by Rachel Caine
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Joe Hess was in the run-down house on Spring Street, locked in a closet, filthy, with a broken arm and two broken ribs — Lowe called with the news of his rescue two hours later. Claire tried to be happy, but the crash that had started for her before she left Myrnin's just kept on driving her down. She felt sick and weak and hollow, and she couldn't even summon the energy to go the hospital to see Shane. Michael told Eve that she was sick, which wasn't much of a lie; Claire stayed in bed, shivering, wrapped in layers of blankets even though the room was warm. Everything kept shifting in her head, from dull gray fog to glittering icy clarity, and she didn't know how long it was going to last. She developed a knife-sharp headache sometime during the night, and by the time she finally slept, it was nearly morning.
Her cell phone rang at two p.m. on Sunday. She'd gotten up to visit the bathroom and grab a bottle of water, but no food, and her whole body felt weak and abused. "Where are you?" the voice on the other end demanded. Claire squinted at the clock and scrubbed a hand through her matted, oily hair.
"Who is it?"
A sigh rattled the speaker. "It's Jennifer, idiot. I'm waiting at Common Grounds. Are you going to show or what?"
"No," she said, and then tried again. "I'm sick."
"Look, I don't care if you're dying, I've got a mid-term tomorrow for half my grade! Get your ass down here now!"
Jennifer hung up. Claire threw the phone down on the nightstand with a clatter and sat — or fell — onto the bed. I can't. I just want to sleep, that's all.
Someone rapped gently on the door, and then it creaked open. Eve was standing there, with a cracked, much-abused plastic tray in her hands. On it was a frosty glass of Coke, still fizzing, a sandwich, and a cookie.
And a red rose.
"Eat," she said, and slid the trap onto Claire's lap. "Man, that's one hell of a hangover."
"Hangover?" Claire looked at her oddly, and sipped the Coke. It went down sweet and cool, and that helped. "I'm not hung over."
Eve just shook her head. "Been there, CB. Trust me on this. Eat, shower, you'll feel better."
Claire nodded. She did feel a spark of hunger, distant as it was, and managed to take two bites of the sandwich before weariness overtook her again. She tried the cookie in between.
The shower felt like heaven, and Eve was right about that, too; when she finally got dressed and finished half the sandwich she felt almost alive again.
Her cell phone rang again. Jennifer. Claire didn't even let her get started yelling and threatening. "Ten minutes," she said, and hung up. She didn't want to go, but staying in bed didn't seem to be doing much for her. She took the tray downstairs, washed up, and grabbed her backpack on the way out.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Michael. He was standing in the hallway, blocking the door, looking like he was guarding the gates of heaven itself. His hands looked raw and pink — still healing from the burns. She thought about that, about how important his hands were to him, because of the music, and felt a sharp stab of guilt.
"I'm meeting Jennifer at Common Grounds," she said. "Tutoring. For money."
"Well, you're not walking, and I can't take you until dark."
"I can," Eve offered. She joined Claire in the hall. "I need to go in to work anyway. Kim didn't show again, they called a little while ago. Hey, overtime pay. Gotta love it. Maybe we can afford tacos."
Michael looked exasperated, but it wasn't like there were a lot of choices. He nodded and stepped out of the way. Eve stretched up on her toes to kiss him, and that went on for a while before Claire cleared her throat, checked her watch, and got her moving to the car.
It was a short ride to Common Grounds, but not exactly a comfortable one, because the first thing Eve said was, "Is it true? Oliver killed the Fentons and Captain Obvious?"
Claire didn't want to talk about it, but she nodded.
"And Michael? Michael was there?"
Again, the nod. Claire looked out the window.
"He got hurt. I saw the burns." This time she didn't even try to answer. Eve let the silence stretch for a few seconds, then said, "Don't shut me out, Claire. The four of us, we're all we've got."
Except that what Claire had couldn't be shared. Not with Michael, not with Eve, and certainly not with Shane.
