Glass Houses

The cold air of the lobby felt dry and lifeless, after the heat outside; Claire shivered and blinked fast to adjust her eyes to the relative dimness. A few girls were in the lobby with books propped up on tables; the TV was running, but nobody was watching it.

Nobody looked at her as she walked by. She went to the glassed-in attendant booth, and the student assistant sitting inside looked up from her magazine, saw her bruises, and made a silent O with her mouth.

"Hi," Claire said. Her voice sounded thin and dry, and she had to swallow twice. "I'm Claire, up on four? Um, I had an accident yesterday. But I'm okay. Everything's fine."

"You're the - they were looking for you, right?"

"Yeah. Just tell everybody I'm okay. I've got to get to class."

"But - "

"Sorry, I'm late!" Claire hurried to the stairs and went up as fast as her sore ankle would allow. She passed a couple of girls, who gave her wide-eyed looks, but nobody said anything.

She didn't see Monica. Not on the stairs, not at the top. The hallway was empty, and all the doors were shut. Music pounded from three or four different rooms. She hurried down to the end, where her own room was, and started to unlock it.

The knob turned limply in her fingers. Great. That, more than any graffiti, said Monica wuz here.

Sure enough, the room was a wreck. What wasn't broken was dumped in piles. Books were defaced, which really hurt. Her meager clothes had been dragged out of the closet and scattered over the floor.

Some of the blouses had been ripped, but she seriously didn't care that much; she sorted through, found two or three that were intact, and stuffed them in the garbage bag. One pair of sweatpants was fine, and she added that, too. She had a lucky find of a couple of ratty old pairs of underwear that hadn't been discovered, shoved in the corner of the drawer, and added those to the sack.

The rest was another pair of shoes, what books she could salvage, and the little bag of makeup and toiletries she kept on the shelf next to the bed. Her iPod was gone. So were her CDs. No telling if that had been Monica's doing, or the work of some other dorm rat who'd scavenged later.

She looked around, swept the worst of the mess into a corner, and grabbed the photo of her mom and dad off of the dresser to take with her.

And then she left, not bothering to try to lock the door.

Well, she thought shakily. That went okay, after all.

She was halfway down the steps when she heard voices on the second-floor landing. " - swear, it's her!

You should see the black eye. Unbelievable. You really clocked her one."

"Where the hell is she?" Monica's voice, hard-edged. "And how come nobody came to get me?"

"We - we did!" someone protested. Someone who sounded as scared as Claire suddenly felt. She reached in her pocket, grabbed the phone, and held on to it for security. Star two. Just press star two - Shane's not far away, and Eve's right downstairs.... "She was up in her room. Maybe she's still there?"

Crap. There was nobody in the dorm she could trust, not now. Nobody who'd hide her, or who'd stand up for her. Claire retreated back up the steps to the third-floor landing and went to the fire stairs, flung open the door, and hurried down the concrete steps as fast as she dared, ducking to avoid the glass window at the second-floor exit. She made it to the lobby exit door sweating and trembling from the effort, with her backpack and the garbage bag dragging painfully on her sore muscles, and risked a quick look out the window to the lobby itself.

Monica-groupie Jennifer was on guard, watching the stairs. She looked tense and focused, and - Claire thought - a little bit scared, too. She kept fooling with the bracelet around her right wrist, turning it over and over. One thing was certain: Jennifer would see her the second she opened the door. And sure, maybe that wouldn't matter; maybe she could get by Jen and out the door and they wouldn't be attacking her in public, would they?

Watching Jennifer's face, she wasn't so sure. Not so sure at all.

The fire door a couple of floors up boomed open, and Claire flinched and looked for a place to hide. The only possible spot was under the concrete stairs. There was some kind of storage closet crammed under there, but when she tried the knob it was locked, and she didn't have Monica's lock-smashing superpowers.

And she didn't have time, anyway. There were footsteps coming down. Either she could hope the person didn't look back in the corner, or she could make a break for the door. Once again, Claire touched the phone in her pocket. One phone call away. It's okay.

