Shane's turn for cooking dinner, and he came up with chili dogs - more chili, but at least he did a good job with it. Claire had two, watching in amazement as Michael and Shane downed four each, and Eve nibbled one. She smiled at Shane, and shot back barbs whenever he sent one sailing her way, but Claire noticed something else.
Eve couldn't keep her eyes off of Michael. At first, Claire thought, She knows something, but then she saw the flush in Eve's cheeks showing through the pale makeup, and the glitter in her eyes.
Oh. Well, she guessed Michael had looked pretty hot, grabbing her out of danger like that and dragging her out of harm's way. And now that she thought about it, Eve had been making little glances his direction every time they'd been together.
Eve finally shoved her plate away and claimed dibs on the bathroom for a long, hot, soaking bubble bath.
Which Claire wished she'd thought of first. She and Michael did the dishes while Shane practiced his zombie-fighting skills on Xbox.
"Eve likes you, you know," she said casually as she was rinsing off the last plate. He nearly dropped the one he was drying.
"What?"
"She does."
"Did she tell you that?"
"No."
"I don't think you understand Eve, then."
"Don't you like her?"
"Of course I like her!"
"Enough to...?"
"I am not talking about this." He put the plate into the drainer. "Jesus, Claire!"
"Oh, come on. You like her, don't you?"
"Even if I did - " He stopped short, glancing toward the doorway and lowering his voice. "Even if I did, there are a few problems, don't you think?"
"Everybody's got problems," she said. "Especially in this town. I've only been here six weeks, and I already know that."
Whatever he thought about that, he dried his hands and walked out. She heard him talking to Shane, and when she went out the two of them were deep into the video game, elbowing each other and fighting for every point.
Boys. Sheesh.
She was on her way to her room, passing the bathroom, when she heard Eve crying. She knocked quietly, and looked in when Eve muffled her sobs. The door wasn't locked.
Eve was dressed in a black fluffy robe, sitting on the toilet; she'd stripped off her makeup and let her hair down, and she looked like a little girl in a too-large adult outfit. Fragile. She gave Claire a shaky grin and wiped tear tracks from her face. "Sorry," she said, and cleared her throat. "Kind of a suck-ass day, you know?"
"That guy. That vampire. He acted like he knew you," Claire said.
"Yeah. He - he's the one who gives my family Protection. I turned him down. He's not too happy." She gave a hollow little laugh. "Guess nobody likes rejection."
Claire studied her. "You okay, though?"
"Sure. Peachy." Eve waved her out. "Go study. Get smart enough to blow this town. I'm just a little bit down. Don't worry about it."
Later, when Michael started playing, Claire heard Eve crying through the wall again.
She didn't go investigate, and she didn't watch Michael vanish. She didn't think she had the courage.
Shane went with her the next day to buy some clothes. It was only three blocks to the colorless retail section of town, with all its dingy-looking thrift stores; she didn't want his company, but he wasn't letting her go alone.
"You let Eve go alone," she pointed out as he sat on the couch putting on his shoes.
"Yeah, well, Eve has a car," he said. "Besides, I wasn't up. You get escorted. Live with it."
She felt secretly pleased about it. A little. It was another typically sunny day, the sidewalks almost vibrating with heat. Not a lot of pedestrians, but then, there rarely were. Shane walked with a long, loping stride, hands in his pockets; she had to hurry to keep up. She kept waiting for him to say something, but he didn't. After a while, she just started talking. "Did you have a lot of friends, growing up here?"
"Friends? Yeah, I guess. A few. Michael. I kind of knew Eve back then, but we hung with different crowds. Couple of other kids."
"What - what happened to them?"
"Nothing," Shane said. "They grew up, got jobs, claimed Protection, kept right on going. That's how it works in Morganville. You either stay in, or you run."
"Do you ever see them?" Because she'd been amazed how much she'd missed her friends back home, especially Elizabeth. She'd always thought she was a loner, but...maybe she wasn't. Maybe nobody really was.
"No," he said. "Nothing in common these days. They don't want to hang with somebody like me."
"Somebody who doesn't want to fit in." Shane glanced at her and nodded. "Sorry."
He shrugged. "Nobody's fault. So what about you? Any friends back home?"
"Yeah. Elizabeth, she's my best friend. We talked all the time, you know? But...when she found out I was going away to school, she just..." Claire decided a shrug was about the best opinion she could offer about it.
"Ever call her?"
"Yeah," she said. "But it's like we don't know each other anymore. You know? We have to think about what to say. It's weird."
