Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(23)

And then, on the other side of the barricades, Eve caught sight of a face she knew. Soot-stained, pale, but achingly familiar. Michael Glass. He was standing helplessly off to the side, watching the fire with wide, empty eyes. Nobody was paying him any mind, though a police officer was nearby. She supposed they were keeping him there as some kind of . . . witness?

Eve didn’t think about what she intended to do; she just ducked under the barricade and ran straight for Michael. He saw her coming at the last second, and somehow managed to get his arms out just in time for her to hit him in a fierce, full-bodied hug.

He held on to her just as tightly, and she breathed in the smell of the smoke that clung to him, the sweat, the electric burn of fear and grief. She knew, somehow. From the shaking strength of his arms around her, she knew Mrs. Montez hadn’t been wrong.

Alyssa Collins was dead.

“Shane?” She managed to mumble it out, and he heard her, even over the roar of the fire. She felt his face against her hair, and then his skin against her cheek as he turned his head. Incredibly warm. Scratchy, from the beard that was growing in a little. “Is Shane okay?”

“He made it out,” Michael said. She expected him to let go of her then, but he didn’t. Maybe they both needed the support. “His dad dragged him. Shane was still fighting to get—get to Alyssa.”

“But he couldn’t reach her?” Eve said, because she could tell it was hard for him to say it. “Oh my God, Michael. He couldn’t get to his little sister. He must be so wrecked. . . . Where is he?”

“With his parents,” Michael said. “I guess the cops wanted to talk to them about how the fire started. Not that there’s much doubt about it.”

There was a low, angry tone to that, and Eve pulled back a little and looked at him. “What?” she asked, and his blue eyes got very hard, very focused.

“Monica,” he said. “Shane told me he saw her out here with a lighter. The bitch burned his house. She killed Alyssa.”

“No!” Eve couldn’t help blurting it out. “She couldn’t have . . . Oh my God. I never thought—I mean, she’s a horrible, awful person, but . . .”

“She’s leveled up from horrible to a damn murderer,” Michael said. “To killing a kid. And odds are good nobody’s going to do a damn thing about it. They’ll probably say it was bad wiring or some bullshit, and the mayor’s precious daughter won’t even get a slap on the hand.”

That was harsh. It was probably also really, really true, and it made Eve want to throw up. She couldn’t get her head around it. Alyssa, gone? Alyssa was in junior high. A cute, funny girl who would have grown up to be a sassy woman, who should have been able to do all the things that Eve was still experiencing—have her first boyfriend, her first kiss, her first love.

But Lyss would never get those things, and it was so hard to imagine.

There was a giant rush of sound from the house, and big timbers collapsed, still burning. The walls caved in. Flames shot so high it looked as if they were scorching the stars above, but the fire didn’t warm Eve anymore. Her hands felt icy, and she needed the heat of Michael’s body against hers. He must have felt the same, because he held on, and there was no distance between them. No barriers.

The two of them stood like that until the flames began to die down, and the crowd started to disperse, and night took darker hold around them. The cops hadn’t bothered them, but now Detective Hess came striding over, grim-faced, to talk to Michael.

That meant they had to separate, and it hurt; it physically ached in her to see Michael standing so alone, with that pain still etched into his face.

Hess asked questions, but there wasn’t much that Michael could answer. He’d seen the fire in the distance, realized it might be his friend’s house, and gotten here in time to see Shane pulled out of the burning front door by his dad. Nobody had been able to get inside after that; it was too dangerous.

Unspoken in that, Eve realized, was that Michael had probably tried. Or worse, had been forced to hold Shane back from rushing back in to die. How hard would that have been for him, to do that?

“Okay,” Detective Hess finally said, and closed up his notebook to slip it in his jacket pocket. He seemed weary and beaten by the whole thing, or maybe just by being a lifelong Morganville resident. “Thanks for your help, Michael. I’ll be in touch if we have more questions.”

Michael hesitated and said, “Did Shane already tell you about Monica?”

Detective Hess paused in the act of turning away. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“He saw her outside. She had a lighter. She was flicking it and smiling. Pretty easy to draw that picture.”

“Pretty easy to draw the wrong one, too,” Hess said, and gave Michael a long look. “Did you see her? See her set the fire?”

“I believe Shane.” Michael’s voice was even, but the muscles in his face and shoulders were tense.

Hess nodded and finally faced Eve. “You, Miss Rosser? When did you arrive?”

“I saw the fire from my house,” she said. “I came to see if everybody was okay.”

“You’re friends with Shane as well; is that right?”

Eve nodded. She realized she didn’t even look like herself just now—hair down and limp around her face, no makeup, ratty random clothing. “I don’t know how to help him through this.”