"Well ... why don't the vampires do something about him? Stop him?"
"They've tried. They've arrested three people in the last two years and said they were Captain Obvious. Turned out they didn't know anything. The Captain could teach the CIA a thing or two about running a secret operation."
"So he's not that obvious," Claire said.
"I think he means it in the ironic sense." Michael swallowed a quick gulp of coffee. "Claire, I don't like this. Not like we didn't have enough trouble without this kind of -- "
Eve slammed in the kitchen door, which hit the wall with a thunderous boom, startling both of them. She clomped across the kitchen floor, and leaned on the breakfast table. She wasn't very Goth today; her hair was still matte-block, but it was worn back in a simple ponytail, and the plain knit shirt and black pants didn't have a skull anywhere in view. No makeup, either. She almost looked ... normal. Which was so wrong.
"All right," she said, and slapped down a second copy of The Fang Report in front of Michael. "Please tell me you have a snappy comeback for this."
"I'll make sure the three of you are safe."
"Oh, so not what I was looking for! Look, I'm not worried about us! We're not the ones Photoshopped into tombstones!" Eve looked at the picture again. "Although yes, better dead than that hairdo ... God, was that your prom photo?"
Michael grabbed the paper back and put it face down on the table. "Eve, nothing is going to happen. Captain Obvious just loves to talk. Nobody's going to come after me."
"Right," a new voice said. It was Shane. He'd come in behind Eve, clearly wanting to watch the fireworks, and now he leaned against the wall next to the stove and crossed his arms. "By all means, let's keep on shoveling the bull," he said. "It's trouble, and you know it." Claire waited for him to come over to the table and join the three of them, the way things used to be.
He didn't. He crossed his arms. Shane hadn't willingly stayed long in the same room with Michael since ... the change. And he wouldn't look at him, except in angles and side glances. He'd also taken to wearing one of Eve's silver crosses, although just now it was hidden beneath the neck of the gray t-shirt he was wearing. Claire found her eyes fixing on the just-visible outline of it.
Eve ignored Shane; her big, dark eyes were fixed on Michael. "You know they'll all be gunning for you now, right? All the would-be Buffys?" Claire had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she had no idea how Eve had managed; it was contraband in Morganville, along with every other movie or book featuring vampires. Or vampire-killing, more to the point. Internet downloads were strictly controlled, too, though no doubt there was a hot black market in those kinds of things that Eve was tapped into.
"Like you?" Michael said. He still hadn't forgotten the arsenal of stakes and crosses that Eve kept hidden in her room. In the old days, that had seemed like good sense, living in Morganville. Now, it seemed like a recipe for domestic violence.
Eve looked stricken. "I'd never -- "
"I know." He took her hand gently in his. "I know."
She softened, but then she shook it off and went back to frowning at him. "Look, this is dangerous. They know you're an easier target than those other guys, and they're going to hate you even worse, because you're one of us. Our age."
"Maybe," Michael said. "Eve, come on, sit. Sit down."
She did, but it was more like a collapse, and she didn't stop jittering her heel up and down in agitation, or drumming her black-painted fingernails on the table. "This is bad," she said. "You know that, right? Nine point five on the ten point scale of make-me-yak."
"Compared to what?" Shane asked. "We're already living with the enemy. What does that score? Not to mention you probably get extra points for banging him -- "
Michael stood up so fast his chair tipped and hit the floor with a clatter. Shane straightened up, ready for trouble, fists clenched.
"Shut up, Shane," Michael said, deathly quiet. "I mean it."
Shane stared past him at Eve. "He's going to bite you. He can't help it, and once he starts, he won't stop, he'll kill you. But you know that, right? What is that, some freak-ass Goth idea of romantic suicide? You turning into a fang-banger?"
"Butt out, Shane. What you know about Goth culture, you got from old episodes of The Munsters and your Aryan Brotherhood dad." Great, now Eve was angry, too. That left Claire the only sane one in the room.
Michael made an effort to dial it back. "Come on, Shane. Leave her alone. You're the one hurting her, not me."
Shane's gaze snapped to Michael and focused. Hard. "I don't hurt girls. You say I do, and you'd better back it up, ass**le."
Shane pushed away from the wall, because Michael was taking steps in his direction. Claire watched, wide-eyed and frozen.
Eve got between them, hands outstretched to hold both of them back. "Come on, guys, you don't want to do this."
"Kinda do," Shane said coolly.
"Fine. Either hit each other or get a room," she snapped, and stepped out of the middle. "Just don't pretend it's all about protecting the itty widdle girl, because it isn't. It's about the two of you. So get it together, or leave, I don't care which."
Shane stared at her for a second, eyes gone wide and oddly hurt, then looked at Claire. She didn't move.
"I'm out," he said. He turned and walked out through the kitchen door. It swung shut behind him.
Eve let out a little gasp. "I didn't think he'd go," she said, so unsteadily that for a second Claire thought she was going to cry. "What a freaking idiot."