"God, I know what you mean." Shane suddenly stopped and took his hands out of his pockets. They were in the middle of the block, in between two stores, and at first she thought he was going to look in a window, but then he said tensely, "Turn around and walk away. Just go into the first store you see, and hide."
"But - "
"Do it, Claire. Now."
She backed away and turned, walked as fast as she dared to the store they'd already passed. It was a skanky-looking used-clothing store, nowhere she'd willingly shop, but she pushed open the door and looked back over her shoulder as she did.
A cop car was gliding to the curb next to Shane. He was standing there, hands at his sides, looking bland and respectful, and the cop who was driving leaned out of the window to say something to him.
Claire nearly fell forward as the door was jerked open, and stumbled over the threshold into a darkened, musty-smelling interior.
"Hey there," the uniformed cop who'd opened the door said to her. He was an older man, blond, with thinning hair and a thick mustache. Cold blue eyes and crooked teeth. "Claire, right?"
"I - " She couldn't think what to say to that. All her life she'd been told not to lie to the police, but..."Yes, sir." She could tell he already knew, anyway.
"My name's Gerald. Gerald Bradfield. Pleased to meet you." He held out his hand. She swallowed hard, wiped her sweaty palm, and shook. She half expected that he'd click handcuffs around her wrists, but he just half crushed her hand as he pumped it twice, up and down, and let go. "People been looking for you, you know."
"I - didn't know that, sir."
"Didn't you?" Cold, cold eyes, no matter what the smile said. "Can't imagine that, little girl. Fact is, the mayor's daughter was worried about where you might have got off to. Asked us to find you. Make sure you were all right."
"I'm fine, sir." She could barely talk. Her mouth had gone dry. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"
He laughed. "Why would you be in trouble, Claire? No, you don't have to worry about that. Fact is, we already know where you are. And who you're running with. You should be more careful, honey. You're brand-new here, but you already know a hell of a lot more than you ought. And your friends aren't exactly the kind that guarantee a peaceful life in this town. Troublemakers. You don't look like a troublemaker to me. Tell you what, you move back into the dorm, be a good girl, go to classes, I'll personally make sure nothing happens to you."
Claire wanted to nod, wanted to agree, wanted to do anything to get away from this man. She looked around the store. There were other people in there, but she couldn't get any of them to look at her. It was like she didn't even exist.
"You don't think I can do it," he said. "I can. Count on it."
She looked back at him, and his eyes had gone white, with little dots of pupils in the middle. When he smiled, she saw a flash of fangs.
She gasped, backed away, and grabbed for the door handle. She lunged out into the street, running, and saw Shane standing right where he'd been, watching the police car pull away from the curb. He turned and grabbed her as she practically crashed into him. "Vampire!" she gasped. "V-vampire cop. In the store!"
"Must have been Bradfield," Shane said. "Tall guy? Kind of bald, with a mustache?"
She nodded, shaking all over. Shane didn't even look surprised, much less alarmed. "Bradfield's okay,"
he said. "Not the worst guy in town, that's for sure. He hurt you?"
"He - he just shook my hand. But he said he knew! He knew where I was living!"
Again, Shane didn't look surprised. "Yeah, well, that was just a matter of time. They pulled over to ask me your full name. They added it to inventory."
"Inventory?"
"That's what they call it. It's like a census. They always know how many are living in a place. Look, just walk, okay? And don't look so scared. They aren't going to jump us in broad daylight."
Shane had a lot more confidence in that than she did, but she got control of her shaking and nodded, and followed him up another block to a thrift shop that looked brighter, friendlier, and less likely to have vampires lurking inside. "This is Mrs. Lawson's place. She used to be a friend of my mom's. It's okay."
Shane held open the door for her, like a gentleman. She supposed his mom had taught him that. Inside, the place smelled nice - incense, Claire thought - and there were lots of lights burning. No dark corners here, and a bell rang with a pleasant little tinkling sound when Shane let the door shut behind them.
"Shane!" A large woman in a brightly colored tie-dyed shirt and big, swirly skirt hustled over from behind the counter at the back, gathered Shane up in a hug, and beamed at him when she stepped back. "Boy, what the hell are you doing back here? Up to no good?"
"Up to no good, ma'am. Just like always."
"Thought so. Good for you." The woman's dark eyes landed on Claire. "Who's your little friend?"
"This is Claire. Claire Danvers. She's - she's a student at the college."
