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And then, somebody ran up with a bottle full of liquid, stuffed with a burning rag, and threw it into the front window.
The flames flickered, caught, and gained strength.
"No!" Monica panted and clawed at the door handle, but Eve had locked it up. Claire grabbed Monica's arms and held them down.
"Get us out of here!" she yelled.
"My parents could be in there!"
"No, they're not. Richard told me they're at City Hall."
Monica kept fighting, even as Eve steered the car away from the burning house, and then suddenly just . . . stopped.
Claire heard her crying. She wanted to think, Good, you deserve it, but somehow she just couldn't force herself to be that cold.
Shane, however, could. "Hey, look on the bright side," he said. "At least your little sister isn't inside."
Monica caught her breath, then kept crying.
By the time they'd turned on Lot Street, Monica seemed to be pulling herself together, wiping her face with trembling hands and asking for a tissue, which Eve provided out of the glove box in the front.
"What do you think?" Eve asked Shane. Their street seemed quiet. Most of the houses had lights on, including the Glass House, and although there were some folks outside, talking, it didn't look like mobs were forming. Not here, anyway.
"Looks good. Let's get inside."
They agreed that Monica needed to go in the middle, covered by Hannah. Eve went first, racing up the walk to the front door and using her keys to open it up.
They made it in without attracting too much attention or anybody pointing fingers at Monica--but then, Claire thought, Monica definitely didn't look much like herself right now. More like a bad Monica impersonator. Maybe even one who was a guy.
Shane would laugh himself sick over that if she mentioned it. After seeing the puffy redness around Monica's eyes, and the shattered expression, Claire kept it to herself.
As Shane slammed, locked, and dead bolted the front door, Claire felt the house come alive around them, almost tingling with warmth and welcome. She heard people in the living room exclaim at the same time, so it wasn't just her; the house really had reacted, and reacted strongly, to three out of four of its residents coming home.
Claire stretched out against the wall and kissed it. "Glad to see you, too," she whispered, and pressed her cheek against the smooth surface.
It almost felt like it hugged her back.
"Dude, it's a house," Shane said from behind her. "Hug somebody who cares."
She did, throwing herself into his arms. It felt like he'd never let her go, not even for a second, and he lifted her completely off the ground and rested his head on her shoulder for a long, precious moment before setting her gently back on her feet.
"Better see who's here," he said, and kissed her very lightly. "Down payment for later, okay?"
Claire let go, but held his hand as they walked down the hallway and into the living room of the Glass House, which was filled with people.
Not vampires.
Just people.
Some of them were familiar, at least by sight--people from town: the owner of the music store where Michael worked; a couple of nurses she'd seen at the hospital, who still wore brightly colored medical scrubs and comfortable shoes. The rest, Claire barely knew at all, but they had one thing in common--they were all scared.
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.
