by Rachel Caine
As if he’d read her mind, Shane’s dad came to her, stood her up, and patted her down. He did it fast, not lingering like some dirty old man, and found the phone in her pocket. He took it. Monica was yelling again, and trying to kick; one of the bikers was doing the same thing as Frank, although Claire thought it was more feeling up than patting down. Still, he found her cell, too—a Treo—and slid open the van door to pitch them out into the street. “Kill ’em!’” he yelled to the driver, who pulled the van into a U-turn and went back the other way. Claire didn’t hear the crunch, but she figured the phones were nothing but electronic bits.
The turning and lurching continued. Claire just hung on, head down, thinking hard. She couldn’t get word out, but Eve would have. Detective Hess, Detective Lowe? Maybe they’d come running.
Maybe Amelie would send her own people to enforce her Protection. That would be pretty fabulous right about now.
“Hey,’” Monica said to Shane’s dad. “Stupid move, asshole. My dad’s going to have every cop in Morganville on you in seconds. You’re never going to get away, and once they have you, they’ll throw you in a hole so deep, even the sewer will seem like heaven. Don’t touch me, you pig!’” Monica writhed to get away from the stroking hands of the biker next to her, who just smiled and showed gold-capped teeth.
“Don’t touch her,’” Shane’s dad said. “We’re not animals.’” Claire wondered where all this sudden White Knight syndrome came from, because he’d been willing to let his boys do whatever to her and Eve back at the Glass House. “Take her bracelet.’”
“What? No. No! It doesn’t come off, you know that!’”
The biker reached down and took a small pair of bolt cutters from a pouch on his belt. Claire gasped in horror as the biker grabbed Monica’s arm. Oh God, she thought, he’s going to cut off her hand….
But he just sliced through the metal bracelet, instead, yanked it off her wrist, and tossed it to Shane’s father. Monica glared at him, trembling, and slapped him. Hard.
He drew back a hand to slap her back. “Leave it,’” Shane’s father said. He was staring at the bracelet. The outside was the symbol, of course; Claire couldn’t read it, but she figured it was Brandon’s symbol, and now that Brandon was dead, she wondered who picked up his Protection duties. Maybe Oliver…
On the inside was inscribed Monica’s full name: MON
ICA ELLEN MORRELL. Shane’s dad grunted in satisfaction.
“You want a finger, too?’” the biker asked, snipping the shears. “No trouble.’”
“I think this makes the point for us,’” Shane’s dad said. “Get us underground, Kenny. Move.’”
The guy driving—Kenny, at least now Claire knew one of their names—nodded. He was a tall man, kind of thin, with long black hair and a blue bandanna. His leather vest had a naked girl on a Harley on the back, and it matched the tattoos down the arm that Claire could see. Kenny expertly navigated the confusing streets and turns of Morganville, moving fast but not dangerously fast, and then all of a sudden…darkness.
Kenny flicked on the lights. They were in a storm drain, a huge concrete tunnel big enough to fit the van—though barely—and it was heading down at a steep angle into the dark. Claire fought to get her breath. She didn’t really like closed-in places, or the dark…. She remembered how freaked-out she’d been sealed in the hidden pantry room at the Glass House, not so many days ago. No, she didn’t like this. She didn’t like it at all.
“Where are you taking us?’” she asked. She meant it to sound tough, but instead it sounded like what she was: a scared sixteen-year-old, trying to be brave. Great.
Frank Collins, hanging on to one of the leather straps, looked at her with something strange in his eyes—almost, she thought, respect. “Not taking you anywhere,’” he said. “You get to deliver the message.’” And he pitched her Monica’s severed bracelet. “Tell the mayor that if I don’t hear that my son’s been set free before tomorrow at dawn, pretty little miss here gets to find out what fire is really like. We’ve got us a nice blowtorch.’”
She didn’t like Monica. In fact, she kind of hated her, and she thought Morganville would be a much better place if Monica just…disappeared.
But nobody deserved what he was talking about.
