Fade Out

Shane nodded. “No problem. What happened?”

That was a question Michael wasn’t going to answer, evidently, because he just shrugged. “Fight.” One hell of one, from the state of his clothes and his hunger for blood. “It was worth it. One of them told me where Kim took him to interview, and it wasn’t any of the places you already had.”

Eve slowly raised her head, and her eyes narrowed. “You followed us. You thought we couldn’t handle it.”

“I knew where you were going. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“No, you were not right! Michael—”

He put the bottle down, stepped forward, and caught her hands in his. Eve started to try to pull free, but he held on, willing her to look at him. It seemed really personal, somehow.

“I’m a vampire,” he said. “I’m never going to be anything else. You need to decide if you’re okay with that, Eve. I am.”

“What if I’m not?” Her voice sounded really small and wounded. “What if I just want you to be Michael, not—not Vampire Michael of the Clan, or whatever?”

“I can’t,” he said. “Because I’m not just Michael anymore. I haven’t been since before you moved in. You just didn’t know it.”

He let go of her hands, uncapped the sports bottle, and drank the blood down in long, thirsty gulps, making sure she was watching. His eyes turned ruby red, and he licked the drops from his lips. He put the empty bottle down, watching her.

She crossed her arms and turned away from him, and Michael closed his eyes in pain. When he opened them again, they were just human, and sad.

Claire wondered if she’d actually just witnessed a breakup. She hoped not.

Shane cleared his throat. “So. You turned up at a place where Kim goes, right? Let’s talk about that. Please.”

Michael walked over to the chair, where his guitar lay across the seat. He picked it up and cradled it in his arms, still watching Eve. After a few seconds, he began to softly play a series of chords. It was an aching kind of sound, gentle and full of emotion, and Claire saw Eve’s shoulders tense and shake as she suppressed tears.

“Kim used to work at KVVV,” Michael said. “She was an intern there before it shut down. The vampire said she interviewed him in a booth there at the old studios at the edge of town, by the transmission tower.”

Claire couldn’t help feeling a little spike of excitement. “That’s it. That’s got to be it, right? You said it was shut down?”

“Yeah, Amelie shut it down a few years back after—there was an incident,” Michael said. “The town council decided we didn’t need another radio station. It’s been locked up since then.”

“We need to go look!” Claire bounced to her feet, but Shane caught her shoulder and guided her back into the chair.

“Cool it. Not at night, we don’t. The last thing we need to do is go poking around an abandoned building in the middle of the night in a town full of vampires.”

“But what if she decides to close up shop? Cut her losses, take her goodies, and try to leave?” Eve said. “She could get killed. We have to warn her.”

“Warn her?” Claire felt short of breath, ready to burst out into wild laughter. “Eve, don’t you get it? She rigged our house. She was watching us. Watching everything, every private thing—”

“No,” Eve said. “No, she wouldn’t do that. You’re wrong.”

“I found cameras in the bedrooms!”

Eve’s mouth opened and closed, and Claire didn’t think she’d ever seen her look quite so devastated. She slumped down on the couch and covered her rice-powder-pale face with both hands.

Shane was staring at Claire with a frozen expression. “Which bedrooms?”

“Yours,” she said softly. “And Michael’s.”

For a second Shane didn’t move, and then he reached out, picked up the nearest thing—a DVD case—and hurled it across the room so hard that it dented the wall. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “That little—”

Michael’s face had gone completely still, and he wasn’t playing anymore. He held the guitar as if he’d forgotten he had it. “She was recording us. Her own little Big Brother reality show, with vampires.”

Eve said nothing. Claire couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking, but she looked utterly miserable.

“We have to go,” Eve finally said. “We need to find where she keeps the recordings, and wipe them out. Every little bit. This can’t happen. She can’t do this.”

“I just hope she hasn’t already done it,” Claire said. “She’s been putting this together for almost a month. She’s got to be almost done by now. If we’re right about her having some kind of sponsor outside of town . . .”

“Then we really have to go. Now. Tonight.”

“No,” Michael said. “Not at night.”

“She’s going to get away with it!”

“That’s a chance we’re going to have to take,” Michael said. “Shane’s right. No charging off into the dark. It has to wait until morning.” He started playing again. His head was down, as if he were concentrating on his music, but Claire didn’t think he was. There was something a little wrong with the way he said it, the way he wouldn’t look at them. “How about more of those sandwiches?”

Eve raised her head and stared at him, tears smearing her mascara into clown makeup. “Unbelievable,” she said. “You know what’s on those recordings. You know, Michael. You’d let her take that and sell it?”

“We need to be smart about this. If we go ru

“Screw your plans!” she shouted, and jumped off the couch, then pounded up the stairs, chains jingling. “Screw you, too!”

Michael looked at Claire, then Shane.

“She’s not wrong,” Shane said. “Sorry, man.”

Michael had lied to them, and Claire caught him at it.

She was on her way to the bathroom with her tank top and pajama bottoms over one arm, thinking about curling up warm in Shane’s arms, when she heard Michael talking in his room. The door was open a crack. Shane and Eve were still downstairs, cleaning up the kitchen.

He was on his cell phone. “No,” he was saying. “No, I’m sure. I just need to go check it out, tonight. Make sure nobody is using the facility without—”

Claire pushed the door open, and Michael twisted around to look at her.

So busted.

He froze for a second, then said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Oliver. You’re telling him everything, aren’t you?”

“Claire—”

“We asked you. We asked you if you were with us, and you said you were. Youpromised.”

“Claire, please.”

“No.” She stepped back when he stretched out a hand. “Eve was right. You’re not Michael anymore. You’re Vampire Michael. It’s really us and them, and you’re with them.”

“Claire.”

“What?”

“That wasn’t Oliver.”

“Then who was it?”

“Detective Hess. He was going to meet me at the station and check it out, tonight. Eve was right. We really can’t wait, not even for morning.” Michael’s expression took on a dangerous edge. “Kim crossed the line. She tricked her way in here, and she screwed us over. I can forgive a lot of things, Claire, but I can’t forgive her for this.”

“So you were going to leave us behind.”

His eyes flared hot. “Because I care about you. Yes. Do you know how close Eve came to getting herself killed tonight? And Shane? No more. I’m not risking you guys, not for this. Not for her.”

“Hey! You’re not our father! You can’t just decide we need protecting—we’re all in this together!”

“No,” he said. “We’re not. Some of us get hurt a lot easier than others, and I love you guys. I’m not going to lose you. Not like this.”

He stripped off his ripped shirt and pulled on another one, grabbed his keys from the table, and very gently picked Claire up and moved her when she tried to block his path. “Don’t,” he said. “Claire, I mean it. Don’t tell them where I went. Let me handle this.”