by Rachel Caine
He came in without waiting for an invitation. “Yeah, welcome.” Claire sighed and shut the door. “We’re getting stuff together. Uh, is that all you brought?” It was one bag, smaller even than Michael’s or Shane’s.
Oliver didn’t bother to answer her. He walked past, into the living room, and straight for Michael. Eve and Shane, who were bickering over the placement of the Cokes versus the bottled iced coffees, fell silent, and Claire joined them.
“You’re surely not taking all this,” Oliver said, looking at the pile of stuff on the floor. It was, Claire had to admit, a lot—mainly because Eve’s suitcase was the size of Rhode Island, but they’d all contributed. “Is there room?”
“I have a major trunk,” Eve said. “It’ll fit.”
Oliver shook his head. “I hate traveling with amateurs,” he said. “Very well. Get the car loaded. Michael and I will wait inside until the sun is down.”
He acted as if he were the boss, which was annoying, but the truth was, he was the boss. Amelie had assigned him as escort, and that meant he could boss them around all he wanted. Heaven, for Oliver. Hell, for everybody else.
Claire shrugged silently, then picked up her suitcase and backpack and led the way.
Packing the car was hilariously awful, because trying to get Eve’s suitcase wedged in was a drama nobody needed. It finally worked, and everything else fit in, including the guitars and the coolers. It left the three of them sweaty, annoyed, and exhausted, but by the time they’d worked it all out, the sun was safely down.
Nobody tried to call shotgun. Oliver took the front seat, Michael got in the driver’s seat, and Eve, Claire, and Shane took the back. It wasn’t even all that crowded.
“Passes,” Oliver said, and held out his hand. Michael handed them over, and Oliver examined them as if he didn’t know they’d already been cleared to leave town. “Very well. Proceed.”
“Tunes!” Eve said. “We need—”
“No music,” Oliver said. “I will not be subjected to what you consider tunes.”
“FYI, I know it’s a disguise, but you even suck at being a hippie,” Eve muttered. “At least like the Beatles or something.”
“No.”
“It’s going to be a really long trip,” Shane said, and put his arm around both Claire and Eve, since he was in the middle. “But at least I’ve got all the babes. Backseat, for the win.”
“Shut up,” Michael said.
“Come back here and make me, Dad.”
Michael and Shane exchanged rude gestures, and then Michael started up the car and pulled away from the curb. Eve squirmed in her seat and clapped her hands.
Oliver turned and glared at her. He took off his black hat and set it on the dashboard, next to Eve’s nodding skeletal figurine. “Enough of that,” he said. “It’s bad enough I have to be trapped in a car with you children. You’ll do your best not to act like children.”
“Oliver,” Michael said, “back off. It’s our first time out of town. Let us enjoy it a little.”
“The first time for some of you,” Oliver said, and looked out the window as the houses of Lot Street began to roll by, one after another. “For some of us, this is not quite as life-changing an event.”
That was kind of true, but still, Claire felt Eve’s excitement was contagious. Michael was smiling. Shane was enjoying being the dude in the backseat. And she was ... leaving Morganville behind, at least for a little while.
At the town limits, Claire watched the WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE sign approach. This side said PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US SO SOON!
They rocketed past it doing at least seventy, maybe eighty miles an hour. Beyond the sign sat a police cruiser—one of Hannah Moses’s crew. Claire felt her breath rush out, but the cop behind the wheel just waved them on, and Michael didn’t even slow down.
Morganville, in the rearview mirror.
Just like that.
It shouldn’t have been so easy, Claire thought. After all that, all the fighting and the terror and the threats.
They just ... drove away.
Michael switched on the radio and found a scratchy rock ‘n’ roll station, and although Oliver kept glaring, he turned it up, and before long they were all singing “Born to Be Wild,” out of tune and at the top of their lungs. Oliver didn’t, but he didn’t pitch an übervamp fit, either. Claire was almost certain that once or twice, she saw his lips moving with the lyrics.
