Thanks for the reviews you guys. I didn't expect them to be so good, wow. I'll definitely keep updating. :)
What in the world had she done? Claire's cheeks felt like a flair of reds and unnatural purples exploding. Fire was still in her blood but it wasn't any of the fire she felt before. No more desire, just rage. Walking out of Myrnin's lab had been like trying to recover from a terrible hangover, not that Claire usually had the leverage or want to drink, but she could only imagine. And boy was she pissed. Myrnin had taken complete and utter advantage of her. She had wanted him to bite her. Just the thought of it made the taste of coffee on her tongue go sour.
Did vampires have some sort of hypnosis ability? Before Claire moved to Morganville she would have never questioned such a thing, because hello, vampires existing in general, but also because Claire was technical. When things couldn't be proven, couldn't be authentic, she would always question them. Now, living in Morganville, there just wasn't enough time to question everything, and sometimes being utterly oblivious was a good thing. She remembered when she'd first come to Morganville. She knew nothing of the horrors it harbored and didn't live in constant fear of her life. It's funny how things change.
Speaking of things changing, what screw was loose in Myrnin's brain this time? The foam coffee cup in Claire's hands began to take the form of her straining fingers. She'd never wanted to hit something so badly. Myrnin was lying to her. There hadn't been any sort of renovating or chemical high; he just wanted to eat her like he did Ada, but why? He'd gotten so much better. Um, excluding recent events and such, he seemed to realize his mistakes more and more often enough to correct them. Claire was pretty sure he wouldn't try some crazy crap like that again. She thought he wouldn't try to eat another one of his assistants either, not after his first attempt on her, but she was wrong.
Her heart was breaking, just a little. But mostly she felt it sputtering and spitting over Shane. She couldn't hurt him, she really couldn't. Her internal conflict was interrupted by a hideous eruption of laughter behind her.
"Well, I don't have time to chauffeur him around Morganville but I have enough time to teach him a thing or two," Monica Morrell cooed. Claire could practically hear the flicking of her dark hair. "He is exactly my cup of coffee."
The sound of a chair leg scraping across the floor at her table made Claire lift up from her silent suffering.
"Yeah I guess," she heard Jennifer, one of Monica's minions, reply. Her voice sounded a lot more somber than usual. "Oh shit!" She whispered sharply in the next moment. "He's sitting with little miss Buffy."
Claire's eyes had a film of worry and guilt that she had to wipe away before surveying the person who had taken the liberty to sit at her table. When she finally got her vision back she got a nice look at a boy about her age, neck deep in a thick book. His maple hair waved slightly in tune with the air conditioning of Common grounds, and glasses were held firmly in one of his hands. Jeez, he seemed kind of uptight.
Okay, a lot uptight. Was that sweat on his brow too? "Um, hi," Claire said already wiping the clam off of her palms with her jeans. Before she could finish Monica exploded in another bout of laughter.
"Oh, I think you're right Jen. Looks like Claire has a little crush on Theodore." Theodore?
Monica walked over to stand behind the nervous boy, who was gradually starting to look less nervous and more on the edge of insanity. Monica's hands were scoping down his shoulders, examining every stitch in his sweater. "You two have met?"
At any other time Claire would have gotten smart. She could already hear the insult tingling on her lips. No, but I see you have. Are you "hiring" yet another tutor or is he just doing your work for you now because I know how hard it is for you. Eve would approve, but instead she settled for a very dry "No."
Monica's perfectly plucked eyebrows rose. "I'm surprised. You two are like, twins or something." Theodore still hadn't looked up. He looked down right uncomfortable, and for that, Claire felt sorry for him. She'd been there before. When he looked up from his book she saw real terror in his eyes, but she saw something else too. It was something that made her look away quickly. If she was right, he had looked at her with menace. Okay, so that was new. Claire suddenly didn't feel all that comfortable herself.
"Glad to know, Monica, but I was just leaving." She gathered up her backpack that felt like more than the weight of the world, it felt like the whole solar system, and decided to leave behind her cold coffee. She was edging towards the door when the sound of Monica's heels clinking across the floor made her hand ball into a fist. "Wait!" Monica, looking primped and pressed despite her tedious journey two feet across the room in what could only be described as leather on a sewing needle, put a hand on Claire's shoulder for "support".
"Look, it's totally okay that you have a crush on him. I won't tell Shane."
Claire's stomach dropped and fell right to her feet. Was it just her, or could everyone hear it slosh to the ground like that? "Uh, what crush?" Yeah, what crush? Why couldn't she breathe out of her nose anymore? Why did she suddenly feel like confessing about what happened in the lab earlier? Oh god, she couldn't. Just when she was about to flee Monica's lips curled into a ravenous smile, "Theodore, I know that you like him. Look at you blushing."
She was blushing, but that was besides the point. Her heart filled with an almost bitter sweet syrup, one that was laced with the energy to send Monica flying across the room. Instead, she stood there for a few more seconds, and then walked right out of the coffee shop.
For the first time in Claire's whole existence, she was glad Shane wasn't at home. The thought of seeing him smile and touch her so unknowingly and in complete trust of their relationship made her want to cry. She sucked it up though, and took a long and thoughtful shower. She hated Myrnin. She hated him for what he did to Frank, for what he did to her. But most of all, she hated him because of what he was doing to Shane. Yeah, go ahead and take away his peace of mind over his father, and then try to seduce his girlfriend.
