No. That wasn't the question. The question was, what would make a vampire turn on his friends...and there was only one answer to that, really. Claire thought of Bishop, Amelie's vampire father, who could infect another vampire with his bite and command his absolute loyalty. Amelie had a measure of that same power, but hers came in a different form. Bishop was unquestionably dead, so could it be Amelie? Would Amelie have broken Michael, as she'd once threatened to do, and made him do this?
Claire shuddered. If Amelie had done it, if this wasn't Michael's real wil , then there were four victims of his cruelty, not three.... Michael himself was the first, and the most badly wounded of them all.
And even if it was true, even if this was no real choice of Michael's, the problem was...How was she going to prove it?
In the end, Claire slept in the hospital chapel-it was quiet, calm, deserted, and she needed the spiritual support just now. She wished that Father Joe would make an appearance.... He was a great listener, and she desperately needed to talk to someone.
But in the end, she fel asleep reading the Bible through tear-swol en eyes, and tried to find some kind of comfort. If she did, she didn't remember.
Claire tried to cal Shane six times in the morning, but her cal s went to voice mail; texts went unanswered. She was surprised to see him show up around noon, but he hadn't come to talk to her, though she had a moment's pitiful hope.... He walked straight past her with a plastic bag, ignoring her, and into Eve's room.
When he came back outside, he sat across the waiting room and stared at the floor.
"Shane?" She took some tentative steps toward him. She wanted to burst into tears, but she knew it would only make things worse if she did.
"Please, please talk to me. Please-"
"I brought her clothes," he said. "Then I'm driving you both home. Then I'm getting the hel out for a while. You take care of Eve. You do that for me."
"But-"
"Michael's stuff's already gone," he said. "He packed up last night. I don't know where he went, so don't ask me."
"Shane, please look at me." She sank down on a chair next to him. He smel ed like sweat, as if he'd gone to the gym and hadn't stopped to shower. He didn't shift his gaze away from a dedicated examination of the stained tile floor. "I've never had anything going with Michael, ever. I don't know why he did that, but it's not what you're thinking. I've never cheated on you. I wouldn't. I've been thinking that maybe-maybe Amelie made him do this. Because I really don't think this was Michael, not the real Michael, do you?"
He didn't answer her. They sat in silence for a few dark seconds, and then a nurse rounded the corner and said, "She's ready to go."
Shane shot to his feet as if the chair had a catapult built in, and was halfway to Eve's room before Claire managed to follow, feeling slow, clumsy, and achingly lost.
Eve looked terrible-no makeup, chalky skin, bruises discoloring her swol en face. She'd let her hair fal forward to hide the worst of it, but it also hid any trace of how she felt seeing Claire come around the corner.
That was probably a blessing, Claire thought, with a horrible surge of unearned guilt. I didn't kiss him! He kissed me! But she couldn't insist on that, not with Eve so torn up with grief, and so badly hurt.
And I left her lying there on the sidewalk, bleeding, she thought. I can't forget that, either.
Shane held a wheelchair still as Eve practically fel into it; she kept her head bowed, and her hands over her stomach as if she were afraid it might break open. Claire hurried forward and took a plastic bag of clothes from the nurse, and some paperwork and pil s. "Give her two of these twice a day," the nurse said. "And let her sleep. She's going to need it. No lifting anything heavier than a book for at least two weeks. She's to see the doctor again on Thursday. Someone wil have to bring her to and from the appointment. No driving at alluntil he lifts the restriction."
Claire nodded mutely, barely able to clock in the instructions; her heart was a mess of hurt, from worry for Eve, grief over Shane, anger at Michael. Now we have to go home and pretend everything is okay, she thought, and the concept was pretty appal ing. But what choice did she have? Leave? She couldn't. Eve needed someone, and Shane had already made it clear he'd rather run away. Michael already had.
Shane pushed the wheelchair fast, not waiting for Claire; she hurried to catch up, but the elevator doors closed in her face. Neither of her housemates looked at her directly.
She took the stairs down a floor and met them as Shane put the brakes on the wheelchair and helped Eve move shakily into the front passenger seat of the hearse.
"I can drive," Claire offered. Shane ignored her, and walked to that side of the car. He got in and started the engine, and she hardly had time to run to the back and climb into what Eve had cheerfully named Dead Man's Corner before he hit the gas for home.
It was a terrible few minutes. Claire clutched the soft bag of clothing; it smel ed of Eve's latest BPAL perfume and a metal ic tang she thought had to be blood. She'd wash them herself, make sure they were nice and clean before she returned them. Shane wouldn't think of that. It was something she could do, a little act of love.
Shane was careful on the drive home, avoiding the bumpy spots, and pul ing up to the front curb without any jerky sudden stops. He even picked Eve up and carried her inside, waiting impatiently as Claire opened the front door.
Once Eve was settled on the sofa, with the old afghan tucked around her and a pil ow beneath her head, Shane said, "You can handle nurse duties, right?" He headed for the door, again.
"Where are you going?"
"None of your business," Shane said. Claire heard the door slam behind him and felt tears clawing at her throat; honestly, it was so incredibly painful, she wanted to throw herself facedown on her bed and cry herself into oblivion. It was worse when she looked around and saw that Michael's music things were missing. He'd even taken the leather armchair with him, the one he liked to sit in while he played.
The house felt cold, hard, and empty without Shane and Michael, and without the love among allof them that had made it home.
Claire sank down beside Eve, put her head on the sofa cushions, and tried not to think about it.
"It's not your fault," Eve said, very quietly. Claire jerked her head up, hope bolting through her, but Eve wasn't smiling, and there was nothing in her swol en face that Claire could interpret as forgiveness. "He had doubts allalong; I knew that. I was just-stupid enough to think he was worried about me. So maybe it's better we get it over with. It just hurts so much."
She wasn't talking about the physical pain.
"I don't know why he did...what he did, or why he said those things, but it isn't true, Eve. Please believe me."
Eve closed her eyes and sighed as if almost too depressed to listen. "Al right," she said in a very faint, flat voice. "Doesn't matter."
Claire held her friend's loose, cool hand, and the two of them sat in silence for a long time before Claire's cel rang.
"Hel o?" Her voice sounded strangled and rough; she hardly recognized it herself.
"Honey?" It was her mother. "Oh, Claire, what's wrong?"
That did it. Claire could handle the rest of it, but not that, not the compassionate warmth of her mother's voice.
She cried, and it allcame out, in hitching, halting bursts-Shane, Michael, Eve, her fear, allof it. But mostly Shane, and how she was afraid it was allruined, forever, allthat bright and beautiful future she'd thought was so perfectly laid out. Somehow, she even managed to blurt that she was worried about Myrnin, too, which led to a line of questions she'd rather not have answered, but the confessional dam had well and truly busted open, and there was no going back. The cal lasted at least an hour, and at the end of it, Claire lay huddled on the parlor floor, wishing the world would just suck her down into its molten core and end her misery.
She finally got her mind back in place enough to say, "I'm sorry, Mom...Why did you cal me?"
"I just felt you needed me," her mother said. "It's a mother's instinct, sweetheart. Come home, Claire. Just come home and let us take care of you. You'l get through this; I know you wil . You're a very strong girl. It'l be okay."
"I'l come," Claire whispered. "As soon as I can." She didn't have anything left to stay for, did she?
She hung up and went to give Eve her medication.
Eve was well enough by nightfal to take some food, though not a lot. Claire made her soup in a cup, and then put her back to bed with the TV softly playing a movie she knew Eve liked well enough to sleep through.