Book: Glass House Chapter three/four
Chapter four
So sorry it's long but it'll explain some things Michael was thinking back in the day when he first met Claire.
Michael's pov:
This wasn't good Bishop and his followers were back from the dead because of Claire and her family that meant trouble. I know that Claire knew what she'd done and she was out with her family searching everywhere for him. I wasn't any use they had better chance than any vampire. Shane and Eve where here with me and Claire was all alone well not really but mostly I guess. What happened after Bishop got free was strange.
Flashback:
Claire came over to us and hugged us. "Guys this is my sister Chelsea she died when I was about eleven and we look the same because she's my other half if you like and well she tried to protect our father and got killed. Then when she came back she became insane and the curse was put on me and Bishop killed her again because she became so insane. So we'll be back soon and I love you guys a lot so be careful. We're going to go hunt down Bishop and his followers don't worry I'll be careful." She said and hugged us again and walked off with her family and I started to burn and ran into the house and it just seemed strange without Claire here in the house with us it felt like a piece was missing and Bishop was back that meant it was war and Claire was in the middle of it.
End of Flashback:
We were all sitting around and Eve grabs the book and starts flipping to a page. "Why don't we read the rest of this?" she asked us.
"Why not it'll past the time while Claire's not here with us and we haven't got anything better to do because of the dangerous situation called Bishop." Said Shane they both looked at me and I just nodded and Eve began reading.
"Chapter three
She woke up in the dark with a panicked flinch that sent the ice pack - water sloshing in a bag now - thumping off her pillow and onto the floor.
The house was quiet, except for the creaky, creepy noises houses made at night. Outside, wind rattled the dry leaves on the trees, and she heard music coming from the other side of the bedroom door."
I thought to myself she really was scared that night when she saw me disappear in front of her. I wish she hadn't found out about that but then I wouldn't be what I am now if it wasn't for her.
"The music was slow and warm and contemplative, kind of guitar alternative.
She got her shoes on, took a look in the dresser mirror, and got a nasty shock. Her face still hurt, and it was obvious why - her right eye was swollen, the skin around it purple. Her split lip looked shiny and unpleasantly thick, too. Her face - always pale - looked even paler than normal. Her short pixie-cut black hair had a serious case of bed-head, but she fluffed it out into something like order. She'd never really been much for makeup, even when she'd been stealing Mom's to try on."
"Man she looked great in that pink and white wig we got in Dallas, where is that anyway?" Eve stated.
"Not sure but I loved the way she looked totally sexy like always." Shane replied to Eve.
"She's not here Shane your safe" I said but Eve gave me a look that said she would tell Claire when she got back about what we'd said about her.
"Claire took a deep breath and opened her bedroom door. Lights were on in the hall, warm and glowing gold; the music was coming from downstairs, in the living room. She checked a clock hanging on the wall at the far end; it was after midnight - she'd slept for more than twelve hours.
And missed all her classes."
She always cared about her classes and she still cares about them even now after everything that's happened. Well being a Physics professor she would.
"Not that she'd have wanted to show up looking like this, even if she hadn't been so paranoid about Monica following her around...but she'd need to hit the books later. At least the books didn't hit back.
Her bruises felt better, and in fact her head hurt only a little. Her ankle was still the worst of it, sending sharp glassy jabs of pain up her leg with every step down the stairs.
She was halfway down when she saw the boy sitting on the couch, where Shane had been sprawled before. He had a guitar in his hands.
Oh. The music. She'd thought it was a recording, but no, this was real, this was live, and he was playing it. She'd never heard live music before - not really playing, not like this. He was...wow. He was wonderful."
"Well that is my husband after all." Eve said too proudly for this.
"She watched him, frozen, because he clearly didn't even know she existed yet; it was just him and the guitar and the music, and if she had to put a name to what she could see on his face, it would be something poetic, like longing. He was blond, his hair cut kind of like Shane's, in a careless mop. Not as big as Shane, and not as muscled, though he was maybe as tall. He was wearing a T-shirt; too, black, with a beer logo, blue jeans. No shoes.
