Claire got off the phone with Amelie after thirty minutes where she'd learned about Price, his motives, his story, and his (or at least what sounded like) mild insanity. No one sane would blameAmelie for him becoming a vampire and then take that hate to such a level. True, she had sent him to war with her intent being Price's death, but it had been some other insignificant person who had turned him.
Amelie could neither affirm nor deny that Price had Claire's friends, but after calls in to Shane's work, the university coffee shop, and the music store Michael gave music lessons at, Claire could. No one knew where they were; none of them had shown up for work, or any of their usual hotspots.
Her friends were gone.
And the unfamiliar feel of the Glass House's landline pressed to her ear reminded her all too clearly that it had been Myrnin who was to blame for the disappearance of Michael, Eve, and Shane because he thought it would be fun to give her phone to Leo Price. He got away with a lot of crap, but this time, Claire wasn't going to be so forgiving.
Amelie had told her to stay at the Glass House with Myrnin. It had been what Amelie wanted to keep Claire out of the way. Myrnin, however, was gone and Claire wasn't just going to sit around. She felt the need to be doing something instead of sitting on the sofa, nervously awaiting her friends' arrival.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew the only reason Amelie cared for her friends' disappearance was because Oliver was missing as well, and perhaps if Michael, Eve, and Shane were found, Oliver couldn't be far. Claire expelled the thought from her head as she began gathering equipment.
With or without help, she was going to go looking for Price.
.
She had everything she needed in five minutes slung over her shoulder in her backpack; instead of books, it contained stakes, a flashlight, and one of Michael's sports bottles filled with blood as possible bait for Price. Claire left Myrnin's journals on the table, stacked in a neat pile. She'd throw them through a portal later, when the threat of Price was no longer relevant. And when she could properly give Myrnin a piece of her mind (metaphorically speaking, since Myrnin actually did want her brain).
Claire walked out the front door and looked behind her, into the empty, darkened house that she almost didn't recognize because of the lack of activity within. She closed the door, locked it, and headed to the intersection of Mason and Howe where she had been early this morning, where Price had left her his message.
She was walking, trying not to remember as she passed the giant crack in the sidewalk that this was where Myrnin had let that vampire steal her phone and create the mess they were in.
Claire continued walking and saw children had drawn on the cement with chalk. She did her best not to step on them; whatever innocence was left in Morganville should remain untainted.
Soon, Claire was at the corner of Mason and Howe and looking at the spot in the street where the letters had been carved. Fresh tar was over it now, smooth and dark—the only sign that Price had even been here.
Claire stood there for a moment, staring at the improvement to the road, biting her lip.
She sighed. "I don't know what I thought I'd get from this," she said to herself quietly, hitching her backpack higher up on her shoulder.
Claire turned around, but froze when she heard a rustle in the bushes; Price had been hiding in the shrubbery last night when he'd followed them here. What should stop him from hiding in them now?
She pulled a stake out of the pocket of her backpack and said firmly, "I know you're there."
No one answered.
"Coward."
Still nothing. Maybe she had imagined it.
A piece of red chalk on the sidewalk came rolling down the slight incline of the cement and came to rest at her feet. Claire glared once more at the clump of bushes, and then turned her attention to the chalk. She picked it up and moved it around in her fingers. It was large so a small child could easily hold it and draw pictures. She pocketed her stake and walked over to where she saw the pictures on the sidewalk, guessing that was where it had come from.
When Claire reached the section of sidewalk that the drawings were on she saw just exactly what they were of, causing her to drop the piece of chalk that broke in two when it made contact with the cement.
She stared.
This was anything but art by an innocent child. This—this was evil.
It was a picture with someone who she assumed to be her. She was in a cage while others (Eve, Michael, and Shane… and—was that Oliver?) were in a larger cage across from her. Myrnin had a stake through his heart and was lying on the floor, presumably dead. Amelie…
Amelie was hanging from the ceiling, a noose around her neck and a stake sticking out of the center of her chest as well.
A horrible mockery of a child's drawing.
Claire looked around her, searching to see if anyone was watching. There was no one. She began trying to smear the horrible thing with the sole of her shoe, but all that did was slightly smudge it. Claire looked around again anxiously.
And then there was a cackle of laughter—the same kind of laugh she had heard that morning, filled with madness. It was something that scared her more than anything else because it was almostfamiliar; because Myrnin used to laugh like that, too; and because it sounded close. So incredibly close.
Oh my God, she thought. Even the voice in her head was shaking. He's watching me.
Oliver had suggested that he and Michael separate themselves from the humans; the sound of their blood pulsing through their veins was becoming all too tantalizing to him. So they, the two vampires, were on the other side the room while Eve and Shane were pressed as far against the wall as they could possibly be without leaving indentations in the plaster.
It wouldn't be long now; one of them—he or Michael—was going to cave and give in to their bloodlust.
But Oliver didn't want to come across as weak by being the one to lose his control first, though he had done himself a disservice by not feeding in such a long time. And he was practically salivatingover the sound of their beating hearts.
The steady thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum was driving him crazy.
This had been Price's sadistic plan: put weakened vampires in a locked room with humans.
Thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum…
It worried Myrnin that Claire was out on her own, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He would only wait for his opportunity to strike and take out the stranger in one smooth blow that would require minimal effort on Myrnin's part. If Claire did not wish to see him, he would help her from the sidelines and hope she did not get herself killed.
Myrnin had wasted no time when he'd been thrown out of Claire's house; Myrnin had rushed away to begin setting up an improvised holding cell for this newcomer. He was below his laboratory in one of the many caves that conveniently littered the underground of Morganville, putting the final touches on the… interesting result of his improvisation.
So far, he'd bolted a silver chain with a collar at its end to the ground. Myrnin had also put a comfortable armchair just five feet away from the chain's radius; he would need to be comfortable while he interrogated this unusual vampire.
Perhaps he should make some tea.
"No!"
The shout was accompanied by a high-pitched scream and muffled sounds of fabric rustling followed with masculine grunts.
"Let go of me, you creep!" That voice was undeniably Claire's.
Eve, Michael, and Shane scrambled up to look through the window and saw Price with Claire in his arms, carrying her like an infant, his grip on her unrelenting. She was thrashing and kicking and scratching at him, doing whatever she could to get out of his clutches, but Price's hold was firm.
"Claire!" Eve yelled. "Claire!"
She couldn't be here. If Claire was with Price… their chances of escaping before one of the vampires went crazy were very slim. Slimmer than they had been before.
"Claire," Shane said loudly, pounding on the glass. "Claire, get out of here!"
"Oh my God…" Michael kept muttering to himself quietly; Claire was never the one captured.
Claire heard them through the glass and her protestations ceased momentarily as she saw her friends all in the room together, bloodied and bruised. Her face twisted into a mask of regret and distress at seeing them that way, but was quickly replaced by confusion and then shock.
Eve had been standing there one moment, her hands pressed to the glass, and then she was being pulled down against her will, disappearing from Claire's view as if some invisible demon had dragged her from view.
Shane tore his gaze away from Claire and just as Price carried her into a warehouse and the door shut behind them, she heard Shane scream, "Oliver, you dirty bastard!"
And so, shit finally hits the fan. As always, please leave a review on your way out and have a lovely day.