Kiss of Death Page 0,9

she really didn't have the prerequisites for, and annoying because those not in the know about Morganville in general--which was most of the students at the school-- treated her like a kid. Those who didn't, and knew the score about the vampires and the town of Morganville itself, mostly avoided her. It occurred to her, the second time somebody tried to buy coffee for her but not make eye contact, that some people in town still looked at her as important--as in Monica Morrell-level important. This seriously pissed off Monica, Queen Bee of the Morganville Under-Thirty set. Still, Claire had come a long way from the clueless early-admission freshman she'd been last year. When Monica tried to bully her--which was virtually certain to happen at least a couple of times every week--the outcome wasn't usually in Monica's favor, or always in Claire's, either. But still, a draw was better than a beat-down, in Claire's view. Everybody was left standing. Claire's first stop was at the campus student store, where she bought a new backpack--sturdy, not too flashy, with lots of pockets inside and out. She ducked into the next bathroom she found to transfer the contents of her taped-together book bag to the new one, and almost threw the old one away ... but it had a lot of sentimental value, somehow. Ripped, scuffed, stained with all kinds of things she didn't want to remember, but it had come with her to Morganville, and somehow she felt that throwing it away would be throwing away her chance of ever getting out of here. Crazy, but she couldn't help it. In the end, she stuffed the rolled-up old backpack into a pocket of the new one, hefted the weight, and jogged across campus to make her first class of the day. Three uneventful (and mostly boring) hours later, she ran into Monica Morrell, who was sitting on the steps of the Language Arts building, sunglasses on, leaning back on her elbows and watching people go by. One of her lipstick mafia girls was with her--Jennifer--but there was no sign of the other one, Gina. As always, Monica looked expensive and perfect-- Daddy's estate must be holding up well no matter what the economy dudes were saying on TV--and Jennifer looked as though she shopped the cheap knockoffs of what Monica bought for full price. But they both looked good, and about every thirty seconds some college boy stopped to talk to them, and almost always got shot down in flames. Some of them took it okay. Some of them looked as if they were one more rejection from ending up on a twenty- four-hour channel as breaking news. Claire was heading up the steps, ignoring them, when Jennifer called out brightly, "Hey, Claire! Good morning! " That was creepy enough to stop Claire right in her tracks. She looked over, and Jennifer was waving. So was Monica. This, from the two girls who'd punched and kicked her, thrown her down a flight of stairs, abducted her at least twice, threatened her with knives, tried to set her house on fire ... yeah. Claire didn't really feel like redefining the relationship on their new buddy-buddy terms. She just gave the two of them a long look, and kept on up the stairs, trying to focus on what it was she was supposed to remember today about early American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne? So last week ... "Hey!" Monica grabbed her two steps from the top, yanking on the strap of her new book bag to drag her to a halt. "Talking to you, bitch!" That was more like it. Claire glanced down at Monica's hand and raised her eyebrows. Monica let go. "I figured it couldn't be me," she said. "Since you were acting so nice and all. Had to be some other Claire."

"I just thought since the two of us are more or less stuck with each other, we might as well try to be friendly, that's all. You didn't have to act as if I stole your boyfriend or something." Monica smiled slowly and pulled her sunglasses down to stare over the top. Her big, lovely blue eyes were full of shallow glee. "Speaking of that, how is Shane? Getting bored with the after-school special yet?"

"Wow, that's one of your better insults. You're almost up to junior high level. Keep working on it," Claire said. "Ask Shane yourself if you want to know how he's doing. I'm sure he'd be glad