He stopped playing, head down, and reached for the open beer on the table in front of him.
He toasted empty air. "Happy birthday to you, man." He tossed back three swallows, sighed, and put the bottle down. "And here's to house arrest. What the hell. Own it or get owned."
Claire coughed. He turned, startled, and saw her standing there on the stairs; his frown cleared after a second or two. "Oh. You're the one Shane said wanted to talk about the room. Hey. Come on down."
She did, trying not to limp, and when she got into the full light she saw his quick, intelligent blue eyes catalogue the bruises.
He didn't say a word about them. "I'm Michael," he said. "And you're not eighteen, so this is going to be a real short conversation."
She sat, fast, heart pounding. "I'm in college," she said. "I'm a freshman. My name is -"
"Don't bullshit me, and I don't care what your name is. You're not eighteen. It's a good bet you're not even seventeen. We don't take anybody in this house who isn't legal." He had a deep voice, warm but - at least right now - hard. "Not that you'd be signing on to Orgy Central, but sorry, me and Shane have to worry about things like that. All it takes is you living here and somebody even hinting there's something going on -"
"Wait," she blurted. "I wouldn't do that. Or say that. I'm not looking to get you guys in trouble. I just need -"
"No," he said. He put the guitar aside, in its case, and latched it shut. "I'm sorry, but you can't stay here. House rules."
"Man you were rude, what made you say that?" Shane asked me. I just shrugged my shoulders as Eve continued to read the story. I knew why because that was one more person to find out my secret and I couldn't risk it but I was glad she was here because in a way she freed me.
"She'd known it was coming, of course, but she'd let herself think - Eve had been nice, and Shane hadn't been horrible, and the room was so nice - but the look in Michael's eyes was as final as it got. Complete and utter rejection.
She felt her lips trembling, and hated herself for it. Why couldn't she be a badass, stone-cold bitch? Why couldn't she stand up for herself when she needed to without breaking down into tears like a baby?"
Man she was hard on herself for something like that maybe I shouldn't have been that hard on her like that but I can't go back for it. I wish I could.
"Monica would slap money down on the table and dare him to turn it down.
Claire reached in her back pocket and pulled out her wallet. "How much?" she asked, and started counting out bills. She had twenties, so it looked like a lot. "Three hundred enough? I can get more if I have to."
Michael sat back, surprised, a little frown bracketing his forehead. He reached for his beer and took another sip while he thought about it. "How?" he asked.
"What?"
"How would you get more?"
"Get a job. Sell stuff."
Not that she had much to sell, but in an emergency there was always the panicked call to Mom. "I want to stay here, Michael. I really do." She was surprised at the conviction in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm under eighteen, but I swear, you won't have any trouble from me. I'll stay out of your way. I go to school, and I study. That's all I do. I'm not a partyer, I'm not a slacker. I'm useful. I'll - I'll help clean and cook."
He thought about it, staring at her; he was the kind of person you could actually see thinking. It was a little scary, although he probably didn't mean it to be. There was just something so...adult about him. So sure of himself.
"No," he said. "I'm sorry, kid. But it's just too much risk."
"Eve's only a little bit older than I am!"
"Eve's eighteen. You're what, sixteen?"
"Almost seventeen!" If you were a little fluid on the definition of almost. "I really am in college. I'm a freshman - look, here's my student ID..."
He ignored it. "Come back in a year. We'll talk about it," he said. "Look, I'm sorry. What about the dorm?"
"They'll kill me if I stay there," she said, and looked down at her clasped hands. "They tried to kill me today."
"What?"
"The other girls. They punched me and shoved me down the stairs."
Silence. A really long one. She heard the creak of leather, and then Michael was on one knee next to the chair. Before she could stop him, he was probing the bump on her head, tilting it back so he could get a good, impersonal look at the bruises and cuts. "What else?" he asked.
"What?"
"Besides what I can see? You're not going to drop dead on me, are you?"
Wow, sensitive."
