Midnight Alley

The places where their bracelets had been were sickly-pale, and Christine kept rubbing hers, as if the shock of open air on the skin was painful.

"Congratulations," Oliver said. "I release you from your contracts."

And then he grabbed Christine. Claire had a glimpse of his fangs flashing down, silvery and sharp, and then he slammed the woman against the wall of the shed and bit.

Claire hid her face against Michael's chest. He put his hand on her hair and held her there, turned away from the sight of Christine Fenton dying.

She heard the woman's body hit the floor and then Oliver, his voice thick and dark, say, "Your turn now."

A sharp, snapping sound, and another body hitting the floor.

When Michael let her go, Claire didn't look at the bodies. She couldn't.

She looked at Oliver, who was staring down at Travis Lowe. The detective was just starting to stir. "What about this one?" he asked. "Friend or foe?"

She had the power to kill him, just by telling the truth — that he'd been working with the Fentons and Captain Obvious, even if under duress.

Instead, she said, "Friend," and she saw Lowe's eyes close in relief. "His partner's missing. I think they were holding him somewhere."

Oliver nodded, clearly not interested, and turned a slow circle. "There was another one," he said. "Where is he?" He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out with disgusted cough. "Jason."

Sometime while Oliver had been busy killing the Fentons, Jason had escaped out the door, and Michael hadn't stopped him. Maybe too weak, maybe just worried for Claire. But anyway, Jason was long gone.

"I'll find him," Oliver said. "I've been tolerant, so long as he didn't threaten our interests, but enough." He glanced down at Michael and Claire. "Go home." He stalked away, out into the sun, without a backward glance. Three dead bodies, and he didn't even pause.

Travis Lowe managed to pull himself to a sitting position, groaning, and rested his head in his hands. "I hate tasers." He looked up and fixed his bloodshot gaze on Claire. "You're okay? Let me see your throat."

She moved the handkerchief. There was just a thin smear on the cloth. Her wrist was worse; she tied the cloth around it as a makeshift bandage and thought, I'm going to have to buy Michael some new ones. Though why she would think of that now, she had no idea. Maybe she just wanted to imagine normal life.

Because this definitely wasn't.

Michael stood up and helped Claire to her feet, then Lowe. He pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them to Lowe. "Pull the car in with the trunk facing the door," he said. "Open it and honk when you're ready."

Lowe nodded and went outside, into the blinding sun. Michael put both hands on Claire's shoulders and looked down at her, then cupped her cheeks in his palms.

"Don't do that again," he said.

"I didn't do anything. I got a ride from a cop, that was all —"

"Not that," he said. "Myrnin. Don't do it again. You can't go back. He'll kill you next time."

He knew where she'd been. Well, she supposed it hadn't been hard to figure out.

"You shouldn't have come," she said. "You knew it was a trap, what are you, crazy?"

"I called Oliver," Michael said.

"What are you, crazy?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

She looked around at the dead people in the shed. "Yeah."

He looked ill for a second, and started to say something, but then the horn honked outside, and he changed it to, "Ride's here."

She nodded, and walked out into the dazzling glare. Something brushed by her, moving fast, and then the trunk of the sedan slammed closed before she'd taken more than two steps.

Claire trudged to the passenger side of the car, exhausted and aching and feeling a stupid need to cry, and said nothing at all on the ride home.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Joe Hess was in the run-down house on Spring Street, locked in a closet, filthy, with a broken arm and two broken ribs — Lowe called with the news of his rescue two hours later. Claire tried to be happy, but the crash that had started for her before she left Myrnin's just kept on driving her down. She felt sick and weak and hollow, and she couldn't even summon the energy to go the hospital to see Shane. Michael told Eve that she was sick, which wasn't much of a lie; Claire stayed in bed, shivering, wrapped in layers of blankets even though the room was warm. Everything kept shifting in her head, from dull gray fog to glittering icy clarity, and she didn't know how long it was going to last. She developed a knife-sharp headache sometime during the night, and by the time she finally slept, it was nearly morning.

Her cell phone rang at two p.m. on Sunday. She'd gotten up to visit the bathroom and grab a bottle of water, but no food, and her whole body felt weak and abused. "Where are you?" the voice on the other end demanded. Claire squinted at the clock and scrubbed a hand through her matted, oily hair.

"Who is it?"

A sigh rattled the speaker. "It's Je

"No," she said, and then tried again. "I'm sick."

"Look, I don't care if you're dying, I've got a mid-term tomorrow for half my grade! Get your ass down here now!"

Je

Someone rapped gently on the door, and then it creaked open. Eve was standing there, with a cracked, much-abused plastic tray in her hands. On it was a frosty glass of Coke, still fizzing, a sandwich, and a cookie.

And a red rose.

"Eat," she said, and slid the trap onto Claire's lap. "Man, that's one hell of a hangover."

"Hangover?" Claire looked at her oddly, and sipped the Coke. It went down sweet and cool, and that helped. "I'm not hung over."

Eve just shook her head. "Been there, CB. Trust me on this. Eat, shower, you'll feel better."

Claire nodded. She did feel a spark of hunger, distant as it was, and managed to take two bites of the sandwich before weariness overtook her again. She tried the cookie in between.

The shower felt like heaven, and Eve was right about that, too; when she finally got dressed and finished half the sandwich she felt almost alive again.

Her cell phone rang again. Je

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Michael. He was standing in the hallway, blocking the door, looking like he was guarding the gates of heaven itself. His hands looked raw and pink — still healing from the burns. She thought about that, about how important his hands were to him, because of the music, and felt a sharp stab of guilt.

"I'm meeting Je

"Well, you're not walking, and I can't take you until dark."

"I can," Eve offered. She joined Claire in the hall. "I need to go in to work anyway. Kim didn't show again, they called a little while ago. Hey, overtime pay. Gotta love it. Maybe we can afford tacos."

Michael looked exasperated, but it wasn't like there were a lot of choices. He nodded and stepped out of the way. Eve stretched up on her toes to kiss him, and that went on for a while before Claire cleared her throat, checked her watch, and got her moving to the car.