And once again, she left the phone where it was, took a deep breath, and waited.

It wasn't Monica; it was Kim Valdez, a freshman like Claire. A band geek, which put her only a tiny step higher than Claire's status as resident freak of nature. Kim kept to herself, and she didn't seem to be all that afraid of Monica or her girls; Kim didn't seem afraid of much. Not friendly, though. Just...solitary.

Kim looked back at her, blinked once or twice, then stopped before putting her hand on the door to exit.

"Hey," she said. She pushed back the hood of her knit shirt, revealing short, shiny black hair. "They're looking for you."

"Yeah, I know."

Kim was holding her instrument case. Claire wasn't exactly clear on which instrument it was, but it was big and bulky in its scuffed black case. Kim set it down. "Monica do that?" She gestured at Claire's bruises. Claire nodded wordlessly. "I always knew she was a bitch. So. You need to get out of here?"

Claire nodded again, and swallowed hard. "Will you help me?"

"Nope." Kim flashed her a sudden, vivid grin. "Not officially. Wouldn't be too smart."

They had it worked out in a matter of frantic seconds: Claire zipped up in the shirt, pulled the hood down around her face, and held the instrument case by the handle.

"Higher," Kim advised. "Tilt it so it covers your face. Yeah, like that. Keep your head down."

"What about my bags?"

"I'll wait a couple of minutes, then come out with 'em. Wait outside. And don't go nowhere with my cello, and I mean it. I'll kick your ass."

"I won't," she swore. Kim opened the door for her, and she took a gasping breath and barged out, head down, trying to look like she was late for a rehearsal.

As she passed Jennifer, the girl gave her a reflexive glance, then dismissed her to focus back on the stairs.

Claire felt a hot rush of adrenaline that felt like it might set her face on fire, and resisted the urge to run the rest of the way for the door. It seemed to take forever, her crossing the lobby to the glass doors.

She was swinging the door open when she heard Monica say, "That freak couldn't get out of here!

Check the basement. Maybe she went down the trash chute, like her stupid laundry."

"But - " Jen's feeble protest. "I don't want to go down to the - "

She would, though. Claire suppressed a wild grin - mostly because it still hurt too much to do that - and made it out of the dorm.

The sunlight felt amazing. It felt like...safety.

Claire took a deep breath of hot afternoon air, and walked around the corner to wait for Kim. The heat was brutal out against the sunbaked walls - suffocating. She squinted against the sun and saw the distant glitter of Eve's car, parked all the way at the back. Even hotter in there, she guessed, and wondered if Eve had gotten out of that Goth-required leather coat yet.

And just as she was thinking that, she saw a shadow fall across hers from behind, and half turned, but it was too late. Something soft and dark muffled her vision and clogged her mouth and nose, and pressure around her head yanked her off-balance. She screamed, or tried to, but somebody punched her in the stomach, which took care of the screaming and most of the breathing, and Claire saw a weak, watery sunshine through the weave of the cloth over her face, and shadows, and then everything got dark. Not that she fainted, or anything like that, although she was wanting to, badly.

The hot pressure of the sun went away, and then she was being dragged and carried into someplace dark and quiet.

Then down a flight of stairs.

When the moving stopped, she heard breathing and whispers, sounds of more than a few people, and then she was shoved backward, hard, and fell off-balance onto a cold concrete floor. The impact stunned her, and by the time she clawed her way out of the bag that had been jammed onto her head - a black backpack, apparently - she found there was a whole circle of girls standing around her.

She had no idea where this room was. Some kind of storage room, maybe, in the basement. It was crammed with stuff - suitcases, boxes labeled with names, all kinds of things. Some of the boxes had collapsed and spilled out pale guts of old clothes. It smelled like molding paper, and she sneezed helplessly when her frantic gasps filled her mouth and nose with dust.

A couple of girls giggled. Most didn't do anything, and didn't look very happy to be there, either.

