Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(30)
We were all about the ironic family values.
The evening went pretty much the way such things are supposed to go: guys buy cheap-ass beer, distribute to underage females, drive to a deserted location to play loud headbanger music and generally act like idiots. The only thing missing was the make-out sessions, which was okay by me; most of the guys of Morganville were gag-worthy, anyway. There were one or two I would have gladly crawled over barbwire to date, but . . . that was another story.
Jane bought me a birthday present, which was kind of sweet, especially since it was a brand-new mix CD of songs about dead people. Jane knows what I like.
I was still a mystery to Guy and Trent, though. Granted, Morganville’s a small town, and all us loser outcast freaks had a nodding acquaintance, but . . . Goths didn’t much mix with other identity groups. The Goth population was even smaller than the few gays, given the town’s prominent undead demographic. They have no sense of humor.
Oh, I forgot to mention: vampires. Town’s run by them. Full of them. Humans live here on sufferance, heavy on the “suffer.”
See what I mean about the ironic family values?
I could tell that Guy had been trying to think of a way to ask me all night, but thanks to consuming over half a case of beer with his Significantly Wasted Other, he finally just blurted out the question of the day. “So, are you signing or what?” he asked. Yelled, actually, over whatever song was currently making my head hurt. “I mean, tomorrow?”
Was I signing? That was the Big Question, the one all of us faced at eighteen. I looked down at my wrist, because I was still wearing my leather bracelet. The symbol on it wasn’t anything people outside Morganville would recognize, but it identified the vampire who was the official Protector for my family. However, I was no longer in that select little club of people who had to kiss Brandon’s ass to continue to draw breath.
I also would no longer have any kind of deal or Protection from any vampire in Morganville.
What Guy was asking was whether I intended to pick myself a Protector of my very own. It was traditional to sign with your family’s hereditary patron, but no way in hell was I letting Brandon have power over me. So I could either shop around to see if any other vampire could, or would, take me, or go bare—live without a contract.
Which was attractive, but seriously risky. See, Morganville vampires don’t generally kill off their own humans, because that would make life difficult for everybody, but free-range, non-Protected humans? Nobody worries much what happens to them, because usually they’re alone, and they’re poor, and they disappear without a trace.
Just another job opening at the Chicken Shack fry machine.
They were all looking at me now. Jane, Miranda, Guy, and Trent, all waiting to hear what Eve Rosser, Professional Rebel, was going to do.
I didn’t disappoint them. I tipped back the beer, belched, and said, “Hell no, I’m not signing. Bareback all the way, baby! Let’s live fast and die young!”
Guy and I did drunken high fives. Trent rolled his eyes and clicked beer bottles with Jane. “They all say that,” he said. “And then there’s the test results, and the crying. . . .”
“Jesus, Trent, you’re the laugh of the party.”
“That’s life of the party, honeybunches. Oh, wait, you’re right. Not in Morganville, it isn’t.”
“Boo-ha-ha. Is that funny at all in other vans in town?” Jane asked. “Because it’s not so funny in here, ass pirate.”
“You should know, princess, as many vans as you’ve bounced around in,” Trent shot back.
“Hey!” Jane tossed an empty bottle at him; Trent caught it and threw it in the plastic bin in the corner. Which, I had to admit, meant that Trent could hold his liquor, because he led the field in ounces consumed by a wide margin. “Seriously, Eve—what are you going to do?”
I hadn’t thought about it. Or, actually, I had, but in that what-if kind of way that was really just bullshit bravado . . . but now it was down to do or don’t, or it would be when the sun came up in the morning. I was going to have to choose, and that would rule the rest of my life.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten quite so trashed, given the circumstances.
“Well, I’m not signing with Brandon,” I said slowly. “Maybe I’ll shop around for another patron.”
“You really think anybody else is going to stand up and volunteer if Brandon’s got you marked?” Guy asked. “Girl, you got yourself a death wish.”
“Yeah, like that’s news,” Jane said. “Look how she dresses!”
Nothing wrong with how I was dressed. A skull T-shirt, a spiked belt low on my hips, bike shorts, fishnets, black and red Mary Janes. Oh, maybe she was talking about my makeup. I’d done the Full-on Goth today—white face powder, big black rings around my eyes, blue lips. It was sort of a joke.
And also, sort of not.
“It doesn’t matter,” said a small, quiet voice that somehow cut right through the music.
I’d almost forgotten about Miranda—the kid was sitting in the corner of the van, her knees drawn up, staring off into the distance.
“It speaks,” Trent said, and laughed maniacally. “I was starting to think you’d just brought the kid along to protect your virtue, Jane.” He gave her a comical flutter of his eyelashes. I coveted his long, lush eyelashes.