Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(34)

It was a familiar subject, and Claire felt a white-hot stab of annoyance. Never thought of that, Mom. Wow, what insight! She wouldn’t say it…. She’d rarely been sarcastic to her parents, but that didn’t stop her from thinking it. Older people so often thought they’d been through everything, experienced everything…but it wasn’t true. Few of them had ever lived in Morganville, for instance. Or apprenticed to a vampire with poor impulse control.

“I’m not,” Claire said. She’d learned that short answers worked best; they made her sound adult and certain. Overexplaining only opened the door for more lectures. “I know you’re concerned, Mom, but Shane’s a really good guy.”

“I know you wouldn’t stay with him if he wasn’t—you’re a very smart girl. But it does concern me, Claire. And your father. You’re just eighteen. You’re too young to be thinking about spending a lifetime with someone. You’ve hardly even dated anyone else.”

Claire was just about fed up with the You’re too young litany. She’d heard it from the time she was old enough to understand the words. The format might change, but the song remained the same: too young to do whatever it was she most wanted to do. And she couldn’t resist saying, “If you hadn’t said I was too young to go to MIT at sixteen, I would never have come to Morganville.”

It was true, but it was a little cruel, and her mother fell silent in a way that told Claire she’d scored. It’s not a game, she reminded herself, but she couldn’t help a little surge of satisfaction, anyway.

When her mom restarted the conversation, it was about her new hobby, which had something to do with remodeling the house. Claire listened with half an ear as she flipped pages in her textbook that she’d opened on her lap. She still had another twenty pages of material to digest, and calling home was having the desired effect: it was making her forget all about Myrnin, and what he’d said, and focus back on her studies.

The door to her room opened unexpectedly, and Shane was standing there, bed-headed and yawning. He waved at her. She pointed to the phone and mouthed Mom. He nodded, stepped over her, and headed for his own room. Knowing him, he’d be facedown in dreamland in five minutes.

Claire grabbed her stuff and went back into her own room. Mom still hadn’t paused for breath, and except for a few noncommittal uh-huhs, Claire was just a conversational spectator.

A second after she settled in on the bed, there was another knock at the door—not Shane this time, because it was much more tentative. Claire covered the phone and called, “Come in!”

It was Miranda, who stepped inside and looked around with interest. Claire mouthed to her, I’m on with my mom. Miranda nodded and went to stare at the large bookcase in the corner of the room. She began pulling out titles.

“Mom, I’ve got to go,” Claire said. “My friend Miranda’s here. I told you about her. She’s the new one in the house.”

“Oh, okay. Love you, pumpkin. Your dad says he loves you, too. Can’t wait for you to take a look at the carpet samples. I’m sure you can help us decide on that. Maybe this weekend?”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you, too. Yeah, maybe this weekend.”

She hung up and dropped her cell back in her pocket as Miranda wandered over with a couple of books. “Do you mind if I borrow these?” she asked. “I don’t sleep anymore.”

“Any time,” Claire said. “Did you like Star Wars?”

“Yes,” she said. Miranda sat down on the bed next to her. She was a small-framed girl, and she seemed even more fragile than Claire, who’d at least put on some muscle these past few years, if she hadn’t grown much taller. Miranda had the seeming physical strength of a stick insect. That was deceptive, of course; Miranda wasn’t really alive in the same way Claire was, and she could draw on the considerable power of the Glass House when she had to, so she could probably break bricks with her hands if necessary.

It was hard not to feel protective, though. The kid just had that look of vulnerability.

“That’s it? Yes? People usually have more to say than that.”

“It was good?” Miranda tried tentatively, and then shrugged. “I guess I’m not really in the mood for movies after all. You know, I used to think that if I couldn’t see the future, it would be terrible, but really, it feels pretty good, not knowing what’s coming. It makes it more fun to watch movies and things when you can’t guess the ending.” She fell silent for a second, then pushed her hair behind her ear. “But it’d be more fun if I did it with you guys.”

She’d been coming out of her shell slowly, but steadily; she hadn’t quite joined the Glass House gang in full, but she was, at least, an adopted kid who was trying to fit into the family. Claire knew how that felt; she’d come into the house when Shane, Michael, and Eve had already been an established unit of old friends. She knew what it felt like to be an outsider.

Claire hugged her impulsively. “We’ll do that,” she said. “Movie night. Tomorrow. I’ve got a bunch of things I think you’d like.”

“Michael and Eve are going to move out,” Miranda said.

Claire almost fell off the bed as she twisted to get a look at Mir’s face. The other girl was staring down, and she didn’t look like she was making a bad joke; she seemed serious, and a little sad. “What?”