Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,62

help. And it made her fidgety, angry, worried, frustrated … in all kinds of ways, actually.

Shane hadn’t called. Why hadn’t he called? She checked her phone, and yes, the battery was still good. Everything was fine.

She angrily stripped the headphones off and, driven by a mix of emotions she really didn’t want to examine too closely, selected his number and pressed call.

And this time, he answered. ‘Claire?’

He sounded … he sounded close. And out of breath. As if she might be able to reach out and touch him, just … collapse in his arms and let all this go away for a while. Make everything right again. And she wanted it, wanted it so so much. So much that for a long, shaky moment she couldn’t even make her voice work right.

‘Claire …?’ His voice was softer now, almost a whisper. ‘God, please talk to me.’

‘I’m here,’ she whispered back. Somehow she didn’t want to raise the level of her voice; it sounded intimate this way. Close. Personal. ‘I called you. You didn’t answer.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. Please – it doesn’t mean that I don’t care, I just—’ He moved, and she heard his breath catch. And she heard that his voice wasn’t quite right, either. ‘I just couldn’t call you back.’

She sat up straighter, because all her alarm bells were ringing now. ‘Shane, are you all right? What happened? Are you hurt?’ Because he was. She could hear it, especially when he tried to laugh.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not, don’t even try to tell me that. What happened?’

‘Got my ass kicked,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly breaking news. Except oddly enough it had nothing to do with vampires, can you believe it? Well, it did, because a vampire saved me from getting stomped to death. So there’s that. It’s a fun story. I’ll tell it to you sometime.’

She wanted to cry, it hurt her so much not to be with him. To not take care of him when he needed her. ‘You don’t sound good. How badly are you hurt?’

‘Cuts, bruises, a pretty nice concussion that rang my bell. Nothing broken, which is a miracle. I’ve had worse. Hell, Claire, you’ve had worse. Don’t worry, I’m all right. I really am.’ His voice lowered again, into that low purring whisper. ‘Are you? Okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she whispered back. ‘I miss you. I miss Eve and Michael. I miss home. Is that bad? It’s probably bad. You’re going to think I’m whining like a little kid.’

‘No. I—’ She had the weird feeling that he was about to confess something too, but then … then he sighed. ‘I think you’re amazing. And I think it’s good that you’re doing this. It’s your dream, Claire. I wouldn’t want to stand in your way.’

‘Do you think you did? You didn’t. I was standing in my way. And … I’m not so sure that this is my dream after all. It’s turning out to be … kind of a nightmare.’ A particularly loud moan came up through the floorboards, and Claire buried her head under her pillow with the phone cradled close to her ear. ‘I really hate living with Elizabeth. And she’s getting it on with a skanky professor right now.’

‘Right now?’

‘One floor down. It’s gross. I can’t even tell you how gross it is. There are no words.’

‘Okay, then listen to my voice,’ he said. She closed her eyes, and fell into the sound of his breathing. ‘You don’t have to listen to anything else, just talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your life.’

‘I’m just—’ Her voice choked, and she told herself very firmly that she would not, absolutely would not cry. She cleared her throat. ‘My professor and I are working on the thing I brought. You know? But it’s not like it was back home. I feel as if I can’t really trust anyone here. I don’t know if anyone has my back. There’s Liz, but she’s turned out to be a total flake; honestly, I don’t even know if I like her at all any more – I mean, I feel for her, she’s had a rough time of it and all, but we’re nothing alike, Shane. Nothing. My professor – I don’t even know. I don’t know if I can trust her or not. Sometimes I know I can, and then …’

‘So, really, no different than your last job, right?’

She laughed a little, but it felt wretched. ‘And I don’t really know anybody, and the people I do know,

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