Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(16)

“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. . . .

“Lyss!” He banged on her closed door, yelling and coughing, then rose up to his knees to try to open it. He couldn’t. The knob burned his hand, and the paint on the door was blistering, smoke pouring out from underneath like water on a sinking ship. “Lyssa!”

He had to try. He had to save her.

Shane fell onto his back, gasping for air, coughing constantly, and pulled both his legs back for a last effort at a kick. He hit the doorknob, and the whole door shuddered, then flew back on its hinges.

A ball of flame erupted out at him, and he rolled, feeling his clothes catch fire. He had to keep rolling to put it out, and then he crawled back. Alyssa’s door was open. He had to get to—

Somebody grabbed him by the feet and started dragging him backward. “No!” he screamed, or tried to; he couldn’t breathe—it felt like his lungs were stuffed with wet cotton. “No, Lyssa—”

It was his father. Frank Collins dragged him out to the stairs, then collapsed in a coughing heap, sucking whatever air remained near the floor, and rolled Shane down the steps. Shane barely felt any of it. The world was taking on dark, glittering edges, and his chest hurt, and none of it meant anything because he had to get to his sister. . . .

His mother was there, too, grabbing his arms and dragging. His dad made it down and helped.

They dragged Shane outside, and suddenly there was all this air, and he began coughing and vomiting black stuff and shaking and crying, and oh my God, Lyssa. . . .

His dad grabbed him and shook him. “Why didn’t you get her?” he yelled, right in Shane’s face. “She was your responsibility!” He was slurring his words, so drunk he could hardly stand up.

Shane couldn’t help it. He laughed. There was something terrible about it. Something broken.

His mother was trying to go inside. The firefighters and cops were there now, and they stopped her and brought her back. She sat down on the wet grass with Shane and rocked him back and forth as their house turned into an orange, flickering bonfire against the cold black sky, as their Morganville neighbors—and even some of the vampires—came out to watch.

And then Shane looked up, and he saw Monica Morrell and her two BFFs, Gina and Jennifer. They were standing at the edge of the crowd, closest to where Shane sat, and Jennifer looked horrified and fascinated by the fire—but Gina and Monica were staring straight at Shane.

Monica held up her hand. She had a Bic lighter, and she flicked the wheel and showed him the flame. Then she made a little finger-and-thumb gun and shot it at him.

Shane heaved himself up off the grass and went for her, screaming, raving, crazy, and not caring at all about the rules, about whether she was a girl, about anything, because if she’d done this, if she’d . . .

Somebody stopped him. The face didn’t register with him for a long couple of seconds, but then he saw it was Michael, grabbing on, and then Monica’s brother, Richard, the cop.