"Here," Michael said, and handed me the flashlight. "She might come looking for us here, but not for a while."
It was a secret hidey-hole, one that I had been shoved into on my very first morning in the Glass House; no exits, only the one entrance. I'd thought from the beginning it looked like someplace a vampire might stash a couple of handy coffins, but it was empty. And as far as I knew, Michael slept on a Serta.
"I meant to ask you. What is this?"
"Root cellar," he said. "This house was built before refrigerators, and ice deliveries were only so-so. This was where they kept most of their vegetables."
"So ... not a vampire hideout?"
Michael stretched his long legs out with a sigh and leaned against the wall. God, he was pretty. No wonder Eve was willing to overlook the lack of pulse. "Not so far as I've ever known, but the vampires in Morganville never really had to hide. Only the humans did."
Which wasn't what we were here to talk about, I supposed. I crossed my arms and felt the bracelet bite into the skin of my wrist under the shirt. "Whatever lecture you were going to give me, it's too late. I signed, it's done, I've got the souvenir bracelet." Which made me suddenly, strangely want to cry. "Michael -- "
"What's she asking you to do?" Which was so right-on that I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes and in my nose get even higher.
"Um ... " I couldn't tell him, Amelie and Sam had both made it clear. "It's just extra schoolwork. She wants me to study some things."
"What things?" Michael's voice got sharp and worried. "Ana -- "
"It's nothing. Science stuff. I would have probably been doing it anyway, but it's just -- it's a lot more study, and I don't know how I'm going to -- " Keep it from Justin. Because I had to, right? Bad enough he hated Michael for being a vampire, what was he going to think about me, selling myself to Amelie? "I just don't know how I'm going to do all this."
And suddenly, I was crying. I didn't mean to, but there it was, boiling out of me. I expected Michael to do the Justin thing, come and comfort me, but he didn't. He sat right where he was and watched me. When my sobs died down, and I swiped my hands across my wet cheeks, he said, "Finished?"
I gulped and nodded.
"You made the choice, now you want to have it both ways -- the benefits, but not the consequences. You can't, Ana. It's coming home to roost, and you'd better handle it now rather than later." Michael's tone softened, just a little. "Look, I'm not an asshole, I know how scared you are. But you're a player in this town now. You're not the fragile little thing we took in for protection. You're trying to protect us. That means you may not be as well liked anymore, and you're going to have to sack up about that."
"What?" I felt dazed. Somehow, this wasn't how I'd expected all this to go. Especially Michael's cool, challenging look, and the lack of hugging.
"Signing the contract isn't the last choice you're going to have to make," he said. "It's the choices you make from now on that show whether you did the right thing or not." He stood up, pale and strong and as gorgeous as an angel in the glow of my flashlight. "And stop lying to me. You ought to get off to a better start."
"I -- what?"
"You said what Amelie has you doing is just more studying," he said grimly. "And I can tell when you're lying. No, I'm not going to ask, because I can tell it scares you, but just remember, vampires can tell, all right?"
He swung the door open and ducked out. I stared after him, open-mouthed, but by the time I'd scrambled through and switched off the flashlight, Michael was already gone, out of the pantry. Crap. It's going to look like we were ...
What? Who could believe Michael would be snacking on an underage girl in the root cellar?
Still, I eased open the pantry door and checked to be sure the coast was clear before I dashed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Michael was sitting on the couch, Eve curled next to him with her head on his chest. They were watching something on TV, and Eve's gaze followed me as I hurried past them, mumbling an apology.
I stopped on the stairs and looked back at them. Two people I cared about, wrapped in a moment of warmth and happiness.
Michael was a vampire, and that meant that Michael was dying. Like Myrnin. He was going to suffer and lose his mind and hurt people.
He could even hurt Eve.
Tears pricked at my eyes, and I felt suddenly short of breath. When it had been just an abstract problem, just Morganville minus vampires equals safety, then that had been one thing, but it wasn't abstract. It was people I knew, liked, even loved. I wouldn't shed any tears over Oliver, but how could I not care about Michael? Or Sam? Or even Amelie?
I picked up my book bag and went upstairs.
Justin's door was shut. I knocked. He didn't answer for a long moment, and then said, "If I ignore you, will you go away?"
"No," I said.
"Might as well come in, then."
He was flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling, hands under his head, and he didn't look at me as I entered and closed the door behind me.
"So is this how it's going to go?" I asked. "I do something dumb like stay out late, you get mad and run away, I come and apologize and make everything better?"
Justin, surprised, looked at me, then said, "Well, that kinda works for me, yeah."
I thought about Michael, about the suddenly grown-up way he'd treated me. I sat down on the bed next to Justin, staring down at the floor for a few seconds to gather my courage, and then I pulled back my sleeve to expose the bracelet.
