Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(34)

I turned and ran down the hall to my room, slammed the door, and dragged my biggest suitcase out from under the bed. I couldn’t take much, I knew that; even taking a suitcase was risky, because it slowed me down. But I couldn’t wait for dawn; I had to get out of here now, before Brandon stopped me. He wasn’t supposed to use compulsion on me, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

Or that my parents wouldn’t. For my own good, of course.

I filled up the bag with underwear, shoes, clothes, a few mementos that I couldn’t leave, just in case Dad decided to load the barbecue grill with my belongings the minute I was out the door. I left the family photos. Mom and Dad weren’t fond memories, and neither was my brother, Jason, who was better off in jail, where he was currently rotting.

I went out the back door, since Brandon was still talking to Mom and Dad in the front, and dragged the suitcase as quietly as possible across the backyard to the alley. Alleys in Morganville are freaky at night, and wildly dangerous, but I didn’t have much choice. I hurried, bouncing my suitcase over rough, rutted ground and past foul-smelling trash bins, until I was on the street.

And I realized I had no idea where to go. No idea at all. All the friends I’d had were dead—dead tonight—and I couldn’t even really grieve about that; I didn’t have time. Lifesaving had to come first, right? That was what I kept telling myself.

Didn’t help me carry that giant boulder of guilt on my back.

Cabs didn’t run at night, because cabbies knew better, and besides, there were only two in the whole town. No bus service. At night, either you drove or you stayed home, and even driving was dangerous if you were un-Protected.

I could go to the local motel for the night, the Sagebrush, but it was a good twenty-minute walk, and I didn’t think I had twenty minutes. Not tonight. I’d officially forfeited Brandon’s Protection when I’d ripped up that paper, and that meant I was an all-you-can-suck buffet until I got somebody to take me in. Houses had automatic Protection. Any house.

Michael.

I don’t know why I thought of Michael Glass, but all of a sudden I had a flashback to the last time I’d seen him, playing guitar in Common Grounds, the local hot-spot coffee shop. I’d gone to high school with Michael, crushed hard on Michael from a distance, and semi-stalked him after he graduated, attending every single gig he’d landed in Morganville. He was good, you see. And a sweetheart. And little baby Jesus, he was hot. And he had his own house.

I knew the Glass House. It was one of the historic homes of Morganville, all gently decaying Gothic elegance, and Michael’s parents had moved out on waivers two years ago. Michael lived there all alone, as far as I knew.

And it was only three blocks away.

I had no idea if he was home, or if he’d be stupid enough to let me in when I was running for my life, but it was worth a try, right? I broke into a jog, the wheels of my suitcase making a whirring, grating hiss on the sidewalk. The night felt deep and dark, no moon, only starlight, and it smelled like cold dust. Like a graveyard. Like my graveyard.

I thought of Trent, Guy, and Jane, in their silent black bags. Maybe they were in cold metal drawers by now, filed away. Lives over.

I didn’t want to be dead. I didn’t.

So I ran, bumping my suitcase behind me.

I didn’t see a soul on the streets. No cars, no lights in windows, no shadows trailing me. It was eerily quiet outside, and my heart was racing. I wished I had weapons, but those were hard to come by in Morganville, and besides, I had nosy parents who trashed my room regularly looking for contraband of all kinds. Being under eighteen sucked.

Being over eighteen wasn’t looking so great, either.

I heard the hiss of tires behind me, over the puffing of my breath, and the low growl of a car engine. I looked back, hoping to see Richard Morrell following me in the police car, but no such luck; it was a nondescript black sports car with dark-tinted windows.

Vampire car. No question.

Two more blocks.

The car seemed content to creep along behind me, tires crunching over pavement, and I had plenty of panic time to wonder who was inside. Brandon, in the back, almost certainly. But Brandon wouldn’t be the one to fang me, although he’d probably take his turn before I was dead. He had people to do that for him.

The suitcase hit a crack in the sidewalk and tipped over, dragging me to an off-balance halt. I saw a light go on in one of the houses I was passing, and a curtain twitch aside, and then the blinds snapped shut and the lights flicked off. No help there. But then, in Morganville, that wasn’t unusual.

I wasn’t crying, but it was close; I could feel tears burning in my throat, right above the terror twisting my guts. This was your choice, I told myself. You couldn’t do anything else.

Right now, that wasn’t much comfort.

Up ahead, I saw the looming bulk of the Glass House—one more block to go. I could make it, I could. I had to. Jane and Trent and Guy were gone. I owed it to them to live through this.

The car sped up behind me as I crossed the street to the next corner. Four houses to go, all still and lightless.

There was a porch light on in front of 716, and it cast a glow on the pillars framing the porch, picked out the boards in the white fence in front. There were lights on inside, and I saw someone pass in front of a window.

“Michael!” I screamed it, and put everything into one last sprint. The car eased ahead of me and pulled in at the curb with a squeal of brakes, tires bumping concrete. A door flew open to block the sidewalk, and I gasped, picked up my suitcase, and tossed it over the fence. It weighed about fifty pounds, but I managed to toss it anyway. I grabbed the rough whitewashed boards with their sharp tops and vaulted over, got my shirt caught on the way and ripped it open. No time to worry about that. I dragged my suitcase over the night-damp grass and yelled his name again, with even more of an edge of panic. “Michael! It’s Eve! Open the door!”