Resigned, Claire guessed. Glad it wasn't them lying on the floor.

Monica stepped out of the corner.

"Well," she said, and put her hands on her hips. "Look what the cats dragged in." She flashed Claire a cold toothpaste-ad smile, as if the rest of them weren't even here. "You ran away, little mouse. And just when we were starting to have fun."

Claire faked more sneezing, lots of it, and Monica backed away in distaste. Faking sneezing, Claire discovered, wasn't as easy as she'd thought. It hurt. But it provided time and cover for her to pull the phone out of her pocket, cover it with her body, and frantically punch *2.

She pressed SEND and shoved it between two boxes, hoping the blue glow of the buttons wouldn't attract Monica's attention. Hoping Shane wouldn't be iPoding or Xboxing and ignoring the phone.

Hoping...

Just hoping.

"Oh, for God's sake. Get her up!" Monica ordered. Her Monickettes sprang forward, Jen taking one of Claire's arms, Gina the other. They hauled her up to her feet and held her there.

Monica pulled the hood back from Claire's bruised face and smiled again, taking in the damage. "Damn, freak, you look like hell. Does it hurt?"

"What did I ever do to you?" Claire blurted. She was scared, but she was angry, too. Furious. There were seven girls standing around doing nothing because they were scared, and of what? Monica? What the hell gave the Monicas the right to run the world?

"You know exactly what you did. You tried to make me look stupid," Monica said.

"Tried?" Claire shot back, which was dumb, but she couldn't stop the impulse. It got her hit in the face.

Hard. Right on top of the first bruise, which took away her breath in slow throbs of white-hot agony.

Everything felt funny, rattled by the impact of Monica's jab. Claire felt pressure on her arms, and realized that the Monickettes were holding her up. She put some stiffness back into her legs, opened her eyes, and glared at Monica.

"How come you live in Howard?" she asked.

Monica, inspecting her knuckles for signs of bruising, looked up in honest surprise.

"What?"

"Your family's rich, right? You could be living in an apartment. Or in a sorority house. How come you live in Howard Hall with the rest of us freaks?" She caught her breath at the sudden cold blaze in Monica's eyes. "Unless you're a freak, too. A freak who gets off on hurting somebody weaker than you.

A freak your family's ashamed of. Somebody they hide here where they don't have to look at you."

"Shut up," Jennifer hissed, low in her ear. "Don't be stupid! She'll kill you - don't you get it?"

She jerked her head away. "I heard you went away to college," Claire continued. Her stomach was rolling, she felt like she was going to puke and die, but all she had to do was stall for time. Shane would come. Eve would come. Maybe Michael. She could imagine Michael standing in the doorway, with those ice-cold eyes and that angel's face, staring holes through Monica. Yeah, that would rock. Monica wouldn't look so big then. "What's the matter? Couldn't you cut it? I'm not surprised - anybody who thinks World War Two was in China isn't exactly going to impress - "

She saw the punch coming this time, and ducked as best she could. Monica's fist smashed into her forehead, which hurt, but it must have hurt Monica a whole lot more, because she let out a shrill little scream and backed off, clutching her right hand in her left. That made the horrible throbbing in Claire's head almost okay.

"Careful," Claire gasped, nearly giggling. The scab on her lip had broken open, and she licked blood from her lips. "Don't break a nail! I'm not worth it, remember?"

"Got that right!" Monica snarled. "Let that bitch go. What are you waiting for? Go on, do it! Do you think that wimp's going to hurt me?"

The Monickettes looked at each other, clearly wondering if their queen bee had lost her mind, then let go of Claire's arms and stepped back. Jennifer bumped into the towering column of boxes, spilling an avalanche of dust and old papers, but when Claire looked at her, Jennifer was staring at a spot between the boxes.

The spot where Claire had hidden the phone. Jen had to have seen it, and Claire gasped out loud, suddenly a whole lot more afraid than she'd thought she was.

