Текст книги "Carpe Corpus"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: Rachel Caine
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

“I don’t know how!”

Ada looked even more annoyed, and wrote something on the board—but it was faint, and faded almost before Claire could read it. B-L-O . . . “Blood?” Claire asked. Ada herself was fading, but Claire saw her mouth the word yes. “Of course. What else? Why can’t any of you guys ever come up with something that uses chocolate?”

No answer from the computer/spirit world; Ada disappeared in a puff of white mist and was gone. Claire looked around and found a thumbtack pressed into the surface of a bulletin board. She hesitated, positioned the thumbtack over her finger, and muttered, “If I get tetanus, I’m blaming you, Myrnin.”

Then she stabbed the sharp point in, and came up with a few fat drops of red that she dripped onto the surface of the symbol on Amelie’s bracelet.

It glowed white in the dim light. The blood disappeared into the grooves, and the whole bracelet turned warm, then uncomfortably hot against her skin. Claire gritted her teeth until she felt a scream coming on, and finally, the burning sensation faded, leaving the metal oddly cold.

And that was it. Amelie didn’t magically appear. Claire wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this seemed really anticlimactic.

She stuck the thumbtack back on the board and went back to tell Hannah and Michael that she’d completely failed.

Dejected, she headed back to the basement. The hallways were deserted now, since classes were back in session. As she passed the administration office door, it opened, and the man she’d sent to his room like a little kid looked out. “Miss Danvers?” he asked. “Is there something I can do for you?”

This was every high school kid’s fantasy, Claire thought, and she was tempted to tell him to do something crazy, like strip naked and run around the auditorium. But instead she just shook her head and kept on walking.

He came out of the door and got in her way.

“Could you put in a good word for me?” he asked, and when she tried to go around him, he grabbed her by the arm. He lowered his voice to a fast, harsh whisper. “Tell Mr. Bishop I can help him. I can be of use. Just tell him that!”

The big double doors leading out into the sunlight at the end of the hall crashed open, and a whole troop of people came flooding in. They all wore long, dark hooded coats, and they moved fast, with a purpose.

Faster than humans.

The two in the lead threw back their hoods, and Claire was relieved to see that one of them was Amelie, perfectly composed and looking as in charge as ever, even if she wasn’t queen of Morganville anymore.

The other leader of the pack was Oliver, of course. Not so comforting.

“Milton Dyer,” Amelie said. “Please take your hand off of my friend Claire. Now.”

The man went about as pale as his white shirt, and looked down at Claire, and his hand wrapped around her arm. He let go as if she’d suddenly become electrified.

“Now go away,” Amelie said to him in that same calm, emotionless voice. “I don’t wish to see you again.”

“I . . . ” He wet his lips. “I’m still loyal to my Protector... ”

“Your Protector was Charles,” Amelie said. “Charles is dead. Oliver, do you have any interest in picking up Mr. Dyer’s contract?”

“I really don’t,” Oliver said. He sounded bored.

“Then that settles things. Leave my sight, Mr. Dyer. The next time you cross my path, I’ll finish you.” She said it without any particular sense of menace, but Claire didn’t doubt for an instant that she meant it. Neither did Mr. Dyer, who quickly retreated to his office. He didn’t even dare to slam the door. It closed with a soft, careful click.

Leaving Claire in the hallway with a bunch of vampires. Old ones, she thought—Amelie and Oliver were obviously old, but the others seemed to have come through their sunlight stroll without a mark, too. Ten of them in total. Most of them didn’t bother to put their hoods back and reveal their faces.

“You used the bracelet in a way that I did not teach you,” Amelie said. “Who showed you how to use it to summon me?”

“Why?”

“Don’t play games with me, Claire. Was it Myrnin?”

“No. It was Ada.”

Amelie’s gray eyes flickered, just a little, but it was enough to tell Claire that she had knowledge that Amelie wished she didn’t. “I see. We’ll talk of that later,” she said. “Why did you use the blood call? It’s intended to alert me only if you are seriously injured.”

“Well, someone is. Myrnin’s very sick. He’s downstairs. I need to get him some help. I came to find Dr. Mills, but—”

“Dr. Mills has been relocated,”Amelie said.“I thought it best, after Myrnin’s ill-advised visit here. I can’t tell you where he is. You understand why.”

Claire knew. And she felt sick and a little angry, too. “You think I might give him away. To Bishop. Well, I wouldn’t. Myrnin knew that.”