"You're really not that sensitive before you turn into a ghost we're you?" Shane asked me. But I just couldn't believe it Claire was so more… different in her head than she was when she actually talked to you but now she was defiantly smarter, talkative and funny and more confident in herself now because of us and what is happening to her. I thought. Eve kept reading the book after what Shane had said.
""I'm okay. I saw the doctor and everything. It's just - bruises. And a strained ankle. But they pushed me down the stairs, and they meant it, and she told me –"Suddenly, Eve's words about vampires came back to her and made her trip over her tongue. "The girl in charge, she told me that tonight, I'd get what was coming to me. I can't go back to the dorm, Michael. If you send me out that door, they'll kill me, because I don't have any friends and I don't have any place to go!"
He stayed there for a few more seconds, looking her right in the eyes, and then retreated to the couch.
He unlatched the guitar case again and cradled the instrument; she thought that was his comfort zone, right there, with the guitar in his arms. "These girls. Do they go out in daylight?"
She blinked. "You mean, outside? Sure. They go to classes. Well, sometimes."
"Do they wear bracelets?"
She blinked. "You mean, like - "Eve had left hers behind on the table, so she picked up the leather band with its red symbol. "Like this? I never noticed. They wear a lot of stuff." She thought hard, and maybe she did remember something after all. The bracelets didn't look like this, though. They were gold, and Monica and the Monickettes all had them on their right wrists. She'd never paid much attention. "Maybe."
"Bracelets with white symbols?" Michael made the question casual; in fact, he bent his head and concentrated on tuning his guitar, not that it needed it. Every note sounded perfect as it whispered out of the strings. "Do you remember?"
"No." She felt a pure burst of something that wasn't quite panic, wasn't quite excitement. "Does that mean they have Protection?"
He hesitated for about a second, just long enough for her to know he was surprised. "You mean condoms?" he asked. "Doesn't everybody?"
"You know what I mean." Her cheeks were burning. She hoped it wasn't as obvious as it felt.
"Don't think I do."
"Eve said -"
He looked up sharply, and those blue eyes were suddenly angry. "Eve needs to keep her mouth shut. She's in enough danger as it is, trolling around out there in Goth gear. They already think she's mocking them. If they hear she's talking..."
"HEY" Eve yelled at me and I just smiled at her and she hugged me and I hugged her back.
"They, who?" Claire asked. It was his turn to look away.
"People," he said flatly. "Look, I don't want your blood on my hands. You can stay for a couple of days. But only until you find a place, right? And make it fast - I'm not running a halfway house for battered girls. I've got enough to worry about trying to keep Eve and Shane out of trouble."
For a guy who made such beautiful music, he was bitter, and a little scary."
"First impressions are important Mickey gotta be careful what you say to people." Shane said a little to mocking but I knew what he meant. I had been a bit too mean on little Claire Bear.
"Claire put the money hesitantly on the table in front of him. He stared at it, jaw tense.
"The rent's a hundred a month," he said. "You buy groceries once a month, too. First month in advance. But you're not staying past that, so keep the rest."
She swallowed and picked up two hundred of the three hundred she'd counted out. "Thanks," she said.
"Don't thank me," he said. "Just don't get us into trouble. I mean it."
She got up, went into the kitchen, and spooned chili into two bowls, added the bowls to trays along with spoons and Cokes, and brought it all back to set it on the coffee table. Michael stared at it, then her. She sat down on the floor - painfully - and began eating. After a pause, Michael took his bowl and tasted it.
"Shane made it," Claire said. "It's pretty good."
"Yeah. Chili and spaghetti, that's pretty much all Shane can cook. You know how to make anything?"
"Sure."
"Like?"
"Lasagne," she said. "And, um, sort of a hamburger hash thing, with noodles. And tacos."
"And there always sweet and good to eat and now she knows how to make even more food for us to eat every day." That was Shane of course he loved his food and it was making us all hunger and Eve went to the phone to call for a pizza and it would be here soon.
"Michael looked thoughtful. "Could you make tacos tomorrow?"