"What the hell are you looking at?" Monica snarled at Jen, and Jen very deliberately turned her back on the incriminating phone, folded her arms, and stood there blocking it from view. Not looking at Claire at all. Wow. That's... what? Not lucky, exactly. Jennifer had shown some cracks already. And maybe she wasn't a complete convert to the First Church of Monica.

Maybe Monica had just pissed her off one too many times. Not that she would be stepping in on Claire's side anytime soon.

Claire wiped the blood from her lip and looked at the other girls. The ones who were standing, uneasy and indecisive. Monica had been challenged and, so far, hadn't exactly delivered the smackdown everybody - Claire included - had expected. Kind of weird, really. Unless Claire really struck some nerve besides the ones running through Monica's knuckles.

Monica was rubbing her hand, looking at Claire as if she'd never seen her before. Assessing her. She said, "Nobody's told you the facts of life, Claire. The fact is, if you suddenly just up and disappear...?"

She jerked her pretty, pointed chin at the dusty towers of boxes. "Nobody but the janitor's ever going to know or care. You think Mommy and Daddy are going to get all upset? Maybe they would, but by the time they spend their last dime putting your picture on milk cartons and chasing down rumors of how you ran off with somebody else's boyfriend? They're going to hate to even think about you. Morganville's got it down to a science, making people disappear. They never disappear here. Always somewhere else."

Monica wasn't taunting her. That was the scary part. She was talking evenly, quietly, as if they were two equals having a friendly conversation.

"You want to know why I live in Howard?" she continued. "Because in this town, I can live anywhere I want. Any way I want. And you - you're just a walking organ donor. So take my advice, Claire. Don't get in my face, because if you do, you won't have one for long. Are we clear?"

Claire nodded slowly. She didn't dare look away. Monica reminded her of a feral dog, one that would jump for your throat the second you showed weakness. "We're clear," she said. "You're kind of a psycho. I get that."

"I might be," Monica agreed, and gave her a slow, strange smile. "You're one smart little freak. Now run away, smart little freak, before I change my mind and stick you in one of these old suitcases for some architect to find a hundred years from now."

Claire blinked. "Archaeologist."

Monica's eyes turned winter cold. "Oh, you'd better start running away now."

Claire went back to where Jennifer was standing, and reached behind her to drag the phone out from between the boxes. She held it up to Monica. "Speak clearly for the microphone. I want to make sure my friends get every word."

For a second, nobody moved, and then Monica laughed. "Damn, freak. You're going to be fun." She glanced away from Claire, behind her. "Not until I say so."

Claire looked over her shoulder. Gina was standing there, right there, and she had some kind of metal bar in her hand.

Oh my God. There was something awful and cold in Gina's eyes.

"She'll get hers," Monica said. "And we'll get to watch. But hey, why hurry? I haven't had this much fun in years."

Claire's legs felt like they'd suddenly turned into overcooked spaghetti. She wanted to throw up, wanted to cry, and didn't dare do anything but pretend to be brave. They'd kill her down here if they thought she was bluffing.

She walked past Gina, between two girls who wouldn't meet her eyes at all, and put her hand on the doorknob. As she did, she glanced down at the phone's display.

NO SIGNAL.

She opened the door, walked outside, and found her bags dumped on the grass where she'd been abducted. She pocketed the phone, picked up the bags, and walked across the parking lot to Eve's car.

Eve was still sitting in the driver's seat, looking clown-pale and scared.

Claire tossed her bag in the back as Eve asked, "What happened? Did they see you?"

"No," Claire said. "No problems. I've got class. I'll see you later. Thanks, Eve. Um - here's your phone." She passed it over. Eve took it, still frowning. "I'll be home before dark."

"Better be," Eve said. "Seriously, Claire. You look - weird."

Claire laughed. "Me? Check the mirror."

Eve flipped her off, but the same way she'd have flipped off Shane. Claire grabbed her backpack, closed the door, and watched Eve's big black car cruise away. Heading back to work, she guessed.

She got halfway to her chem lab when her reaction hit her, and she sat down on a bench and cried silently into her hands.