“You can’t do that,’” she said. “You can’t.’” But she knew, looking around at the grinning, sweaty crew he’d brought with him, that he could do that, and a lot worse. Shane was right. His dad was seriously sick.
“Kenny up there’s going to pull up to a ladder soon,’” Frank continued. “And I’m going to want you to get out of the van, Claire. Go up the ladder and push open the grate. You’ll be right in front of the Morganville City Hall. You walk up to the first cop you see and you tell him you need to see the mayor about Frank Collins. And you tell him that Frank Collins has his daughter, and she’s going to pay for the life she already took, not to mention the one they’re about to. Got it?’”
Claire nodded stiffly. Monica’s bracelet felt cold and heavy in her fingers.
“One more thing,’” Frank said. “I’m going to need you to tell them just how serious I am. And you’d better be persuasive, because if I don’t hear something from the mayor before dawn, we’ll be using those bolt cutters to send him some more reminders. And she’s fresh out of bracelets.’”
The van lurched to a stop, and Frank threw open the sliding door. “Out,’” he said. “Better make it good, Claire. You want to save my son, don’t you?’”
He didn’t say anything about saving Monica, she noticed. Nothing at all.
Monica looked at her, no longer sleek and magazine glossy. She seemed small and vulnerable, alone in the van with all those men. Claire hesitated, then got up from her seat and grabbed a leather strap to steady herself. Her knees felt like water. “This is crazy,’” she said. “Hang in there. I’ll get help.’”
Tears glittered in Monica’s eyes. “Thanks,’” she said softly. “Tell my dad—’” She didn’t finish, and she sucked in a deep breath. The tears cleared away, and she gave Claire a half-crazy smile. “Tell my dad that if anything happens to me, he can hold you personally responsible.’”
The door slammed shut between them, and the van sped off into the dark. Claire was glad she had her hand on the ladder, because the lights went away fast, and she was left in a dark so close and hot and filthy that she wanted to curl up into a ball.
Instead, she climbed, feeling for the slimy rungs in the dark and waiting for something—something with teeth—to lunge onto her back at any second. Vampires lived down here, they had to. Or at least, they used these tunnels as highways; she’d always wondered how they got around during the day. These weren’t sewer tunnels, just storm drains built extra large. And since Morganville wasn’t exactly built on a floodplain, chances were, the water had never been more than ankle-high in these things since they’d been constructed.
Claire climbed, and when she squinted just right, she saw flickers of what looked like daylight. There was a grate overhead, covered with some kind of protective material to keep the sun from filtering down into the tunnel. She braced herself on the rungs, hooked her left arm through one of the iron bars, and heaved with her right to push the grate up.
Hot Texas sun washed over her in a warm, sticky flood, and Claire gasped and raised her face to it in gratitude. After taking a few fast breaths, she pushed herself up another rung and thumped the grate back on its hinges to climb out.
Just as Shane’s dad had said, she was standing in front of the Morganville City Hall—which was, unfortunately, not on Founder’s Square. It was a big Gothic castle of a building, all red sandstone in rough-cut blocks, and people were coming and going on their way to or from work, or filing paperwork—just carrying out their daily lives, whatever that meant in Morganville.
She rolled out onto the grass and flopped there, breathing hard. A couple of faces appeared overhead, blocking out the sun. One of them was wearing a policeman’s uniform c
ap.
“Hello,’” Claire said, and shaded her eyes. “I need to talk to the mayor. Tell him I have information about his daughter, and Frank Collins.’”
The mayor had changed out of the suit he’d worn to put Shane in a cage the night before; he was wearing a green golf shirt with black slacks and loafers. Very preppy. He was in the hallway, talking into his cell phone, looking tense and angry. Claire was escorted past him, into his office, and deposited in a big red leather chair by two members of Morganville’s finest; she didn’t recognize either of them. When she asked after Detectives Hess and Lowe, she got nothing. Nobody even admitted to knowing their names.
Claire was feeling more than a little light-headed. She had no idea how long it had been since she’d eaten, but the world was starting to take on a surreal melty edge that really wasn’t a very good sign. Between the stress, the poor sleep, and the lack of food, she was going to be loopy soon.
