Whatever he thought about that, he dried his hands and walked out. She heard him talking to Shane, and when she went out the two of them were deep into the video game, elbowing each other and fighting for every point.

Boys. Sheesh.

She was on her way to her room, passing the bathroom, when she heard Eve crying. She knocked quietly, and looked in when Eve muffled her sobs. The door wasn’t locked.

Eve was dressed in a black fluffy robe, sitting on the toilet; she’d stripped off her makeup and let her hair down, and she looked like a little girl in a too-large adult outfit. Fragile. She gave Claire a shaky grin and wiped tear tracks from her face. “Sorry,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Kind of a suck-ass day, you know?”

“That guy. That vampire. He acted like he knew you,” Claire said.

“Yeah. He—he’s the one who gives my family Protection. I turned him down. He’s not too happy.” She gave a hollow little laugh. “Guess nobody likes rejection.”

Claire studied her. “You okay, though?”

“Sure. Peachy.” Eve waved her out. “Go study. Get smart enough to blow this town. I’m just a little bit down. Don’t worry about it.”

Later, when Michael started playing, Claire heard Eve crying through the wall again.

She didn’t go investigate, and she didn’t watch Michael vanish. She didn’t think she had the courage.

Shane went with her the next day to buy some clothes. It was only three blocks to the colorless retail section of town, with all its dingy-looking thrift stores; she didn’t want his company, but he wasn’t letting her go alone.

“You let Eve go alone,” she pointed out as he sat on the couch putting on his shoes.

“Yeah, well, Eve has a car,” he said. “Besides, I wasn’t up. You get escorted. Live with it.”

She felt secretly pleased about it. A little. It was another typically sunny day, the sidewalks almost vibrating with heat. Not a lot of pedestrians, but then, there rarely were. Shane walked with a long, loping stride, hands in his pockets; she had to hurry to keep up. She kept waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. After a while, she just started talking. “Did you have a lot of friends, growing up here?”

“Friends? Yeah, I guess. A few. Michael. I kind of knew Eve back then, but we hung with different crowds. Couple of other kids.”

“What—what happened to them?”

“Nothing,” Shane said. “They grew up, got jobs, claimed Protection, kept right on going. That’s how it works in Morganville. You either stay in, or you run.”

“Do you ever see them?” Because she’d been amazed how much she’d missed her friends back home, especially Elizabeth. She’d always thought she was a loner, but…maybe she wasn’t. Maybe nobody really was.