Oh my God. Oh my God, I want to go home! She wasn't sure if that meant back to Michael's house, or all the way home, back in her room with her parents watching over her.

I can't quit. She really couldn't. She never in her life had been able to, even when it might have been the smart thing to do.

She wiped her swollen eyes and went to class.

Nobody killed her that afternoon.

After the first couple of hours, she quit expecting it to happen, and focused on class. Her back-to-back labs weren't too much of a disaster, and she actually knew the answers in history. Bet Monica wouldn't, she thought, and looked guiltily around the classroom to see if Monica was there, or one of her crew. It wasn't a big class. She didn't see anybody who'd been in the basement.

She made it to the grocery store after class without getting killed, too. Nobody jumped her while she was picking out lettuce and tomatoes, or while she was in line for checkout. She thought the guy at the meat counter had looked suspicious, though.

She walked back to the Glass House, watching for vampires in the fading afternoon and feeling pretty stupid for even thinking about it. She didn't see anybody except other college students, strolling along with bulging backpacks. Most of them traveled in bunches. Once she got past the area that catered to students, the stores were closed, lights off, and what few people were walking were hurrying.

At the corner of Gone with the Wind and The Munsters, the front gate was open. She closed it behind her, unlocked the door with the shiny new key that she'd found on her dresser that morning, and slammed the door behind her.

There was a shadow standing at the end of the hallway. A tall, broad shadow in a grungy yellow T-shirt and low-slung, faded jeans frayed at the bottom. A shadow in bare feet.

Shane.

He just looked at her for a few seconds, then said, "Eve put your crap up in your room."

"Thanks."

"What's that?"

"Stuff for dinner."

He cocked his head slightly, still staring at her. "For a smart girl, you do some stupid things. You know that?"

"I know." She walked toward him. He didn't move.

"Eve says you never saw Monica."

"That's what I said."

"You know what? I'm not buying it."

"You know what?" she shot back. "I don't care. Excuse me." She ducked past him, into the kitchen, and set her bags down. Her hands were shaking. She balled them into fists and started setting out things on the counter. Ground beef. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Onions. Refried beans. Hot sauce, the kind she liked, anyway. Cheese. Sour cream. Taco shells.

"Let me guess," Shane said from the doorway. "You're making Chinese."

She didn't answer. She was still too pissed and - all of a sudden - too scared. Scared of what, she didn't know. Everything. Nothing. Herself.

"Anything I can do?" His voice sounded different. Quieter, gentler, almost kind.

"Chop onions," she said, although she knew that wasn't exactly what he meant. Still, he came over, picked up the onions, and grabbed a huge scary-looking knife from a drawer. "You have to peel it first."

He shot her a dirty look, just like he would have Eve, and got to work.

"Um - I should probably call my mom," Claire said. "Can I use the phone?"

"You pay for long distance."

"Sure."

He shrugged, reached over, and grabbed the cordless phone, then pitched it underhanded to her. She nearly dropped it, but was kind of proud she didn't. She got out a big iron skillet from under the cabinet and put it on the counter, heated up the burner, and found some oil. As it was warming, she read over the thin little recipe book she'd bought at the store one more time, then dialed the phone.

Her mom answered on the second ring. "Yes?" It was never hello with her mother.

"Mom, it's Claire."

"Claire! Baby, where have you been? I've been trying to call you for days!"

"Classes," she said. "Sorry. I'm not home that much."

"Are you sleeping enough? If you don't get enough rest, you'll get sick - you know how you are - "

"Mom, I'm fine." Claire frowned down at the recipe on the counter in front of her. What did saute mean, exactly? Was it like frying? Diced, she understood. That was just cutting things into cubes, and Shane was doing that already. "Really. It's all okay now."

"Claire, I know it's hard. We really didn't want you to go even just the few hundred miles to TPU, honey. If you want to come back home, your dad and I would be so glad to have you back!"

"Honestly, Mom, I don't - I'm fine. It's okay. Classes are really good" - that was stretching the truth - "and I've made friends here. They're looking out for me."