Keep it together, Claire. Pretend you’re cramming for a test. She’d gone without sleep for three days once, prepping for her SAT, and she hadn’t eaten much beyond Jolt cola and Cheetos. She could do this.
“Here,’” said a voice from beside her, and a red can of Coca-Cola appeared, held in a big male hand. “You look like you could use something to drink.’”
Claire looked up. It was Richard, Monica’s cop brother. The cute one. He looked tired and worried. He pulled up another chair close to hers and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Claire busied herself with the Coke, popping the top and taking a fast chug of the icy sweet contents.
“My sister got carjacked,’” he said. “You know that, right?’”
Claire nodded and swallowed. “I was there. I was in the van.’”
“That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you before I let you see my dad,’” Richard said. “You were in the van with Jennifer and Gina and Monica.’”
Claire nodded again.
“Let me ask you this, then. How did you signal them?’”
She blinked. “How did I what?’”
“How did you plan the setup? What was your system? Did you text message them? You know, we can pull those records, Claire. Or was it some kind of trap you led my sister into?’”
“I don’t know what you’re—’”
Richard looked up at her, and she fell silent, because he didn’t look so friendly this time. Not friendly at all. “My sister’s a crazy psycho—I know that. But she’s still my sister. And nobody lays their hands on a Morrell in this town, or somebody—maybe a whole bunch of somebodies—pays for it. Get the point? So whatever you know, whatever your relationship is with these invaders, you’d better come to it quick, or we’re going to start digging. And Claire, that’s going to be a fast, bloody kind of process.’”
She wrapped both hands around the Coke can and raised it to her mouth for another trembling gulp, then said, “I didn’t lead them to your sister. Your sister abducted me. Right out of the Photo Finish parking lot. Ask Eve. Oh God—Eve—Gina cut her. Is she okay?’”
Richard frowned at her. “Eve’s all right.’”
That eased a terrible knot in her stomach. “What about Gina and Jennifer?’”
“Also fine. They called in the carjacking. Gina said—’” He turned something over in his mind, and then said, more slowly, “Gina said a lot of things. But I should have remembered who I was talking to. If there’s anybody in Morganville crazier than my sister, it’s Gina.’”
She couldn’t disagree with that. “The guys who took over the van—’”
“Shane’s father,’” Richard interrupted. “We already know all that. Where is he now?’”
“I don’t know,’” she said. “I swear! He let me out in the storm drain and told me to climb the ladder and talk to your father. That’s why I’m here.’”
“Leave the kid alone, Richard.’” Mayor Morrell stalked in, slamming the office door behind him, and paused to glare at the two extra police officers standing guard. “You. Out. If my son can’t handle some sixteen-year-old stick of a girl, he deserves what he gets.’”
They left, fast. Claire put the Coke can aside on a table as the mayor sank into his big, plush leather chair. He no longer looked quite as smug as he had back at Founder’s Square, and he definitely looked angry.
“You,’” he snapped. “Talk. Now.’”
She did, spilling it out in a tumbling stream of words. Shane’s father hijacking the van and pitching Gina and Jennifer out. Destroying the cell phones. Threatening Monica and sending Claire as his messenger of doom. “He’s serious,’” she finished. “I mean, I’ve seen him do things. He’s seriously not afraid to hurt people, and he definitely doesn’t like Monica.’”
“Oh, and suddenly you’re her bestest little friend? Please. You hate her guts, and you’ve probably got reason,’” Richard said. He got up to pace the room. “Dad, look, let me do this. I can find these guys. If we put every available man and vampire on the streets—’”
“We did that last night, son. Wherever these guys go, they’re going someplace we can’t follow.’” The mayor’s red-rimmed eyes fastened back on hers. He cracked his knuckles. He had big hands, like his son. Hard hands. “Oliver wants this over. He wants to move up the timetable, burn the kid tonight and get them out in the open. It’s not a bad plan. Call their bluff.’”
“You think Frank Collins is bluffing?’” Richard asked.