The sunset was glorious, spilling colors all over the sky in shades of orange and red and gold, fading into indigo blue. Claire rolled down the window and smelled the cool, crisp air, flavored with dust and sage. Outside of Morganville there was scrub desert, and a lot of it. Nothing to see for miles except flat, empty land, and the two-lane blacktop road stretching into the distance, straight as an arrow.
“We have to do some jogging around on farm roads,” Michael said, once the song was over and the music shifted to something not as karaoke worthy. “Should be on the interstate in about two hours or so.”
“You’re sure you know where you’re going?” Shane asked. “Because I don’t want to wake up in the Gulf of Mexico or something.”
Michael ignored that, and Claire slowly settled into her seat, feeling relaxed and light. They’d left. They’d actually left Morganville. She could feel the same suppressed thrill and relief in Shane, and, on his other side, from Eve, whose dark eyes just glowed with excitement. She’d been dreaming of this her whole life, Claire realized. Maybe not being trapped in a car with Oliver, or that Michael would be a vampire, but leaving town with Michael had always been one of Eve’s top-ten fantasies.
And here they were, more or less, anyway, which just went to show you that your top-ten fantasies might turn out to be completely different experiences than you’d ever thought.
“We’re out,” Eve said, almost to herself. “We’re out, we’re out, we’re out.”
“You’ll go back,” Oliver said, and turned his head to stare out the side window. “You all go back, eventually.”
“Even for a vampire, you’re a ray of sunshine,” Shane said. “So, we should probably talk about what we’re going to do in Dallas.”
“Everything!” Eve said, instantly. “Everything, everything, everything. And then everything else.”
“Whoa, hit the brakes, girl. We’ve got, what, a hundred bucks between the two of us? I’m pretty sure the all-inclusive everything party package costs more.”
“Oh.” Eve looked surprised, as if she hadn’t even thought about money at all. Knowing Eve, she likely hadn’t. “Well, we have to at least go to some of the good clubs, right? And shopping? Oh, and they have some really good movie theaters.”
“Movies?” Michael repeated, looking in the rearview mirror. “Seriously? Eve.”
“What? Stadium seating, Michael. DigitaL With three-D and everything.”
“You’re going to waste your first trip outside of Morganville inside a movie theater?”
“No, well, I—stadium seating! Okay, okay, fine. Museums. Concerts. Culture. Better?”
Shane just shook his head. “Not really. Where’s the fun, Eve?”
“That is fun!”
Oliver sighed and let his head fall against the window glass with a soft thump. “One of you is going to be left to walk to Dallas if you don’t shut up.”
“Wow. Who got up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening?” Eve shot back. “Well? You’re the expert. Where would you go?”
Oliver straightened up and looked back at her. “Excuse me?”
“I’m asking your opinion. You probably know where the best places are to go.”
“I—” Oliver seemed at a loss for words, which was pretty funny; Claire couldn’t imagine the last time that had happened to him. Probably not in the last couple of centuries, she guessed. “You’re asking for my recommendations. Of things to do in Dallas.”
“Yep.”
He stared at Eve for a long, silent, chilly moment, then turned back, face forward. “I d
oubt our tastes have anything in common. You’re too young for the bars, and too old for the playgrounds. I know nothing of what you’d like.” Then, after a second’s pause, he continued. “Perhaps the malls.”
“Malls!” Eve almost shrieked it, then clapped both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God, I forgot about the malls. With actual stores. Can we go to the mall?”
“Which one?”
“There’s more than one! Okay, uh—one with a Hot Topic store.”
Oliver was—from Claire’s point of view—almost smiling. “I believe that could be arranged.”
“Great.” Shane sighed, and let his head drop back against the seat. “The mall. Just what I always wanted.”
Claire reached up and threaded her fingers through his. “We can do other stuff.” When he glanced over at her, and she realized that everybody else was looking at her, too, she colored and added, “Cultural stuff. You know. Bookstores. Museums. There’s a cool science museum I’d like to see.”