She was alone, carrying an ugly weight of knowledge she didn't want and couldn't use. And every time she thought about Oliver's icy smile, about him ripping out Christine Fenton's throat, she felt sick. I'm helping him, if I keep working for Myrnin and Amelie. But she was also helping Michael. Sam. Myrnin.
Eve seemed to sense it wasn't time to push; she pulled to a stop in front of the coffee shop and said, "Stay inside until dark, then Michael will come get you."
"I'm going to see Shane," Claire said. "But I'll get a ride home."
"Claire, dammit — " Eve sighed. "I can't stop you. But if you wait, you and Michael can go together. I'll see you guys tonight. Tacos for dinner, right?"
Nothing sounded very exciting to her right now, but Claire nodded. She got out and walked into Common Grounds, which was a sea of noise and conversation — packed, as always, with college students and a few locals. She was getting used to picking out the gleam of ID bracelets.
Jennifer was sitting at the same table Monica favored, sipping a drink that Claire bet was the same thing Monica drank, wearing an outfit that was probably Monica's hand-me-downs, or at least copied from the same designers. She looked angry, and scowled at Claire as Claire dropped her backpack on the floor and slid into her chair. "You look like crap," Jennifer said. "Sick sick, or hung over?"
"Does it matter?"
"Hung over," Jennifer said, and grinned. "And here I thought you were all underage goody-two-shoes."
The smell of coffee was making her feel queasy, but Claire went to the counter and ordered a mocha anyway. Oliver wasn't on duty, and she didn't know the two working as baristas.
When she turned around, somebody else was sitting at Jennifer's table in the previously empty third chair.
Monica.
Crap. I can't deal with her. Not now. She felt horrible, and the last thing she wanted to do was match wits with the witch-queen.
Monica gave her the x-ray scan, looked at Jennifer and did an over-the-top hand to the forehead. "I thought the homeless look died in the '90s?"
"Shut up." Claire slid into her chair, mocha in hand. "I'm tutoring Jennifer, not you."
"Bitch, I wouldn't let you tutor me. You'd probably give me all the wrong answers."
Which was a totally good idea, and Claire saw the fear flash into Jennifer's expression. She sighed. "I wouldn't," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because — because this matters. School." They both looked at Claire like she was a lunatic. "Never mind. I just wouldn't. You want my help or not?"
Jennifer nodded. Claire reached for her notebook and flipped to the notes she'd taken in economics, and started explaining. Jennifer was trying, at least; Monica kept sighing and fidgeting, but Jennifer seemed to be kind of following along. She even got a couple of the formulas right, when Claire pop-quizzed her. It took about an hour to get her to the level of a solid B, but that was good enough. Jennifer wasn't interested in As, and Monica couldn't have cared less.
Claire's mocha was making her nauseated. She tossed the half-full cup and went to the bathroom. Half out of habit, she picked up her backpack and brought it along; the other half was an entirely reasonable expectation that Monica and/or Jennifer would do something mean if she left it at their mercy.
She was standing at the mirror staring at her sallow face with its raccoon-bruise eyes and pale lips when the second of clarity hit again, a flicker of unforgiving beauty in a world that just seemed drowning in gray.
Just a little. Just to get through the day. There wasn't that much left anyway.
She didn't let herself think. Her head was pounding, her mouth dry, her muscles aching, and she needed to feel better. Just ...
better. Because right now, she didn't know if she could make it through the day.
She shook about ten measly crystals out into her palm. The strawberry scent teased her, and she shifted them around, watching the light glint on the sharp edges. It looked like candy.
It's a drug. She was finally admitting it to herself. It's not even for you. It's for Myrnin. What are you doing? It's making you sick.
But it would also make her well.
She was in the process of dumping the crystals in her mouth when Monica shoved open the bathroom door.
Claire swallowed and choked and quickly wiped her hand on her pants. She knew she looked guilty. Monica, who'd been heading for the stall, stopped and looked at her.
"What was that?" Monica asked.
"What was what?" Wrong answer, Claire knew it as soon as she said it. Why not, aspirin for my hangover? Or, breath mints? She was a terrible liar.
