by Rachel Caine
At eighteen, Steven refused to sign a contract, and more than once, I was forced to come to his rescue when he got on the wrong side of one vampire faction or another. A few years later, he fell wildly in love with a girl from out of town, Rose, and within a year after that, they were expecting a child. I’d been a father, a widower, a dead man, a vampire. . . . Being a grandfather seemed too much, suddenly.
But just like when I’d held Steven in my arms for the first time, holding my grandson, Michael, on the day of his birth seemed to fill that empty space inside. Love hadn’t changed for me. I still loved my family. I still wanted desperately to protect that small, beautiful life.
Michael Glass. He was my grandson, but as I watched him grow, watched him settle into a kind, thoughtful, gifted boy with loving parents to guide him, he felt more like my own child. And I tried to give him the guidance I hadn’t been able to give Steven. From time to time, it even felt like I succeeded.
Amelie—Amelie and I are complicated. I love her; I know that. I would do anything for her, anything at all, and that’s dangerous to her as well as me. So we keep our distance, for the most part. She has to play the ice queen, especially now that Oliver’s in town and pressing her for control, and I understand that. I make her vulnerable.
I hate being her weakness.
When she turned Michael, I agreed with her decision, but I hated that, too—seeing his mortal life end, and my grandson being dragged headlong into this world of ancient politics and power. I wanted to protect him. I always thought that I could protect him from everything, but not even a vampire can promise that.
Not even a vampire should, in Morganville.
One thing about it, though: I don’t feel as alone.
Selfish as that is, I can’t tell you what it means to me.
GRUDGE
I wrote this story again as a kind of backstory exercise. . . . This one was done to get on paper the story behind the death of Shane’s sister, Alyssa, and his family’s flight from Morganville, which was such a pivotal event in his life. I also wanted to see who Michael, Shane, Eve, and Monica were before and after those events, and before they met Claire—because even though Claire is the main character of the Morganville series, relationships between the other characters formed long before she arrived.
So here, in its entirety, is the story of that night told mainly from Shane’s point of view.
“Heads up,” Michael Glass said, and jerked his chin at something over Shane’s shoulder. “Incoming.”
Shane didn’t even need to look. Michael’s expression said it all—the kind of amusement only a best friend can have when your life is about to hit a brick wall. And there was only one brick wall who’d be walking toward him during the break between classes. (Well, two, but he didn’t think Principal Wiley was out to get him this week. So far.)
“Oh, hey, Shane!” said a girl from behind him. He already knew it was coming, but the voice still gave him cold chills. She was just being so nice. It was completely weird. “Funny running into you here.”
Shane slammed his locker door, spun the lock, and turned to face Monica Morrell, the crown princess of Morganville High School—at least in her own mind. And he wasn’t really all that sure she was wrong, which sucked. He didn’t like her. In a big way, actually. But she did have power, and power was important everywhere in Morganville . . . even in English class.
“What, in the same hallway we both walk every day?” he asked. He managed to keep most of his sarcasm out of it, though. “You need something?” He was hoping he was giving off enough not interested, go away vibes to drive off a dozen Monicas, but from the glow in her eyes and the smile on her face, she was definitely not picking up the clue phone. She’d gotten some tanning thing done, and he had to admit, Monica was beautiful, in that predatory mean-girl kind of way. The kind that owed more to product than personality.
She stepped up very close, close enough he could smell the expensive perfume she’d drenched herself in, and dropped her voice to a low purr. “I definitely need something,” she said. Monica was his age, sixteen going on seventeen, but she acted like she’d jumped over the teen years and straight to being some oversexed middle-aged cougar. Not that he had anything against oversexed middle-aged cougars; he’d take one of those over Monica any day. “Let’s find someplace quiet and discuss it.”
Somewhere behind him, Michael—who was unconvincingly sorting through books at his own locker, killing time and shamelessly gawking—made a choking sound. Shut up, man, Shane thought, but he couldn’t look away from Monica. She was too dangerous. “Yeah,” Shane said slowly. “About that. I’m—I’ve got class.” And he tried to back up and move around her.
