by Rachel Caine
Claire didn’t blame him. “I’ve got something for you to do, and I need some of the drug,” she said. “It could be really important. I’ll be at school in about twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay. Don’t come here. My kids are asleep right now. Let’s meet somewhere else.”
“The on-campus coffee bar,” she said. “It’s in the University Center.”
“Trust me, I know where it is. Twenty minutes.”
She was already heading for the door.
With no sounds coming from any of the other rooms, Claire figured her housemates were all crashed out, exhausted. She didn’t know why she wasn’t, except for a suppressed, vibrating fear inside her that if she slept any more, something bad was going to happen.
Showered, dressed in her last not-very-good clothes, she grabbed up her backpack and repacked it. Her dart gun was out of darts anyway, so she left it behind. The samples Myrnin had prepared of Bishop’s blood went into a sturdy padded box, and on impulse, she added a couple of stakes and the silver knife Amelie had given her.
And books.
It was the first time Claire had been on foot in Morganville since the rioting had started, and it was eerie. The town was quiet again, but stores had broken windows, some boarded over; there were some buildings reduced to burned-out hulks, with blind, open doorways. Broken bottles were on the sidewalks and spots of what looked like blood on the concrete—and, in places, dark splashes.
Claire hurried past it all, even past Common Grounds, where the steel shutters were down inside the windows. There was no sign of anyone within. She imagined Theo Goldman standing there watching her from cover, and waved a little, just a waggle of fingers.
She didn’t really expect a response.
The gates of the university were open, and the guards were gone. Claire jogged along the sidewalk, going up the hill and around the curve, and began to see students up and moving, even so early in the morning. As she got closer to the central cluster of buildings, the foot traffic intensified, and here and there she saw alert campus police walking in pairs, watching for trouble.
The students didn’t seem to notice anything at all. Not for the first time, Claire wondered if Amelie’s semipsychic network that cut Morganville off from the world also kept people on campus clueless.
She didn’t like to think they were just naturally that stupid. Then again, she’d been to some of the parties.
The University Center had opened its doors only a few minutes before, and the coffee barista was just taking the chairs down from the tables. Usually it would have been Eve on duty, but instead, it was one of the university staffers, on loan from the food service most likely. He didn’t exactly look happy to be there. Claire tried to be nice, and finally got a smile from him as he handed her a mocha and took her cash.
“I wouldn’t be here,” he confessed, “except that they’re paying us triple to be here the rest of the week.”
“Really? Wow. I’ll tell Eve. She could use the money.”
“Yeah, get her in here. I’m not good at this coffee stuff. Give me the plain stuff. Water, beans—can’t really screw that up. This espresso is hard.”
Claire decided, after tasting the mocha, that he was right. He really wasn’t cut out for it. She sipped it anyway, and took a seat where she could watch the majority of the UC entrances for Dr. Mills.
She almost didn’t recognize him. He’d shed his white doctor’s coat, of course, but somehow she’d never expected to see someone like him wearing a zip-up hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers. He was more the suit-and-tie type. He ordered plain coffee—good choice—and came to join her at the table.
Dr. Mills was medium everything, and he blended in at the university just as easily as he had at the hospital. He’d have made a good spy, Claire thought. He had one of those faces—young from one angle, older from another, with nothing you could really remember later about it.
But he had a nice, comforting smile. She supposed that would be a real asset in a doctor.
“Morning,” he said, and gulped coffee. His eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed. “I’m going back to the hospital later today. Damage assessments, and we’ve already reopened the trauma units and CCU. I’m going to catch some sleep as soon as we’re done, in case any crash cases come in. Nothing worse than an exhausted trauma surgeon.”
She felt even more guilty about waking him up. “I’ll make this quick,” she promised. Claire opened her backpack, took out the padded box, and slid it across the table to him. “Blood samples, from Myrnin.”
