“Well, sure, yeah. I mean, a girl can’t be too careful, especially around here.” Claire must have looked blank, because Eve did the eye-roll thing again. It was her favorite expression, Claire was sure. “In Morganville? You know?”

“What about it?”

“You mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” Eve set her can down and got up to her knees, leaning elbows on the coffee table. She looked earnest under the thick makeup. Her eyes were dark brown, edged with gold. “Morganville’s full of vampires.”

Claire laughed.

Eve didn’t. She just kept staring.

“Um…you’re kidding?”

“How many kids graduate TPU every year?”

“I don’t know…. It’s a crappy college, most everybody transfers out….”

“Everybody leaves. Or at least, they stop showing up, right? I can’t believe you don’t know this. Didn’t anybody tell you the score before you moved in? Look, the vamps run the town. They’re in charge. And either you’re in, or you’re out. If you work for them, if you pretend like they’re not here and they don’t exist, and you look the other way when things happen, then you and your family get a free pass. You get Protection. Otherwise…” Eve pulled a finger across her throat and bugged out her eyes.

Right, Claire thought, and put down her spoon. No wonder nobody rented a room with these people. They’re nuts. It was too bad. Except for the crazy part, she really liked them.

“You think I’m wacko,” Eve said, and sighed. “Yeah, I get that. I’d think I was, too, except I grew up in a Protected house. My dad works for the water company. My mom is a teacher. But we all wear these.” She extended her wrist. On it was a black leather bracelet, with a symbol on it in red, nothing Claire recognized. It looked kind of like a Chinese character. “See how mine’s red? Expired. It’s like health insurance. Kids are only covered until they’re eighteen. Mine was up six months ago.” She looked at it mournfully, then shrugged and unsnapped it to drop it on her tray. “Might as well stop wearing it, I guess. It sure wouldn’t fool anybody.”

Claire just looked at her, helpless, wondering if she was the victim of a practical joke, and if any second Eve was going to laugh and call her an idiot for buying it, and Shane would go from kind of lazy-sweet to cruel and shove her out the door, mocking all the way. Because this wasn’t the way the world worked. You didn’t like people, and then have them turn up all crazy, right? Couldn’t you tell?