“Whatever Myrnin believes, I can’t take the risk. We are close to the endgame, Claire. I risk only what I must.”

“You’re not happy that Myrnin introduced me to Ada, are you?” Claire asked.

“Myrnin’s judgment has been . . . questionable of late. As you say, he is ill. Where can we find him?”

“Downstairs, by the portal,” Claire said. Amelie nodded a brisk dismissal and turned to go, along with all of her followers. “Wait! What do you want me to do?”

Amelie said nothing. Oliver, lingering behind for just a moment, said, “Stay out of our way. If you value your friends, keep them out of our way, too.”

Then they were gone, moving fast and silently through the basement doorway.

Claire stood in the empty hallway for a few deep breaths, hearing the sounds of lectures continuing on inside of classrooms, student voices raised in questions or answers.

Life went on.

So weird.

She started to go down to the basement, but a vampire she didn’t know blocked the entrance. “No,” he said flatly. “You don’t go with us.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Hannah and Michael—”

“They will be taken care of. Leave.”

There wasn’t any room for negotiation. Claire finally got the hint, and turned away to walk out of the high school the old-fashioned way . . . into the sunlight, the way Amelie and her gang had come. She had no idea where they’d come from, or where they were going.

Amelie wanted it that way.

Claire sat down on the steps of the high school for a few long minutes, shivering in the cold wind, not much warmed by the bright sun in a cloudless sky. The street outside the school looked empty—a few cars making their way around Morganville, but not much else going on.

She heard the door behind her open, and Hannah Moses clumped down in her heavy boots and offered Claire a big, elegant hand. Claire took it and stood. “Amelie’s taking care of him?” she asked. Hannah nodded. “Michael went with?”

“He’ll see you later,” Hannah said. “Important thing is to get you out of here. I need you to help me get your parents on that bus.”

“Bishop’s going to find out,” she said. “You know that, right? He’s going to find out what you’re doing.”

Hannah nodded. “That’s why we’re doing it fast, girlfriend. So let’s move.”

Mom and Dad were having an argument; Claire could hear it from where she and Hannah stood on the front porch of their house, ringing the doorbell. Claire felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Her parents didn’t fight very often, but when they did, it was usually over something important.

The shouty blur of voices broke off, and about ten seconds later, the door whipped open. Claire’s mom stood there, color burning high in her cheeks. She looked stricken when she caught sight of Claire, very obviously a guilty-looking earwitness to the fighting, but she rallied and gave a bright smile and gestured them both inside.

“Sheriff Hannah Moses, ma’am,” Hannah said without waiting for introductions. “I don’t think we’ve met in person before. I’ve known your daughter for a while now. She’s good people.”

She offered her hand, and Claire’s mother took it for a quick shake as her eyes darted anxiously from Claire to Hannah, then back. “Is there some kind of problem, Sheriff Moses?”

“Hannah, please.” Hannah really was turning on the charm, and she had an awful lot of it. “May I talk with you and your husband at the same time? This concerns both of you.”

With only a single, worried look over her shoulder, her mother led the way down the long hallway and into the living room area. Same floor plan as the Glass House, but so wrenchingly different, especially now. Claire got mental whiplash from expecting to see the familiar battered couch and Michael’s guitar and the cheerful stacks of books against the wall; instead, her mother’s ruthlessly efficient housekeeping had made this room magazine-feature-ready, everything carefully aligned and straightened.

The only thing that wasn’t ready for the photo shoot was Claire’s father, who sat in one of the leather armchairs, face flushed. He had a stubborn set to his jaw, and an angry fire in his eyes that Claire hadn’t seen in, well, forever. Still, he got to his feet and shook hands with Hannah, politely gesturing her to the couch while Claire’s mom sank down on the other end, with Claire left to take the middle seat. Normally, her mom would have been fluttering around offering coffee and cookies and sandwiches, but not this time. She just took the other armchair and looked worried.

Hannah said, “Let’s put all our cards on the table. There’s a town emergency. Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, you are going to need to come with us. Pack a bag for a few nights, take whatever you need that you can’t live without. I can give you about fifteen minutes.”

That was . . . blunt. Claire blinked. She expected a flood of questions from her parents, but she was surprised by the silence.

Claire’s parents looked at each other, and then her father nodded. “Good,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do this for a while. Claire, go with your mother and pack. I’ll be up in a second.”

“Um . . .” Claire cleared her throat and tried not to look as awkward as she felt. “I’m not going, Dad.”

