Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

Liz blinked and looked around, like a sleepwalker just coming out of a coma. ‘I – what happened – Claire? Claire, I – those people, they took me …’ She blinked again, and Claire saw the horror dawning in her eyes. ‘Oh God, I can’t believe I got away. They were going to sell me!’

‘I know,’ Claire said softly. ‘But you’re safe now, sweetie. Derrick was one of them. He’s gone now. You’re going to be all right.’

Liz burst into tears, and Claire managed to get her into her room, bundled her in bed, and sat with her for a few minutes until Liz fell into an exhausted, restless sleep.

Then she went upstairs.

I can leave all this , she thought. There were only a few things she really needed – memories, mostly. Things that mattered. They went into one suitcase.

She sat down and wrote a note, for Liz. And the police, because they’d be looking, too.

Liz, it said. I’m sorry, but you were right. MIT’s not for me. I’m a small-town girl at heart, and the pressure here is too intense. I miss my friends, and I miss my boyfriend, and I miss the life I had back home. So I’m going. I’ll send for my things in a couple of weeks once I’m settled again. I’m sorry about the apartment, and I hope you will be okay without me. Call me soon. Your BFF – Claire .

It wasn’t much, but it sounded right, and it had the virtue of being true … all except the BFF part, but Liz would have expected that.

Claire left the note on the bed, grabbed her suitcase, and headed out to the van. She ducked inside, put the suitcase down, and strapped herself into the passenger seat.

‘Ready?’ Shane asked.

She nodded.

They drove past the MIT campus, and she got one last look at the domed beauty of the Maclaurin Buildings, flanked by the Pierce Lab and Building 2. Overnight, someone had put an old-school MTV spaceman on top of the Great Dome, complete with stiff little American flag. Someone had done another brand new hack, a giant Transformers statue in Killian Court; a student walked up and pressed a button, and it glided from robot into car, complete with movie sound effects. The assembled crowd cheered, then dispersed to their classes.

I could have been one of them , Claire thought. She could have been a roof and tunnel hacker. She could have hung out with Nick and his crew. She could have been Jack Florey leading an orange tour. She could have done anything.

But instead, she was doing this. Heading back to Morganville.

And to her surprise – her great surprise, actually – it was all okay. I’m not meant to be out here , she thought. Where she went, Morganville went, and the last thing she wanted to do was bring that darkness here, into this light.

‘Be safe,’ she whispered, to nobody in particular, as they took the next turn and headed for the freeway, and home.

In Ohio, they ditched the vans, selling them for cash to a scrapyard and buying two big dinosaur SUVs. Having two, they decided, would allow four vampires and four humans to travel in relative comfort, and being able to change vehicles meant they probably wouldn’t kill each other before the trip was over.

Whatever VLAD’s beams had done to Oliver, Jesse and Myrnin had mostly worn off. They looked, and sounded, more like themselves, less like cold-blooded killing machines. But Claire couldn’t quite forget what they’d been, back on the farm.

She knew she’d never forget it again. What they could be.

Michael and Eve chose to travel with her and Shane for a while, with the three other vamps and Dr Anderson in the second vehicle, and that should have felt normal again. Better.

But it didn’t.

Maybe it was just the exhaustion, the stress, the shattering weight of guilt, but Claire felt they were all trying to figure out how to talk to her. What to say.

She had no idea what to say either. Not for a long, long time.

Eve fiddled with the stereo, seeking out alt-rock stations until all that was left was static, and finally switched it off. Shane was napping by then, and Michael driving. Claire should have been sleeping too, but she couldn’t.

‘Claire?’

She opened her eyes, which had drifted closed, and saw Eve watching her from the front. ‘I’m awake.’

‘I just – look, I need to know. How much of what happened did you plan?’

‘When?’

‘From the time we came out from rescuing Liz from that trap. Did you even have a plan?’

‘I—’ Claire swallowed. Her throat felt suddenly dry, tight and uncomfortable. ‘Not until I knew Dr Anderson was against us. Then I had to – I had to play along. She knew too much. And she didn’t need anybody except the vampires, for lab tests. She only needed me as far as she could trust me, so I – I had to make her trust me, a little.’

‘You turned on us,’ Eve said. ‘You made Shane turn on us, too, didn’t you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Claire whispered. ‘But it was all out of control, Eve. I didn’t know how else to do it.’

Eve stared at her for another long, painful moment, and then reached her hand back. Claire didn’t know what to do for a second, then she grabbed hold. ‘Don’t ever do it again,’ Eve said. ‘I don’t like feeling that way, okay? It’s the four of us, always. Promise.’

‘I promise,’ Claire said. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she cried a little, holding Eve’s hand. ‘I promise.’

Shane wasn’t asleep after all, because he sat up, put his arm around Claire, and said, ‘We promise.’

‘You’d better, jerkface,’ Eve said. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Taped,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. Chicks dig scars. Wait, did you just call me jerkface? Are we back in grade school?’

‘I love you,’ Eve said.

He closed his mouth, fast, because obviously that was not what he’d expected. ‘I, uh, okay. Love you too. Can we stop that? It’s uncomfortable.’

‘Jerkface.’

‘Much better.’

In the morning, Shane became the designated driver of one of the trucks, and Jesse took command of the other. They got as far as they could, and then Oliver booked them hotel rooms that night. He, Myrnin and Jesse each got their own accommodations; Michael and Eve, of course, shared theirs.

Oliver handed Shane and Claire each key cards. ‘I have no knowledge of, nor interest in, your current relationship,’ he said. ‘Use both, use one, use neither, or sleep in the van. Whatever you choose that involves me the least.’ Like Jesse and Myrnin, Oliver was looking absolutely exhausted. He kept Irene Anderson with him, but Myrnin had – in Shane’s terms – whammied her into submission. She stayed passive, and Oliver didn’t even need to tie her up.

Claire didn’t want to know what Oliver intended to do with her. She still couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

She paused with her suitcase at the door of her room, and looked down the hall. Shane was puzzling out his own key card, finding out which way the arrow went into the lock; he sensed her looking, and sent her a nod.

Claire nodded back, walked into her room, and set the suitcase on the bed. She stripped her clothes off – clothes she never intended to wear again – and got into the shower. The hotel’s shampoo and conditioner smelt like honey and ginger, and the soap smelt like lime; she decided that she would end up smelling like someone’s kitchen pantry, but at least it was better than how she’d been smelling, like sewers and blood and fear.

She put on a clean pair of jeans, a plain blue top, and walked down to Shane’s room. She knocked.

He answered. He’d been in the shower, too … his hair was still damp, and he was wearing the hotel bathrobe.

‘Hi,’ she said, and came in. She closed the door behind her. ‘I don’t want to spend another night alone, if that’s okay with you.’