"Nice to meet you, Claire. Now. I'll bet you didn't come in here just to say 'hey,' boy, so what can I do for you?"
"Clothes," Claire said. "I'm looking for some clothes."
"Those we got. You're about a size four, right? Come with me, honey. I've got some really nice things just your size. Shane, you look like you could use some new clothes, too. Those jeans are raggedy."
"Supposed to be."
"Lord. Fashion. I just don't understand it anymore."
Maybe she didn't, but Mrs. Lawson had all kinds of cute tops and jeans and things, and cheap, too.
Claire picked an armload and followed her to the counter, where she counted out a grand total of twenty-two dollars, including tax. As Mrs. Lawson was ringing it up, Claire looked behind her to the things on the wall. There was some kind of official-looking certificate hanging there, framed, with an embossed seal.... No, that wasn't a seal. That was a symbol. The same symbol as the one on the bracelet Mrs. Lawson wore.
"You take care," Mrs. Lawson said as she handed over the bag with the clothes. "Both of you. Tell Shane he needs to get himself right, and he needs to do it quick. They've been cutting him some slack, given what he went through, but that won't last. He needs to be thinking about his future."
Claire looked over her shoulder to where Shane was staring out the window, looking bored. Eyes half-closed.
"I'll tell him," she said doubtfully.
She couldn't imagine Shane was thinking about anything else.
Days slipped away, and Claire just let them go. She was worried about class, but she was tired and her bruises had turned Technicolor, and the last thing she wanted to do was be the center of attention. It was better - Shane had convinced her - to do some home study and get back to class when she was better, and Monica had had some time to let things blow over.
The week slipped away. She fell into a regular routine - up late with Michael and Shane and Eve, sleep until noon, argue over bathroom rights, cook, clean, study, do it all again. It felt...good. Real, somehow, in a way that dorm life didn't, exactly.
The following Monday, when she got up and made breakfast, she had to make it for two: Shane was awake, looking grumpy and groggy. He silently grabbed the bacon and fried some up while she did the eggs; there wasn't any banter, as there had been between him and Eve a couple of mornings back. She tried a little conversation, but he wasn't in the mood. He just grunted replies. She waited until he was done with his breakfast - which included a cup of coffee, brewed in the tiny little coffeemaker on the corner of the counter - before she asked, "What are you doing up so early?"
Shane leaned his chair back on two legs, balancing as he chewed. "Ask Michael."
Can't exactly do that... "You doing something for him?"
"Yeah." He thumped his chair back down and brushed his hand over his hair, which still looked like a mess. "Don't expect me to dress up or anything."
"What?"
"What you see is what you get." She just looked at him, frowning, trying to figure out what he was saying. "I'm taking you to class. You were going back today, right?"
"You're kidding," she said flatly. He shrugged. "You're kidding. I'm not some six-year-old who needs her big brother to walk her to school! No way, Shane!"
"Michael thinks you should have an escort. Brandon was pretty pissed. He could find a way to take it out on you, even if he can't do it himself. He's got plenty of people who'd kick your ass on his say-so."
Shane's eyes slid away from hers. "Like Monica."
Oh, crap. "Monica belongs to Brandon?"
"The whole Morrell family does, far as I know. He's their own personal badass. So." He rubbed his hands together. "What exciting classes do we have today?"
"You can't go to class with me!"
"Hey, you're welcome to knock me out and stop me, but until you do, I'm your date for the day. So.
What classes?"
"Calculus II, Physics of Sound, Chemistry III, chem lab, and Biochemistry."
"Holy crap. You really are smart. Right, I'll take some comics or something. Maybe my iPod."
She kept glaring at him. It didn't seem to do any good - if anything, it just made him more cheerful.
"I always wanted to be a big man on campus," Shane said. "Guess this is my chance."
"I'm dead," she moaned, and rested her forehead on her hands.
"Not yet. And that's kind of the point."
She was afraid Shane would make a big deal out of it, but he didn't. He even combed his hair, which turned out to make him look totally hot in ways that she was afraid to notice. Especially if she had to spend the whole day with him. He'd picked a plain white shirt and his best pair of blue jeans, which were still out at the knees and frayed at the hems. And plain running shoes. "In case we have to do any retreating," he said. "Plus, kicking somebody when you're wearing flip-flops hurts."
"But you're not kicking anybody," she said quickly. "Right?"
"Nobody who doesn't deserve it," he said. "What else do I need to fit in?"