She couldn't help but drag in a shocked breath as the crystals raced their chemical message through her nerve endings, ice in every vein, and the whole world turned sharp and bright and — for the moment —painless.
And Monica was way too savvy. She looked at the hand Claire was convulsively rubbing against her blue jeans, then gave her the x-ray stare again, and slowly smiled. "Man, that must be good stuff. Your pupils just dilated like crazy." Monica edged up next to her and checked her makeup. "Where'd you get it?"
Claire said nothing. She reached for the shaker, which was sitting on the edge of the sink, but Monica got there first. She looked it over and shook a crystal out in her hand. "Cool. What is it?"
"Nothing. It's not for you."
Monica pulled the shaker back when she reached for it. "Oh, I think it is. Especially if you want it so bad."
Claire didn't think, she just acted. Her brain worked so fast that she moved in a blur, slamming Monica back against the wall, then twisted the silver can out of her hand. Monica didn't even have time to yell.
Monica straightened her clothes, tossed back her hair. There was a crazy light in her eyes, and a glow in her cheeks. She liked this.
"Oh, you stupid bitch," Monica breathed. "That was such a bad idea. So, it makes you faster. And I'm betting it's something from the vamps. That makes it mine."
"No," Claire said. She'd screwed up, she knew that, but talking was only going to make it worse. She put the shaker in her backpack and zipped it up, shouldered the load, and turned to go.
Her hand was on the doorknob when Monica said, "Shane's still in ICU." There was something about the way she said it ... Claire turned slowly to face her. "That means he's not out of the woods yet. Funny thing, people can have all kinds of setbacks. Maybe he gets the wrong meds or something. That can kill you. They did a story about it on the news." Monica's smile was vicious. "I'd hate to see that happen."
Claire felt the wildest, coldest impulse that had ever come over her — she wanted to lunge for Monica, knock her head into the wall, rip her apart. She could visualize it. That was terrifying, and she pulled herself back with a snap into sanity.
"What do you want?" she said. Her voice wasn't quite steady.
Monica just held out her finely manicured hand, raised an eyebrow, and waited.
Claire put down her backpack, pulled out the shaker, and handed it over. "When that's gone, I don't have any more," she said. "I hope you choke on it."
Monica poured some of the red crystals into her palm. "How much? And don't be stupid. You O.D. me, and it's your neck, not mine."
"Don't do more than half of that," Claire said. Monica scraped half of the crystals off her palm, back into the container. It looked about right. Claire nodded.
Monica dumped it into her mouth, licked the residue from her palm, and Claire could tell the exact second that the chemicals hit her — her eyes went wide, and her pupils began to grow. And grow. It was eerie, and Claire felt her skin crawl as Monica began to shake. This is what it looks like. It looked awful.
"You're pretty." Monica sounded surprised. "It's all so — "
And then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell down and started to convulse.
Claire screamed for help, jammed her backpack under Monica's head to keep her from knocking it against the tile floor, and tried to hold her down. Jennifer ran in and screamed too, then came at Claire swinging. Claire moved out of the way of the punch — it seemed slow to her — and shoved Jennifer out of the way. "I didn't do it!" she yelled. "She took something!"
Jennifer called 911.
###
This wasn't how Claire had intended to end up at the hospital. Worse, by the time they'd gotten there, Monica had stopped breathing, and the paramedics had to put a tube down her throat. They were hooking her up to machines now, and the Mayor was coming, and half the cops in town were converging on it.
"I need to know what she took," the doctor was saying. Claire tried to look over his shoulder; she saw Richard Morrell coming through the parking lot doors. The doctor snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. "Your pupils are dilated. You took something too. What is it?"
Claire silently handed over the shaker. The doctor looked at the red crystals, frowned, and said, "Where did you get these?" He was wearing a bracelet, silver, with a symbol she didn't recognize. "Look, I'm not kidding. That girl is dying, and I need to know — "
"I can't tell you," she said. "Ask Amelie." She held up the bracelet. She felt numb. Even though she'd wanted to kill Monica she hadn't really meant to kill her. Why had this happened? It was the same dose Claire had taken, and she knew the crystals weren't contaminated ...
