Ghost Town Page 0,43

forth at each other with the same casual sort of loving cruelty that they always had. Claire found herself doing nothing but watching them, looking for anything odd. Out of place.

"Hey," Eve said as she set a plate of bacon and eggs down in front of Claire on the table. "Space Ghost. You in there anywhere?"

Claire blinked and focused on her. Well, Eve would never freak her out, because Eve was always . . . Eve. Today's eyeliner was dark blue, and heavy, and her rice-powder makeup and navy lipstick probably should have looked weird, but instead, they just looked cute. And normal. "Sorry," Claire said. "Still tired, I guess. That was really, really hard."

"Spill. Tell me everything." Eve was going through a phase where she wanted to eat everything with chopsticks. Claire watched her unwrap a set of cheap bamboo ones, scrape them together a few times, and dig into her eggs. "Did you have to do anything gruesome?"

"Not unless you count sleeping in Myrnin's"--oh, she realized right at the end of that sentence that she really shouldn't have gone there, because Shane and Michael both turned to look at her--"uh, lab. No, not really."

Eve stared. "You were totally going to say 'bed.'"

"Wasn't!" Claire felt her cheeks flaming. "Anyway, all I had to do was repair something. And then they let me sleep. No big deal."

"No big deal? You were gone for almost five days without a word, Claire! You got arrested! Even our resident ex-con was impressed." Meaning Shane, of course, who'd spent his share of time behind Morganville bars. He barely paused in chopping up onions for his eggs to flip her off. "If it hadn't been for Michael and Myrnin . . ."

"Michael," Claire said, and looked at him. He was microwaving his sports bottle, which held his morning O negative. "I thought you might help hold Shane down and keep him from doing anything dangerous."

"Wasn't easy," Michael said.

Eve nodded. "He stayed on Amelie until she told him what happened to you, and then he kept Shane from pretending he was a ninja and going to rescue you."

"Hey, you, too!" Shane protested.

"Yeah, okay, me, too," Eve said. "Myrnin called, too. I guess he thought it would be reassuring or something to tell us you'd been standing up for forty hours, and not falling down. What a whack job. Oooh, was he wearing the bunny slippers? Tell me he was wearing the bunny slippers!"

"Sometimes," Claire said, and dug into her breakfast. It was good, really good. Eve was developing a flair for eggs and bacon and morning-type stuff. "You guys were really going to come get me?" "Let's just say the boys got their fight on about it, and leave it at that," Eve said, and winked. "Tell me that doesn't make you feel all loved."

Claire did feel loved, and it made her blush. She concentrated on her food as Michael, Shane, and Eve got their own and slid into the other chairs. At some point, Eve called Shane a tool. Shane called Eve a skank. Normal morning.

Michael, though, was quiet. He sipped his sports bottle and watched them all without saying much. There was something odd about him still, like he was standing a few feet outside of his body, observing. Claire got that feeling again, that gut-twisting one. Something's wrong.

But he seemed fine when they flipped for the washing-up, and fine when he lost the coin toss. In fact, he was whistling as he scrubbed dishes, tossed them up in the air, and caught them with impossible vampire skill.

Show-off.

"Whoa, whoa, speedy, where you going?" Shane asked as Claire headed for the door. "You just got here!"

"I need to talk to Myrnin," she said.

"Not right now you don't. You need to go back to bed."

"Thanks, Dad." Which made her feel a horrible stab of guilt, because she hadn't even called her mom and dad, or gone to see them yet. "Ah, about--"

"Yeah, I know, you need to see the 'rents. Okay, but I go with."

"Shane, you know how that's going to play out."

He sighed. "I really do," he said. "But I'm not letting you run around Morganville today all by yourself."

She stopped and turned to him. They were alone in the living room, and she took his hands. "You know about the frat guy? Kyle?"

Shane's face went completely still, but his eyes were hot. "Yeah, I know. They've got him in the cage in Founder's Square. Word gets around, even if us mere mortals aren't getting