They both looked at her as if she’d spoken in Chinese. “Of course you are,” her mom said. “You’re not staying here alone. Not with what we know about how dangerous it is.”

“I’m sorry, but you know just enough about Morganville to get yourselves in trouble,” Hannah said. “This really isn’t up for discussion. You have to pack, and you have to go. And Claire can’t come with you, at least not yet.”

One thing about Hannah: when she said something like that, she clearly meant it. In the silence that fell, Claire felt the weight of both her parents’ stares directly on her, so she looked down at her clasped hands instead. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not,” her dad said, with a steely undertone in his voice she couldn’t remember hearing before. “It’s absolutely simple. I’m your father, you’re under eighteen, and you’re coming with us. I’m sorry, Chief Moses, but she’s too young to be here on her own.”

“Dad, you sentme here on my own!” Claire said.

“Why do you think we were fighting, Claire?” her mom replied. “Your father was just reminding me that I was the one who thought sending you to a school close by, just to get some experience with it, would be a good idea. Hewanted you to go straight to MIT, although how we were going to pay for that, I really don’t have any—”

Dad interrupted her. “We’re not going to start this up again. Claire, we were wrong to let you go off on your own here in the first place, no matter how safe we thought it would be. And we’re fixing that now. You’re coming with us, and things will be better once we’re out of this town.”

Claire’s hands formed into fists as frustration boiled up inside her. “Are you listeningto me? It’s too late for all that stuff! I can’t go with you!”

She should have guessed that they’d make the wrong assumptions . . . and, in a way, the right one. “It’s the boy, isn’t it?” Claire’s mother said. “Shane?”

“What? No!” Claire blurted out a denial that, even to her own ears, sounded lame and guilty. “No, not really. It’s something else. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Oh my God . . . Claire, are you pregnant?”

“ Mom!” She knew she looked as mortified as she felt, especially with Hannah looking on.

“Honey, has that boy taken advantage of you?” Her father was charging full speed down the wrong path; he even stood up to make it more dramatic. “Well?”

Claire stared at him, openmouthed, unable to even try to speak. She knew she should lie, but she just couldn’t find the words.

In the ringing silence, her father said, “I want him arrested.”

Hannah asked, “On what charge, sir?”

“Are you kidding? He had sex with my underage daughter!” He gave Claire a look that was partly angry, partly wounded, and all over dangerous. “Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong, Claire.”

“It . . . wasn’t like that!”

Her dad transferred his glare over to Hannah. “You see? I’ll swear out a complaint if I need to.”

Hannah looked perfectly comfortable. “Sir, there’s no complaint to be sworn out here. Fact is, Claire is seventeen years old, which by Texas law makes her able to give consent on her own. Shane’s only a year older than she is. There’s no laws being broken here, beyond maybe the law of good sense, which I think you’ll admit is often a casualty of our teen years. This is a family matter, not a matter for the police.”

Her father looked shocked, then even angrier. “That’s insane! It has to be illegal!”

“Well, it’s not, sir, and it has nothing to do with why I’m telling you Claire needs to stay in Morganville. That has to do with the vampires.” Hannah had deftly moved the whole thing off the subject of Shane and sex, for which Claire was spine-meltingly grateful. “I’m telling you this for your own good, and for Claire’s own good: she stays here. She won’t be unprotected; I promise you that. We’re committed to keeping her safe.”

“Who’s we?” Claire’s dad wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“Everybody who counts,” Hannah said, and raised her eyebrows. “Time’s a-wastin’, Mr. Danvers. We really can’t debate this. You need to go right now. Please go pack.”

In the end, they did. Claire went to help her mother, reluctantly; she didn’t want the subject to come back to her and Shane, but it did as soon as the door was closed. At least her father wasn’t in the room. God, that had been awkward .

“Honey.” Claire paused in the act of dragging a suitcase out from under her parents’ bed, took one look at the serious expression on her mother’s face, and kept on with what she was doing. “Honey, I really don’t like your getting involved with that boy—that man. And it’s not appropriate for you to be living in that house with him. I just can’t allow that.”

“Mom, could we pleasefocus on not getting killed today? I promise, you can give me the I’m-so-disappointed-in-you speech tomorrow, and every day after, if you will just pack!”

Her mother opened a drawer of the dresser by the window, grabbed a few handfuls of things at random, and threw them into the open suitcase. Notnormal. Mom made those people who worked retail clothing stores look sloppy about how they folded things. She moved on to the next drawer, then the next. Claire struggled to neaten up the mess.