She got in his way. Her smile stayed on, and stayed bright, but he saw a little flicker of impatience in her eyes. “Oh, come on. Since when is Shane Collins concerned about class?” she practically cooed. And before he could stop her, she came at him, backed him up against the lockers with a bang that attracted the attention of the fifty or sixty MHS students currently in the hallway, and . . .
And then all of a sudden she was all over him, hands in the wrong places, sliding up under his shirt, and she was kissing him, and for a long second his body was mostly saying, Mmmm, girl, warm, before his brain yelled, Monica! and the whole thing went very wrong.
Shane grabbed her by her shoulders and shoved her back. Hard. Monica stumbled, shock all over her pretty face, and for a second he saw genuine hurt . . . but only for a second.
Then it was anger, turned up to eleven.
“Oh, sorry—didn’t know you were gay, Collins! I should have known you and Glass—”
“Hey!” Shane said sharply. “Back off.” Because she was already drawing a crowd, and there was nothing Monica liked better than a stage for her personal drama. Michael slammed his locker door, and when Shane glanced over at him, he saw that his friend’s face had gone very still. Michael could get really cold when he wanted, but the last thing he needed right now was Michael weighing in, especially when Monica was bound to push buttons. “Walk away. Look, I’m already doing it.” And he did, shouldering his backpack and pushing past her in the general direction of his next class.
Monica followed. “That’s it? You’re just going to walk away?” Her voice carried so well she really should have been a drama queen. “So you get me to do all those awful things and then you pretend like it never happened?”
“Make up your mind, Monica—either I’m a perv hookup artist or I’m gay,” Shane said, and kept walking. “Pick one.”
“You’re a walking social disease. I don’t have to pick anything!”
“Certainly don’t have to pick me,” he said, and flashed her a grin and a finger on the way into his classroom. “Not interested.”
And he figured, in his innocence, that it probably would blow over by the end of school.
Wrong.
• • •
There was no sign of Monica, or any of her posse, lurking around for Shane when school ended, which he figured was a good thing. Michael had headed off to practice guitar, as he did pretty much every day; Shane, on the other hand, was all about the slacking off, preferably someplace not his own house, but in a pinch that would do. Today, he thought he’d walk his sister, Alyssa, as far as the front door—because he was a good brother, mostly—and then see what kind of trouble he could find in one of the game shops, preferably the one that let him play for free, as long as he bought a game once in a while. His mom would gripe, because he probably wouldn’t show for dinner; his dad wouldn’t much care, because, like on most nights, he’d probably wind up at the bar and end up not caring about much.
Alyssa would care, but she was a big girl now, and she’d just have to get over it, the way Shane had gotten over all of the crap that came along with being a Morganville inmate.
He loitered outside the junior high gym until his sister came o
ut—a leggy, willowy girl with a face that was going to be beautiful when it finally gave up the baby fat. For now, she looked . . . sweet.
And deeply amused.
“What?” Shane stayed slumped against the concrete wall. She slumped next to him and crossed her arms. Out on the grass field, the Morganville High Vipers football team was making an effort to look tough. Not very successfully.
“You,” Alyssa said, and laughed. She had a nice laugh, when it wasn’t directed at him. “I hear you got all up Monica’s nose today.”
“She did it first,” Shane said. “She was all over me in the hall. I guess you heard that, too.”
“Hands down your pants?”
“What? No!” His ears were turning red. He didn’t even want to have this conversation with his kid sister. “It wasn’t like that.”
“So what was it like? Did she kiss you?”
Yes. “Kinda.”
“Tongue kiss?”
“Shut up, Lyss.”
“Because tongue kissing Monica would probably give you some dire germs.”
“I’m not kidding—shut up!”