"Sure," she said. "I have classes from eleven to five, but I'll stop and pick up the stuff."
He nodded, eating steadily, glancing up at her once in a while. "I'm sorry," he finally said.
"About what?"
"Being an asshole. Look, it's just that I can't - I have to be careful. Really careful."
"You weren't being an asshole," she said. "You're trying to protect yourself and your friends. That's okay. That's what you're supposed to do."
Michael smiled, and it transformed his face, made it suddenly angelic and wonderful. Dude, she thought in amazement. He's totally gorgeous. No wonder he'd been worried about her being underage. A smile like that, he'd be peeling girls off of him right and left.
"If you're in this house, you're my friend," he said. "What's your name, by the way?"
"Claire. Claire Danvers."
"Welcome to the Glass House, Claire Danvers."
"But only temporarily."
"Yeah, temporarily."
They shared a smile, uneasily, and Michael cleared up the plates this time, and Claire went back up to her room, to spread out her books on the built-in desk and start the day's studying.
She listened to him playing downstairs, the soft and heartfelt accompaniment to the night, as she fell into the world she loved."
"That's the end of chapter three guys and I'm still bored what you want to do?" Eve said.
"We could do more of the book till the pizza gets here and we could see what Claire did. I so love the idea of this and it's more fun that way. We could question Claire about all this when she gets back?" Shane said he was really enjoying this it was silly to do that to your own wife I wouldn't do that to Eve if that were me.
"Yeah let's do it Michael you can read it then when Claire gets back she can read it as well." Eve said she was really enjoying reading about this as well.
"Yeah why not so what happens next Eve?" I asked and she turned the page to chapter four.
"Chapter four
Morning dawned bright and early, and Claire woke up to the smell of frying bacon. She stumbled to the bathroom down the hall, yawning, barely aware that she was scantily dressed in her extra-long T-shirt until she remembered, Oh my God, boys live here, too."
We all laughed at this I could imagine Claire now she'd of walked along and then realised after she came back because Shane or me would of come into the hallway and she'd run past us like the other morning.
Flashback to yesterday morning:
I woke up early to get to work and saw Claire coming out of the bathroom in one of Shane's t-shirts and she saw me standing shell shocked and she started blushing and ran past me into their room and I heard Shane laugh as she told him and her slapping him violently then he came out the room and Claire throwing a pillow at his head.
Flashback to yesterday morning: End
"On impulse, she opened the closet, and found some old stuff pushed to the back. T-shirts, mostly, from bands she'd never heard of, and a few she remembered as ancient. A couple of sweaters, too. She stripped off her blood-stained shirt and dragged on a faded black one, and, after thinking about it, left her shoes on the floor.
Downstairs, Eve and Shane were arguing in the kitchen about the right way to make scrambled eggs. Eve said they needed milk. Shane said milk was for pussies.
Claire padded silently past them, over to the refrigerator, and pulled out a carton of orange juice. She splashed some into a glass, then silently held the carton up for the other two. Eve took it and poured herself a glass, then handed it to Shane.
"So," Shane asked, "Michael didn't pitch you out."
"No."
Shane nodded slowly. He was even bigger and taller than she remembered, and his skin was a golden brown colour, like he'd spent a lot of time in the sun over the summer. His hair had that bronzy sheen, too.
Sun-bleached where Michael was naturally blond. Okay, truthfully? They're both hotties.
She wished she hadn't really thought that, but at least she hadn't said it out loud."
Eve started laughing and it became contagious and really funny because imagining Claire saying it now would have been funny but then it would have been hilarious.
"Eve was silently watching the two of them, which Claire figured was a new experience for Eve, at least the not-talking part. "He's your friend, right?"
"He saved my life," Shane said. "I'd die for him, but it'd be a dumbass thing to do to thank him for it. So yeah. He's been my friend all my life, and he's more like a brother. So don't get him in trouble."
"I won't," she said. "No milk in the eggs."
"See?" Shane turned back to the counter and started cracking eggs into a bowl. "Told ya."
