He didn't tel her that it probably wouldn't be a thing she could control, but she already knew it anyway. She just felt better, and more in control, for saying it.
The drive to the blood bank was quiet, and Claire faced toward the blacked-out passenger window. In the aftermath of allthe adrenaline, she felt numb, and exhausted, and-weirdly enough-really hungry. Michael went inside the back of the blood bank, through the vamps-only entrance, and came back with a smal handheld cooler, which he handed her. She put it on the floor between her feet. "Blood supply's running low," he said.
"They'l be sending out the Bloodmobile to col ect tomorrow. Is Shane paid up?"
"Is he ever?" Claire rolled her eyes. "I'l get him in voluntarily in the morning. I'll donate, too." Claire, by Amelie's decree, had historically been free of the responsibility of giving blood, which was the tax humans paid in Morganville from age eighteen up; she'd been underage before, but even now that she was legal, she didn't have to contribute. She still did, mainly because the hospitals, not the vampires, were the ones that ran short in an emergency. Shane had pointedly not been excluded from the tax rol s. Probably because of how much trouble he'd historically been in, in Morganville.
Michael sighed. "Do you mind if I...?"
Claire opened the cooler and took out one of the blood bags. It was slightly warm, and heavy, and she tried to pretend it was a bag of colored water, one of those prop things they used in television shows.
But she still looked away when he bit into it.
It took only about a minute for him to drain it dry, and he looked around for a place to put the empty, then let her take it and return it to the cooler.
"Sorry," he said. His apology sounded genuine. "I know that's probably not what you needed to see right now."
"Al eating is gross," Claire said, "but we allhave to do it. Anyway, I'm starving. Is Chico's still open?"
"You know if I get you Chico's, I have to get it for the house, right?"
"I'l pitch in."
Chico's Tacos was a relative newcomer to town, opened by a Morganville resident who'd taken a liking to something he'd tasted out of town in El Paso: delicious rolled tacos, soaked and floating in hot sauce, then topped with shredded cheese. Messy, yeah. Unhealthy, probably. But in taco terms, it was crack. Extra orders were mandatory.
Michael handled drive-through duties, forking over cash and receiving allof the goodies to hand off to Claire. It was still new for them to count five housemates; Miranda was only half-time, in that during the day she was insubstantial, but at night she was very much flesh and blood, able to walk around, talk, do chores, eat dinner.... It made very little sense to Claire, but the Glass House (like allthe remaining Founder Houses original to the town) was capable of doing things that her science couldn't explain, no matter how far out of shape she stretched the boundaries.
When Michael had been kil ed within its wal s, drained by Oliver, the house had preserved him-saved him, literally, like a file, only as a ghost.
The Glass home was more powerful at night than during the day, so at night it could create a real flesh-and-blood form he could use to have half a life...but when dawn came, it melted away. It wasn't real, exactly, though Michael had said he could feel, eat, drink, do everything as if it were real, between dusk and dawn.
But to make that half-life truly permanent, he'd had to make a deal with Amelie and become fully vampire.
Miranda seemed to have inherited the same pluses and minuses. And she had no wish to become a vampire. In life, Miranda had been a lost little girl, cursed with a psychic gift that was as much creepy as it was informative; she'd been shunned allher life by most of the town, and even Eve -her best friend, maybe-hadn't been able to handle her some of the time.
Ghost-Miranda was blooming into a happy young lady, now that she no longer had the psychic powers and was able to have real friends. So Miranda got tacos, too.
"What are we going to tel Shane about what happened? Or Eve?" Claire asked as the familiar crunch of the car's wheels on gravel signaled they'd arrived home.
Michael parked, kil ed the engine, and spent a moment in thought before he said, "We're going to tel them everything. Anything else wouldn't be fair. And it could put them in a lot of danger if they think Amelie's still somehow got our backs."
It would upset Eve, and it would anger Shane, but he was right; keeping them in the dark was a sure path to disaster. You could protect people from harm, but not from knowing.
"Wel ," Claire said, "at least we have tacos. Everything goes better with tacos."
And the tacos did help. Even Shane, who met them at the door and glared at the cooler in Michael's hand, brightened up at the sight of the grease- stained paper bags Claire held. "You really know the way to a man's heart," he said, and grabbed them out of her hands.
"Between the ribs and angle up?" she said, and gave him a sweet, fast kiss when he looked shocked. "Hey, it's your joke. Don't blame me if I remember it."
"And you look like such a nice girl."
"Fine, if you're not into it, I'll just take those tacos back...."
It devolved into keep-away with taco bags, which Shane of course would have won by virtue of sheer size and agility, except that Miranda sneaked up behind him and stole a couple by surprise, which sent him yel ing in pursuit as she dashed off through the kitchen and into the living room. And then Eve was into it, and Claire had to fight to hang on to the two bags she had left.
In the end, it allsomehow made it to the dining table. Eve broke out thick paper plates and forks and spoons, and Michael and Shane organized the drinks while Claire and Miranda put little taco boats at each of their place settings. It was allreally warm and sweet and home, and Claire made sure as they were eating that Miranda got a couple of extra tacos that normally Shane would have grabbed as they passed. He pouted, but in a cute way.
It was when they were finishing up that Shane said, faux-casually, "So I guess everything went okay today?"
Miranda licked the last of the hot sauce out of the bottom of the paper boat and raised her eyebrows. "What happened today? I never get to know anything." She was still physically a frail little thing, and Claire supposed that the girl's delicate, breakable look would never change now; ghosts didn't age, and no matter how many tacos she ate or Coca-Colas she guzzled, she'd never grow an inch or gain a pound. That was something a lot of girls dreamed of, Claire thought. Of course, those girls probably never thought about having to live their eternity trapped inside one house, living half a life, not even being able to shop or see a movie that wasn't brought in, or go out to eat...or date.
Miranda was never, ever going to date. That was probably the saddest thing of all. She probably hadn't ever even been kissed. Not once. And what was worse, she was living in a house with two couples.
Yeah. Living hel , Claire decided, and she elbowed Shane and gave Miranda the last taco. It seemed the least she could do.
Then she realized that Michael hadn't even started answering the question. Somehow, Claire had expected him to take the lead on it, but since he hadn't, suddenly everyone was staring at her, waiting.
Claire cleared her throat, took a drink of water, and said, "I guess I'll just get it over with. Hannah can't help about getting rid of the ID cards, or the hunting licenses. She's being thrown out of office. Oliver's a jerk. Amelie's turned into a Vampire with a capital V, and she nearly kil ed Michael to prove how badass she is now. Does that cover it, Michael?"
"Pretty much," he said.
That...didn't go over as well as she'd hoped. For a second, nobody said a word, and then everyone was trying to talk at once. Michael tried to put some kind of polish on what she'd said, but there was no changing the truth of it. Eve was sharply demanding to know what was meant by nearly killed. Shane was cursing and saying that he'd known it would be like this.
Even Miranda was timidly asking something that was lost in the general chaos.
"One at a time," Claire finally yel ed, and that surprised them enough that they allfel silent. Surprisingly, it was Miranda who plunged ahead first. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked Michael, and there was an edge of anxiety in her voice that surprised Claire...and then, didn't. After all, Miranda had never been kissed, and Michael couldn't help being a girl magnet. Claire felt a little relieved, really, because at least the girl didn't moon about Shane. Not that Shane would have noticed, or cared, but still.