“Is there not a video game store in this entire town?”
“Let’s just get there first,” Michael said.
That was good advice, Claire thought as the last colors faded from the sky and night took over. That was really good advice.
She dozed a little bit, but she woke up when the car jerked violently, veered, and she heard the tires squeal. She was still trying to understand what had happened when Oliver snapped, “Pull over.”
“What?” Michael, in the glow of the dashboard, looked like a ghost, his eyes wide and his face tense.
“You’ve never driven outside of Morganville. I have. Pull over. Vampire reflexes will put you into an accident, not save you from one. Humans can’t react in the same way you can. It takes practice to drive safely around them on the open road.”
So Michael must have tried to dodge a car.Wow. Somehow, Claire had never considered that vampire reflexes could be a downside. Michael must have felt spooked enough to agree with Oliver, because he pulled the car off to the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires, and got out. He and Oliver changed places. Oliver checked the car’s mirrors with the ease of long practice, eased the car back on the road, and the whole thing settled into a steady, rolling rhythm. Claire looked over at the other two in the backseat. Eve had her headphones on and her eyes closed. Shane was sound asleep. It was ... peaceful, she supposed. She looked out at the night. There was a quarter moon, so it wasn’t all that bright out, but the silver light gilded sand and spiky plants. Everything in the wash of the car’s headlights was vivid; everything else was just shadows and smoke.
It was like space travel, she decided. Every once in a while you could see an isolated house, far out in the middle of nowhere, with its lights blazing against the night. But mostly, they were out here alone.
Oliver took a turn off the two-lane highway, heading for the interstate, she supposed. She didn’t ask—not until they passed a road sign that had an arrow pointing to Dallas.
The arrow pointed left. They headed straight on.
“Hey,” she said. “Hey, Oliver? I think you missed your turn.”
“I don’t need advice,” Oliver said.
“But the sign—”
“We have a stop to make,” he said. “It won’t take long.”
“Wait, what? What stop?” It was news to Michael, apparently. That didn’t ease the sudden anxiety in Claire’s chest. “What’s this about, Oliver?”
“Be still, all of you. It’s none of your affair.”
“Our car,” Michael pointed out. “And we’re in it. So it looks like it is our affair. Now, where are you taking us, and why?”
Shane woke up, probably sensing the tension in Michael’s voice. He blinked twice, swiped at his face, and leaned forward. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “We’re getting hijacked.”
Shane sat up slowly, and Claire could feel the tension coiling in him.
“Easy, all of you,” Oliver said. “This is a directive from Amelie. There’s a small issue I need to address. It won’t take long.”
Eve, who’d removed one earphone, gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “I could stretch my legs,” she said. “Also, bathroom would be good.”
“What kind of small issue?” Shane asked. He was still tense, watchful, and not buying Oliver’s no-big-deal attitude. Oliver’s cold eyes fixed on him in the rearview mirror.
“Nothing of consequence to you,” he said. “And this isn’t a debate. Shut up, all of you.”
“Mikey?”
Michael gazed at Oliver for a long few seconds before he finally said, “No, it’s okay. A short stop would do us all good, probably.”
“Depending on where,” Shane said, but shrugged and sat back. “I’m cool if you are.”
Michael nodded. “We cool, Oliver?”
“I told you, it’s not a debate.”
“Four of us, one of you. Maybe it could be.”
“Only if you want to answer to Amelie in the end.”
Michael said nothing. They drove on through the inky night, surrounded by a bubble of backwashed headlights, and finally a faded sign glowed green in the distance. Claire blinked and squinted at it.
“‘Durram, Texas,”’ she read. “Is that where we’re going?”
“More importantly, does it have an all-night truck stop?” Eve groaned. “Because I was serious about that bathroom thing. Really.”
“Your bladder must be the size of a peanut,” Shane said. “I think I see a sign up there.”