"Traitor," Eve sighed, and poked at the frying bacon with a fork. "Fine. So How was Linda last night?"
"Laura."
"Whatever. Not like I have to remember a name for more than one date, anyway."
"She bowled a one fifty."
"God, you're such a disappointment. Share, already!"
Shane smiled tightly down at the eggs. "Hey, not in front of the kid. You got the note."
"Kid?" That hurt. Claire dropped plates on the counter with a little too much force. "Note?"
Shane handed over a folded piece of paper. It was short and sweet, and signed "Michael"...and it told them that Claire was underage, and that the two of them were supposed to look out for her while she was in the house."
I remembered writing that before I did one of my disappearing acts and it hurt to say that about Claire not because well she wasn't one she was older than me and the others but we hadn't known that then.
"Cute. Claire didn't know whether to be pissed or flattered. On reflection...pissed. "I'm not a kid!" she told Shane hotly. "I'm only, like, a year younger than Eve!"
"And girls are much more mature." Eve nodded wisely. "So you're about ten years older than Shane, then."
"Seriously," Claire insisted. "I'm not a kid!"
"Whatever you say, kid," Shane said blandly. "Cheer up. Just means you don't have to put up with me telling you how much sex I didn't get."
"Which won't be forever anyway." Shane mumbled not realising that I could hear him, I didn't understand what he was saying what did he mean by it.
"I'm telling Michael," Eve warned.
"About how much sex I didn't get? Go ahead."
"No bacon for you."
"Then no eggs for you. Either of you."
Eve glowered at him. "Prisoner exchange?"
They glared at each other, then swapped pans and started scooping."
"Man and you called Claire the kid?" I said laughing at there antics as always and we laughed together.
"Claire was just about to join in when the front doorbell rang a lilting silvery sound. It wasn't a scary sound, but Eve and Shane froze and looked at each other, and that was scary, somehow. Shane put his plate down on the granite countertop, licked bacon grease from his fingers, and said, "Get her out of sight."
Eve nodded. She dropped her own plate onto the counter, grabbed Claire's wrist, and hustled her to the pantry - a door half hidden in the shadow of the awkwardly placed refrigerator. It was big, dark, and dusty, shelves crowded with old cans of yams and asparagus and glass jars of ancient jellies. There was a light with a string pull above, but Eve didn't turn it on. She reached behind a row of murky-looking cans of fruit and hit some kind of a switch. There was a grating rumble, then a click, and part of the back wall swung open.
Eve pushed it back, reached in, and grabbed a flashlight that she handed to Claire. "Inside," she said.
"I'm going to turn the light on out here, but try to keep that flashlight off if you hear voices. It could show through the cracks." Claire nodded, a little dazed, and crouched down to crawl through the small opening into...a big empty room, stone floored, no windows. A few spider webs in the corners, and loads of dust, but otherwise it didn't look too bad.
Until Eve shut the door, and then the darkness slammed down, and Claire hastily flicked on the flashlight, moved to the nearest corner, and knelt down there, breathing fast and hard.
Just one minute ago, they'd been laughing about bacon and eggs, and all of a sudden...what the hell had just happened? And why was there a secret compartment in this house? One with - so far as she could tell - no other entrances or exits?"
If I didn't know Claire back then I would of said she needed to toughen up but Claire now well you couldn't imagin that she was now the most feared human in all of Morganville and if you were new then you wouldn't think that such a small girl could be so much trouble.
"She heard distant voices, and hastily thumbed off the flashlight. That was bad. She'd never really been afraid of the dark, but dark wasn't really dark most of the time... There were stars, moonlight, distant streetlights.
This was pitch-black, take-no-prisoners dark, and she had the ice-cold thought that anything could be right next to her, reaching out for her, and she'd never see it coming.
Claire bit down hard on her lip, gripped the flashlight tightly, and slid down the wall until her searching hand found the rough wood of the door she'd come in through. A little light was leaking in around it, barely a glimmer but enough to ease the pounding in her chest.
Voices. Shane's and someone else's. A man's voice, deeper than Shane's. "...standard inventory."