“Just tell me this,” her mother said as she dumped an armload of clothes from the closet onto the bed. “Are you being safe?”

Oh lord,Claire did not want to have the birds-and-bees part two conversation with her mother. Not now. Not ever, to be honest; they’d suffered through it once, awkwardly, and once was enough. “Yes,” she said, with as calm and decisive a tone as she could manage. “He insisted.” She meant that to reflect well on Shane. Of course, Mom took it the wrong way.

“You mean you didn’t? Oh, Claire. It’s your body!”

“Mom, of course I—” Claire took a deep breath. “Can we just pack? Please?”

She winced as a rain of shoes descended on the bed.

Hannah was waiting when she finally dragged the suitcase downstairs. Claire’s father had come in for a few minutes, just long enough to add his few things to the pile, and then he’d tried to tote the bag himself, but Claire had insisted on doing it. The thing was fifty pounds, at least.

Hannah raised her eyebrows at Claire. What happened?

Claire rolled her eyes. Don’t ask.

It was a cold, silent ride to the bus.

Richard Morrell had commandeered two genuine Grey-hound buses, with plush seats and tinted windows. According to the hand-lettered sign in the front window, it was a charter heading to Midland/Odessa, but Claire suspected they’d go somewhere else as a destination.

The first bus was already being loaded by the time Claire arrived with her parents; in line to board were most of the town officials and Founder House residents, including the Morrells. Eve was there, too, holding a clipboard and checking people in at a folding table.

“Oh, look, there’s your friend,” Claire’s mom said, and pointed. “She doesn’t look very happy.”

She wasn’t pointing at Eve, but at Monica. Monica definitely wasn’t happy. She had to be forced onto the bus, arguing the entire time with her brother, who looked harassed and angry. She’d somehow managed to shoe-horn her two friends into the evacuation along with her, although Gina and Jennifer looked a lot more relieved at being given a chance to leave town. Monica was probably thinking that she stood a better chance of social queen bee-ness with Bishop than if Amelie was in charge, but she was thinking short-term; if what Myrnin said was right, and Claire had no reason to think it wasn’t, then the entire social order of Morganville was about to get shattered, and being the most popular wouldn’t get you anything but more face time with the firing squad.

The argument with Monica came from the fact that Richard Morrell refused to get on the bus. Well, Claire had seen that coming. He wasn’t the type to run. “There’s a whole town here that can’t get out,” he snapped at his sister, who was stubbornly resisting getting pushed toward the idling bus. “People who need looking after. I’m the mayor. I have to stay. Besides, since Dad’s gone, I’m on the town council. I can’t just go.”

“You have got such an ego, Richard! Nobody’s counting on you. Most of the stupid people in this town would claw one another apart to get out, if they thought they could.”

“That’s why I’m staying,” he said. “Because those people need order. But I need for you to go, Monica. Please. You need to look after our mom.”

Monica wavered. Claire, looking up, could see Mrs. Morrell sitting on the bus, looking out the window with a distant, remote expression. Monica had said her mother wasn’t dealing very well, and she did look thin and frail and not entirely in this world.

“That is such emotional blackmail!” Monica spat. Behind her, Gina and Jennifer looked at each other, took a few quiet steps back, and mounted the stairs to board the bus, leaving Monica on her own. “Seriously, Richard. I can’t believe you’re sending me away like this!”

“Believe it. You’re getting on, and getting out of here. Now. I need you to be safe.” He hugged her, but she stiff-armed him with an angry glare, and turned and boarded without another word. She slumped into the seat behind Jennifer and Gina, next to her mother, and folded her arms in silent protest.

Richard breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Claire’s parents. “Please,” he said. “We need to get these buses moving.”

Claire’s father shook his head.

“Dad,” Claire said, and tugged on his arm. “Dad, come on.”

He still hesitated, staring at Hannah, then Richard, then Claire. Still shaking his head in mute refusal.

“Dad, you have to go! Now!” Claire practically shouted. She felt sick inside, worried for them and relieved to think they’d be safe, finally, somewhere outside of Morganville. Somewhere none of this could touch them. “Mom, please. Just make him go! I don’t want you here; you’re just in the way!”

She said it in desperation, and she saw it hurt her parents a little. She’d said worse to them over the years; she’d had her share of I hate youand I wish you were dead, but that had been when she was just a kid and thought she knew everything.

