and you know that’s true. He was right to run.” He sucked in a deep breath and met Myrnin’s eyes squarely. “Thanks for making her be smart, too. Even if it didn’t take.”
“Oh,” Myrnin said, clearly taken aback. “Well, yes, all right.”
Claire stared at Shane. How could he say leaving him was smart? And yes, okay, she’d gotten reinforcements, and maybe that had been smart, but she’d have come back all alone, and he knew it.
“Hey,” she said. “You’d have done exactly the same thing if it was me.”
“Yeah,” he said, and shrugged. There was even an attempt at a smile. “But I never said I was smart, did I?” The smile—not convincing—didn’t last long. “We can’t afford to fight like this. Not right now. He’s on Team Us. Don’t kick him off. We don’t have enough players on the field as it is.”
“You’re seriously going to go with a sports analogy right now?”
“Yep,” he said, and sipped his coffee. “Just like normal.” But there was a shadow in his eyes, a flash that made her wonder just how deep the fractures went inside him. “Theo cut me loose. I’m topped up and ready to go.”
Myrnin was watching him with a guarded expression, and then he finally said, “I suppose you need rest, then.”
“Not really. I slept, and I got a transfusion. I feel … pretty good, actually.” Physically, that might be true, but Claire doubted he felt at all good inside. She remembered that whisper in the dark. Are you really there?
Always, she thought. I’ll always be here.
“Did you have some kind of mission you wanted to send us on?” Shane asked. “Seeing as how brilliantly the last one turned out?”
“The last mission killed enough draug to prevent their singing,” Myrnin countered, “and we lost no one.”
“No thanks to you,” Claire muttered. She saw his back stiffen.
“Oliver would like us to consider more … scientific approaches. I will need your assistance for that, Claire. I will expect you in the laboratory in—” He darted a glance from her to Shane and back again. “In your own good time. Good day.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and walked away. For the first time, Claire realized what he was wearing: crazy lab coat. Cargo pants. And his vampire bunny slippers, bedraggled but still flapping their red mouths with every step. She wondered if he’d just thrown it on, or if this time he’d dressed to make her think of him as … helpless. Inoffensive.
There was a lot more to Myrnin than just the pleasantly crazy mayhem; underneath it, there was calculation, and a cold, still monster that he kept mostly caged.
She didn’t realize that she’d shivered, again, until Shane put his arm around her. He was warm now, and she turned and put her arms around him. She rested her head on his chest and listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. Alive, alive, alive.
“Hey,” he said, and tipped her chin up. “I didn’t get to say hello properly last night. Sorry. Mind if I—”
She lunged upward and captured his lips in midsentence, and the kiss was fierce and sweet and hot. His mouth felt soft and hard at the same time, and he sank into a chair and pulled her onto his lap, which was a relief from standing on tiptoe to reach him. It was a long, needy, almost desperate kiss, and when she finally broke it, it was to gasp for air.
He combed through her hair with his fingers, gentle with the snags, and searched her face with a dark, intense stare. She didn’t know what he was looking for.
“What is it?” she asked him, and put her hands on either side of his face. His beard was a little rough beneath her skin. He needed a shave. “Shane?”
“You seem so …” He paused, as if he couldn’t really think of the word. A little line formed above his eyebrows, and she wanted to kiss it away. “Different,” he finally said. “Are you? Different?”
“No,” she said, startled. “No, I don’t think so. How?”
“More …” He shook his head then, and kissed the palm of her hand without taking his gaze away from her face. “More real.”
That should have seemed romantic, but instead she felt another chill, a strong one. There was confusion deep in that stare, uncertainty.
Fear.
“Shane, I’m me,” she said, and kissed him again, frantic with the need to prove it. “Of course I’m real. You’re real. We’re real.”
“I know,” he said, but he was lying. She could feel it in the tremble of his fingertips, and the pressure of his lips when he kissed her back. “I know.”
She would have asked him right then what had happened to him, what those dreams had been, but a voice over her shoulder said, “I guess this means you’re feeling better, bro.”
Michael was walking in, yawning, drinking a cup of something that Claire sincerely hoped was coffee. She’d seen enough blood in the past twenty-four hours to last a lifetime.
“Yeah,” Shane said, and gave her a quick glance of apology as he moved her off his lap. “Better.” He offered a fist, and Michael bumped it. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Couldn’t do anything else.” Michael shrugged. “Claire’s the one to thank. She got us all together. Hannah deserves it, too; she didn’t have to jump in, but she did. And I hate to say it, but you might want to thank Team Morrell.”
“Already did,” Shane said, and frowned a little. “Uh, I think I did. Did I?”
“You did,” Claire said. “It’s okay.” But that worried her, too. Still, shock could make people lose memories, right? Not everything was suspicious. She couldn’t think this way or she’d drive herself crazy. “Don’t downplay it, Michael. You used yourself as bait for the draug. That’s major.”
“Bait?” Shane repeated, and blinked. “What?”
Michael shrugged again and sipped his coffee. “Somebody had to,” he said. “I’m their favorite flavor, and I’m fast. Made sense.”
“Makes zero sense for you all to risk your lives coming after me. How did you know I wasn’t dead?”
“Even if you were,” Michael said, suddenly completely serious, “we’d come back for you. I mean that. And it’s my fault we left you to begin with. Claire didn’t want to go. I had the keys, and I used them to drive off and leave you there. My fault. Nobody else’s.”
“All of a sudden, everybody wants to take the blame,” Shane said. “Thought that was my gig, man.”
“We can share. Many hands, lighter loads, all that crap.” Michael took another drink and changed the subject. “Eve brought my guitar. I was
thinking of playing a little later if you want to chill. New songs rattling around in my head. I’d like an opinion.”
Shane flashed him one of those surfer gestures, middle three fingers curled in, thumb and pinkie out. “Shaka, brudda.”
Michael flashed it back and grinned. “Claire. Got something for you.” He pulled a chain over his head and threw her a necklace; she caught it and saw some kind of glass bottle, sealed, full of opaque liquid. “While I was playing my bait act, I scooped up some water from one of the pools.”
She almost dropped it. “Draug?”
“Nope. No draug in that pool. It was empty. Only one that was.” He shrugged. “Thought it might be important. Do your science-y stuff on it. Might be something that could help.”
She shook the bottle, studying the contents, but it didn’t tell her anything. It wasn’t a big sample, maybe an eyedropper full. Enough, though. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” he said. “Later.” He started walking.
“Wait,” she said, and caught up with him. She lowered her voice. “Would you—would you kind of keep an eye on him the rest of the day? Make sure he’s really okay?”
Michael studied her for a second, then nodded. “I know what he’s been through,” he said. “Well, some of it. So yeah. I’ll hang close. You go do what you need to do.”
“Thanks.” She kissed him on the cheek. “And do me a favor. Make up with Eve, okay? I can’t stand this. I can’t stand seeing the two of you …”
“It’s not up to me,” he said, “but I’m trying.”
She went back to Shane and settled in on his lap again, arms around his neck. His circled her waist. “I thought you had to go,” he said. “And don’t think I didn’t see you kissing on my best friend.”
“He deserved it.”
“Yeah. Maybe I ought to kiss him, too.”
Michael, on his way out, didn’t even bother to turn around for that one. “Oh sure, you always promise.”
“Bite me!” Shane called after him. He was smiling, and it looked like a genuine one this time. That was good. He even turned to Claire and held on to it, though a bit of that shadow crept back into his eyes. That … uncertainty. “Not you. You, I was thinking more like kiss me. If that’s okay.”
