I purred lightly, and nipped at his mouth. “I’m Catwoman,” I reminded him. “And it’s just a scratch.”
Michael opened the car door for me, and handed me in like a lady.
Like his lady.
He got in, shut the door, and slapped the back of Shane’s seat. “Home, driver.”
Shane sent him a one-fingered salute. Next to him, Claire gave me a completely non-ethereal grin and snuggled in close to him as he drove.
Miranda said, dreamily, “One of us is going to be a vampire.”
“One of us already is,” I pointed out. Michael put his arm around me.
“Oh,” she said, and sighed. “Right.”
Except that Miranda never forgot a thing like that.
“Hey,” Michael said, and squeezed my shoulders lightly. “Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Okay?”
“Tonight’s tonight,” I agreed. “And tonight’s good for me.”
MURDERED OUT
One of the hard-to-find exclusive stories written specifically for the U.K. editions (which at the time were being published a month or two after the U.S. releases, meaning that die-hard fans rushed to buy internationally), it was offered as an extra to help the U.K. publisher convince fans there to wait for the local edition, and it seems to have worked!
I didn’t give Shane his own car early on in the series for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it was fun for him to have to ask nicely for rides. The fact that he couldn’t quite earn enough to buy his own said something about Shane’s job-related experiences, too. But finally, at this particular point (after Kiss of Death, before Bite Club), Shane is ready to make the commitment.
I mostly love this story for the small-town details I got to put into it, and the introduction of Rad, the mechanic. Fun factoid: This story was inspired by my getting the rims on my car (a Smart car, which Shane would never drive, but Claire totally would) painted black. The shop salesperson said, “Oh, you mean you’re murdering it out.” I’d never heard the term before, and loved it.
Normal life in Morganville. As far as normal ever was, Shane Collins thought; nobody was overtly rioting, getting arrested, or killing anyone.
Not on this street, anyway.
Being out in the open around dark was not his favorite survival strategy, but even though the Morganville Multiplex Cinema (three whole screens) tried to cram as many morning and afternoon showings in as practical, it wasn’t always possible to avoid getting out later than was healthy for a regular human in Morganville, Texas.
“There’s a reason those twilight shows are cheaper than the others,” he said to Claire Danvers, who was walking with her small hand in his large one, head down. Claire was thinking, but then, she was always thinking. It was part of what he loved about her. “I wish Eve would have come with us. At least then we’d have had wheels.”
“We’ll be all right,” Claire said. She sounded confident about that. He wasn’t, only because he was the guy, and therefore, by his logic, their survival on the way home sort of landed squarely on his shoulders. Claire was his girlfriend. That meant she was his to protect. He knew that if he said that out loud, she’d smack him, and mean it, but it was just how he felt about it.
And he was smart enough not to tell her.
“She and Michael were going out,” Claire said. “To that restaurant she likes. And then I guess they were going to the show, so it doesn’t make sense for her to see it twice in one day.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It wasn’t that good. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I am all about the exploding things. But there’s a pretty fine line between awesome and explode-o-porn.”
Claire laughed, a silvery little thing that made him want to stop, put his arms around her, and kiss the hell out of her, right here in front of Bernard’s Best Resale Shoppe. He didn’t, only because the sun was scraping the horizon, they had five blocks left to walk to get home to the Glass House, and anyway, kissing her would only make him want to kiss her even more.
Which would make them appetizers for the vampires already getting ready for their nightly strolls.
That was the thing about Morganville. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here. And honestly, Shane couldn’t exactly define why it was he did live here. He could have left, he supposed. He had, once, and come back to do a job for his father, Fearless Frank the Vampire Hunter. But now he stayed because . . . because at least in here he understood things. He knew the rules, even if the rules were crappy and the game of survival was rigged.
He stayed because there were people here he loved. Claire, for a start, and as much as he felt for her, that would have been enough right there. But then there was Eve Rosser, who was like his annoying/sweet Gothed-out sister. And there was Michael Glass, who was his best friend.