"Backpack." She found her spare - she'd brought two - and tossed it to him. He stuck in some paperbacks, a PSP, and his iPod and headphones, then raided the cabinets for Twinkies and bottled water. "We're not exactly going to the wilderness, Shane. You don't have to take everything. There are vending machines."
"Yeah? I didn't see any lunch in that schedule. You'll thank me later."
In fact, she did feel better with Shane loping along beside her; he was watching the shadows, the dark alleys, the empty buildings. Watching everything. Even though he'd packed the iPod, he wasn't listening to it. She missed hers, all of a sudden, and wondered if Monica had it.
They made it to campus without incident, and they were halfway across it, heading for her first class, when Claire suddenly thought of something and came to a full stop. Shane kept going for a couple of paces, then looked back.
"Monica," she said. "Monica's going to be hanging around. She usually is. She'll see you."
"I know." Shane hitched his backpack to a more comfortable spot. "Let's go."
"But - Monica!"
He just looked at her, and started walking. She stayed where she was. "Hey! You're supposed to be with me, not leaving me!"
"Monica's my business," he said. "Drop it." He waited for her, and she reluctantly caught up. "She doesn't mess with us, I won't mess with her. How's that?"
Wishful thinking, to Claire's mind. If Monica really had gotten it in for Shane, even a year or two ago, and gone far enough to kill his sister, she couldn't imagine any situation where Shane just walked away.
Shane wasn't a walking-away kind of guy.
The square concrete courtyard between the Architecture Building and the Math Sciences Building was packed with students crossing between classes. Now that Claire knew what to look for, she couldn't help but notice how many of them had bracelets - leather, metal, even braided cloth - with symbols on them.
And how many students didn't.
The ones who wore the symbols were the shiny, confident ones. Sorority girls. Frat guys. Athletes.
Popular kids. The loners, the sideliners, the dull and average and strange...they were the ones who weren't Protected.
They were the cattle.
Shane was scanning the crowd. Claire kept walking quickly toward the Math Building; she knew for a fact that Monica wouldn't be caught dead - or killing anybody - in a place that geeky. The only problem was that the third building on the Quad was the Business Administration Building, and that was, of course, where Monica liked to spend her time hanging out, looking for rich boys.
Almost there...
She was actually on the steps leading up to the Math Building when she heard Shane stop behind her. He was staring off into the Quad, and as Claire turned, she saw Monica, surrounded by a clique of admirers, staring right back at him. The two of them might as well have been alone. It was the kind of look that people in love exchanged, or people who were about to kill each other.
"Son of a bitch," Shane breathed. He sounded shaken.
"Come on," Claire said, and grabbed his elbow. She was afraid he wouldn't let her pull him on, but he did, as if his mind was somewhere else. When he finally glanced at her, his eyes were dark and hard.
"Not here," she said. "She won't come in."
"Why not?"
"It would embarrass her."
He nodded slowly, as if that made sense to him, and followed her to class.
Claire had a hard time keeping her mind on the droning lecture, which was familiar anyway, and she'd read far ahead of where the professor was teaching...but mostly, she kept thinking about Shane, sitting motionless next to her, hands on the desk, staring blankly into space. He wasn't even listening to his iPod. She could sense the tenseness in his body, like he was just waiting for the chance to hit something.
I knew this was a bad idea.
It was an hour-and-a-half lecture with a fifteen-minute break in the middle; when Shane got up and walked out, she hastily followed him. He went up to the glass doors and looked out over the Quad.
"She's gone," he said, without looking at Claire. "Quit worrying about me. I'm okay."
"She - Eve said she burned your house." No reply. "And - your sister - ?"
"I couldn't get her out," Shane said. "She was twelve, and I couldn't get her out of the house. That was my job. Watch out for her."
He still didn't look at her. She couldn't think of anything to say. After a while, he walked away, into the boys' bathroom; she dashed into the girls', waiting impatiently for the line to clear, and came back out to find him nowhere in sight.
Oh, crap.
But when she went back to the lecture hall he was sitting right where he'd been, this time with his iPod earbuds in place.
She didn't say anything. Neither did he.
It was the longest lecture, and the least enjoyable, that Claire could remember.
Physics was in the same building; if Monica was waiting out in the wilting sun on the Quad, she'd be getting a really good tan. Shane sat like a statue, if a statue wore headphones and radiated angry coiled tension that made hair stand up on a person's arms. She felt like she was sitting next to an unexploded bomb, and given all of the physics she'd had, she understood exactly what that meant. Talk about potential energy....