Mills frowned. “I’ve already got a hundred blood samples from Myrnin. Why—”
“These are different,” Claire said. “Trust me. There’s one labeled B that’s important.”
“Important, how?”
“I don’t want to say. I’d rather you took a look first.” In science, Claire knew, it was better to come to an analysis cold, without too many expectations. Dr. Mills knew that, too, and he nodded as he took possession of the samples. “Um—if you want to sleep, maybe you shouldn’t drink that stuff.”
Dr. Mills smiled and threw back the rest of his coffee. “You get to be a doctor by developing immunity to all kinds of things, including caffeine,” he said. “Trust me. The second my head touches the pillow, I’m asleep, even if I’ve got a coffee IV drip.”
“I know people who’d pay good money for that. The IV drip, I mean.”
He shook his head, grinning, but then got serious. “You seem okay. I was worried about you. You’re just so . . . young, to be involved in all this stuff.”
“I’m all right. And I’m really—”
“Not that young. Yes, I know. But still. Let an old man fret a little. I’ve got two daughters.” He tossed his coffee cup at the trash—two points—and stood. “Here’s all I could get together of the drug. Sorry, it’s not a lot, but I’ve got a new batch in the works. It’ll take a couple of days to finish.”
He handed her a bag that clinked with small glass bottles. She peeked inside. “This should be plenty.” Unless, of course, she had to start dosing all over Morganville, in which case, they were done, anyway.
“Sorry to make this a gulp-and-run, but . . .”
“You should go,” Claire agreed. “Thanks, Dr. Mills.” She offered her hand. He shook it gravely.
Around his wrist, there was a silver bracelet, with Amelie’s symbol on it. He looked down at it, then at her gold one, and shrugged.
“I don’t think it’s time to take it off,” he said. “Not yet.”
At least yours does come off, Claire thought, but didn’t say. Dr. Mills had signed agreements, contracts, and those things were binding in Morganville, but the contract she’d signed had made her Amelie’s property, body and soul. And her bracelet didn’t have a catch on it, which made it more like a slave collar.
From time to time, that still creeped her out.
It was getting close to time for her first class, and as Claire hefted her backpack, she wondered how many people would show up. Lots, probably. Knowing most of the professors, they’d think today was a good day for a quiz.
She wasn’t disappointed. She also wasn’t panicked, unlike some of her classmates during her first class, and her third. Claire didn’t panic on tests, not unless it was in a dream where she also had to clog dance and twirl batons to get a good grade. And the quizzes weren’t so hard anyway, not even the physics tests.
One thing she noticed, more and more, as she went around campus: fewer people had on bracelets. Morganville natives got used to wearing them twenty-four/ seven, so she could clearly see the tan lines where the bracelets had been . . . and weren’t anymore. It was almost like a reverse tattoo.
Around noon, she saw Monica Morrell, Gina, and Jennifer.
The three girls were walking fast, heads down, books in their arms. There was a whole lot different about them; Claire was used to seeing those three stalking the campus like tigers, confident and cruel. They’d stare down anyone, and whether you liked
them or not, they were wicked fashion queens, always showing themselves off to best advantage.
Not today.
Monica, who usually was the centerpiece, looked awful. Her shiny, flirty hair was dull and fuzzy, as if she had barely bothered to brush it, much less condition or curl. What little Claire could see of her face looked makeup free. She was wearing a shapeless sweater in an unflatteringly ugly pattern, and sloppy blue jeans, the kind Claire imagined she might keep around to clean house in, if Monica ever did that kind of thing.
Gina and Jennifer didn’t look much better, and they all looked defeated.
Claire still felt a little, tiny, unworthy tingle of satisfaction . . . until she saw the looks they were getting. Morganville natives who’d taken off their bracelets were outright glaring at Monica and her entourage, and a few of them did worse than just give them dirty looks. As Claire watched, a big, tough jock wearing a TPU jacket bumped into Jennifer and sent her books flying. She didn’t look at him. She just bent over to pick them up.
