Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(33)

I hated his guts, and he knew it.

“Honey?” Mom. She was hovering behind Brandon, looking timid and nervous. “Better come inside. You know you shouldn’t be out there in the dark.”

Dad was nowhere to be seen. I bit my tongue and crossed the threshold, and when Brandon closed the door behind me, it was like the cell slamming shut.

“I was in an accident,” I said. Mom looked at me. We didn’t look much alike, even when I wasn’t Gothed up. . . . She had fading brown hair and green eyes, and I took after Dad’s darker looks. I sometimes thought maybe this was some kind of play, and Mom was an actress, and not a very good one, playing the role of my mother. She phoned in her performance.

“Officer Morrell called,” she said. “But he said you weren’t hurt. And you know, we had a guest.” She smiled at Brandon. My skin tried to crawl off my bones.

“Three of my friends were killed,” I said.

“Oh dear!”

“Once more with feeling, Mom.”

“Any of mine?” Brandon asked casually. I gritted my teeth, because I wanted to scream and hit him, and that wouldn’t have done me any good at all.

“N-no,” I managed to stammer. “Jane Blunt, Trent Garvey, and Guy—” What the hell was Guy’s last name? I wanted to cry now. Or keep crying. “Guy Finelli.”

Brandon smiled. “Sounds as if Charles had a bad night.” Charles being a rival vamp. I knew he was the Protector for Jane’s family. I hadn’t known he’d been responsible for one or both of the others. Charles was just the opposite of Brandon—a bookish little man, soft-spoken and mild until you pushed him. Not a bad choice, if I had to go shopping for Protectors, I supposed.

God, I hated this. I wanted this over.

“Let’s just do it,” I said, and walked down the hallway to the living room. Predictably, Dad was parked in his recliner with an open beer, probably working on his usual six-pack. He was a bloated vision of my future—two hundred and fifty pounds, sallow and grim and full of rage and resentment he couldn’t fling anywhere but around here, in the house. He managed the biggest local bar, which of course was owned by Brandon. All nice and tidy. Brandon owned the mortgage on the house. Brandon owned the notes on our cars.

Brandon owned us.

And now Brandon was smiling at me, all sleek and horrible with those hungry, hungry eyes, and he was taking a folded, thick sheaf of papers out of the pocket of his long black coat.

“You only wear that thing because you saw it on TV,” I said, and snatched the paperwork from him. I read the first bit. I, Eve Evangeline Walker Rosser, swear my life, my blood, and my service to my Protector Brandon, now and for my lifetime, that my Protector may command me in all things.

This was it. I was holding my future in my hands, right here.

Brandon held out a pen. My father tore his attention away from the glowing escape of the television and took a sip of beer, watching me with dead, angry intensity. My mother looked nervous, fluttering her hands as I stared without blinking at the black Montblanc the vampire was holding out.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Brandon said. “There’s a signing bonus. Ten thousand dollars.”

“Guess I could bury my friends in style with that,” I said.

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Brandon shrugged. “Their family contracts cover that sort of thing.”

Mom sensed what I was thinking, I guess, because she blurted, “Eve, honey, let’s hurry. Brandon does have places to go.” She encouraged me with little vague motions of her hands, and her eyes were desperate.

I took a deep breath, held the crisp paper in both hands, and ripped it in half. The sound was almost drowned out by my mother’s horrified gasp, and the sound of the beer can crushing in my father’s hand.

“You ungrateful little freak,” Dad said. “You disrespect your Protector like that? To his face?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much just like that.” I ripped the contract in quarters, and threw it at him. The paper fluttered like huge confetti, one piece landing on his shoulder until Brandon calmly brushed it off. “Fuck off, Brandon. I’m not signing with you.”

“No one else will take you,” he said. “And you’re mine, Eve. You’ve always been mine. Don’t forget it.”

My Dad got out of his recliner and grabbed my arm. “You’re signing that paper,” he said, and shook me like a terrier shaking a rat. “Don’t be stupid!”

“I’m not signing anything!” I screamed, right in his face, and took Brandon’s expensive pen and stomped on it with my Mary Janes until it was a leaking black stain on the floor. “You can be slaves if you want, but not me! Not ever again!”

Brandon didn’t look angry. He looked amused. That was bad.

Dad shoved me and sent me reeling. “Then you’re gone,” he said. “I won’t have you in my house, eating my food, stealing my money. If you want to go out there bare, then do it. See how long you last.”

I was stunned, at least a little; he’d never done that before, even though he’d never really loved me. I backed away from him, into Mom. She got out of the way, but then, she always did, didn’t she? She had all the backbone of a balloon.

She avoided my eyes completely. “You’d better go, honey,” she said. “You made your choice.”