"Sir, there's nobody living here but what's on the roster. Just the three of us." Shane sounded subdued and respectful, which didn't seem like him. Not that she knew him that well, but he was kind of a smart-ass.
"Which one are you?" the voice asked.
"Shane Collins, sir."
"Get your third in here," the voice said.
"Well, I would, but - Michael's not here. He's out until tonight. You want to check back then?"
"Yeah thanks man made me look real stupid then." Shane said to me.
"Sorry man but I was a ghost back then." I replied.
"I know that but you should of told me." Shane argued and I nodded agreeing that I should of told them eariler than I had and if Claire hadn't of caught me then I would still be a ghost I guess.
"Never mind." Claire, straining her ears, heard paper rustling. "You're Eve Rosser?"
"Yes, sir." Eve sounded respectful, but brisk.
"Moved out of your parents' house - eight months ago?"
"Yes, sir."
"Employed?"
"At Common Grounds, you know, the coffee -"
The man, whoever he was, interrupted her. "You. Collins. Any employment?" Clearly talking to Shane.
"I'm between jobs, sir. You know how it is."
"Keep looking. We don't like slackers in Morganville. Everybody contributes."
"Yes, sir. I'll keep it in mind, sir."
A brief pause. Maybe there had been a little bit more smart-ass in Shane's response than there should have been. Claire deliberately slowed her breathing, trying to hear more."
"Man she was really that nosey that she'd slow her breathing to listen in?" Eve said and laughed at the thought of her trying to do that. Then Eve continued reading.
"You left town for a couple of years, boy. What brings you back?"
"Homesick, sir." Yes, it was definitely back in his voice, and even Claire knew that was a bad thing.
"Missed all my old friends."
"Sure." Eve said and looked pointly at Shane.
"Alright woman calm down." Shane said. "Keep reading and stop looking at me like that."
"Claire would kick you too." Eve grumbled as she contiuned reading.
"She heard Eve clear her throat. "Sir, I'm sorry, but I've got work in a half hour...?"
More paper shuffling. "One other thing. Here's a picture of a girl that disappeared from her dorm last night. You haven't seen her?"
They both chorused a "No."
He must not have believed them, because he didn't sound convinced. "What's in here?" He didn't wait to hear a response; he just opened the outer door of the pantry. Claire flinched and held her breath. "You always leave the light on?"
"I was getting some jam when you rang, sir. I probably forgot to turn it off," Eve said. She sounded nervous. "Sorry."
Click. The light in the pantry went out; taking what little there was seeping through the door with it. Claire barely controlled a gasp. Don't move. Don't move. She just knew he - whoever he was - was standing there in the dark, looking and listening.
And then, finally, she heard him say, "You ring the station if you see that girl. She's got herself in some trouble. We're supposed to help her get straightened out."
"Doesn't sound convincing at all." Shane said.
"Yes, sir," Eve said, and the pantry door shut. The conversation moved away, became softer and softer until it faded into nothing.
Claire switched on the flashlight, covered it with her hand, and pointed it at the corner - only a little light escaped, just enough to convince her that no evil zombie was sneaking up on her in the dark."
We had to laugh at that what just because werewolves, vampires and sirens exist maybe zombies do as well… well maybe they do? Never bothered to ask that? I'll do that next time I see Amelia or Claire.
"And then she waited. It seemed like a long time before there were two sharp raps on the door, and it swung open in a blaze of electric light. Eve's stark white makeup and black eyeliner looked even scarier than before.
"It's okay," she said, and helped Claire out of the hidden room. "He's gone."
"Oh, the hell it's okay," Shane said behind her. He had his arms folded across his chest, and rocked back and forth, frowning. "Those assholes have her picture. They're looking for her. What'd you do, Claire? Knife the mayor or something?"
"Nothing!" she blurted. "I - I don't know why - maybe it's that they're just worried because I didn't show up last night?"
