"Better you don't know," he said. "Trust me, I wish I didn't. I'm starting to wish I didn't know a lot of things."
They settled into the chairs in the waiting area, and Shane put his arm around her...and they were just getting comfortable when Shane turned his head and said, "Did you hear that?"
"What?" Claire felt drowsy and content nestled against his shoulder, but now that he'd woken her allthe way up again, she did hear something-raised voices.
"That's Eve," Shane said, and stood up. "Something's wrong." Claire sighed and followed him on aching legs down the hal , past the empty nursing station, and arrived just as he pushed the door open.
Eve was crying. Not just crying a little, but crying in shocked, awful, painful sobs, even though she was holding her abdomen with both hands as if it were agony to even try to breathe. Michael was standing at the end of her bed, staring at her without any expression at allon his face. He'd always looked like an angel, Claire thought, but now he looked like one of those cold, remote, vengeful ones, the kind that carried swords.
It was terrifying.
"How can you say that?" Eve said, in between painful gulps for air. Crying was hurting her; Claire could hear it in the little hitching whimpers between the words. "God, Michael, don't-please-"
"What the hel is going on?" Shane demanded, and got in Michael's face. "What did you say to her?"
"The truth. Marrying her was a mistake from the beginning," he said. "And I want it over, Eve. I'll get the papers done, and you sign them, and we're finished. It's better for us both. The two of us together-Captain Obvious is right. Amelie is right. It's sick, and it shouldn't be allowed to continue. It's going to get innocent people kil ed."
"Dude, don't do this," Shane said, and reached out. Michael batted his hand away before it reached his shoulder. "Maybe you think this is going to keep her safe somehow, but it's not the right way, okay? And it's not the right time. I know you don't want to hurt her. I heard you back there, with Cap. I know you're just trying to protect her-"
"Do you?" Michael turned that empty look on Shane, and stopped him dead. "You don't know a damn thing about me, man."
Shane actually laughed. "You're kidding, right? I know everything about you. You're my best friend."
"Think so?" Michael said, and then before Claire was ready, before she was even aware he was moving, he had turned and grabbed hold of her.
Michael Glass, holding her in his arms.
And bending.
And kissing her.
With tongue.
Expertly.
It took her by so much surprise that Claire could only make a muffled sound of shock and surprise at first, and she didn't even try to resist; her body reported in sensations in a rush-the cold strength of him, the softness of his lips, the taste, the absolute authority of it...and then her rational brain kicked in and screamed in horror.
Michael Glass was kissing her in front of Shane. And Eve.
And he was doing a damn good job of groping her along with it, with his hands slipping beneath her shirt.
Shane yel ed something, and Claire felt him trying to pul her free, but Michael held on with relentless strength. She was suddenly terrified to be between the two of them, like a rag between two possessive pit bul s, and then Michael let go just as fast as he'd grabbed on. That sent her crashing back into Shane, and Shane into the wal , with his arms wrapped around her. Claire's mouth felt bruised and wet, and her shirt was bunched up just below her bra line; she frantically tugged it down and tried to wipe her lips at the same time, not doing a very good job of either.
Michael was watching her, and the look in his eyes was awful. It wasn't love. It wasn't anything she could understand at all.
"I've been wanting to do that for years," he said. "Just so you know. Did you see that coming, best friend? Maybe it's been going on for a while.
Maybe ever since she moved in. How do you know?"
"You son of a-" Shane pushed Claire out of the way and came at Michael, but Michael just shoved him back again against the wal and held him there, ignoring his blows. He was looking now at Eve, who was gasping and crying, curled in on herself on the bed as if he'd punched her in an open wound.
"We're done?" he asked her.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes. Get out." It would have been a scream, Claire thought, except that Eve couldn't get the breath to make that happen.
Michael let go of Shane and walked away, stiff-armed the hospital door open, and disappeared in less than five seconds.
But what he left behind felt like an explosion that was still happening, the shock waves rippling on and on and on....
Shane turned on Claire. "What the hell was that?"
"Why are you asking me?" she shot back, shocked, and scrubbed her mouth again. "I didn't ask for it!"
"He wouldn't just-" Shane was the one looking terrible now, and almost as betrayed as Eve. "Is that the first time? Is it?"
"What? What are you saying?" She felt sick to her stomach. One minute ago, everything had been fragile, but okay; now the whole world seemed to be splintering around her, breaking into unrecognizable fragments. "I didn't do anything wrong!" She remembered, with a horrible wrench, that Shane had once secretly worried about that, about her and Michael having a thing behind his back. It had never happened, but now-now it was back, allthat paranoia, and the anger. Michael had chosen exactly the right spot to hit to break their trust apart. "How can you even think I would-"
"God, get out," Eve said in a smal , broken voice. "Just get out. Both of you." She was crying still , but quietly now, and allher monitors were beeping and flashing red lights. "Jesus, please, go!"
The nurses came in then, crowding around Eve's bed to adjust machines and poke needles ful of meds into the hanging saline bags. As Shane pushed her out into the hal , Claire heard the frantic fast beating of Eve's pulse monitor slow down. They were putting her back to sleep. Maybe, if they were lucky, Eve would think it was alla drug dream in the morning. No. She won't be that lucky.
Shane let go of her, and she rounded on him, still trying to pul her shirt down to a decent level. "I didn't do anything," she insisted, again. "And I never kissed him! He kissed me; you saw that."
"He did it like he knew exactly what you liked," Shane said. "Like he was used to doing it. And you weren't exactly struggling."
"I didn't know what to do! God, Shane-it was fast, and I didn't know-I didn't want that! How can you think that he and I were-"
"I don't know," Shane said, and stuck his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched tight. "Maybe because my best friend thought it was perfectly okay to stick his tongue down your throat to make his point? Because I'm pretty sure he didn't have to do that just to break up with Eve. He didn't have to be that cruel."
"Shane-Shane! Wait!"
He was walking away from her, heading down the hal way with his head down. Leaving her, too.
Claire stood there, shocked and alone, feeling like the only sane person left in the world, and when the enormity of it hit, really hit, she burst into tears and curled up in a bal on the worn old couch in the corner of the waiting room.
How did I feel about it? She didn't want to ask herself that. She didn't want to remember the warm rush of feelings underneath the confusion and horror of the moment, or the way her heart had speeded up, and her body betrayed her right down to the core. I didn't want it. I didn't.
Wel , hadn't she always thought Michael was a hottie? Yes, she had. She'd always noticed, and every once in a while she'd had the occasional little fantasy-but that was normal; that was what happened when you were around someone a lot, not-not this. Never this.
He hadn't wanted her. He'd used her, viciously and with cold calculation, to drive Eve away, and Shane. Each of them was alone now, in a world that didn't want or need them.
Why would you do that, Michael? It didn't make any sense. Even if he'd decided not to stay with Eve, Michael was a good man, a nice man; he would have done it gently and with as much kindness as possible because he did love Eve; he did. She couldn't have been so wrong about that.
And when he'd left here before, he'd been a knight on a mission, hel -bent on avenging her. When he'd come back...
Claire gulped back the horrible, hurtful tears, and wiped her face, and tried to think through the problem, as if it were happening to someone else. What makes someone turn around like that, turn on his friends?