Rachel Caine - Glass Houses

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.

“I–I figured I might go back to the dorm and get my things.”

He hit a button, and the screen paused in midshot again. “What?” He gave her his full attention, which made her heart stutter, then pound harder. Guys like Shane did not give mousy little bookworms like her their full attention. Not like that.

“My stuff. From my dorm room.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Did you miss the part where the cops are looking for you?”

“Well, if I check in,” she said reasonably, “I won’t be missing anymore. I can say I slept over somewhere. Then they’ll stop looking for me.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No, it isn’t. If they think I’m back in the dorm, they’ll leave me to Monica, right? It could be a few days before she figures out I’m not coming back. She could forget about me by then.”

“Claire—” He frowned at her for a second or two, then shook his head. “No way are you going over there by yourself.”

“But—they don’t know where I am. If you go with me, they’ll know.”

“And if you don’t come back from the dorm, I’m the one who has to explain to Michael how I let you go off and get yourself killed like a dumbass. First rule of horror movies, C. — never split up.”

“I can’t just hide here. I have classes!”

“Drop ’em.”

“No way!” The whole thought horrified her. Nearly as much as failing them.

“Claire! Maybe you’re not getting this, but you’re in trouble ! Monica wasn’t kidding when she pushed you down the stairs. That was light exercise for her. Next time, she might actually get mad.”

She stood up and hoisted her backpack. “I’m going.”

“Then you’re stupid. Can’t save an idiot,” Shane said flatly, and turned back to his game. He didn’t look at her again as he started working the controls, firing with a vengeance. “Don’t tell them where you were last night. We don’t need the hassle.”

Claire set her jaw angrily, chewed up some words, and swallowed them. Then she went into the kitchen to grab some trash bags. As she was stuffing them into her backpack, she heard the front door open and close.

“A plague upon all our houses!” Eve yelled, and Claire heard the silver jingle of her keys hitting the hall table. “Anybody alive in here?”

“Yes!” Shane snapped. He sounded as mad as Claire felt.

“Damn,” Eve replied cheerfully. “I was so hoping.”

Claire came out of the kitchen and met Eve on her way up the hall. She was in plaid today—a red and black tartan skirt, black fishnet hose, clunky patent leather shoes with skulls on the toes, a white men’s shirt, suspenders. And a floor-length black leather coat. Her hair was up in two pigtails, fastened with skull-themed bands. She smelled like…coffee. Fresh ground. There were some brown splatters on her shirtfront.