“Hey, you clumsy whore, what the hell?” He shoved her onto her butt as she tried to get up, but she wasn’t his real target; she was just standing between him and Monica. “Hey. Morrell. How’s your daddy?”
“Fine,” Monica said, and looked him in the eyes. “I’d ask about yours, but since you don’t know who he was—”
The jock stepped very close to her. She didn’t flinch, but Claire could tell that she wanted to. There were tight lines around her eyes and mouth, and her knuckles were white where she gripped her books.
“You’ve been Princess Queen Bitch your whole life,” he said. “You remember Annie? Annie McFarlane? You used to call her a fat cow. You laughed at her in school. You took pictures of her in the bathroom and posted them on the Internet. Remember?”
Monica didn’t answer.
The jock smiled. “Yeah, you remember Annie. She was a good kid, and I liked her.”
“You didn’t like her enough to stand up for her,” Monica said. “Right, Clark? You wanted to get in my pants more than you wanted me to be kind to your little fat friend. Not my fault she ended up wrecking that stupid car at the town border. Maybe it’s your fault, though. Maybe she couldn’t stand being in town with you anymore after you dumped her.”
Clark knocked the books out of her hand and shoved her up against a nearby tree trunk. Hard.
“I’ve got something for you, bitch.” He dug in his pocket and came up with something square, about four inches across. It was a sticky label like a name tag, only with a picture on it of an awkward but sweet-looking teenage girl trying bravely to smile for the camera.
Clark slapped it on Monica’s chest and rubbed it so it stuck to the sweater.
“You wear that,” he said. “You wear Annie’s picture. If I see you take it off today, I swear, what you did to Annie back in high school’s going to seem like a Cancún vacation.”
Under Annie’s picture were the words KILLED BY MONICA MORRELL.
Monica looked down at it, swallowed, and turned bright red, then pale. She jerked her chin up again, sharply, and stared at Clark. “Are you done?”
“So far. Remember, you take it off—”
“Yeah, Clark, you weren’t exactly subtle. I get it. You think I care?”
Clark’s grin widened. “No, you don’t. Not yet. Have a nice day, Queenie.”
He walked away and did a high five with two other guys.
As Monica stared down at the label on her chest in utter disgust, another girl approached—another Morganville native who’d taken off the bracelet. Monica didn’t notice her until the girl was right in her face.
This one didn’t talk. She just ripped the backing off another label and stuck it on Monica’s chest next to Annie McFarlane’s photo.
This one just said KILLER in big red letters.
She kept on walking.
Monica started to rip it off, but Clark was watching her.
“Suits you,” he said, and pointed to his eyes, then to her. “We’ll be watching you all day. There are a lot more labels coming.”
Clark was right. It was going to be a really long, bad day to be Monica Morrell. Even Gina and Jennifer were fading back now, heading out in a different direction and leaving her to face the music.
Monica’s gaze fell on Claire. There was a flash of fear in her eyes, and shame, and genuine pain.
And then she armored up and snapped, “What are you looking at, freak?”
Claire shrugged. “Justice, I guess.” She frowned. “How come you didn’t stay with your parents?”
“None of your business.” Monica’s fierce stare wavered. “Dad wanted us all to go back to normal. So people could see we’re not afraid.”
“How’s that going?”
Monica took a step toward her, then hugged her books to her chest to cover up most of the labels, and hurried on.
She hadn’t gotten ten feet before a stranger ran up and slapped a label across her back that had a picture of a slender young girl and an older boy of maybe fifteen on it. The words beneath said KILLER OF ALYSSA.
With a shock, Claire realized that the boy in that picture was Shane. And that was his sister, Alyssa, the one who’d died in the fire that Monica had set.
“Justice,” Claire repeated softly. She felt a little sick, actually. Justice wasn’t the same thing as mercy.
