When Shane tried to follow up with a second punch, Michael caught his fist in an open palm. "There was nothing I could do, Shane," he said, but there was something behind the words. Something far kinder. "Let's wait to do the cage match when Claire isn't trapped in the middle, all right?"
She wasn't exactly in the middle, but close enough. No way could she come out of it unbruised if Shane and Michael decided to really go at it in a small, enclosed space.
Shane stopped, and, as if he'd forgotten that she was there at all, he turned to look at her. For a second there was no expression on his face, and then it all flooded in - pain, fury, relief.
And then horror.
He lowered his fist, gave Michael a look that pretty clearly said, Later, and turned toward Claire. There were two feet of space between them, and about a mile of separation.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "God, Shane, I am so sorry."
He shuddered and stepped forward to put his arms around her. As hugs went, it was everything wrapped together in a tangled mess - tight, a little desperate, filled with need. He needed her. He really did.
He didn't say anything as the elevator slowly descended. She listened to his breathing, and finally, he made a faint, wordless sound of pain, and pulled away from her. She held on to his hand.
"Come on," she said, and Michael held the door as the two of them stepped out into the darkened garage. Claire knew there were probably threats out there in the dark, but she didn't care. She was tired, and right now, she hated all of them so much for hurting Shane that she would have staked anybody. Amelie. Sam. Michael. She couldn't believe he hadn't done anything to stop it from happening. She was just now realizing that he'd stood by and . . . watched.
Shane was eerily quiet. Michael moved around them and opened the back door of his Morganville-standard vampmobile; Claire climbed in with Shane, leaving Michael alone in the front seat.
If he had any objections to the seating arrangements, he kept them to himself.
Shane held her hand tightly all the way - through the dark tunnels, then as they traveled the darkened streets. She didn't pay attention to where they were going. Right now, one place was as good as the next, as long as she still had his hand in hers. As long as they stayed together. His misery was a thick black cloud, and it felt like it was smothering them both, but at least they could cling to each other in the middle of it. She couldn't imagine what it would be like all alone.
When Michael braked the car and opened the back door, though, Claire realized that he'd taken Bishop's instructions literally.
He'd brought them home.
The decaying Victorian glory of the Glass House stretched up into the night. Live oaks fluttered their stiff little leaves in the breeze, and in the distance black, shiny grackles set up a loud racket of shrieks and rattles in a neighbor's tree. Grackles loved dusk, Claire remembered. It was their noisiest time of the day. The whole neighborhood sounded like broken glass in a blender.
She got Shane out of the car and opened the front gate. As they moved up the steps, the front door opened, and there stood Eve - not in black tonight, but in purple, with red leggings and clunky black platform shoes. She had a stake in one hand and a silver knife in the other, but as she saw them coming up the steps, she dropped both to the floor and lunged to throw herself on Shane.
He caught her in midair, out of self-defense.
"You're out!" she cried, and gave him an extra-hard squeeze before jumping back to the top of the steps and doing a victory dance that was a cross between something found in an end zone and a chorus line. "I knew you'd beat the rap, Collins! I just knew it! High five . . . "
She held up her hand for him to smack, but he just looked at her. Eve's smile and upraised palm faltered, and she looked quickly at Claire, then Michael.
"Oh God," she said, and lowered her hand. "What is it? What happened?"
"Not out here. Let's get inside," Michael said. "Now."
Shane didn't make it very far. In fact, five steps down the hallway, he gave up and just . . . stopped. He put his back to the wall, slid down to a sitting position, and sat there, staring down at his hands.
Claire didn't know what she ought to do, other than stay with him. Before she could sit down next to him, though, Eve grabbed her by the elbow and shook her hard. "Hey! What happened? You called the house but you got cut off. I've been out looking for you ever since, calling everybody I could think of. Hannah's out looking for you, too. What is it?"
"It's Shane's dad," Claire said. Eve let go and covered her mouth with one hand, eyes wide. She already had a sense of what was coming. "Bishop . . . he . . . he turned him into a vampire. Right in front of us." Claire looked down at Shane. "Right in front of him."
Eve didn't know what to say. She just looked at them, and finally at Michael. "You couldn't do anything about it?"
He kept his head down. "No."
"Nothing? Nothing at all?"
Michael turned and slammed his fist into the wall with so much violence the whole house seemed to shake. Eve yelped and jumped back, and almost tripped over Shane in her stacked heels.
"No," Michael said, with a kind of forced calm that made Claire ache inside. "Nothing at all. If I had, Bishop would have known he didn't have me anymore, and that was what he was waiting for. This wasn't about Shane and Claire, or about Shane's dad. This was more about finding out if I was still his bitch."
Shane slowly raised his head, and the two boys stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.
Michael crouched down. "I'd have killed him if I could have," he said. "I'm not strong enough, and he knows it. That's why he likes to keep me right there, because he knows that deep down I want to rip his head off. It's fun for him."
"So my dad was just your object lesson," Shane said. "Is that it?"
Michael reached out and put his hand on Shane's knee. He'd split the skin over his knuckles, and there was plaster dust all over his skin.
It wasn't bleeding.
"We're going to get him, Shane. We will."
"Who's we?" Shane asked wearily, and let his head fall back against the wall as he shut his eyes. "Just leave me alone, man. I'm tired. I just can't . . . I'm tired."
Eve put her hand on Michael's shoulder. "Come on," she said. "Leave him alone. He needs time."
Shane laughed dryly. It was a rattle in his throat, like the sound the grackles were making outside. "Yeah. Time. That's what I need." He didn't sound like himself. Not at all.
Michael didn't want to go, but Eve insisted, tugging on his hand until he stood up and followed her out into the living room.
Leaving Shane sitting alone on the floor.
"Hey," Claire said, and sat down beside him, arms wrapped around her knees. "You going to sit here all night?"
"Maybe."
"I just thought - "
"What? I'd snap out of it and go play some video games? Eat a taco? It's not that easy, Claire. He's my - " Shane's voice broke, then got stronger. "He was my dad. There was one thing in the world he was afraid of, and I just watched it happen to him. I can't even think about this right now."
"I know," she said, and leaned her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
They sat there together for a long time. Eve and Michael looked in on them from time to time. After a while, they quit looking, and Claire saw them head upstairs.
The house grew quiet.
"It's cold," Shane finally said. She was getting a little drowsy, despite the discomfort; his voice shocked her back upright again.
"Yeah, kinda. Well, it's the floor." Although it wasn't really the floor's fault, Claire supposed.
He considered that in silence for a few long seconds. "I guess it's pretty stupid to sit here all night."
"Maybe not. If it makes you feel better . . ."
He stretched out his legs with a sudden thump and sighed. "I don't see how getting cold and losing feeling in my body is going to help. Also, I need a bed that isn't a bunk, and hasn't been the previous property of some dude named Bubba with a farting problem."
That was - almost - the old Shane. Claire sat up straight and looked up at him. After a second, he met her eyes. He didn't look happy, but he looked . . . better.
He was trying to be better.
"I forgot to say hello," he said. "Back in Bishop's office, when I saw you."