Rachel Caine: Bite Club

“I don’t think so.”

“But—”

“The ones I know wouldn’t be that bloody,” Michael said. “We have to go.”

They were heading for the stairs, and Claire was still feeling a strange, distant sense of disconnection, when the reality of what she’d seen actually hit her, like color and sound and smell all snapping into focus at the same instant.

Doug was dead. He’d been murdered.

She stopped, put her back against the hallway wall, and slid down to a crouch. She couldn’t breathe. Her whole body was shaking. She’d seen a lot of unpleasant things since moving to Morganville, but this…this was worse. This seemed so…cold.

And the worst part of it was, Michael thought that the monsters hadn’t done it. Not the side of town she usually thought of as monsters, anyway.

Eve was bending over her, pulling on her arm. Having lost the Goth makeup, she looked stark right now, washed pale. “Come on, Claire, we need to get the hell out of here. Too many questions.”

“But we can’t…just leave him—”

“We won’t,” Michael said, and took her other arm. He pulled her to her feet and held her there until her knees stopped shaking. “But we’re not staying. Eve’s right.”

Claire clung to the handrail on the way down. She couldn’t get the image out of her mind, the way Doug’s face had seemed so slack and empty, the way his eyes stared, all pupils. The way the blood had soaked his bed beneath him.

She stopped on the third-floor landing and put her head down, breathing fast. Eve and Michael were already halfway down to the next level, but they turned and came back. They were talking, but she couldn’t hear them.

It took forever to get moving again and, once they were out in the dorm lobby, to try to act normal. She held on to Michael’s arm, mostly for support. Outside, he put his hat on again and led her to the shade of a tree, where she collapsed in a pathetic heap on the dying grass. Overhead, the dry leaves rattled and hissed. A few broke loose in the freshening breeze.

Michael crouched down beside her, and Eve knelt on the other side. “Claire?” he asked. His eyes were very blue, very clear, and very worried. “Claire, talk to me. You okay?”

“No,” she said. Her voice sounded small and fragile and very far away. “He’s dead. Someone killed him.”

Eve and Michael exchanged worried looks. Michael shook his head. “I’ll get hold of Richard and Hannah,” he said. “This needs to be handled quietly. They need to know what happened before it gets out of hand.”

And right on cue, the thundering music from the top floor of the dorm cut out, and from an open window came the sound of a girl’s scream, long and loud, with razor-edged horror in it. That was the scream Claire hadn’t voiced, the one that still bubbled inside her. Somehow, hearing someone else do it helped ease the pressure. She didn’t feel quite as faint and sick.

“I think that ship’s sailed, Michael,” Eve said, staring toward the dorm. Without the makeup, she looked so young—and so determined. “Better make the call quick. This is going to get crazy fast.”

Michael nodded, stood up, and used his cell phone. It wasn’t a long conversation, but then he dialed another number, and that was a lot longer. Oliver, Claire figured, from the general tone and Michael’s body language. Only Oliver could make him that tense.

He came back as he was ending the call, and looked down at her. “You going to be okay?” he asked.

“You mean now or generally?”

That made him smile a little. “Now.”

“I can deal,” Claire said. “Generally, that’s going to be a little bit tougher. I wasn’t born in Morganville. Still getting used to all the…”

“Mayhem,” Eve said, for once not laughing or making a joke. “Blood. Death. Yeah, sadly, it is something you get used to. But still, this one caught me off guard, too. I’ll call Shane, okay?”

“No, no, don’t. He’ll take off from work, and I’m all right. I’ll be fine.” She was lying through her teeth. She felt cold and shaky and she wished—oh, God, more than anything—that Shane were here right now. Or her parents. She’d never missed her mom and dad more than she did right at this moment, which was dumb, because what were they going to do?

Hug her. Make her feel safe again, just for a little while. Because that was what parents did, or at least what they were supposed to do. Eve hadn’t had that privilege, because her home life had been crap, and neither had Shane, who’d had the worst dad in the world. But Claire’s family had been great, and she hadn’t even known how much she missed it until…well, now.

While they waited for the sirens to arrive, Claire pulled out her phone and dialed her dad’s cell phone number. He answered on the third ring.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. He sounded better than he had before, almost normal. Strong. Considering that he’d left Morganville in an ambulance and had almost died—not from the vampires, but from his own bad heart—it was so good to hear him be more like himself. The connection crackled and hissed. “Sorry for the noise. I’m out walking. It’s getting windy.”

“Here, too. Looks like it might rain.”

“We had some rain earlier this morning. Cooled things down quite a bit. How are you, Claire?”

“Good,” Claire said, and swallowed. “I…just wanted to see how you were doing, Dad.”

“Doing great. They’ve got me walking a lot, trying to build up the old cardiovascular health again. I have to say, I’m glad I finally got that surgery. I didn’t realize how bad I’d been feeling until I felt better.” He paused, and, with that Dad radar she’d always both loved and dreaded, said, “You didn’t just call to say hello, honey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The concern in his voice turned her all trembly again, and made her want to cry, but she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t. “It’s pretty much the same here; you know how it is. How’s Mom?”

“She’s joined some kind of scrapbooking club. I never knew you could spend so much time and money on sticking photos in albums, but that’s your mom. Once she gets excited about something…”

“I know, she’s a madwoman,” Claire finished, and smiled a little. She could just see her mother coming home with bags and bags of stuff to hot-glue into memories. “How’s the new house?”

“Embarrassingly large. With a yard, too. I may have to learn how to garden.”

“Grow me something. Irises. I like irises.”

“Purple ones, right?”

“Yeah, purple’s good.”

“Honey, are you sure you’re all right? You sound odd.”

“Just…allergies,” she said, and wiped her leaking eyes. “You take care, Daddy. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, doubtfully. “Call tomorrow. Your mother will hate me if she doesn’t get her turn.”

“I will. Bye.”

Eve had turned away, watching the dorm, but she’d been paying attention. As Claire finished her call, she said, “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” Claire said. She did. Still shaky, but steadier inside, where it counted.

“I wish I could do that,” Eve said. “Call my mom. But no. Whiny, self-absorbed bitching from her probably wouldn’t have the same effect, although it definitely would make me forget about Doug for a second.”

Michael held out his hand, and Eve took it, and their eyes met for a second before Eve looked away. “Yeah,” she said. “Life sucks, we die, or not. Mom is the least of my problems, right?”

“Right at the moment? Yeah,” Michael said. “And now I want to call my parents.”

Claire thought he might be joking, but with Michael, you never could tell. His parents were cool; she’d met them once, but they didn’t live in Morganville anymore, and they weren’t even nearby. Like Claire’s parents, they’d been given permission to move because of medical problems. Michael didn’t say much about them, but then, Michael was the quiet type.