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An older, hardlooking woman grabbed Claire by the shoulders. "Thank God you're home," she said, and hugged her. Claire, rigid with surprise, cast Shane a whatthehell look, and he shrugged helplessly. "This damn house won't do anything for us. The lights keep going out, the doors won't open, food goes bad in the fridge--it's as if it doesn't want us here!"
And it probably didn't. The house could have ejected them at any time, but obviously it had been a bit uncertain about exactly what its residents might want, so it had just made life uncomfortable for the intruders instead.
Claire could now feel the airconditioning switching on to cool the overheated air, hear doors swinging open upstairs, see lights coming on in darkened areas.
"Hey, Celia," Shane said, as the woman let go of Claire at last. "So, what brings you here? I figured the Barfly would be doing good business tonight."
"Well, it would be, except that some jerks came in and said that because I was wearing a bracelet I had to serve them for free, on account of being some kind of sympathizer. What kind of sympathizer, I said, and one of them tried to hit me."
Shane lifted his eyebrows. Celia wasn't a young woman. "What did you do?"
"Used the Regulator." Celia lifted a baseball bat propped against the wall. It was old hardwood, lovingly polished. "Got myself a couple of home runs, too. But I decided maybe I wouldn't stay for the extra innings, if you know what I mean. I figure they're drinking me dry over there right now. Makes me want to rip my bracelet off, I'll tell ya. Where are the damn vampires when you need them, after all that?"
"You didn't take your bracelet off? Even when they gave you the chance?" Shane seemed surprised. Celia gave him a glare.
"No, I didn't. I ain't breaking my word, not unless I have to. Right now, I don't have to."
"If you take it off now, you may never need to put it on again."
Celia leveled a wrinkled finger at him. "Look, Collins, I know all about you and your dad. I don't hold with any of that. Morganville's an allright place. You follow the rules and stay out of trouble--about like anyplace, I guess. You people wanted chaos. Well, this is what it looks like--people getting beaten, shops looted, houses burned. Sure, it'll settle down sometime, but into what? Maybe no place I'd want to live."
She turned away from him, shouldered her baseball bat, and marched away to talk with a group of adults her own age.
Shane caught Claire looking at him, and shrugged. "Yeah," he sighed. "I know. She's got a point. But how do we know it won't be better if the vamps just--"
"Just what, Shane? Die? What about Michael, have you thought about him? Or Sam?" She stomped off.
"Where are you going?"
"To get a Coke!"
"Would you--"
"No!"
She twisted the cap off the Coke she'd retrieved from the fridge--which was stocked up again, although she knew it hadn't been when they'd left. Another favor from the house, she guessed, although how it went shopping on its own she had no idea.
The cold syrupy goodness hit her like a brick wall, but instead of energizing her, it made her feel weak and a little sick. Claire sank down in a chair at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands, suddenly overwhelmed.
It was all falling apart.
Amelie was calling the vampires, probably going to fight Bishop to the death.
Morganville was ripping itself in pieces. And there was nothing she could do.
Well, there was one thing.
She retrieved and opened four more bottles of Coke, and delivered them to Hannah, Eve, Shane, and--because it felt mean to leave her out at a time like this--Monica.
Monica stared at the sweating bottle as if she suspected Claire had put rat poison in it. "What's this?"
"What does it look like? Take or don't, I don't really care." Claire put it down on the table next to where Monica sat, and went to curl up on the couch next to Shane. She checked her cell phone. The network was back up again, at least for the moment, and she had a ton of voice mails. Most were from Shane, so she saved them to listen to later; two more were from Eve, which she deleted, since they were instructions on where to find her.
The last one was from her mother. Claire caught her breath, tears pricking in her eyes at the sound of Mom's voice. Her mother sounded calm, at least--mostly, anyway.
Claire, sweetie, I know I shouldn't be worrying but I am. Honey, call us. I've been hearing some terrible things about what's happening out there. Some of the people with us here are talking about fights and looting. If I don't hear from you soon--well, I don't know what we'll do, but your father's going crazy. So please, call us. We love you, honey. Bye.
Claire got her breathing back under control, mainly by sternly telling herself that she needed to sound together and completely in control to keep her parents from charging out there into the craziness. She had it more or less managed by the time the phone rang on the other end, and when her mother picked it up, she was able to say, "Hi, Mom," without making it sound like she was about to burst into tears. "I got your message. Is everything okay there?"
"Here? Claire, don't you be worrying about us! We're just fine! Oh, honey, are you okay? Really?"
"Honestly, yes, I'm okay. Everything's--" She couldn't say that everything was okay, because of course it wasn't. It was, at best, kind of temporarily stable. "It's quiet here. Shane's here, and Eve." Claire remembered that Mom had liked Monica Morrell, and rolled her eyes. Anything to calm her fears. "That girl from the dorm, Monica, she's here, too."
"Oh, yes, Monica. I liked her." It really did seem to help, which was not exactly an endorsement of Mom's character judging ability. "Her brother came by here to check on us about an hour ago. He's a nice boy."
Claire couldn't quite imagine referring to Richard Morrell as a boy, but she let it go. "He's kind of in charge of the town right now," she said. "You have the radio, right? The one we dropped off earlier?"
"Yes. We've been doing everything they say, of course. But honey, I'd really like it if you could come here. We want to have you home, with us."
"I know. I know, Mom. But I think I'd better stay here. It's important. I'll try to come by tomorrow, okay?"
They talked a little more, about nothing much, just chatter to make life seem kind of normal for a change. Mom was holding it together, but only barely; Claire could hear the manic quaver in her voice, could almost see the bright tears in her eyes. She was going on about how they'd had to move most of the boxes into the base ment to make room for all the company--company?--and how she was afraid that Claire's stuff would get damp, and then she talked about all the toys in the boxes and how much Claire had enjoyed them when she was younger.