Now, she knew she didn’t, but in this case, she knew more than they did.

Frustrating, because they’d never see it that way.

“Don’t you talk to us like that, Claire!” her mother snapped. Her dad put a hand on her shoulder and patted, and she took a deep breath.

“All right,” Dad said, “I can see you’re not going to come without a fight, and I can see your friends here aren’t going to help us.” He paused, and Claire swallowed hard at the look in his eyes as he locked stares with Hannah, then Richard. “If anything happens to our daughter—”

“Sir,” Richard said. “If you don’t get on the bus, something is going to happen to all of us, and it’s going to be very, very bad. Please. Just go.”

“You need to do it for your daughter,” Hannah added. “I think you both know that, deep down. So you let me worry about taking care of Claire. You two get on the bus. I promise you, this will be over soon.”

It was a sad sort of farewell, full of tears (from Mom and Claire) and the kind of too-strong hug that meant Claire’s father felt just as choked up, but wasn’t willing to show it. Her mother smoothed her hair, just like she’d done since Claire was a little girl, and kissed her gently on the cheek.

“You be good,” she said, and looked deep into Claire’s eyes. “We’re going to talk about things later.”

She meant about Shane, of course. Claire sighed and nodded, and hugged her one last time. She watched them walk up the stairs and onto the bus.

Her parents took a seat near the front, with her mom next to the window. Claire gave a sad little wave, and her mom waved back. Mom was still crying. Dad looked off into the distance, jaw set tight, and didn’t wave back.

The bus closed its doors with a final hiss and pulled away from the deserted warehouse that served as a dropoff point for the departures. Three police cars fell in behind it, driven by people Hannah had handpicked.

Claire shivered, even though she was standing in the sun. They’re leaving. They’re really leaving.She felt very alone.

The bus looked so vulnerable.

“Cold?” A jacket settled around her shoulders. It smelled like Shane. “What did I miss?”

She turned, and there he was, wearing an old gray T-shirt and jeans. His leather jacket felt like a hug around her body, but it wasn’t enough; she dived into the warmth of his arms, and they clung together for a moment. He kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he said. “They’ll be okay.”

“No, it’s not okay,” she said, muffled against his chest. “It’s just not.”

He didn’t argue. After a moment, she turned her head, and together they watched the caravan stream away toward the Morganville city limits.

“Why is it,” she asked in a plaintive little voice, “that I can fight vampires and risk death and they can accept that, but they can’t accept that I’m a woman, with my own life?”

Shane thought about that for a second; she could see him trying to work it out through the framework of his own admittedly weird childhood. “Must be a girl thing?”

“Yeah, must be.”

“So I’m guessing you told them.”

“Um . . . not on purpose. I didn’t expect them to be so . . . angry about it.”

“You’re their little girl,” Shane said. “You know, when I think about it, I’d feel the same way about my own daughter.”

“You would?” There was something deliciously warm about the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say that to her. “So,” she said, with an effort at being casual that was probably all too obvious. “You want to have a daughter, then?”

He kissed the top of her head. “Hit the brakes, girl.”

But he didn’t sound angry about it, or nervous. Just—as was usual with Shane—focused on what was in front of them right now. A sense of calm was slowly spreading through her, sinking deeper with every breath. It felt better when she was with him. Everything felt better.

Shane asked, “What about the Goldmans? Were they on the bus, too?”

“I didn’t see the Goldmans,” Claire said. “Hannah?”

Hannah Moses was still standing nearby, signing papers on a clipboard that another uniformed Morganville cop had handed her. She glanced toward the two of them. “Couldn’t get to them,” she said. “Myrnin was going to arrange that, but we’ve got no way to get them out of Bishop’s control right now. The clock’s running, and it’s only a matter of minutes before Bishop finds out what we just did, if he hasn’t already.”

Richard Morrell’s phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt and checked the number, then flipped it open and walked away to talk for a moment. Claire watched him pace, shoulders hunched, as he had his conversation. When he folded up the phone and came back, his face was tense. “He knows,” he said. “Bishop’s calling a town hall meeting for tonight at Founder’s Square. Everybody must attend. Nobody stays home.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t get everybody in town to a meeting. What if they don’t get the message? What if they just don’t want to do it?” Claire asked. Even in Morganville, making people stick to rules—whatever the rules were—was like herding cats.

Richard and Hannah exchanged a look. “Bishop’s not one for taking excuses,” she said. “If he says everybody has to be at the meeting, he’ll make it open season on anybody who isn’t there. That’s his style.”

