to Michael's house. At least I know him, even if I don't know you."
She smiled a little. It felt forced. "We'll work on it." She held out her hand, but he put his in his pockets.
"No offense," he said, "but I've got a lot to think about, here. I need some time."
Her shattered heart broke all over again.
It felt just as bad this time.
"Sure," she managed to say. "I understand."
There was still nobody at the Glass House when they returned, but Claire still shuddered in relief at just being home. Shane looked a little mistrustful, but he came inside and didn't protest when she locked up behind him. "Do you want to see your room?" she asked. He shook his head, hands firmly in his pockets. "Do you want coffee?"
"I hate coffee," he said. "Never touch the stuff."
"Really?" Maybe that had been something he'd learned on the road, with his mom and dad. "Okay, how about . . . Coke?"
"Sure. Who doesn't love Coke?"
She left him looking at the TV and the game controllers, and went to pull the last two cans out of the fridge. Somebody was going to have to go shopping. She supposed she'd better do it soon, before she lost her mind, too. Even in an apocalypse like this, surely running out of Coke qualified as a disaster.
Shane was sitting on the couch when she came back, and she handed over the can and sat on the other end, leaving plenty of comfort space between them. He nodded and popped the top. "So, I live here?"
"Yeah. Right up there."
"That's Michael's room."
"No, he's over there now."
"Huh, he always liked that room better." He poked at the controller. "And we have an Xbox."
"Actually, you've got an Xbox 360," she said. "You bought it last year."
"Sweet. What's the difference?"
"Do you really want to talk about games right now?"
He stopped fiddling with the controller and put it down. "I guess not. Those other people out there, the ones acting so weird--they've got what I have, right? This memory problem. I didn't just get kicked in the head or drugged or something."
"No," Claire said. "There's a machine underground; it's what wipes people's memories when they leave town. But it's not working right. It's wiping memories inside town."
He stopped to think about that. It said something about his childhood in Morganville that he didn't, in fact, find that unbelievable at all. "How many people have it?"
"A lot. Maybe all of us, eventually. Michael got it yesterday. So did Eve. So did Amelie."
Shane looked at her sharply. "Who?"
"You know. The Founder."
"You know her by name?"
"So do you. But right now, she's stuck in three years ago, just like you. She doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember Oliver or--"
"Who's Oliver?"
This was going to be harder than she'd expected. "Never mind. The important thing is that before we went to sleep last night, we agreed we were going to find other people who could help us and we were going to try to turn off the machine."
"We went to sleep together," he said. "Without clothes."
"Uh . . . yeah. We had underwear on, though."
"Right. Why do I think that maybe it's come off before?" He stared at her for what seemed like an uncomfortably long second, as if he were remembering her almost naked. "Okay, sounds easy enough. Let's do it, if this is going to fix things." He watched her expression, and said, "But it isn't that easy. Is it?"
"The vamps won't let us anywhere near where we need to go," she said. "I can't think of any of them we can count on now. Not even Michael."
"Wait a second, what? Michael Glass? He is not a vampire. I think you mean his granddad Sam. Are you sure you really live here? Because that's a pretty gigantic mistake."
"I'm not talking about Sam," Claire said. "Michael . . . Michael got bitten. And now he's a vampire. But he doesn't remember becoming one, and that's a big problem. So if you see him, don't, you know, hug. He bites. He doesn't mean to, though."
"You are freaking insane; I was right the first time about you. Michael, a vampire? Never happen." But even though he said it, Shane didn't try to get up and leave. "You're not from Morganville. If you were, I'd remember you, right? So who are you, exactly?"
"I came to the university. That's how I met you guys."
He laughed. "Me? In college? Yeah, make up another one. Look, I barely got through last