Oh, she knew, and she felt heartsick at the idea of how Myrnin, of all people, would have reacted to wearing a shock collar. Han- nah would probably have had to replace the batteries in her control unit several times over, because one thing about Myrnin, he was stubborn, and he just did not give up. Jesse was probably holding him back with all of her strength to keep him from charging out here— and no doubt not for the first, or the last, time.
She refrained from asking anything more, mainly because she was acutely aware of Hannah standing there, and she really didn’t trust Hannah at all now. She was loyal to Fallon, obviously, or she wouldn’t be holding the button for the shock collars. It wouldn’t be wise to say too much in Hannah’s hearing, since everything would end up reported back to the Daylight Foundation.
But she did turn to Hannah and ask her a question that seemed perfectly obvious. “You can’t keep a bunch of vampires in here like this forever,” she said. “No matter what kind of little training devices you put on them. What are you planning to do with them?”
Hannah never once looked at her directly. She was watching Amelie, Claire realized— watching for any sign of trouble from the vampire queen. But Amelie didn’t seem to be inclined, yet, to give any orders to her people. “We plan to help them,” she said.
“That’s all. We plan to help them get better.”
“Yeah,” Eve said. “You’re helping, all right. What is this, Vampire Reeducation Camp? Are you planning on helping them learn to live without blood? Vegan vampires?”
The silence that greeted this was so deep that it made Claire’s already tense muscles ache and tighten. There was something in Hannah’s carefully controlled expression that made her feel sick and scared. “It’s probably time to go now before this gets any messier,” Hannah said. “Wrap it up, kids.”
Eve raised her head from Michael’s shoulder. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. She was too angry to cry. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Eve, she’s right. You can’t stay,” he said in a gentle voice. He brushed his hand across her sleek black hair, let it drift through his fingers, and touched her lips just as softly. “You have to go, Eve. You wouldn’t be safe here.”
“Why not? Aren’t they feeding you?”
“They’re feeding us. I’ll be fine,” he said, and kissed her. “Eve, I’ll be fine. Just go, okay? Claire, take her. Please.”
Claire didn’t want to, but she could see that he was serious; when she hesitated, he fixed her with a calm, steady stare until she moved forward and put her hand under Eve’s arm to get her to her feet.
“No,” Eve said. “No, I’m not going, Claire. I can’t— we can’t just leave him here . . .”
“Maybe not, but we also can’t get him out,” Claire said. The words tasted horrible in her mouth, like ashes and iron, and she had to swallow hard to continue. “Not yet. But we will, Eve. I swear to you, this isn’t over.”
Hannah said, “It is for now. Michael, you move back to the line. Go on.”
He got up and walked back to where Oliver was waiting at the edge of the tiles— exactly opposite from where Amelie was stand- ing in her glowing white suit. Oliver put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Maybe he meant to just hold him back, but it looked to Claire like . . . comfort? Odd, if so. Oliver wasn’t much on empa- thy. Then again, the look on Michael’s face— that lost, hollow, helpless look— would have moved anybody.
Except Hannah, apparently, who marched them straight to the door. As she opened it, though, Amelie said, without moving from where she stood, “Thank you for allowing Eve to see him, Chief Moses. I will not forget your kindness.” It sounded unmistakably chilling, and Hannah’s shoulders stiffened for a second, then de- liberately relaxed.
“I’m sure you won’t,” Hannah said. “Anybody moves, every- body gets shocked down to the ground. Clear?”
“Yes,” Amelie said. “You have made yourself very clear indeed.”
None of the vamps moved. It was like looking at a room full of pale, silent statues, but the hate in their eyes was like nothing Claire had ever seen before. No wonder Michael hadn’t wanted Eve to stay. That kind of trapped fury didn’t bother with fine distinctions, and there would be some in that mall who didn’t care whom they killed . . . as long as they got to vent that rage on a human.
Just as the door closed, Claire heard Amelie say, soft as a whis- per, “Don’t worry. We will see you very soon.”
The sunlight felt as cold as winter.
Shane was pacing near the cruiser, looking pale and agitated, and he was rubbing his arm as if it hurt him. He stopped and looked at them as Claire walked toward him. “What the hell hap- pened?” He didn’t wait for an answer, though; he grabbed Eve’s other arm and helped to hold her up. “Dammit, Eve—”
“I want to go back,” Eve said. She sounded odd and shaky.
“They’re going to kill all of them, I know they are, they’re going to do something terrible to Michael. I have to go back.” She tried to pull away, but Shane and Claire held on to her. Hannah opened the back door of the cruiser. She still wasn’t looking at them— looking anywhere but at them, in fact. Her face could have been carved from stone. “Please, don’t do this, Shane, please let me go—”
“You can’t even come close to getting in there again and you know it,” Shane said. “Eve. You can’t, and Michael doesn’t want you pulling something crazy like that. Come on.”
He put her into the car and walked around to block her from sliding out the other door; Claire took the space on one side of Eve as he crowded in on the other. She wasn’t fighting them, but she wasn’t helping, either. At least she’s not angry, Claire thought, but she wasn’t sure that was an improvement. No tears, no yelling. Just this . . . silence.
And then there was Shane, still acting twitchy on Eve’s left, frowning and rubbing his forearm and snapping, as Hannah took the driver’s seat, “Can we just get the hell out of here already?”
That made Hannah give him a long glance in the mirror, but she started the engine. Shane’s tense body language seemed to ease up a little as the car pulled away from the blank, brooding exterior of the mall. Bitter Creek was a good name for it, Claire thought.
Definitely not a happy kind of place.
It worried her that she hadn’t seen Myrnin at all.
Three
Hannah took them home to the Glass House.
It looked different. And it wasn’t just the time Claire had spent away from it that had made it that way. Some- one had painted it. Done a good job, too— the exterior was a neat, sparkling white, instead of the faded, peeling mess that had been there before. The trim was a crisp dark blue. It looked almost re- spectable. The lawn was even neatly mowed.
“What the hell?” She blurted it out before she meant to, and sent Shane a disbelieving look. He sent it right back, amplified. So, he hadn’t been on the work crew, then.
Neither had Eve, apparently, because she gulped, sat up straighter, and said, “Um, what is that?”
“The town funded a renewal program for all the remaining Founder Houses,” Hannah said. “To preserve our history. Don’t tell me you’re not pleased. It looks a hell of a lot better than the tumbledown mess it was before.”
It did. The railings were straight, the warped boards had been replaced on the porch, and the windows actually sparkled. At the top of the peaked roof, a new weathervane in the shape of a sunrise (ugh) creaked and turned in the direction of the breeze, and as Hannah opened her car door, Claire heard the thin, whispering sound of wind chimes. Someone had mounted a set of them at the edge of the porch, along with a large potted plant that looked new and healthy.
The place was spiffy and pretty and not theirs.
“Tell me you didn’t touch anything inside the house,” Eve said.
“Because I swear I’ll cut somebody. We liked the house the way we left it! That is our home!” What she didn’t say, but Claire thought she almost heard, was It’s Michael’s home. And her heart ached for him, and for Eve.
“Nobody went inside the house,” Hannah assured them. “This was an exterior renovation project. I thought you’d be pleased.”