“No,’” the mayor said. “I think he’ll do exactly what he said he’d do, only a whole lot worse than we can imagine. But what Oliver wants…’”
“You’re just going to let him do it? What about Monica?’”
“Oliver doesn’t know they’ve got her. Once I tell him—’”
“Dad,’” Richard said. “It’s Oliver. He’s not going to give a crap and you know it. Acceptable losses. But it’s not acceptable to me, and it shouldn’t be to you, either.’”
Father and son exchanged looks, and Richard shook his head and continued to pace. “We need to find a way to get her back. Somehow.’”
“You.’” The mayor pointed a thick finger at Claire. “Tell me the whole thing again. Everything. Every detail, I don’t care how minor. Start from the first time you saw these men.’”
Claire opened her mouth to answer, and caught herself just in time. No, you idiot! You can’t tell them the truth! The truth gets Shane fried for sure…. She wasn’t a good liar, she knew that, and there was too much time slipping by while she was scrambling around in her head, trying to pick up the threads of where to start the story….
“I guess—I saw some of them when they broke into the house,’” she said tentatively. “You know, when we called the cops about the home invasion? And then I saw…’”
She froze and closed her eyes. She’d seen something important. Very important. What was it? Something to do with Shane’s dad…
“Start with the van,’” Richard said, and short-circuited her attempt at catching the memory. She dutifully recounted it all again, and then again, answering specific questions as fast as she could. Her head ached, and despite the cold Coke, her throat did, too. She needed sleep, and she wanted to roll up in blankets and cry herself into a coma. Oliver wants to move up the timetable, burn the kid tonight. No. No, they couldn’t let it happen, they couldn’t….
But they could. Without question.
“Let’s start over,’” Richard said. “From the beginning.’”
She burst into despairing tears.
It took hours before they were done with her. Nobody offered to drive her home.
Claire walked, feeling like she was drifting half out of her body, and made it all the way home without a single incident. It was still daylight, which helped, but the streets seemed unnaturally quiet and deserted. Word was out, she guessed. Humans were keeping their heads down, hoping the storm would pass.
As Claire slammed the door, Eve came bolting down the stairs, raced to her, and wrapped her in a breathless full-body hug. “Bitch!’”
she said. “I can’t believe you scared the crap out of me like that. Oh my God, Claire. Can you believe those jerks at the police station wouldn’t even take my statement? I even had a wound! A real wound with blood and everything! How’d you get away? Did Monica hurt you?’”
Eve didn’t know. Nobody had told her at the police station.
“Shane’s dad stopped the van,’” Claire said. “He took Monica as a hostage.’”
For a second, neither one of them moved, and then Eve whooped and held up her hand for a high five. Claire just stared at her, and Eve compensated by clapping both hands over her head. “Yesssss!’” she said, and did a totally geeky victory dance. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer psycho!’”
“Hey!’” Claire yelled, and Eve froze in midcelebration. It was stupid, but Claire was angry; she knew Eve was right, knew she had no reason at all to think Monica was ever going to be anything but a gigantic pain in the ass, but…“Shane’s dad’s going to burn her if they go through with the execution. He has a blowtorch.’”
The glee dropped out of Eve’s expression. “Oh,’” she said. “Well…still. Not like she didn’t ask for it. Karma’s a bitch, and so am I.’”
“Oliver’s trying to get them to kill Shane tonight. We’re out of time, Eve. I don’t know what to do anymore.’”
That knocked the last of Eve’s smugness right out from under her. She didn’t seem to know, either. She licked her lips and said, “There’s still time. Let me make some phone calls. And you need to get some food. And some sleep.’”
“I can’t sleep.’”
“Well, you can eat, right?’”
She could, as it turned out—and she needed to. The world had taken on a gray color, and her head was aching. A hot dog—plain except for mustard—chips, and a bottle of water solved some of that, though not the ache in her heart, or the sick feeling that had nothing to do with hunger.
What are we going to do?
Eve was on the phone, calling people. Claire slumped on the couch, tipped over, and curled up under the blanket. It still smelled like Shane’s cologne.