The doctor gave her a look of cold contempt, and handed it to an orderly. "Lab," he said. "I need to know what this stuff is, right now. Tell them it's priority one."
The orderly left at a run.
"I want you in the lab too," the doctor said, and grabbed a passing nurse. He rattled off tests, talking faster than even Claire's heightened brain could process, though the nurse just nodded. Blood tests, she thought. Claire went without complaint. It was better than waiting for Richard Morrell to hear that she'd poisoned his sister.
As soon as the nurse was finished drawing her blood, Claire went to ICU. Shane was awake, reading a book. He looked better, and his smile was warm and relieved. "Eve said you were sick," he said. "I figured maybe you were just sick of seeing me here."
Claire wanted to cry. She wanted to crawl into the bed with him and be wrapped in his arms and not have all this guilt and horror bearing down on her shoulders, just for a minute.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Your eyes — "
"I made a mistake," she blurted. "I made a terrible mistake and I don't know how to fix it, she's dying and I don't know how — "
"Dying?" Shane struggled to sit up. "Who? God, not Eve — "
"Monica. I gave her something and she took it and she's dying." There were tears sliding cold down her cheeks, and she could feel every icy pinprick. "I have to do something. But I don't know what I can do."
Shane's eyes narrowed. "Claire, are you talking about drugs? You gave her drugs? Christ, what are you thinking?" He grabbed her hand. "Did you take something too?"
She nodded miserably. "It doesn't hurt me, but it's killing her."
"You have to tell them. Tell them what you took. Do it now."
"I can't — it's — " She knew what it would mean, saying this. She already knew how it would change things between them. "I can't tell because it's something to do with Amelie I can't, Shane."
His hand tightened, then released. He let go and looked away. "You're going to let a human die because Amelie told you not to say anything. Not even Monica ranks that low. If you don't do something — " He paused and took in a long, slow breath. His voice wasn't quite steady when he went on. "If you don't do something, that means that you put the vampires first, and I can't deal with that, Claire. I'm sorry, but I can't."
She knew that. Tears continued to burn in her eyes, but she didn't try to talk him out of it. He
was right, she was wrong, and she had to find a way out of this, she had to. Enough people were dying in Morganville, and some of them had died because of her.
The notes. The notes I left at Myrnin's. Those could tell the doctor exactly what the crystals were, and how to counteract them. She could start reconstructing them now, since her brain was still working at high speed, but she could already feel things starting to fade at the edges.
"Shane," she said. He didn't look at her. "I love you." She wasn't going to say it, but she knew that she might not come back. Ever. And as if he knew that, he grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and when he did finally look at her she said, "I can't tell them anything, but I think I can help her. And I'm going to."
His brown eyes were tired and anxious and understood way too much. "You're going to do something crazy."
Well," she said, "not as crazy as what you'd do, but ... yeah." She kissed him, and it felt terrifyingly good, the perfect way his lips fit to hers, the way time seemed to stop when they touched. "I'll see you," she whispered, and stroked her fingers down his cheek.
And then she escaped before he could try to talk her out of it.
"Wait!" he called after her. She didn't.
Claire left the hospital at a run, moving faster than anyone could react to stop her, and headed for the last place on earth she wanted to go.
###
It was deadly silent inside of Myrnin's lab. Claire came down the steps very slowly, very carefully, listening for any hint of his presence. All the lights were burning, oil lamps flickering, and a couple of Bunsen burners hissed under bubbling flasks. The whole place smelled of strawberry and rot, and it felt strangely cold.
If I hurry ... Myrnin had a bedroom somewhere down here, right? Maybe he was asleep. Or reading. Or doing something normal.
And maybe he's not.
Claire picked her way across the room, moving very slowly and taking care not to tip over any of the leaning books, or crunch on any broken glass. At the back of the lab she saw that the tray where she'd put out the red crystals for drying was empty. There was no sign of the crystals themselves, but the notebooks were stacked neatly on one corner.