Justin didn't make a sound. He slowly sat up, staring at the shiny gold band with its Founder's symbol.
"We need to talk," I said. I felt sick and terrified, but I knew it was the right choice. The only other thing to do was lie, and I couldn't keep on doing it. Michael was right about that.
Justin could have done anything -- he could have run away, he could have thrown me out of his room. He could even have hit me.
Instead, he took my hand in his, bent his head, and said, "Tell me."
Eve wasn't so understanding. "Are you out of your mind?" She picked up the handiest thing to throw -- it happened to be the Playstation controller -- and Justin quickly, carefully de-gamed her. I thought he probably wouldn't have moved that fast if Eve had grabbed, oh, say, a book.
"Let's be adults about this," Michael said. We were downstairs again, together, although Justin and Michael were still clearly standing at opposite poles. It was getting late -- eleven already --and I was feeling the strain of a very long, hard day. In fact, I yawned, which only made Eve shoot me a look of absolute exasperation.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are we keeping you awake? Michael, how the hell do we be adults about this when one of us isn't an adult?" Eve leveled a shaking finger at her. "You're a kid, Ana. As in, you're still a wet-behind-the-ears dumbass who hasn't even been in this town a couple of months. You have no idea what you're doing!"
"Maybe I don't," I agreed. My voice was almost steady, which pleased and surprised me. I didn't like having Eve angry at me. I didn't like having anyone angry at me. "The thing is, it's done. I made the choice, that discussion was over before we had it. I wanted you to know, though. I didn't want to -- " My eyes met Michael's briefly. " -- lie to you."
"Why the hell not? Everybody around here lies. Michael lied about being a ghost. Justin lies about shit all the time. Why not you, too?"
Justin groaned. "Yo, Drama Princess, want to tone it down a little? Somewhere, Sandra Bernhardt wants her tantrum back."
"Oh, like you don't throw a hissy every time somebody trips your angst switch!"
I looked helplessly at Michael, who was having a hard time not smiling. He shrugged and took a step forward. That meant, of course, that Justin backed up. "Eve," Michael said, ignoring Justin for the moment. "Give the girl some credit. At least she told you, instead of letting you figure it out on your own."
"Yeah, and she told me last!" Eve glared at the two boys, hands on her hips.
"Boyfriend," Justin said, holding up his hand.
"Landlord," Michael chimed in.
"Crap," Eve sighed. "I guess that does leave me in last place. Right, next time you sell your soul to the evil, I get first contact! Girl solidarity, right?"
"Um -- okay?"
"Dumbass," Eve sighed, defeated. "I can't believe you did that. I worked so hard to get away from that Protection crap, and here you are, all ... Protected. I just wanted you to be -- safe. And I'm not sure this is."
"Yeah," I said. "Me neither. But I swear, it was the best thing I could think of. And at least it's Amelie. She's okay, right?"
They all looked at each other. Justin said, "But you won't tell us what she's got you doing that keeps you out late."
"No. I -- I can't do that."
"Then she's not okay," Justin said. "And neither are you."
But none of them had any good suggestions on how to fix it, and I fell asleep on the couch with my head in Justin's lap as he and Michael and Eve kept talking, and talking, and talking. It was three a.m. when I woke up; Justin hadn't moved, but I was covered with a blanket, and he was sound asleep, sitting straight up.
I yawned, groaned at sore muscles, and rolled to my feet. "Justin. Up. You need to go to bed."
He woke up cute, softened by sleep. "Come with?" He was only half joking. I remembered being curled up with him in my bed, the night I'd been so scared; he'd been careful then, but I wasn't sure I could count on that kind of self-restraint at three a.m., when he was half-asleep.
"I can't," I said reluctantly. "Not that I don't want to ..."
He smiled and stretched out on his side on the couch, leaving a narrow space between his warm, solid body and the cushions. "Stay," he said. "I promise, no clothes will come off. Well, maybe shoes. Do shoes count as clothes?"
I kicked hers off and climbed over him to slip into that small pocket, and sighed in relief as his body pressed against mine. I didn't even need the blanket, but he put it over the two of us anyway, and then combed my hair back from my neck and kissed me on the soft, vulnerable skin.
"You were leaving," I whispered. He stopped moving. As far as I could tell, he stopped breathing. "You were leaving, and you didn't even know if I was okay."
"No. I was going to go look for you."
"After you packed."
"Ana, I didn't even know you hadn't come home until Eve came upstairs looking. I was going to look for you."
I looked back at him, over my shoulder, and saw the desperation hiding in his eyes.
"Please," he said. "Please believe me."
Against my will, even against my better judgment, I did believe him. I felt safe, anchored against the troubled world by the heat of his body against mine.
His arm went around my waist, and I felt absolutely protected.
"I won't let anything happen to you," he said. It was a promise he probably couldn't keep, but in the night, in the dark, it meant everything to me.