Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(29)
“Love notes?” Monica’s voice came from right over her shoulder, and Eve almost tore the paper in half as she convulsively shivered. She turned, banging into the lockers hard enough to leave a bruise, and shoved the note back into the depths of her book stash. “Who’s it from, Stinky George? Has to be somebody from the bottom of the loser pile.”
Leave Monica alone. She almost heard Sam’s voice in her ear, but what did he know, really, about being a girl trapped in a high school hallway with someone who ate the weak alive?
Eve turned, looked Monica full in the face, and said, “George might be bath-challenged, but he’s smarter than you, and he can always take a shower. You’ll always be as dumb as a supersized bag of stupid.”
Monica threw a punch. Eve bent her knees, dropping fast, and the punch went high and smacked hard into the metal of the locker door. Something snapped with a muffled sound, and Monica let out a choked, disbelieving cry of pain as she reeled backward. It was only then that Eve realized neither of her normal backup singers was with her. Just Monica Morrell. Alone.
Eve took a step in as Monica cradled her broken hand to her chest, big eyes filling with tears of pain. She did feel a stab of empathy—just a little. She did remember how it felt, getting hurt. She’d been hurt plenty.
“Word of advice,” Eve said. She suddenly realized that she was taller than Monica, and she felt stronger than her, too, as Monica flinched. “Stay away from Michael Glass. You hurt his friend. He’s not going to forget.”
Eve slammed her locker, whirled the combo lock, and walked away. Monica yelled something at her, but Eve just responded with a quick middle finger and no look back.
This time, she understood the yell plenty. “I’m going to make you sorry!” Monica said. “You pervy skank! Brandon’s my Protector, too! Just wait till you turn eighteen, bitch—he’s going to make you pay!”
Well, crap, Eve thought as she stiff-armed the exit, adjusted the backpack on her arm, and started the walk home. I guess I should have thought of that.
She was never going to let Brandon get a fang into her. Never.
Not even if she had to tear up his contract and throw it in his face and run for her life.
She was imagining what that might be like when Michael Glass fell in beside her. He was carrying his guitar in a soft case strapped to his back, and had a distinct lack of books. Then again, he was a smart guy; he probably didn’t need to study nearly as hard as she did.
Her heart did that guilty flutter thing again when he joined her.
“Sorry about bugging out like that,” he said. “I’ve got a gig at Common Grounds. Want to drop in?”
“Sure,” she said, as casually as if it didn’t mean everything in the world to her. “Why not?”
She could worry about the future later.
THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
This was my very first Morganville short story, published in Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner’s fantastic collection Many Bloody Returns. Because when Charlaine Harris asks you whether you’d like to contribute a story to an anthology that has the theme of “vampires and birthdays,” you definitely say yes to that.
I realized that I had the perfect birthday to discuss: Eve’s eighteenth, on which she had to make the choice to either be a good little Morganville resident, sign her Protection agreement, and fit in . . . or be Eve. I think you already know the answer, but it’s fun getting there.
A little factoid—the Glass House address is a combination of the numbers of my first dorm apartment in college and a book by Stephen King: 716 Lot Street (as in ’Salem’s Lot).
Eighteenth birthdays in Morganville, Texas, are usually celebrated in one of two ways: one, getting totally wasted with your friends or, two, making a terrifying life-or-death decision about your continued survival.
Not that there can’t be some combination of the two.
My eighteenth birthday party was held in the back of a rust-colored Good Times van, circa way before I was born, and the select guest list included some of Morganville’s Least Wanted. Me, for instance—Eve Rosser. Number of people who’d signed my yearbook: five. Two of them had scrawled C YA LOSER. (Number of people I’d wanted to sign my yearbook? Zero. But that was just me.)
And then there was my best friend, Jane, and her kid sister, Miranda. Jane was okay—kind of dull, but seriously, with a name like Jane? Cursed from birth. She did like some cool things, other than me of course. Wicked eighties make-out music, for instance. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume, particularly from the Dark Elements line, although I personally preferred the Funereal Oils.
Miranda—a tagalong to Jane—was a kid. Well, Miranda was a weird kid, who’d convinced a lot of people she was some kind of psychic. I didn’t invite her to the party, mostly because I didn’t think she’d be loads of fun, and also she wasn’t likely to bring beer. Her BPAL preferences were unknown, because she didn’t live on Planet Earth.
Which left Guy and Trent, my two excellent beer-buying buddies. They were my buddies because Guy had a fake ID that he’d made in art class and Trent owned the party bus in which we were ensconced. Other than that, I didn’t know either one of them that well, but they were smart-ass, funny, and safe to get drunk with. Guy and Trent were the only gay couple I actually knew, gaydom being sort of frowned upon in the heartland of Texas that was Morganville.