Alyssa made a rude noise, but she let it go, pushed off the wall, and started walking with long, easy strides. She was wearing gym clothes—gray shorts, a T-shirt Shane personally felt was too tight, and cross-trainers with little footie socks. She was sweet, and shy with everybody but Shane, it seemed like. “So, after the thing we won’t discuss, I heard you punched her.”
“Do you really think I’d punch a girl?”
“Well, it’s Monica.”
“No. I pushed her off me, that’s all. Then she—”
“Wait,” Alyssa said, and turned backward as she walked, facing him. She was basically the only person Shane had ever seen who could walk backward as fast as forward. It was weird. “Let me guess. She said—uh—you were gay?”
Huh. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s her go-to insult for anybody who doesn’t drool over her like a total perv. Did she go to level two?”
“You tell me.”
“Did she Myspace bomb you yet?”
Shane blinked. “No.”
“Wow. Bet she did. Bet everybody who owes her a favor has gone out and trashed your page.” Alyssa executed a perfect twirl and fell back in step, walking forward. “Next thing she’ll try to get her big brother to arrest you or something.”
Richard Morrell was newly hired on at the Morganville Police Department. Shane didn’t know him well, but any Morrell was bound to be worse than he expected. “Great,” he said. “Just what I need, a record.”
“Tough guy,” Alyssa said, and sent him a brilliant, sly grin. “Race you.”
“I’m a tough guy. I don’t run.”
“Loser!” She stuck her tongue out at him and set off, long legs flying, her long brown hair whipping like a flag behind her. It was hot still in Morganville—fall wasn’t making itself felt yet—and heat shimmering off the pavement made it look like she was running through water.
“Crap,” he sighed, and kicked it up to a jog, just to keep her in sight.
Today was a fairly typical day—nobody on the streets, doors and windows closed even during the day. And nobody lurking, at least visibly, to snatch Alyssa off the street. Shane didn’t worry so much about pervs in Morganville—although he was pretty sure they existed—as about vampires.
Because it was just a fact of life. Morganville had vampires. And he and Alyssa were both wearing bracelets—leather, with an embossed symbol—that identified them as being minors under the Protection of a vampire named Sullivan. Not that Sullivan was worth much. For a vamp, he did a crappy job of intimidating people, or taking care of them, or even just showing up when he was supposed to. Maybe he was a drunk, like Shane’s dad was. Who knew?
All Shane knew was that he despised the vampires, and when he turned eighteen, he was not going to sign up with one of the undead bloodsuckers. He was going to live free, live fast, and die young.
Speaking of which . . . “Lyss! Slow down!” Because she was pulling so far ahead now he could hardly see her at all. She waved, jogged backward, and then sprinted around the corner.
He was maybe fifteen feet behind her when something rushed at him from the mouth of a dark alley, and dragged him into the shadows. Shane let out a surprised yelp and immediately tried to get himself on his feet, but whatever was pulling him, it was strong, and fast, and he was off-balance.
A kick hit him in the ribs, and he rolled into a ball. Lyss, he thought, in despair. Keep running. If she looked back and didn’t see him, she might come back. She might get hurt.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Someone yanked his head back, and he felt sharp nails digging into his scalp. The perfume wave hit him a few seconds later, sickly sweet and familiar, and then Monica Morrell smiled nastily down into his face and said, “I forget—where were we? Oh, this is Brandon. He’s my Protector.” She put her free hand on the vampire standing next to her, the one holding Shane’s left arm in a viselike grip. Brandon had that dark, broody thing going, all black leather and pale attitude, and he looked like he really couldn’t give a crap about Shane or Monica, and ripping Shane’s arm out of its socket was just another day at the office. “He wants you to apologize.”
Shane gritted his teeth against a wave of pain from his shoulder, which was complaining it wasn’t supposed to bend that way. “I’m sorry you’re a vicious skank,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t punch you when I had the chance. How’s that?”
Monica’s fingernails dug deep enough in his scalp to cut, and she shook his head side to side, miming a no like he was her puppet. “Not what I was looking for, you jerk. Apologize. Now. And ask me out.”