Claire didn't bother covering herself up as she escaped the steamy nest of her shower's aftermath. The house was empty, and seemed to breathe in time with her emotional stress. Shane's door was open, which was odd to her. She'd never really thought about it, but his room was always closed, probably because it was never presentable in the first place.
She walked in, patting her wet hair down with a towel, and surveyed its abandoned state. His dresser contained a picture of him and her one morning inside of their secret room. Shane's arm extending towards the camera blocked half of the shot, and she was blurred slightly from moving and giggling beside him. It made her heart ache more than she could stand, so she left his room before she could start the waterworks.
It took Eve and Michael thirty more minutes until they got home, laughing and giggling with one another. Man, did everything have to remind her what she'd done today? Descending the stairs was like meeting an unnerving doom. "Hey guys," her voice came out too small, too shaky, so she cleared her throat. "Hey, guys?"
"Oh, hey Claire, "Michael said, looking gorgeous and positively angelic. "Shane left?"
"Nope, he wasn't here when I came home either." She shrugged. Eve was removing a pot from the cabinets. She smelled it, and made a mock gagging motion. "This pot smells like old chili, gross."
Claire leaned against the wall nearest to the window. "Maybe it's just tired of all of the chili we feed it."
The smell of one of the burners warming embraced the room. "Hey, CB," Eve grinned.
"Hey, Eve."
Michael moved to the refrigerator and grabbed one of his sports bottles. "I'm going to have to agree with Claire, we eat way too much of that stuff. I think I smell like old chili too."
Eve gave a little frustrated sigh and reluctantly put down the can of chili. "Okay so what are we supposed to eat? If your bear of a boyfriend would come home, maybe we could have something other than chili, but still tiring and everlasting in smell." She said, heavy on the sarcasm. Her skull printed tutu and black leggings added just the right touch.
"I'll call him." Claire retrieved Eve's skull bedazzled phone from the table and dialed Shane's number. A replay of Myrnin demolishing her phone into tiny pieces caused her to draw in a strong breath of air. She had to stop torturing herself.
It went straight to voicemail. That was weird, she thought, Shane wasn't that good of an employee to be gracious enough to ever turn off his phone. She tried again. Voicemail.
Worry formed in a tight bubble around her stomach. She swallowed, "I don't know, he isn't answering."
"Maybe the battery died." Michael offered. Eve clunked across the room to stand next to Claire. Her cheery features dropped as soon as she was close enough to read the worry in Claire's eyes.
"Oh my god, Michael you asshole! What if something happened? I'm finding my keys." She took off into the living room, muttering things like "I swear this boy is going to get me killed" in search of her keys.
Michael was up in a flash lending Claire a pair of ears to talk to. "Are you okay? You've been kind of weird since we came home."
Well, great, they could tell she was a nauseous, nervous, guilty, lying cheating sham too? She might as well prepare a full "You may never want to speak to me again" speech right now, because as soon as Shane got a look of her he would force the truth out of her himself, and that wouldn't fair over well. Her head was pounding.
"Yeah I'm fine, just worried."
Eve's voice rang through the house "Found them! If Shane is okay, I call punching him in the ribs."
Michael gave a low chuckle. "I can take care of that for you." Their eyes met and that unmistakable electric currency wiggled and wormed between the two of them. It made Claire feel sick which it hadn't ever done, well, unless she caught them making out in very uncompromising positions. Those images just never quite went away. She shuddered. "Okay you two, cut it out, Jesus. Let's go find Sh—"
The door knob rattled violently, and then the door opened in such a reining fury both Claire and Eve screamed at the top of their lungs. Shane slammed it behind him and marched inside with shoes covered in…blood? What in the world.
"What the fuck." The three of them said in unison. Shane wouldn't look at either one of them. He was breathing heavily, hair standing up all over his head like he'd just seen a ghost. Claire ran over to him, grabbing his face and trying to get a good look into his eyes.
"Oh my god Shane, what happened?"
He shook her off as if she was nothing more than a delirious homeless person. His fingers were trembling and covered in some sort of black grime, like the kind you get when working on a vehicle. Michael stormed up to him, face twisted in anger.
"What. The. Hell. Are you doing, Shane? Answer me!" He hissed. "You scared the living shit out of us."
"Just back off, "Shane muttered, and tried to walk around Michael but Michael stood in front of him again, using his quicker vampire reflexes to outmatch him. Eve had inched over to Claire, and held her hand for comfort. Shane finally looked up. His eyes were ablaze with something horrible. She'd seen it before, but never as intense. His pupils were huge and frightened, but still held enough anger to light up the sun.
"I said BACK OFF!" He shouted, and shoved Michael so hard he fell into the table. You could visibly see Michael's muscles tensing and his legs getting ready to spring out and attack Shane, but before he could Shane wobbled on his feet. Claire and Eve automatically started towards him in case he would fall, but he didn't. His voice came out stale and horribly strained. "I killed him. I made sure he was dead."
Silence. Claire's blood turned cold, and she heard Eve's dramatic intake of air. Michael raised the question everyone wanted to know. "Who, Shane? Tell us who."
Shane didn't hesitate; his voice was cold and hard. "The man responsible for this," He held up his cell phone and from the speakers Frank Collin's voice emitted a condescending laugh.
"Hello, Claire."