Her phone rang as she was trying to decide what to do. “Better come home,” Michael Glass said. “We’ve got an emergency signal from Richard at City Hall.”
12
The signal had come over the coded strategy network, which Claire had just assumed was dead, considering that Oliver had been the one running it. But Richard had found a use for it, and as she burst in the front door, breathless, she heard Michael and Eve talking in the living room. Claire closed and locked the door, dumped her backpack, and hurried to join them.
“What did I miss?”
“Shhh,” they both said. Michael, Eve, and Shane were all seated at the table, staring intently at the small walkie-talkie sitting upright in the middle. Michael pulled out a chair for Claire, and she sat, trying to be as quiet as possible.
Richard was talking.
—No telling whether or not this storm will hit us full on, but right now, the Weather Service shows the radar track going right over the top of us. It’ll be here in the next few hours, probably right around dark. It’s late in the year for tornado activity, but they’re telling us there’s a strong possibility of some real trouble. On top of all the other things we have going on, this isn’t good news. I’m putting all emergency services and citizen patrols on full alert. If we get a tornado, get to your designated shelters.
Designated shelters? Claire mouthed to Michael, who shrugged.
If you’re closer to City Hall, come here; we’ve got a shelter in the basement. Those of you who are Civil Defense wardens, go door-to-door in your area, tell people we’ve got a storm coming and what to do. We’re putting it on TV and radio, and the university’s going to get ready as well.
“Richard, this is Hector,” said a new voice. “Miller House. You got any news about this takeover people are talking about?”
“We’ve got rumors, but nothing concrete,” Richard said. “We hear there’s a lot of talk going around town about taking back City Hall, but we’ve got no specific word about when these people are meeting, or where, or even who they are. All I can tell you is that we’ve fortified the building, and the barricades remain up around Founder’s Square, for all the good that does. I need everybody in a security-designated location to be on the alert today and tonight. Report in if you see any sign of an attack, any sign at all. We’ll try to get to you in support.”
Michael exchanged a look with the rest of them, and then picked up the radio. He pressed the button. “Michael Glass. You think Bishop’s behind this?”
“I think Bishop’s willing to let humans do his dirty work for him, and then sweep in to make himself lord and master on the ashes,” Ri
chard said. “Seems like his style. Put Shane on.”
Michael held out the radio. Shane looked at it like it might bite, then took it and pressed TALK. “Yeah, this is Shane.”
“I have two unconfirmed sightings of your father in town. I know this isn’t easy for you, but I need to know: is Frank Collins back in Morganville?”
Shane looked into Claire’s eyes and said, “If he is, he hasn’t talked to me about it.”
He lied. Claire’s lips parted, and she almost blurted something out, but she just couldn’t think what to say. “Shane,” she whispered. He shook his head.
“Tell you what, Richard, you catch my dad, you’ve got my personal endorsement for tossing him in the deepest pit you’ve got around here,” Shane said. “If he’s in Morganville, he’s got a plan, but he won’t be working for or with the vamps. Not that he knows, anyway.”
“Fair enough. You hear from him—”
“You’re on speed dial. Got it.” Shane set the radio back in the center of the table. Claire kept staring at him, willing him to speak, to say something, but he didn’t.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “Don’t put me in the middle.”
“I’m not,” Shane said. “Nothing I said was a lie. My dad told me he was coming, not that he’s here. I haven’t seen him, and I don’t want to. I meant what I said. If he’s here, Dick and his brownshirts are welcome to him. I’ve got nothing to do with him, not anymore.”
Claire wasn’t sure she believed that, but she didn’t think he was intentionally lying now. He probably did mean it. She just thought that no matter how much he thought he was done with his dad, all it would take would be a snap of Frank Collins’s fingers to bring him running.
Not good.
Richard was answering questions from others on the radio, but Michael was no longer listening. He was fixed on Shane. “You knew? You knew he was coming back here, and you didn’t warn me?”
Shane stirred uneasily. “Look—”