"What?"
She pointed at the plates on the counter. Shane's, hers...and Claire's. "Three plates. He knew something was up. We told him Michael wasn't around. No wonder he kept poking."
Shane said nothing, but Claire could see he was - if possible - even more upset. He didn't show it much, but he picked up his plate and walked away, out into the living room, then up the steps two at a time.
His upstairs door slammed.
Eve bit her lip, watching after him.
"So...Shane and Monica...?" Claire guessed.
Eve kept staring at the doorway. "Not like you're thinking," she said. "He wouldn't touch that skank in a million years. But they were in high school together, and Shane - got on her bad side. Just like you did."
Claire's appetite for breakfast was suddenly gone. "What happened?"
"He stood up to her, and his house burned. He nearly died," she said. "His - his sister wasn't so lucky.
Michael got him out of town, off on his own, before he did something crazy. He's been gone a couple of years. Just came back right before I moved in here." Eve forced a bright smile. "Let's eat, yeah? I'm starving."
They sat out in the living room, chatting about nothing, not talking about the thing that was most important: what to do.
Because, Claire sensed, neither one of them had a clue.
Chapter Five
Claire watched the clock - some old-style wall clock, with hands - crawl slowly up to, and past, eleven o'clock. Professor Hamms is starting the lecture, she thought, and felt a nauseating twist in her stomach.
This was the second day in a row she'd missed school. In her whole life she'd never missed two days of school back-to-back. Sure, she'd read the textbook already - twice - but lectures were important. That was how you found out the good stuff, especially in classes like physics, where they did practical demonstrations. Lectures were the fun part.
It was Thursday. That meant she had a lab class later, too. You couldn't make up lab class, no matter how good your excuse.
She sighed, forced herself to look away from the time, and opened up her Calc II book - she'd tested out of Calc I, could have tested out of Calc II, but she'd thought maybe she might learn something new about solving linear inequalities, which had always been a problem for her.
"What the hell are you doing?" Shane. He was on the stairs, staring at her. She hadn't heard him coming, but that was probably because he was barefoot. His hair was a mess, too. Maybe he'd been asleep.
"Studying," she said.
"Huh," he said, like he'd never actually seen it done before. "Interesting." He vaulted over the railing three steps from the bottom and flopped down on the leather couch next to her, flicking the TV on with the remote next to him, then changing inputs. "This going to bother you?"
"No," she said politely. It was a lie, but she wasn't quite ready to be, you know, blunt. It was her first day.
"Great. Want to take a break?"
"A break?"
"That's when you stop studying" - he tilted his head to the side to look at the book - "okay, whatever the hell that is, and actually do something fun. It's a custom where I come from." He dumped something in the center of her open book with a plastic thump. She flinched and picked up the wireless game controller with two fingers. "Oh, come on. You can't tell me you've never played a video game."
Truthfully, she had. Once. She hadn't liked it very much. He must have read that in her expression, because he shook his head. "This is just sad. Now you have to take a break. Okay, you've got a choice: horror, action, driving, or war."
She blurted, "Those are my choices?"
He looked offended. "What, you want girl games? Not in my house. Never mind, I'll pick for you. Here.
First-person shooter." He yanked a box from a stack next to the couch and loaded a disc into the machine. "Easy. All you have to do is pull the trigger. Trust me. Nothing like a little virtual violence to make you feel better."
"You're crazy."
"Hey, prove me wrong. Unless you think you can't." He didn't look at her as he said it, but she felt it sting, anyway. "Maybe you're just not up to it."
She shut her Calc II book, picked up the controller, and watched the colorful graphics load up on the screen. "Show me what to do."
He smiled slowly. "Point. Shoot. Try not to get in my way."
He was right. She'd always thought it was kind of creepy, hanging out in front of a TV and killing virtual monsters, but damn if it wasn't...fun. Before too long, she was flinching when things lunged out of the corners of the screen, and whooping just like Shane when some monster got put down for the count.
When it ended for her, and the screen suddenly showed a snarling zombie face and splashes of red, she felt it like an ice cube down her back.
"Oops," Shane said, and kept on firing. "Sorry. Some days you're the zombie, some days you're the meal. Good try, kiddo."
She put the controller on the couch cushions, and watched him play for a while. "Shane?" she finally asked.
"Hang on - damn, that was close. What?"
"How did you get on Monica's - "
"Shit list?" he supplied, and drilled a few dozen bullets into a lunging zombie in a prom dress. "You don't have to do much, just not crawl on your belly every time she walks in a room." Which, she noticed, wasn't exactly an answer. Exactly. "What'd you do?"
"I, uh...I made her look stupid."
He hit some control and froze the game in mid-scream, and turned to look at her. "You what?"
"Well, she said this thing about World War II being about the Chinese, and - "
Shane laughed. He had a good laugh, loud and full of raw energy, and she smiled nervously in return.
"You're feistier than you look, C. Good one." He held up a hand. She awkwardly smacked it. "Oh, man, that's sadder than the video game thing. Again."
Five hand smacks later, she had mastered the high five to his satisfaction, and he unfroze the video game.
"Shane?" she asked.
This time, he sighed. "Yeah?"
"Sorry, but - about your sister - "
Silence. He didn't look at her, didn't give any indication he'd heard a word. He just kept on killing things.
He was good at it.
Claire's nerve failed. She went back to her textbook. It didn't seem quite as exciting, somehow. After half an hour, she bagged it, stood, stretched, and asked, "When does Michael get up?"
"When he wants to." Shane shrugged. "Why?" He made a face and narrowly avoided getting his arm clawed off on-screen.