"Worried?" Shane laughed bitterly. "Yeah, that's it. They're worried about you. Right. I'm going to have to talk this over with Michael. If they're going to turn the town upside down looking for you, either you're too hot to stay in Morganville, or we need to get you under some kind of Protection, fast."
He said it the same way Eve had. "But - maybe the police - ?"
"That was the police," Eve said. "Told you. They run the town. These guys work for the vamps - they're not vamps themselves, but they're scary enough without the fangs. Look, can you call your parents? Get them to pull you out of school and take you home or something?"
"Glad we didn't take that action huh?" Shane said and he was right weather we liked it or not Bishop would still of come to Morganville and maybe we would of still been under his rule then too.
"Sure. That would be the easiest thing in the world, only it would mean failure, and they'd never believe a word of this stuff, ever, and if she tried to explain it, she'd end up drugged and in therapy for the rest of her life. And any chance - any chance - of making it to Yale or MIT or Caltech would be blown completely. She supposed it was kind of dumb to be thinking of it that way, but those things were real to her.
Vampires? Not so much.
"But - I haven't done anything!" she said, and looked from Shane to Eve, and back again. "How can they be after me if I didn't do anything?"
"Life ain't fair," Shane said, with all the certainty of two more years of experience at it. "You must have pissed off the wrong people, is all I know. What's the girl's name? The one who smacked you around?"
"M-Monica."
They both stared at her."
"Man everything that started it off with Claire is thanks to Monica." Shane said well more like groaned to be fair the reason Claire was here was because of Monica and well Shane and Claire fell in love because of it.
"Oh, crap," Eve said, horrified. "Monica Morrell?"
Shane's face went...blank. Completely blank, except for his eyes, and there was something pretty scary going on behind them. "Monica," he repeated. "How come nobody told me?"
Eve was watching him, biting her lip. "Sorry, Shane. We would have - I swear, I thought she left town. Went off to college somewhere else."
Shane shook it off, whatever it was, and shrugged, trying to look like he didn't care. It was obvious to Claire that he did, though. "She probably couldn't stand not being the queen bee, and had to come begging back to Daddy to buy her some grades."
"Shane -"
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
"She probably doesn't even remember you," Eve blurted, and then looked as if she wished she hadn't said it. "I - that's not what I meant. I'm sorry."
He laughed, and it sounded wrong and a little bit shaky. There was a short, odd silence, and then Eve changed the subject by resolutely picking up her plate of cooling bacon and eggs.
And then went still and round-eyed. "Oh, shit," she said, and then covered her mouth.
"What?"
She pointed at the plates on the counter. Shane's, hers...and Claire's. "Three plates. He knew something was up. We told him Michael wasn't around. No wonder he kept poking."
Shane said nothing, but Claire could see he was - if possible - even more upset. He didn't show it much, but he picked up his plate and walked away, out into the living room, then up the steps two at a time.
His upstairs door slammed.
Eve bit her lip, watching after him.
"So… Shane and Monica...?" Claire guessed.
Eve kept staring at the doorway. "Not like you're thinking," she said. "He wouldn't touch that skank in a million years. But they were in high school together, and Shane - got on her bad side. Just like you did."
Claire's appetite for breakfast was suddenly gone. "What happened?"
"Always so nosey ain't she." I said and they nodded in agreement but I guess that was the werewolf inside of her kind of like a dog - bad way of thinking of it - but still she was always looking for something.
"He stood up to her, and his house burned. He nearly died," she said. "His - his sister wasn't so lucky. Michael got him out of town, off on his own, before he did something crazy. He's been gone a couple of years. Just came back right before I moved in here." Eve forced a bright smile. "Let's eat, yeah? I'm starving."
They sat out in the living room, chatting about nothing, not talking about the thing that was most important: what to do.
Because, Claire sensed, neither one of them had a clue."
Man that was hard I mean I remember being a ghost at the time seeing them look so scared of that. The pizza soon arrived and we eat in silence as we were in our PJS and Claire came walking through the door into the living room as we saw her covered in blood and ripped clothes as the sun started to drop. (What they wear on profile)
End of Chapter four
