That . . . didn’t sound so good, and Claire hurried down the steps even before he’d shut the bathroom door.
She found Eve in the kitchen, standing at the sink, gulping down the last of a gigantic cup of coffee from a black mug with red skulls on it. Eve had gone full Goth today: black cargo pants; heavy, thick- soled boots; a tight dark red shirt with bright red crossbones over the heart, like a pirate’s badge. A thick choker of chain links, shining with silver plate. Equally thick silver bracelets on both wrists. She’d put reddish streaks in her black hair and twisted it back into a bun, into which she’d thrust silver chopsticks— although they were rather pointier than normal chopsticks. Her makeup was more like a mask— rice- powder pale, with vivid red eye shadow and plenty of liner.
She had a heavy backpack leaning next to her feet.
“So let me guess. . . . You’re going jogging?” Claire said, and opened the cabinets to pull out her own coffee mug. It was one Shane had found for her, with strange little aliens on it. She edged past Eve to take the coffeepot from the burner, and poured. Then she held the remainder out silently, and Eve just as silently extended her cup. It filled her cup only a quarter of the way. Claire put her cup aside and tackled the coffeemaker, trying to seem as normal and domestic as possible. “You look awesomely Gothic today.”
Eve nodded.
“Going somewhere?”
“I’m going to the mall,” she said. “And I’m going to get Mi- chael out.”
Claire filled the water reservoir, replaced the filter, and spooned in more ground coffee. “I see you’ve totally thought out your plan, which obviously involves getting the support of your best friends before tearing out to get yourself killed.”
Eve gave her a scorching look, made all the more effective by the war paint. “I’m not taking any more crap from the Daylighters.
We tried talking it out. Talking got me five minutes of face time with my own husband, who doesn’t deserve any of this . I’m done with the subtle approach. This time I’m not taking no for an answer— and don’t try to talk me out of it, Claire, because you don’t know how this feels. We just got Michael out of a cage back in Cam- bridge, and now he’s— he’s just in a bigger cage, held by the same people who want to hurt him. I can’t stand it, and I won’t stand it.”
The passion in her voice, and the determination, was scary.
Claire swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on what she was doing with her hands— swing the door shut with the coffee, put the pot back in place, press the brew control— and it did help slow her down and keep her voice rational as she replied, “I didn’t say you had to, did I? I just said you should involve us.”
“So you can talk me out of it?”
“So I can make sure you don’t die, Eve. Because Michael doesn’t deserve having to deal with that, does he? He doesn’t deserve to see you hurt, or killed, because of him. You know he’d tell you the same thing: be smart, and be careful. Pick the battle you can win.”
She held Eve’s stare, hard as it was. “Tell me if I’m wrong.”
She knew she wasn’t, and so did Eve, who changed course.
“Look, I’m not some fragile flower everybody has to shelter all the time. I may not be as much of a total- destruction mayhem machine as Shane, but I can wreak havoc when I want.” She paused for a second, distracted. “Why is it you can only wreak havoc, anyway? Why not, I don’t know, world peace?”
“Good question.”
Eve shook a finger at her. “Don’t you try to throw me off, CB.
My point is, I’m strong even if I’m on my own.”
“I know. But you have to admit, we’re all much stronger if we stick together.” Claire risked a quick grin. “Besides, why should you have all the fun?”
“If by fun you mean total war , you might have a point. It is a little selfish not to share. Because I intend to unleash hell if anybody even thinks of telling me that Michael can’t walk out of there,” Eve said.
She drained the quarter cup of coffee, and Claire noticed she was drinking it black. That, for Eve, was kind of a danger sign; her coffee preferences varied by her mood, and black was her hard- core extreme. Claire added cream and sugar to her own, stirred, and blew on it to cool it before tasting. Anything to kill a little more time.
“What about the rest of them?” Claire asked. “Amelie. Myrnin.
Even Oliver. Do they deserve to be trapped in there with shock collars on their necks? God, you saw the place. That’s not a prison, it’s— it’s a holding pen.”
Eve stopped, eyes widening. “Holding pen for what?”
“God. I don’t even want to guess. The Daylighters want vam- pires dead, right? Abominations against nature, and all that.
They’ve never made any secret of it, never mind what Fallon says about it. He’s the face guy, the one who makes everybody feel bet- ter about herding people into enclaves.”
“They’ve got plenty of support, too,” Eve pointed out. “I think that now that the vamps have been shuffled offstage, nobody’s go- ing to think much about what happens to them, as long as they don’t have to watch it happen. Even then, I’m not sure that most of them wouldn’t simply justify the hell out of it.”
Claire shivered. Eve was right about that. Human nature was all about shifting blame . . . and responsibility. How else could you explain concentration camps and genocide and all the awful things people did to each other every day? They just carried on life and pretended like the evil didn’t exist, as long as it was happening out of their direct view.