"You're sure."

"Yes, Mom."

"Because I worry. I know you're very mature for your age but - "

Shane opened his mouth to say something. Claire made frantic NO NO NO motions at him, pointing at the phone. Mom! she mouthed. Shane held up both hands in surrender and kept chopping. Mom was still talking. Claire had missed some of it, but she didn't think it really mattered exactly. " - boys, right?"

Wow. Mom radar worked even at this distance. "What, Mom?"

"Your dorm doesn't allow boys to come up to the rooms, does it? There's someone on duty at the desk to make sure?"

"Yes, Mom. Howard Hall has somebody on duty twenty-four/seven to keep the nasty evil boys out of our rooms." She hadn't actually lied, Claire decided. That was completely true. The fact that she wasn't actually living in Howard Hall...well, that wasn't really something she needed to throw in, right?

"It's not a laughing matter. You've been very sheltered, Claire, and I don't want you to - "

"Mom, I have to go. I need to eat dinner and I have a ton of studying to do. How's Dad?"

"Dad's just fine, honey. He says hello. Oh, come on, Les, get up and say hello to your very smart daughter. It won't break your back."

Shane handed her a bowl full of diced onions. Claire cradled the phone against her ear and dropped a handful of them into the pan. They started sizzling immediately, much to her panic; she lifted the pan off the burner and almost dropped the phone.

"Hi, kiddo. How are classes?" That was Dad. Not How was your day? or Have you made any friends?

No, his philosophy had always been, Eyes on the prize; the other stuff just gets in your way.

And she loved him anyway. "Classes are great, Daddy."

"Are you frying something? Do they let you have hot plates in the dorm? Didn't in my day, I can tell you...."

"Um...no, I just opened a Coke." Okay, that was a straight-up lie. She hastily put the pan down, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a cold Coke so she could open it. There. Retroactively truthful. "How are you feeling?"

"Feel fine. Wish everybody would stop worrying about me, not like I'm the first man in history to have a little surgery."

"I know, Daddy."

"Doctors say I'm fine."

"That's great."

"Gonna have to go, Claire, the game's on. You're okay down there, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm just fine. Daddy - "

"What is it, honey?"

Claire bit her lip and sipped Coke, indecisive. "Um...do you know anything about Morganville? History, that kind of thing?"

"Doing research, eh? Some kind of report? No, I don't know much. The university's been there for nearly a hundred years - that's all I know about it. I know you're on fire to get to the bigger schools, but I think you need to spend a couple of years close to home. We talked about all that."

"I know. I was just wondering.... It's an interesting town, that's all."

"Okay, then. You let us know what you find out. Your mother wants to say good-bye." Dad never did.

By the time Claire got out "Bye, Dad!" he was already gone, and Mom was back on the line. "Honey, you call us if you get worried about anything, okay? Oh, call us whatever happens. We love you!"

"Love you, too, Mom. Bye."

She put the phone down and stared at the sizzling onions, then the recipe. When the onions turned transparent, she dumped in the ground beef.

"So, finished lying to the folks?" Shane asked, and reached around Claire to snag a bite of grated cheese from the bowl on the counter. "Tacos. Brilliant. Damn, I'm glad I voted somebody in with skills."

"I heard that, Shane!" Eve yelled from the living room, just as the door slammed. Shane winced. "Do your own bathroom cleaning this weekend!"

Shane winced. "Truce!"

"Thought so."

Eve came in, still flushed from the heat outside. She'd sweated off most of her makeup, and underneath it, she looked surprisingly young and sweet. "Oh my God, that looks like real food!"

"Tacos," Shane said proudly, as if it were his idea. Claire elbowed him in the ribs, or tried to. His ribs were a lot more solid than her elbow. "Ow," he said. Not as if it hurt.

Claire glanced out the window. Night was falling fast, the way it did in Texas at the end of the day - furious burning sun all of a sudden giving way to a warm, sticky twilight. "Is Michael here?" she asked.

