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"No," Michael said. His gaze flickered to Claire in an unmistakable plea for her to leave. She didn't. "I can't explain, Eve. I'm sorry, I just can't. But it's not what it - "
"Don't you even say it's not what it looks like, because it's always what it looks like!" Eve lunged forward, shoved Michael square in the chest, and drove him a foot backward, out of her room. "I can't talk to you right now. Get out! And stay out!"
She slammed the door and locked it. Not, Claire reflected, that a lock would do any good, considering how strong Michael was. But he probably wouldn't go around battering down doors in his own house, at least.
"Eve, you have to listen to me. Please."
Eve threw herself back on the bed, grabbed her iPod from the drawer, and shoved headphones over her ears as she hit the play button. Claire could hear the thundering metal all the way across the room.
"Eve?"
Claire opened the door and looked at Michael. "I don't think she's listening," she said. "You really screwed this up - you know that, right? At least Shane got ordered to do what he did. You chose, didn't you?"
"Yeah," Michael agreed softly. "I chose. But you really don't have any idea of what my choices were, do you?"
She watched him walk away, enter his room at the end of the hall, and shut the door.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it really wasn't what it looked like. Not that Eve was going to listen. Claire stood there for a while, listening to the cold and stony silence, and then shook her head and went downstairs.
Chili dogs weren't the same eaten alone.
Shane got home after dark, and the second Claire saw him, she knew something was wrong. He looked - distracted. Different.
And he barely nodded to her on his way through the living room to the kitchen. She was curled up on the sofa highlighting text in her English book, wondering for the thousandth time why anybody thought knowing about the Bront? sisters was important and multitasking by not really watching a cooking show on cable TV.
"Hey," she called after him. "I left the chili on for you!"
He didn't answer. Claire capped her marker pen and went to the kitchen door. She didn't open it, but she stood and listened. Shane wasn't making the normal dish noises of a guy desperate for dinner; in fact, he wasn't making any noise at all.
Claire was debating whether to return to studying when she heard him open the back door of the house. Voices, hushed and muffled. She eased the door open just a little, and listened harder.
"You're lucky I don't call the cops," Shane was saying. "Walk away, man."
"I can't. I need to talk to her."
"You're not coming near either one of the girls, got me?"
"I'm not going to hurt anyone!"
She knew that voice, or thought she did. But that couldn't be right, it just couldn't be.
Shane could not be talking to Eve's brother, Jason, especially not at the back door. She had to be imagining things. Maybe it was someone else, someone who just sounded like Jason Rosser. . . .
Claire eased the door open enough to get a tiny slice of a view.
No, that was Jason. There was absolutely no doubt about it. He was even wearing the same skanky, stained jeans and leather jacket. His hair was lank and even greasier than the last time she'd seen him, and he looked sallow and sick.
"Come on, man," he said. "Just let me talk to Claire. You keep me waiting out here in the dark, I'm lunch meat."
"Good to know."
Jason put out a hand to stop Shane from closing the door on him. "Please, man. I'm asking."
Shane hesitated. Claire couldn't really imagine why. Jason had stalked Eve; he'd killed - or at least he said he'd killed - innocent girls out of some misguided attempt to get the vampires to sign him up for service. He'd stabbed Shane in the guts.
Shane did swing the bat at him first, Claire's prim little voice of conscience said. She told it to shut up. Jason had engineered that fight, he'd provoked Shane into it, and it was only the fact that they'd gotten an ambulance there so fast that had saved Shane's life.
Jason didn't look like a crazy killer just now. He looked like a half-starved scared junkie kid who was terrified out of his mind. And desperate.
Claire came into the kitchen. Jason's face lit up. "Claire! Claire, tell him - tell him it's okay. I promise, I'm not going to hurt anybody. Tell him it's okay to let me in so I can talk to you."
"It's not okay," Claire said. "But he already knows that."
Shane nodded. He shoved Jason backward, off-balance, off the porch. Jason tripped over a brick and fell flat on his ass. He glared up at Shane and rolled slowly to his feet. "Claire, I'm supposed to tell you something. From Oliver."
"Oliver's got nothing to tell us that we want to hear, man. Especially from you."
"You sure about that?"
Shane grinned. "Pretty sure. Good luck with that survival thing out there in the dark."
Shane started to shut the door. He almost made it before Jason blurted out, "Bishop's setting a trap. We can tell you where and when."
Claire put a hand on Shane's shoulder, and he kept the door open, just a crack. "What are you talking about?"
"Let me in and I'll tell you." Jason looked desperate enough to claw paint off the door. "Please, Claire. I swear, I'm on the level here."
"No," she said. "If Oliver's got something to say, I'll talk to him, not to you."
Resentment flickered in Jason's dark eyes like oil on fire, and he got up and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yeah? You gonna play it like that?"
"I'm not playing at all," Claire said.
"I think you are. So maybe we do it the hard way after all." Jason threw himself against the door with such force that Shane was knocked backward, and Claire lost her footing and ended up flat on her back on the kitchen floor. As she twisted around to try to get up, she felt Jason's hand close on her hair, painfully tight. He yanked her up to her knees and dragged her out into the night. She yelled and fought, but he had a lot of experience with making girls do what he wanted.
And she stopped fighting when he put a gun to her head.
"Good," he said in her ear, and even in a blind, black rage she thought his breath was disgusting enough to peel paint. "Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you. I was serious. You need to listen to me."
Shane followed them outside, moving slowly but never taking his eyes off Jason. Off the gun. "Let her go."
Jason laughed, and dragged her backward to the driveway, where a big black car was waiting. Shane followed at a safe distance. Don't, Claire mouthed. She'd seen Jason nearly kill Shane before. She couldn't stand to see it happen again. I'll be okay.
