Dead Girls' Dance

“Oh,’” Eve said faintly. “Oh God.’”

“Mom—’” He shook his head. “I couldn’t handle it. I left her. I had to get away, I couldn’t just—I had to go. You know? So I left. I ran.’” A hollow rattle of a laugh. “Saved my life.’”

“Shane—’” Michael cleared his throat. “I was wrong. You don’t have to—’”

“Shut up, man. Just shut up.’” Shane tipped the bottle to his lips for the last few drops, then swallowed hard. Claire didn’t know what was coming, but she could see from the look on Michael’s face that he did, and it twisted her stomach into a knot. “So anyway, I came back a few hours later and she was in the tub, just floating there, and the water was red—razor blades on the floor—’”

“Oh, honey.’” Eve got up and stood there, hovering next to him, reaching out to touch him and then pulling back in jerky motions without making contact, like he had some force field of grief shielding him. “It wasn’t your fault. You said she was depressed.’”

“Don’t you get it?’” He glared up at her, then at Michael. “She didn’t do it. She wouldn’t. It was them. You know how they work: they close in; they kill; they cover it up. They must have gotten there right after I left. I don’t know—’”

“Shane.’”

“—I don’t know how they got her in the tub. There weren’t any bruises, but the cuts were—’”

“Shane! Christ, man!’” Michael looked outright horrified this time, and Shane stopped. The two of them looked at each other for a long, wordless moment, and then Michael—visibly tense—eased back into his chair. “Shit. I don’t even know what to say.’”

Shane shook his head and looked away. “Nothing to say. It is what it is. I couldn’t—shit. Let me just finish, okay?’”

As if they could stop him. Claire felt cold. She could feel Shane’s body shaking next to her, and if she felt cold, how must he be feeling? Frozen. Numb. She reached out to touch him and, like Eve, just…stopped. There was something about Shane right now that didn’t want to be touched.

“Anyway, my dad came home, eventually. Cops said it was a suicide, but after they were gone I told him. He didn’t exactly want to hear it. Things got…ugly.’” Claire couldn’t imagine how ugly that had been, for Shane to actually admit it. “But I made him remember.’”

Eve sat on the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest. She looked at him with anime-wide eyes. “And?’”

“He got drunk. A lot.’” Bitterness ran black through Shane’s voice, and all of a sudden the beer bottle in his hand seemed to get a whole lot of significance for him, beyond just something to occupy his nervous hands. He set it down on the floor and wiped his palms on his blue jeans. “He started hooking up with these bikers and stuff. I—wasn’t in a real good place; I don’t remember some of that. Couple of weeks later we got a visit from these guys in suits. Not vamps, lawyers. They gave us money, lots of it. Insurance. Except we both knew who it was from, and the point was, they were trying to figure out what we knew and remembered. I was too drugged out to know what was going on, and Dad was drunk, so I guess that saved our lives. They decided we were no threat.’” He wiped his forehead with the heel of his hand and laughed—a bitter, broken sound like glass in a blender.

Shane on drugs. Claire saw that Michael had caught it, too. She wondered if he was going to say something, but maybe it wasn’t the best time to say, Hey, man, you using now? Or something like that.

He didn’t need to ask, as it turned out. Shane answered anyway. “But I kicked it, and Dad sobered up, and we pla

“With us,’” Eve supplied softly. “Right? He didn’t want you to have any friends.’”

“Friends get you killed in Morganville.’”

“No.’” Eve put a pale hand on his knee. “Shane, honey, in Morganville, friends are the only things that keep you alive.’”

4

Claire couldn’t believe how much had poured out of Shane—all that grief and horror and bitterness and anger. He’d always seemed sort of, well, normal, and it was a shock to see all the emotional bloodshed…and a shock to hear him talk so much, about things so personal. Shane wasn’t a talker.

She collected the dishes and did them alone, comforted by hot water and the fizz of soap on her hands; she cleaned up pots and pans and splashes of red sauce, and thought about Shane finding his mom dead in a bloody bathtub. I wasn’t in a real good place, Shane had said. The master of understatement. Claire wasn’t so sure that she’d ever have been able to smile again, laugh again, function again, if that had happened to her, especially after losing a sister and wi

She wanted to cry for him, but she was almost sure that he’d have been embarrassed, so she kept the misery inside, and scrubbed dishes clean. He doesn’t deserve this. Why don’t they all just leave him alone? Why does he have to be the one everybody beats on?

Maybe just because he’d shown he could take it, and make himself stronger for it.

The kitchen door swung open, and she jumped, expected Shane, but it was Michael. He walked over to the sink, ran some cold water in his hands, and splashed it over his face and the back of his neck.

“Bad night,’” Claire said.

“Tell me about it.’” He cut a sideways look toward her.

“Do you think he’s right? About them, you know, killing his mother?’”

“I think Shane’s carrying around a load of guilt the size of Trump Tower. And I think it helps him to be angry.’” Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible. But I don’t think we can know one way or the other.’”

That felt…sick, somehow. No wonder Shane was so reluctant to talk about it. She tried to imagine living with that kind of uncertainty, those memories, and failed.

She was glad she did.

“So,’” Michael said. “I’ve got about three hours until morning. We need to make some plans about what we’re going to do, and what we’re not going to do.’”

Claire nodded and set a plate aside to dry.

“First thing is, none of you leave the house,’” Michael said. “Got it? No school, no work. You stay indoors. I can’t protect you if you go outside.’”

“We can’t just hide!’”

“We can for a while, and we will. Look, Shane’s dad can’t run around out there forever. It’s a temporary problem. Someone’s going to find him.’” The unspoken subject of what would happen to Shane’s dad after he was caught was a whole other issue. “As long as we don’t do anything directly that ties us to whatever his dad does, we’re okay. Amelie’s word is good for that.’”

“You’re putting a lot of trust in—’”

“A vampire, yeah, I know.’” Michael shrugged and leaned a hip against the counter, looking down on her. “What choices do we have?’”

“Not too many, I guess.’” Claire studied him more closely. He looked tired. “Michael? Are you okay?’”

Now he looked surprised. “Sure. Shane’s the one who’s got issues. Not me.’”

No, Michael was all good. Killed, dismembered, buried, reborn…yeah, just another day in the life. Claire sighed. “Guys,’” she said mournfully. “Michael, I’ll stay home today, but I really do have to go to school, you know. Really.’” Because her missing school was like a caffeine addict going without a daily jolt.

“Your education or your life, Claire. I’d rather you be alive and a little bit dumber.’”

She met his eyes squarely. “Well, I wouldn’t. I’ll stay home today. I don’t promise about tomorrow.’”