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"I want you in the lab too," the doctor said, and grabbed a passing nurse. He rattled off tests, talking faster than even Claire's heightened brain could process, though the nurse just nodded. Blood tests, she thought. Claire went without complaint. It was better than waiting for Richard Morrell to hear that she'd poisoned his sister.
As soon as the nurse was finished drawing her blood, Claire went to ICU. Shane was awake, reading a book. He looked better, and his smile was warm and relieved. "Eve said you were sick," he said. "I figured maybe you were just sick of seeing me here."
Claire wanted to cry. She wanted to crawl into the bed with him and be wrapped in his arms and not have all this guilt and horror bearing down on her shoulders, just for a minute.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Your eyes -- "
"I made a mistake," she blurted. "I made a terrible mistake and I don't know how to fix it, she's dying and I don't know how -- "
"Dying?" Shane struggled to sit up. "Who? God, not Eve -- "
"Monica. I gave her something and she took it and she's dying." There were tears sliding cold down her cheeks, and she could feel every icy pinprick. "I have to do something. But I don't know what I can do."
Shane's eyes narrowed. "Claire, are you talking about drugs? You gave her drugs? Christ, what are you thinking?" He grabbed her hand. "Did you take something too?"
She nodded miserably. "It doesn't hurt me, but it's killing her."
"You have to tell them. Tell them what you took. Do it now."
"I can't -- it's -- " She knew what it would mean, saying this. She already knew how it would change things between them. "I can't tell because it's something to do with Amelie I can't, Shane."
His hand tightened, then released. He let go and looked away. "You're going to let a human die because Amelie told you not to say anything. Not even Monica ranks that low. If you don't do something -- " He paused and took in a long, slow breath. His voice wasn't quite steady when he went on. "If you don't do something, that means that you put the vampires first, and I can't deal with that, Claire. I'm sorry, but I can't."
She knew that. Tears continued to burn in her eyes, but she didn't try to talk him out of it. He was right, she was wrong, and she had to find a way out of this, she had to. Enough people were dying in Morganville, and some of them had died because of her.
The notes. The notes I left at Myrnin's. Those could tell the doctor exactly what the crystals were, and how to counteract them. She could start reconstructing them now, since her brain was still working at high speed, but she could already feel things starting to fade at the edges.
"Shane," she said. He didn't look at her. "I love you." She wasn't going to say it, but she knew that she might not come back. Ever. And as if he knew that, he grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and when he did finally look at her she said, "I can't tell them anything, but I think I can help her. And I'm going to."
His brown eyes were tired and anxious and understood way too much. "You're going to do something crazy."
Well," she said, "not as crazy as what you'd do, but ... yeah." She kissed him, and it felt terrifyingly good, the perfect way his lips fit to hers, the way time seemed to stop when they touched. "I'll see you," she whispered, and stroked her fingers down his cheek.
And then she escaped before he could try to talk her out of it.
"Wait!" he called after her. She didn't.
Claire left the hospital at a run, moving faster than anyone could react to stop her, and headed for the last place on earth she wanted to go.
It was deadly silent inside of Myrnin's lab. Claire came down the steps very slowly, very carefully, listening for any hint of his presence. All the lights were burning, oil lamps flickering, and a couple of Bunsen burners hissed under bubbling flasks. The whole place smelled of strawberry and rot, and it felt strangely cold.
If I hurry ... Myrnin had a bedroom somewhere down here, right? Maybe he was asleep. Or reading. Or doing something normal.
And maybe he's not.
Claire picked her way across the room, moving very slowly and taking care not to tip over any of the leaning books, or crunch on any broken glass. At the back of the lab she saw that the tray where she'd put out the red crystals for drying was empty. There was no sign of the crystals themselves, but the notebooks were stacked neatly on one corner.
As she picked them up, Myrnin's voice came from right behind her shoulder. She felt his breath cool on the back of her neck. "Those don't belong to you."
She whirled, backed up, and overturned a stack of books that slithered into another, like stacks of dominos crashing.
"Now look what you've done," Myrnin said. He seemed very quiet, but there was something wrong in his eyes.
Badly wrong.
Claire backed up, glancing behind her to be sure the way was clear, in that instant, Myrnin was on her. She shoved the notebooks between them and his claws tore into them, shredding. "No! Myrnin, no!"
She threw him off, mainly because his knees slipped on fallen books, and scrambled away, panting. Somehow, she remembered to hold on to the damaged notebooks. Myrnin snarled and tried to follow, but the debris made for uncertain footing, and his jump went wrong. He crashed into a bookcase, and it toppled over on him, raining volumes.
Claire tried to get to the stairs, but there was no way she was going to make it. He was already flanking her, angling to cut her off from any hope of rescue or escape.
She was going to die, and Monica would die, too. And so would Myrnin, because he was too far gone now. She hadn't seen any flicker of recognition left, not even for an instant.
She backed up, and her shoulders hit the hard stone wall. She slid, trying to put herself in a corner, but there was a leaning bookcase in the way. When she fell against it, it slid sideways, revealing the door that Myrnin had shown her before.
The heart-shaped lock was hanging open.
Unlocked.
Claire gasped and grabbed it, ripped it away, and swung open the door.
She felt Myrnin's claws catch in her hair, but she pulled free and fell forward ...
... into the dark.
No, no, this showed me my house, it led to the living room ...
It didn't now. Myrnin had changed the destination, and this was no place she recognized at all. It was dark, damp, and it smelled like a combination of sewer and garbage dump. She blinked, and her eyes adjusted much more quickly to the darkness than they should have --the crystals, still doing their job. She was feeling an ache in her extremities now, working its way in. Once it reached her core, she'd be into withdrawal again.
