Uncomfortably, that was true. What about the other people youve killed? Were those all self-defense, too?
Who says Ive killed people?
You did. Remember? You left a dead girl in our basement for Shane to find. You tried to put him in prison.
Jason didnt say a word to that. He just stared at her, and in the shadows his dark eyes were like holes in his still, pale face. He looked . . . Dead. Deader than most vampires.
I need to talk to my sister, he said.
Eve doesnt want to talk to you, you psycho. Leave us alone!
Its about our dad, he said, and even though Claire was walking away, leaving him and all his psycho problems behind, she slowed to look back. I need to talk to Eve. Tell her Ill call. Tell her not to hang up.
Claire nodded, once. She didnt hate him any less, but there was something different about him right nowsomething that asked for a truce, but didnt get down on its knees and beg for it, either. No promises, she said.
Jason nodded back. Didnt expect any.
He didnt say thanks. She kept walking.
When she looked back, the doorway was empty. She caught a glimpse of a black jacket turning the corner at the end of the block. Damn, he moves fast, she thought, and that gave her another kind of chill. What if Jason had gotten his wish? What if someone had made him a full-fledged vampire, as hard as that seemed?
She decided shed ask Amelie, first chance she got.
The morning classes came and went. It wasnt like any of them were especially difficult, even the high-level physics courses shed tested herself into. Shed traded out some of her lame core classes for a mythology course, or rather Amelie had insisted on itthat was a fairly cool thing, and she found herself looking forward to it. No discussions of vampires just now, unfortunately. It was all about zombies, voodoo, and popular media on the subject. They were going to watch Night of the Living Dead next week. Claire didnt know nearly as much about zombies as most of the other students; except for the first-person-shooter game that Shane liked to play, she couldnt remember ever really paying attention to the idea.
Of course, since moving to Morganville, she wasnt ruling anything out as unlikely.
After mythology, which turned out to be a wealth of information about voodoo, if she ever needed that, Claire had a break before lab sessions began. She took herself off to the University Center. It was a sprawling building, home to a large study area with long tables and groupings of chairs, and it featured a bookstore, a cafeteria that served fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches and salads, and a pretty decent coffee bar.