"Guess so." Shane shrugged. "He's always here for dinner."

The three of them got everything ready, and sometime midway through the assembly-line process they'd developed - Claire putting meat in taco shells, Eve adding toppings, Shane spooning beans onto the plates - a fourth pair of hands added itself to the line. Michael looked as if he'd just gotten up and showered - wet hair, sleepy eyes, beads of water still sliding down to soak the collar of his black knit shirt. Like Shane, he was wearing jeans, but he'd gone formal, with actual shoes.

"Hey," he greeted them. "This looks good."

"Claire did it," Eve jumped in as Shane opened his mouth. "Don't even let Shane take credit."

"Wasn't going to!" Shane looked offended.

"Riiiiiight."

"I chopped. What did you do?"

"Cleaned up after you, like always."

Michael looked over at Claire and made a face. She laughed and picked up her plate; Michael picked up his, and followed her out into the living room.

Someone - Michael, she guessed - had cleared the big wood table next to the bookcases, and set up four chairs around it. The stuff that had been piled there - video game cases, books, sheet music - had been dumped in other places, with a cheerful disregard for order. (Maybe, she amended, that had been Shane's idea.) She set her plate down, and Eve promptly slapped her own down next to Claire's and slid a cold Coke across to her, along with a fork and napkin. Michael and Shane strolled back in, took seats, and began shoveling in food like - well, like boys. Eve nibbled. Claire, who was surprisingly hungry, found herself on her second taco before Eve had gotten through her first one.

Shane was already headed back for more.

"Hey, dude," he said as he returned with a reloaded plate, "when are you going to get a gig again?"

Michael stopped chewing, flashed a look at Eve, then Claire, and then finished the bite before saying,

"When I'm ready."

"Pussy. You had a bad night, Mike. Get back on the horse, or whatever." Eve frowned at Shane, and shook her head. Shane ignored her. "Seriously, man. You can't let them get you down."

"I'm not," Michael said. "Not everything is about beating your head against the wall until it breaks."

"Just most things." Shane sighed. "Whatever. You let me know when you want to stop hermiting."

"I'm not hermiting. I'm practicing."

"Like you don't play good enough. Please."

"I get no respect," Michael said. Shane, busy taking another crunchy bite, rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. "Yeah, I know, world's smallest violin playing just for me. Change the subject. How was that hot date with Lisa, anyway? Rented shoes turn her on or what?"

"It's Laura," Shane said. "Yeah, she was hot, all right, but I think she had the hots for you - kept saying how she saw you over at the Waterhouse last year and you were all, like, wow, amazing. It was like a menage �� trois, only you weren't there, thank God."

Michael looked smug. "Shut up and eat."

Shane shot him the finger.

All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Michael and Eve washed dishes, having lost out on the coin toss, and Claire hovered in the living room, not sure what she wanted to do. Studying sounded - boring, which surprised her. Shane was concentrating on the video game selection, bare feet propped up on the coffee table. Without looking directly at Claire, he asked, "You want to see something cool?"

"Sure," she said. She expected him to put a game in, but he dumped it back in the pile, got up off the couch, and padded up the stairs. She stood at the bottom, staring up, wondering what to do. Shane appeared at the top of the stairs again and gestured, and she followed.

The second floor was quiet, of course, and dimly lit; she blinked and saw Shane already halfway down the hall. Was he heading for her room? Not that she didn't have a crazy hot picture in her head of sitting on the bed with him, making out...and she had no idea why that popped into her head, except that, well, he was just...yeah.

Shane moved aside a picture hanging on the wall between her room and Eve's, and pressed a button underneath.

And a door opened on the other side of the wall. It was built into the paneling, and she'd never have even known it was there. She gasped, and Shane beamed like he'd invented the wheel. "Cool, huh? This damn house is full of crap like that. Trust me, in Morganville it pays to be up on the hiding places." He pushed open the door, revealed another set of stairs, and padded up them. She expected them to be dusty, but they weren't; the wood was clean and polished. Shane's feet left prints of the ball of his foot and his toes.