Richard was already nodding his agreement. “We need to get word out. Knock on every door, every business. Lock off the campus and keep the students out of this. We’ve got six hours before sundown. Let’s not waste one minute.”

Shane was drafted into helping a whole crowd of people load supplies into the warehouse—food, water, clothing, radios, survival-type stuff. Claire wasn’t sure why, and she didn’t think she really wanted to know; the atmosphere was quiet, purposeful, but tense. Nobody asked questions. Not now.

The first of Bishop’s vampires showed up about two hours later, driving slowly past the perimeter in one of the city-issued cars with tinted windows. Hannah’s strike team stopped the car, and Claire was surprised to see them fling a blanket over the vampire as he was dragged out of the shelter into the sun, and hauled off to be confined under cover.

“Most of Bishop’s people are really Amelie’s,” Hannah explained. “Amelie would like us to keep them alive, if we can. She can turn them back, once Bishop’s gone. Call it temporary insanity—not a killing kind of offense, even for vampires. We just need to keep them out of commission, that’s all.”

Well, that sounded deceptively easy to Claire’s ears; she didn’t think Bishop’s converts—even the unwilling ones—would be all that eager to be put on the bench. Still, Hannah seemed to know what she was doing. Hopefully. “So that’s the plan: we just grab every vamp who comes looking?”

“Not quite.” Hannah gave her a slight smile. “You do know I’m not telling you the plan, right?”

Right, Claire was still on the wrong side. She glared down at her much-faded tattoo, which was still moving under her skin, but weakly, like the last flutters of a failing butterfly. It itched. “I wish this thing would just diealready.”

“Has Bishop tried to reach you through it?”

“Not recently. Or if he has, I can’t feel it anymore.” That would be excellent, if it really was a bad connection. Maybe she was in a no-magic-signal dead zone. “So what can I do?”

“Go knock on doors,” Hannah said. “We’ve got a list of names that we’re still looking for, for the second bus. You can go with Joe Hess.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “He’s okay?” Because she had an instant sense memory of the feeling of that death warrant in her hands, the one she’d given to him.

“Sure,” Hannah said. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Claire had no idea what had happened, but she liked Detective Hess, and at least riding around with him would give her a feeling of forward motion, of doing something useful. Everyone else seemed to have a purpose. All she could think about was that her parents were on a bus heading out of town, and she didn’t know what was going to happen to them. Or couldhappen to them.

She wished she’d said a better good-bye. She wished they hadn’t been so upset with her about Shane. Well, they’re going to have to get used to it, she thought defiantly, but even to herself, it felt weak and a little selfish.

But being with Shane wasn’t a mistake. She knew it wasn’t.

Joe Hess was driving his own car, but it had all the cool cop stuff inside—a radio, one of those magnetic flashing lights to go on the roof, and a shotgun that was locked into a rack in the back. He was a tall, quiet man who just had a way about him that put her at ease. For one thing, he never looked at her like some annoying kid; he just looked at her as a person. A young person, true, but someone to take seriously. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d earned that from him, considering the death warrant delivery.

“I’m locking the doors,” he told her as she climbed into the passenger seat, half a second before the click-thumpsound echoed through the car. “Nice to see you, Claire.”

“Thanks. It’s good to see you, too. What about the buses?” she said. “Are they out of town yet?”

“Amelie herself escorted them through the barrier a few minutes ago,” he said. “There was a little bit of trouble at the border, nothing we couldn’t handle. They’re on their way. Nobody was hurt.”

That eased a tight knot in her chest that she hadn’t even known was there. “Where are they going—No, don’t tell me. I probably don’t need to know, right?”

“Probably not,” he agreed, and gave her a sidelong look. “You okay?”

She looked out the car window and shrugged. “My parents are on one of those buses, that’s all. I’m just worried.”

He kept sending her looks as he drove, and there was a frown on his face. “And tired,” he said. “When you left me, did you go back to Bishop? Did he hurt you?”

There really wasn’t an easy answer to that. “He didn’t hurt me,” she finally said. “Not . . . personally.”

“I guess that’s part of what I was asking,” he said. “But that doesn’t answer my question, really.”

“You mean, am I in need of serious therapy because of all this?” Another shrug seemed kind of appropriate. “Yeah, probably. But this is Morganville. That’s not exactly the worst thing that could happen.” She turned her head and looked directly at him. “What was on the scroll I gave you?”