Rachel Caine - Glass Houses

“Oh, hey, Claire,” she said, and blinked. “Where are you going?”

“Funeral,” Shane said. On-screen, a zombie shrieked and died gruesomely.

“Yeah? Cool! Whose?”

“Hers.” Shane said.

Eve’s eyes widened. “Claire—you’re going back?”

“Just for some of my stuff. I figure if I show up every couple of days, let people see me, they’ll think I still live there….”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, bad idea. Bad. No cookie. You can’t go back. Not by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“They’re looking for you!”

Shane put the game on pause again. “You think I didn’t already tell her that? She’s not listening.”

“And you were going to let her just go ?”

“I’m not her mom.”

“How about just her friend ?”

He gave her a look that pretty clearly said, Shut up . Eve glared back, then looked at Claire. “Seriously. You can’t just—it’s dangerous. You have no idea. If Monica’s really gone to her Patron and tagged you, you can’t just, you know, wander around.”

“I’m not wandering,” Claire pointed out. “I’m going to my dorm, picking up some clothes, going to class, and coming home.”

“Going to class ?” Eve made helpless little flapping motions with her black-fingernailed hands. “No no no! No class, are you kidding?”

Shane raised his arm. “Hello? Pointed it out already.”

“Whatever,” Claire said, and stepped around Eve to walk down the hall to the front door. She heard Shane and Eve whispering fiercely behind her, but didn’t wait.

If she waited, she was going to lose her nerve.

It was only a little after noon. Plenty of time to get to school, do the rest of her classes, stuff some clothes in a garbage bag, say enough hellos to make everything okay, and get home before dark. And it was after dark that was dangerous, right? If they were serious about the vampire thing.

Which she was starting to believe, just a teeny little bit.

She opened the front door, stepped out, closed it, and walked out onto the porch. The air smelled sharp and crisp with heat. Eve must have been cooking in that coat; there were ripples of hot air rising up from the concrete sidewalk, and the sun was a pale white dot in a washed-denim sky.

She was halfway to the sidewalk, where Eve’s big car lurked, when the door slammed behind her. “Wait!” Eve blurted, and came hurrying after with the leather coat flapping in the hot wind. “I can’t let you do this.”

Claire kept walking. The sun burned on the sore spot on her head, and on her bruises. Her ankle was still sore, but not enough to bother her that much. She’d just have to be careful.

Eve darted around her to face her, then danced backward when Claire kept walking. “Seriously. This is dumb, Claire, and you don’t strike me as somebody with a death wish. I mean, I have a death wish—it takes one to know one—okay, stop ! Just stop !” She put out a hand, palm out, and Claire stopped short just a few inches away. “You’re going. I get that. At least let me drive you. You shouldn’t be walking. This way I can call Shane if—if anything happens. And at least you’ll have somebody standing by.”

“I don’t want to get you guys into any trouble.” Michael had been pretty specific about that.

“That’s why Shane’s not coming. He’s—well, he attracts trouble like TV screens attract dust. Besides, it’s better not to put him anywhere near Monica. Bad things happen.” Eve unlocked the car doors. “You have to call shotgun.”

“What?”

“You have to call shotgun to get the passenger seat.”

“But nobody else is—”

“I’m just telling you, get used to the idea, because if Shane was here? He’d already have it and you’d be in the back.”

“Um…” Claire felt stupid even trying to say it. “Shotgun?”

“Keep practicing. Got to be fast on the trigger around here.”

The car had slick vinyl seats, cracked and peeling, and aftermarket seat belts that didn’t feel any too safe. Claire tried not to slide around on the upholstery too much as the big car jolted down the narrow, bumpy road. The shops looked as dim and uninviting as Claire remembered, and the pedestrians just as hunched in on themselves.

“Eve?” she asked. “Why do people stay here? Why don’t they leave? If, you know…vampires.”

“Good question,” Eve said. “People are funny that way. Adults, anyway. Kids pick up and leave all the time, but adults get all bogged down. Houses. Cars. Jobs. Kids. Once you have stuff, it’s easy enough for the vamps to keep you on a leash. It takes a lot to make people just leave everything behind and run. Especially when they know they might not live long if they do. Oh crap, get down! ”

Claire unhooked her seat belt and slithered down into the dark space under the dash. She didn’t hesitate, because Eve hadn’t been kidding—that had been pure panic in her voice. “What is it?” She barely dared to whisper.

“Cop car,” Eve said, and didn’t move her lips. “Coming right toward us. Stay down.”

She did. Eve nervously tapped fingernails on the hard plastic steering wheel, and then let out a sigh. “Okay, he went past. Just stay down, though. He might come back.”

Claire did, bracing herself against the bumps in the road as Eve turned toward the campus. Another minute or two passed before Eve gave her the all clear, and she flopped back into the seat and strapped in.

“That was close,” Eve said.

“What if they’d seen me?”

“Well, for starters, they’d have hauled me in to the station for interfering, confiscated my car….” Eve patted the steering wheel apologetically. “And you’d have just…disappeared.”

“But—”

“Trust me. They’re not exactly amateurs around here at making that happen. So let’s just get this done and hope like hell your plan works, okay?”

Eve steered slowly through crowds of lunchtime students walking across the streets, hit the turnaround, and followed Claire’s pointed directions toward the dorm.

Howard Hall didn’t look any prettier today than it had yesterday. The parking lot was only half-full, and Eve cruised the big Caddy into a parking space near the back. She clicked off the ignition and squinted at the sunlight glaring off the hood. “Right,” she said. “You go in, get your stuff, be back here in fifteen minutes, or I start launching Operation Get Claire.”

Claire nodded. She wasn’t feeling so good about this idea, now that she was staring at the door’s entrance.

“Here.” Eve was holding something out. A cell phone, thin and sleek. “Shane’s on speed dial—just hit star two. And remember, fifteen minutes, and then I freak out and start acting like your mom. Okay?”

Claire took the phone and slipped it in her pocket. “Be right back.”

She hoped she didn’t sound scared. Not too scared, anyway. There was something about having friends—even brand-new ones—that helped keep the tremors out of her voice, and shakes out of her hands. I’m not alone. I have backup. It was kind of a new sensation. Kind of nice, too.

She got out of the car, waved awkwardly to Eve, who waved in reply, and turned to walk back into hell.

The cold air of the lobby felt dry and lifeless, after the heat outside; Claire shivered and blinked fast to adjust her eyes to the relative dimness. A few girls were in the lobby with books propped up on tables; the TV was running, but nobody was watching it.

Nobody looked at her as she walked by. She went to the glassed-in attendant booth, and the student assistant sitting inside looked up from her magazine, saw her bruises, and made a silent O with her mouth.