He did, and it was a truck stop—not big, not very clean, but open. It was crowded, too—six big rigs in the lot, and quite a few pickup trucks. Oliver took the exit and pulled off into the truck stop, edging the car to a halt at a gas pump. “Top off the tank,” he told Michael. “Then park it and wait for me inside. I’ll be back.”
“Wait, when?”
“When I’m done. I’m sure you can find something to occupy yourselves.” And then the driver’s side door opened, and Oliver walked away. As soon as he was outside of the wash of the harsh overhead lights, he vanished.
“We could just leave,” Shane pointed out. “Fill up and drive off.”
“And you think that’s a good plan?”
“Actually? Not really. But it’s a funny plan.”
“Funny as in getting us killed. Some more than others, I might add.”
“Fine, rub the resurrection in our faces. But seriously.
Why are we doing this? We ditch Oliver; we never have to go back to Morganville. Think about it.”
Claire licked her lips and said, softly, “Not all of us can walk away, Shane. My parents are there. Eve’s mom and brother. We can’t just pick up and leave, not unless we want something bad to happen to them.”
He looked actually ashamed of himself, as if he’d really forgotten that. “I didn’t mean—” He gave a heavy sigh. “Yeah, okay. I see your point.”
“Added to that, I’m Amelie’s blood now,” Michael said. “She can find me if she wants me. If you want to include me in the great escape, I’m like a giant GPS tracking chip of woe.”
“Whoa.”
“Exactly.”
Eve said, plaintively, “Bathroom?”
And that closed the discussion of running away.
At least, for the moment.
The Texas Star Truck Stop was worse on the inside than the outside.
As Claire pushed open the door—with Shane trying to open it for her—a tinny bell rang, and when she looked up, Claire found herself being stared at—a lot.
“Wow,” Shane murmured, close behind her as he entered the store. “Meth central.”
She knew what he meant. This was a scary bunch of people. The youngest person in the place, apart from them, was a pinched, too-tanned skinny woman of about thirty wearing a skimpy top and cut-off shorts. She had tattoos—a lot of them. Everybody else was older, bigger, meaner, and uncomfortably fixed on the newcomers.
And then Eve stepped in, in all her Goth glory,boun
cing from one Doc Marten-booted foot to the other. “Bathroom?” she asked the big, bearded man behind the counter. He frowned at her, then reached down and came up with a key attached to a big metal bar. “Thank you!” Eve seized the key and dashed off down the dark hall marked as RESTROOMS; Claire wasn’t sure she’d have the guts, no matter how much she had to pee. That did not look safe, never mind clean.
Michael stepped in last, and took it all in with one quick, comprehensive look. He raised his eyebrows at Shane, who shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Fun, huh?”
“Let’s get a table,” Michael said. “Order something.” Under the theory, Claire guessed, that if they spent money, the locals would like them better.
Somehow, she didn’t think that was going to work. Her gaze fell on signs posted around the store: YOU DRAW YOUR GUN, WE DRAW FASTER. GUN CONTROL MEANS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT. NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT; SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.
“I don’t think I’m going to be hungry,” she said, but Michael was right. This really was their only option, other than sitting outside in the car. “Maybe something to drink. They have Coke, right?”
“Claire, people in Botswana have Coke. I’m pretty sure Up the Road Apiece, Texas, has Coke.”
By the time they’d gotten seated at one of the grungy plastic booths, still being stared at by the locals, Eve finally joined them. She looked more relaxed, bouncy, and more—well, Eve. “Better,” she announced, as she slipped into place next to Michael. “Mmm, much better now.”
He put his arm around her and smiled. It was cute. Claire found herself smiling, too, and snuggled up against Shane. “How was the bathroom?”
Eve shuddered. “We shall never speak of it again.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“You want a menu?”
“Absolutely. They might have ice cream.”
The last thing bouncy, happy Eve needed was a sugar rush, but ice cream did sound good.... Claire looked around for a waitress and found one leaning against the cracked counter, whispering to the man on the other side. They were both staring straight at Claire and her friends, and their expressions weren’t exactly friendly.