And he turned and walked off into the shadows, avoiding the sunlight, heading who knew where.
Shane rolled up to his feet. He was tall, and even if he still felt awkward in his body, he knew he wasn’t a pushover. And Monica—Monica wasn’t even a big girl.
He didn’t threaten her. His heart was pounding, and he saw red, and he wanted nothing more than to make her pay for scaring him that bad, but . . . he couldn’t. He just stared at her for a long, hostile moment, then said, “Leave me alone, bitch,” as he turned and walked away, heading for the sunlight.
At the end of the alley, he saw a tall girl’s shadow, hovering uncertainly near the entrance. Lyss. She’d come back, which was stupid. “Go!” he yelled at his sister, and waved her off. “I’m fine! Go on!”
Behind him, he heard Monica Morrell say, in an ice-cold whisper, “Nobody does this to me, Collins. Nobody.”
He swung around, intending this time to scare the hell out of her, but . . . she was running the other way. Chasing after her pissy vamp boyfriend, maybe. Not that Shane cared.
He got to the end of the alley. Alyssa was standing there, looking wan and scared and suddenly younger than twelve. “What happened?” Her eyes were big and round. “Shane, you’ve got dirt all over—”
“It’s nothing,” he interrupted, and put a hand on her shoulder to move her off down the sidewalk, fast. “Let’s just get home.”
? ? ?
Home wasn’t that much of an improvement, but after having run into Monica—violently—Shane didn’t feel real good about letting Lyssa stay home alone. Mom was out doing mom-things—he didn’t really know what—and Dad, well. Dad would be over at one of the two bars, pounding back boilermakers and pretending like life was good.
“I thought you were going to the game shop,” Alyssa yelled from behind her closed bedroom door as she changed clothes. “You don’t have to babysit, you know! I’m not a kid!”
“You are, and I do, and shut up,” Shane said. “I’m opening a can of SpaghettiOs. Better hurry up.”
She made a vomiting noise, which made him grin. He went downstairs and, true to his word, opened up the can, microwaved the SpaghettiOs, and started wolfing them down. When Lyss finally showed, he tossed her the can opener. “Make yourself something.”
“Wow, you are some babysitter. Why don’t you just tell me to go play in the street?”
“Not nearly exciting enough. Make yourself something and I’ll play you on Super Mario Bros. Winner gets to pick dessert.”
“Twinkies!”
“I said winner, loser.”
Lyssa popped a spoon in her mouth and crossed her eyes at him, poured soup into a bowl, and stuck it in the microwave.
Two hours later, he’d lost at video games, Lyssa had her Twinkie, and somehow they ended up watching bad movies. Mom called. She was stuck at work. Not too surprising; she ended up staying late a lot these days. Probably couldn’t deal with Dad, who of course still hadn’t shown up. Shane put on a DVD—one of those Pixar movies Lyss loved, and he secretly did, too, although it probably wasn’t cool—and she fell asleep halfway through it. He let it finish, then nudged her with one foot.
“Hey,” he said. “Go upstairs, sleepy butt. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
She stretched and yawned. “So do you!”
“Yeah, but I’m in charge, so I get to stay up. Go on.”
“You suck, Shane.”
“Do not make me come over there.”
She made a show of being too tired to run up the stairs, and crawled up them on her hands and knees, which was funny and odd, and as soon as she was gone, Shane picked up his cell and told Michael about Monica.
Michael was worried. Yeah, he was, too, kinda. Plus, Alyssa was probably right—his Myspace page was going to be a mess.
Shane decided to worry about that in the morning. For now, there were language, violence, and nudity warnings on HBO.
Sweet.
? ? ?
He fell asleep on the couch, just like Alyssa had. When he woke up, HBO was running boxing, and it was really late. Mom and Dad still weren’t home. Shane yawned, considered watching boxing, and decided to wander upstairs instead.
That was when he smelled smoke, halfway up the stairs.
For a second he thought, Somebody’s barbecuing, and then, stupidly, What, at midnight? And then he smelled more smoke, and saw it, a pale white haze in the air, and the smoke detectors started going off with loud whooping shrieks upstairs.
Oh God.
Shane ran the rest of the stairs. The smoke was thicker at the top, choking and rancid; it tasted like burning plastic, and before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees, crawling instead of running. The air was better there. He could hear something crackling now, and that had to be the fire, fire—Alyssa was in her room and he had to get to her. . . .