Rachel Caine: Daylighters

“Thanks for being on my side, bro,” Michael said.

“I’m not saying this is the right way to do it. But maybe it’s the right idea, keeping vamps and humans apart.” Shane shivered a little, as if he were cold, but Claire realized that his face was flushed and he was sweating. It wasn’t too hot in here—probably air-conditioned for the comfort of the guards. He really didn’t look good, Claire thought, and she took his hand. It felt hot—feverish. Was he sick? She could feel the tremors going through him, over and over.

“Shane? What’s wrong? You’re burning up!” Claire put the back of her hand against his forehead—or tried to. He knocked her arm away. It shocked her, and it surprised him, too. She saw the instant regret in his eyes, but when he tried to talk, he gagged. “Shane?”

“I need to get out,” he said. “Can’t stay here—” He couldn’t get the rest out, just kept gagging. His face looked gray and damp.

“Take him outside and let him have some fresh air,” Hannah said. “I’ll stay here with Eve. Nothing will harm her.”

Claire didn’t want to go; she didn’t want Eve to feel alone and abandoned. But something was clearly very wrong with Shane, and getting worse with every breath he took. She didn’t debate it any further. She just grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the light streaming in through the thick glass doors. When she tried the metal handle, it didn’t move. Locked. She knocked urgently on the glass, and the policeman outside finally opened it—but blocked her way. “Just a minute,” he said. “Where’s Chief Moses?”

“It’s okay, Bud,” Hannah called from behind him. “Let them out.”

He didn’t seem inclined, but he did step back, and Claire pulled Shane over the threshold and down the sidewalk, out into the bright, harsh sunlight and the dry desert air. He practically folded up once they reached the curb, and sat down hard there, his head in his hands. The tremors, though, were lessening, and as she stroked his hair she thought he was getting better. “Shane?” she asked. “Shane, what the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and gulped air. “God. I don’t know. It felt like I was burning up from the inside out. Maybe—maybe you’d better go back in, for Eve. I can’t, Claire. I just can’t.”

“Why not?”

He was definitely, inexplicably better out here, away from the mall and the vamps. And as he looked up, she saw the strange light in his eyes. It looked almost like fear.

“Because I want to kill them,” he said. “The vampires. I want to kill them all. It’s like what I’ve felt my whole life, but turned up to eleven. And if I go back in there, I don’t think I can control it.”

She stared at him, shocked, and he lifted his shoulders in a very small shrug. He still looked unnaturally flushed, and sweat pasted thin strings of hair to his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why. Please, don’t ask me to explain it, okay? Because I just can’t.”

But somehow she thought he could. She’d seen how he’d acted from time to time around Michael and the other vampires on the trip back. There was something wrong with him. Really wrong, in ways that scared them both, but Shane was trying to conceal and ignore it all.

It wasn’t the time to dig into it, though, and she shoved down her desire to interrogate him until this made some kind of sense, however twisted; he was right—she needed to go back. For Eve. For Michael.

For Myrnin, because if anyone knew where he was, Michael would.

She kissed Shane, and then she scrambled up and went back to the doors. The deputy—Bud?—didn’t harass her about it this time; he just silently unlocked them and let her back in, and she walked over to stand beside the spot where Eve and Michael were still kneeling near the fountain. They didn’t seem inclined to let go of each other, but Eve looked up and raised her eyebrows, silently asking the question.

“I don’t know,” Claire said. “But he feels better out there. It was almost like claustrophobia or something.”

“Weird,” Eve said. “Because that boy never hesitated to crawl into small spaces, and this isn’t exactly restrictive. It’s a mall. ”

“Maybe it’s the high ratio of vampires,” Michael said, and managed a smile, though it was thin. “I mean, if I wasn’t already on Team Fang, I might be a little intimidated.”

“Shane? Intimidated? Better be glad he’s out there and not in here making you eat those words,” Eve said. She shook her head. “No, something’s not right with him. It’s just wrong, the way he reacted. Wrong and weird and wrong, also. Claire, keep an eye on him, okay?”

“I will,” she said, and hesitated for a long few seconds before she glanced at Michael. “Um—I have to ask, because I don’t see them, but about Myrnin, and Jesse—?”

“They’re fine,” Michael said. “Well, you know. It’s Myrnin, so fine probably isn’t so accurate, but she’s keeping him calm in one of the rooms that way.” He nodded toward the darkness, the northeast corner where some dark, shuttered spaces lurked. “He’s having a hard time accepting . . . the situation.” He tapped the collar with one fingertip and gave Hannah a quick glance. “You know how he gets when he feels trapped.”

Oh, she knew, and she felt heartsick at the idea of how Myrnin, of all people, would have reacted to wearing a shock collar. Hannah would probably have had to replace the batteries in her control unit several times over, because one thing about Myrnin, he was stubborn, and he just did not give up. Jesse was probably holding him back with all of her strength to keep him from charging out here—and no doubt not for the first, or the last, time.

She refrained from asking anything more, mainly because she was acutely aware of Hannah standing there, and she really didn’t trust Hannah at all now. She was loyal to Fallon, obviously, or she wouldn’t be holding the button for the shock collars. It wouldn’t be wise to say too much in Hannah’s hearing, since everything would end up reported back to the Daylight Foundation.

But she did turn to Hannah and ask her a question that seemed perfectly obvious. “You can’t keep a bunch of vampires in here like this forever,” she said. “No matter what kind of little training devices you put on them. What are you planning to do with them?”

Hannah never once looked at her directly. She was watching Amelie, Claire realized—watching for any sign of trouble from the vampire queen. But Amelie didn’t seem to be inclined, yet, to give any orders to her people. “We plan to help them,” she said. “That’s all. We plan to help them get better.”

“Yeah,” Eve said. “You’re helping , all right. What is this, Vampire Reeducation Camp? Are you planning on helping them learn to live without blood? Vegan vampires?”

The silence that greeted this was so deep that it made Claire’s already tense muscles ache and tighten. There was something in Hannah’s carefully controlled expression that made her feel sick and scared. “It’s probably time to go now before this gets any messier,” Hannah said. “Wrap it up, kids.”

Eve raised her head from Michael’s shoulder. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. She was too angry to cry. “I’m not leaving him.”

“Eve, she’s right. You can’t stay,” he said in a gentle voice. He brushed his hand across her sleek black hair, let it drift through his fingers, and touched her lips just as softly. “You have to go, Eve. You wouldn’t be safe here.”

“Why not? Aren’t they feeding you?”

“They’re feeding us. I’ll be fine,” he said, and kissed her. “Eve, I’ll be fine. Just go, okay? Claire, take her. Please.”