“Ask you out? Are you out of your freaking mind? Ow!” Because that had made her nails really dig in. “Do you really think we’re going to hit it off, you crazy—”
“I didn’t say I’d say yes,” she said. “Fine. If you won’t apologize, then you’re just going to have to be a tragic cautionary tale for all the rude people. Brandon?”
She said it with a kind of bratty assurance, and she even snapped her fingers, as if she had the vampire right where she wanted him. Shane could have told her—without even knowing Brandon at all, except to avoid him—that she’d just made a serious mistake.
“What?” Brandon asked softly, and Shane felt the pain in his arm start to retreat. Brandon had let go of him. “Are you calling a dog, you spoiled little girl? Because dogs bite.”
Monica, who’d been lost in her own sleazy sense of victory, suddenly snapped back to reality, let go of Shane’s hair, and stepped back, looking very, very alarmed. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, Brandon. I just wanted—”
“I said I’d do you this favor,” Brandon said, with emphasis on the word favor. “I’m finished now. You should put some thought into how you’re going to pay me back.”
And he turned and walked off into the shadows, avoiding the sunlight, heading who knew where.
Shane rolled up to his feet. He was tall, and even if he still felt awkward in his body, he knew he wasn’t a pushover. And Monica—Monica wasn’t even a big girl.
He didn’t threaten her. His heart was pounding, and he saw red, and he wanted nothing more than to make her pay for scaring him that bad, but . . . he couldn’t. He just stared at her for a long, hostile moment, then said, “Leave me alone, bitch,” as he turned and walked away, heading for the sunlight.
At the end of the alley, he saw a tall girl’s shadow, hovering uncertainly near the entrance. Lyss. She’d come back, which was stupid. “Go!” he yelled at his sister, and waved her off. “I’m fine! Go on!”
Behind him, he heard Monica Morrell say, in an ice-cold whisper, “Nobody does this to me, Collins. Nobody.”
He swung around, intending this time to scare the hell out of her, but . .
. she was running the other way. Chasing after her pissy vamp boyfriend, maybe. Not that Shane cared.
He got to the end of the alley. Alyssa was standing there, looking wan and scared and suddenly younger than twelve. “What happened?” Her eyes were big and round. “Shane, you’ve got dirt all over—”
“It’s nothing,” he interrupted, and put a hand on her shoulder to move her off down the sidewalk, fast. “Let’s just get home.”
• • •
Home wasn’t that much of an improvement, but after having run into Monica—violently—Shane didn’t feel real good about letting Lyssa stay home alone. Mom was out doing mom-things—he didn’t really know what—and Dad, well. Dad would be over at one of the two bars, pounding back boilermakers and pretending like life was good.
“I thought you were going to the game shop,” Alyssa yelled from behind her closed bedroom door as she changed clothes. “You don’t have to babysit, you know! I’m not a kid!”
“You are, and I do, and shut up,” Shane said. “I’m opening a can of SpaghettiOs. Better hurry up.”
She made a vomiting noise, which made him grin. He went downstairs and, true to his word, opened up the can, microwaved the SpaghettiOs, and started wolfing them down. When Lyss finally showed, he tossed her the can opener. “Make yourself something.”
“Wow, you are some babysitter. Why don’t you just tell me to go play in the street?”
“Not nearly exciting enough. Make yourself something and I’ll play you on Super Mario Bros. Winner gets to pick dessert.”
“Twinkies!”
“I said winner, loser.”
Lyssa popped a spoon in her mouth and crossed her eyes at him, poured soup into a bowl, and stuck it in the microwave.
Two hours later, he’d lost at video games, Lyssa had her Twinkie, and somehow they ended up watching bad movies. Mom called. She was stuck at work. Not too surprising; she ended up staying late a lot these days. Probably couldn’t deal with Dad, who of course still hadn’t shown up. Shane put on a DVD—one of those Pixar movies Lyss loved, and he secretly did, too, although it probably wasn’t cool—and she fell asleep halfway through it. He let it finish, then nudged her with one foot.