It was a narrow pitch of just eight steps, half a story, really, and there was another door at the top. Shane opened it and flipped on a switch just inside. "First time I saw this, and the room back of the pantry, I figured, yep. Vampire house. What do you think?"

If she believed in vampires, he might have been right. It was a small room, no windows, and it was...old.

It wasn't just the stuff in it, which was antique and dark; it had this sense of...something ancient, something not quite right. And it was cold. Cold, in the middle of a Texas heat wave.

She shivered. "Does everybody know about this room?"

"Oh yeah. Eve says it's haunted. Can't really blame her. It creeps me the hell out, too. Cool, though.

We'd have stuck you in here when the cops came, only they'd have seen you through the windows coming out of the kitchen. They're nosy bastards." Shane wandered across the thick Persian carpet to flop on the dark red Victorian couch. Dust rose in a cloud, and he waved it off, coughing. "So what do you think? Think Michael sleeps off his evil-undead days in here, or what?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Oh, come on. You think he's one of them, right? 'Cause he doesn't show up during the day?"

"I - I don't think anything!"

Shane nodded, eyes downcast. "Right. You weren't sent here."

"Sent - sent here by who?"

"I got to thinking.... The cops were looking for you, but maybe they were looking for you to make us want to keep you here, instead of pitch you out. So which is it? Are you working for them?"

"Them?" she echoed thinly. "Them, who?" Shane suddenly looked at her, and she shivered again. He wasn't like Monica, not at all, but he wasn't playing around, either. "Shane, I don't know what you mean. I came to Morganville to go to school, and got beaten up, and I came here because I was scared.

If you don't believe me - well, then I guess I'll go. Hope you liked the tacos."

She went to the door, and stopped, confused.

There wasn't a doorknob.

Behind her, Shane said quietly, "The reason I think this is a vampire's room? You can't get out of it unless you know the secret. That's real convenient, if you like to bring victims up here for a little munch session."

She whirled around, expecting to see him standing there with that huge knife he'd used on the onions, and she'd broken the first rule of horror movies, hadn't she, or was it the second one? She'd trusted someone she shouldn't have....

But he was still sitting on the couch, slumped at ease, arms flung over the back on both sides.

Not even looking at her.

"Let me out," she said. Her heart was hammering.

"In a minute. First, you tell me the truth."

"I have!" And, to her fury and humiliation, she started to cry. Again. "Dammit! You think I'm trying to hurt you? Hurt Michael? How could I? I'm the one everybody hurts!"

He looked at her then, and she saw the hardness melt away. His voice was a lot gentler when he spoke.

"And if I was somebody who wanted to kill Michael, I'd put somebody like you in to do it. Be real easy for you to kill somebody, Claire. Poison some food, slip a knife in his back...and I have to look out for Michael."

"I thought he looked out for you." She swiped angrily at her eyes. "Why do you think somebody wants to kill him?"

Shane raised his eyebrows. "Always somebody wanting to kill a vampire."

"But - he's not. Eve said - "

"Yeah, I know he's not a vampire, but he doesn't get up during the day, he doesn't go out of the house, and I can't get him to tell me what happened, so he might as well be. And somebody's going to think so, sooner or later. Most people in Morganville are either Protected or clueless - kind of like you can raise rabbits for either pets or meat. But some of them fight back."

She blinked the last of the brief storm of tears away. "Like you?"

He cocked his head to one side. "Maybe. How about you? You a fighter, Claire?"

"I'm not working for anybody. And I wouldn't kill Michael even if he was a vampire."

Shane laughed. "Why not? Besides the fact that he'd snap you in two like a twig if he was."

"Because - because - " She couldn't put it into words, exactly. "Because I like him."

Shane watched her for another few, long seconds, and then pressed a raised spot on the head of the lion-carving armrest of the couch.

The door clicked and popped open half an inch.

"Good enough for me," he said. "So. Dessert?"