Physics crawled slowly by. Shane broke out water and Twinkies, and shared. Chemistry was in the next building, but Claire made sure that they went out the side entrance, not through the Quad. No sign of Monica. She suffered through another hour and a half of chemistry and tension. Shane gradually unwound to the point that her nerves didn't jangle like sleigh bells every time he moved, and ended up playing on his PSP through most of the class. Killing zombies, she hoped. That seemed to put him in a good mood.
In fact, he was positively cheerful during chem lab, interested in the experiment and asking so many questions that the teaching assistant, who'd never had to come to Claire's table before, wandered over and stared at Shane as if trying to figure out what he was doing there.
"Hey, man," Shane said, and stuck out his hand. "Shane Collins. I'm - what's the word I'm looking for?
Auditing. Auditing the class. With my friend here. Claire."
"Oh," said the TA, whose name Claire had never learned. "Right. Okay, then. Just - follow along."
Shane gave him a thumbs-up and a goofy grin. "Hey," he said in an undertone, leaning close to Claire.
"Any of this stuff blow up?"
"What? Um...yeah, if you do it wrong, I guess."
"I'm thinking about practical applications. Bombs. Things like that."
"Shane!" He really was distracting. And he smelled good. Guy good, which was different from girl good - darker, spicier, a smell that made her go all fluttery inside. Oh, come on, it's Shane! she told herself. That didn't help, especially when he shot her that crooked smile and a look that probably would kill most girls at ten feet. He's a slacker. And he's - not that smart. Maybe he was, though. Just in different places than she was. It was a new idea to her, but she kind of liked it.
She slapped his hand when he reached for the reagents, and concentrated on the details of the experiment.
She was concentrating so hard, in fact, and Shane had gotten so engrossed in watching what she was doing, that neither of them heard footsteps behind them. The first Claire knew about it was a searing, burning sensation down the right side of her back. She dropped the beaker she was holding and screamed - couldn't help it, because God, that hurt - and Shane whirled around and grabbed somebody by the collar who was backing away.
Gina, the Monickette. She snarled and slapped at him, but he didn't let go; Claire, gasping in pain and trying to twist to see what was happening on her back, could see that it was taking everything Shane had not to deck his prisoner then and there. The TA came rushing over and other students started realizing there was something wrong, or at least more interesting than lab work; Claire slipped off the stool at the table and tried to look at what was happening to her back, because it hurt. She smelled something terrible.
"Oh my God!" the TA blurted. He grabbed the bottled water out of Shane's backpack, opened it, and dumped the contents over Claire's back, then dashed to a cupboard on the side and came back with a box of baking soda. She heard it sizzle when it hit her back, and nearly passed out. "Here. Sit. Sit down.
You, call an ambulance. Go!" As Claire sank down breathlessly again on another, lower stool, the TA grabbed a pair of scissors and cut her shirt up the back, and folded it aside. He cut her bra strap, too, and she just barely had the presence of mind to grab hold before the whole thing slid down her arms.
God, it hurts, it hurts.... She tried not to cry. The burn was easing up a little as the baking soda did its work. Acid has a low pH; baking soda has a high one.... Well, at least she'd retained some grasp of chemistry, even now.
She looked up and saw that Shane still had hold of Gina. He'd twisted her arm behind her back and made her let go of the beaker; what remained of the acid she'd splashed on Claire was still in the glass, looking as innocent as water.
"It was an accident!" she yelped, and stood on her tiptoes as Shane twisted harder. "I tripped! I'm sorry! Look, I didn't mean it...."
"We're not working with H SO today," the TA said grimly. "You've got no reason to be walking around with it. Claire? Claire, how bad is the pain?"
"I - it's okay. I'm okay," she said, though truthfully she had no idea if she was or not. She felt lightheaded, sick, and cold. Shock, probably. And embarrassment, because God, she was half naked in front of the entire chem lab, and...Shane..."Can I put something on?"
"No, you can't let anything touch that. The burn's through several layers of skin. It'll need treatment, and antibiotics. You just sit still." The TA turned to Shane and Gina, and leveled a finger at her. "You, you're talking to the campus police. I will not tolerate this kind of attack in my classroom. I don't care who your friends are!"
So he knew her. Or at least he knew enough. Shane was whispering something in Gina's ear, something too low for Claire to hear, but it couldn't be good, by the expression on the girl's face.
"Sir?" Claire asked faintly. "Sir, can I have a makeup on the lab work and - "
And she passed out before she finished saying, and I'm sorry for the mess.