Oh, low blow—she saw his eyes shift, but he toughed it out. “So your answer is that I let you go out there, risk your life, sit in a coffee shop with Brandon, and pretend like that’s safer? Claire. In no way does that equal safer.”

“Safer than the vampires deciding that everybody in this house deliberately set out to cheat them out of the thing they want most,” Claire said. “We’re not playing, are we? I mean, I can stop if you want, but we don’t have anything else we can trade for Shane’s deal. Nothing big enough. I’d let Brandon—you know—but somehow I don’t think—”

“Over my—” Michael stopped and laughed. “I was going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ but—”

Claire winced.

“No,” he said.

“You’re not my dad,” she pointed out, and all of a sudden…remembered.

Shane, at the hospital, when she’d been drugged up, had said, They called your parents. Also, she distinctly remembered the words freaked out.

Oh, crap!

“Dad,” she said aloud. “Oh no…um, I need to use the phone. Can I?”

“Calling your parents? Sure. Long distance—”

“Yeah, I know. I pay for it. Thanks.”

She picked up the cordless phone and dialed her home number. It rang five times, then flipped over to the machine. “Hello, you’ve reached Les and Katharine Danvers and their daughter, Claire. Leave us a message!” It was her mom’s bright, businesslike voice. When the beep sounded, Claire had a second of blind panic. Maybe they were just out shopping. Or…

“Hi, Mom and Dad, it’s Claire. I just wanted to—um—say hi. I should have called you, I guess. That lab accident thing, that was nothing, really. I don’t want you to be worried about me—everything’s just fine. Really.”

Michael, leaning against the doorframe, was making funny faces at her. That seemed like Shane’s job, somehow. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“I just—I just wanted to say that. Love you. Bye.”

She hung up. Michael said, “You ought to get them to come and take you home.”

“And leave you guys in this mess? You’re in it because of me. Shane’s in it because of me. Now that Monica knows he’s back…”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not underestimating how much trouble we’re in, but you can still go. And you should. I’m going to try to convince Shane to get out, too. Eve—Eve won’t go, but she should.”

“But—” That leaves you alone, she thought. Really alone. There was no getting out for Michael. Not ever.

Michael looked up and out the window, where the sky was gradually washing from midnight blue to a paler dawn. “My time’s up,” he said. “Promise me you won’t go with Eve tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Claire.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”