Claire again tugged down the sleeve over the tattoo, and her fingers skimmed over the gold bracelet she still wore. Amelie’s bracelet, with the symbol on it of the former vampire ruler of Morganville. Before Mr. Bishop had arrived, it had been a mark of Protection . . . it meant she owed Amelie taxes, usually in the form of money, services, and donated blood, and in return Amelie—and the other vampires—would play nice. It was sort of like the Mafia, with fangs. And it hadn’t always worked, but it had been a lot better than walking around Morganville as a free lunch.

Now, though, the bracelet wasn’t such an asset. She hadn’t seen or heard from Amelie in weeks, and all of Amelie’s allies seemed to be MIA. The most prominent vampires in Morganville were in hiding, or maybe even dead . . . or else they were under Bishop’s control, and they had no real will of their own. Seemed like that was happening more and more as time went along. Bishop had decided it was more trouble to kill the opposition than to convert them.

Just like he’d converted her, although she was pretty much the only human he’d bothered to put directly under his thumb. He didn’t have a very high opinion of people, generally.

Claire finished her cake, and then dutifully opened the birthday presents her parents brought to the table. Dad’s package—wrapped by Mom, from the neat hospital corners on it—contained a nice silver necklace with a delicate little heart on it. Mom’s package revealed a dress—Claire never wore dresses—in a color and cut that Claire was sure would be drastically unflattering on her smallish frame.

But she kissed them both and thanked them, promised to try the dress on later, and modeled the necklace for her dad when her mom buzzed off to the kitchen to put away the rest of the cake. She put it on over the cross necklace Shane had given her.

“Here,” Dad said, trying to be helpful. “I’ll get that other one off.”

“No!” She slapped a hand over Shane’s necklace and backed away, eyes wide, and Dad looked hurt and baffled. “Sorry. I . . . I never take this one off. It . . . was a gift.”

He understood then. “Oh. From that boy?”

She nodded, and tears prickled at her eyes again, burning hot. Dad opened his arms and held her tight for a moment, then whispered, “It’ll be okay, honey. Don’t cry.”

“No, it won’t,” she said miserably. “Not if we don’t make it okay, Dad. Don’t you understand that? We have to do something!”

He pushed her back to arm’s length and studied her with tired, faded eyes. He hadn’t been in good health for a while, and every time she saw him, Claire worried a little more. Why couldn’t they leave my parents out of this? Why did they drag them here, into the middle of this?

Things had been fine before—well, maybe not fine, but stable. When she’d come to attend college at Texas Prairie University, she’d had to leave the crazy-dangerous dorm to find some kind of safety, and she’d ended up rooming at the Glass House, with Eve and Shane and Michael. Mom and Dad had remained safely far away, out of town.

Or they had, until Amelie had decided that luring them here would help control Claire better. Now they were Morganville residents. Trapped.

Just like Claire herself.

“We tried to leave, honey. I packed your mom up the other night and headed out, but our car died at the city limits.” His smile looked frail and broken around the edges. “I don’t think Mr. Bishop wanted us to leave.”

Claire was a little bit relieved that at least they’d tried, but only for a second—then she decided that she was a lot more horrified. “Dad! Please don’t try that again. If the vampires catch you outside the city limits—” Nobody left Morganville without permission; there were all kinds of safeguards to prevent it, but the fact that the vampires were ruthless about tracking people down was enough to deter most.

“I know.” He put his warm hands on either side of her face, and looked at her with so much love that it broke her heart. “Claire, you think you’re ready to take on the world, but you’re not. I don’t want you in the middle of all this. You’re just too young.”

She gave him a sad smile. “It’s too late for that. Besides, Dad, I’m not a kid anymore—I’m seventeen. Got the candles on the cake to prove it and everything.”

He kissed her forehead. “I know. But you’ll always be five years old to me, crying about a skinned knee.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“I felt the same way when my parents said it to me.” He watched as she fiddled with Shane’s cross necklace. “You’re going to the lab?”

“What? Oh, yeah.”

He knew she was lying, she could tell, and for a moment, she was sure he’d call her on it. But instead he said, “Please just tell me you’re not going out today to try to save your boyfriend. Again.”

She put her hands over his. “Dad. Don’t try to tell me I’m too young. I know what I feel about Shane.”

“I’m not trying to do that at all,” her father said. “I’m trying to tell you that right now, being in love with any boy in this town is dangerous. Being in love with that boy is suicidal. I wouldn’t be thrilled under normal circumstances, and this is isn’t even close to normal.”

No kidding. “I won’t do anything stupid,” she promised. She wasn’t sure she could actually keep that particular vow, though. She’d happily do something stupid if it gave her a single moment with Shane. “Dad, I need to go. Thanks for the necklace.”

He stared at her so hard that she thought for a second he’d lock her in her room or something. Not that she couldn’t find a way out, of course, but she didn’t want to make him feel any worse than she had to.

He finally sighed and shook his head. “You’re welcome, honey. Happy birthday. Be careful.”

She stood for a moment, watching him play with his piece of birthday cake. He didn’t seem hungry. He was losing weight, and he looked older than he had just a year ago. He caught her look. “Claire. I’m fine. Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

Innocence wasn’t going to work on him. “The my-dad’s-sick-and-I-feel-guilty-for-leaving face.”

“Oh, that one.” She tried for a smile. “Sorry.”

In the kitchen, her mom was buzzing around like a bee on espresso. As Claire put the plates in the sink, her mother chattered a mile a minute—about the dress, and how she just knew Claire would look perfect in it, and they really should make plans to go out to a nice restaurant this week and celebrate in style. Then she went on about her new friends at the Card Club, where they played bridge and some kind of gin rummy and sometimes, daringly, Texas Hold ’Em. She talked about everything but what was all around them.

Morganville looked like a normal town, but it wasn’t. Casual travelers came and went, and never knew a thing; even most of the college students stayed strictly on campus and put in their time without learning a thing about what was really going on—Texas Prairie University made sure it was a world unto itself. For people who lived here, the real residents, Morganville was a prison camp, and they were all inmates, and they were all too afraid to talk about it out in the open. Claire listened with her patience stretching thin as plastic wrap, ready to rip, and finally interrupted long enough to get in a hasty, “Thanks,” and, “Be back soon; love you, Mom.”

Her mother stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. “Claire,” she said in an entirely different tone—a genuine one. “I don’t want you to go out today. I’d like you to stay home, please.”

Claire paused in the doorway. “I can’t, Mom,” she said. “I’m not going to be a bystander in all this. If you want to be, I understand, but that’s not how you raised me.”

Claire’s mom broke a plate. Just smashed it against the side of the sink into a dozen sharp-edged pieces that skittered all over the counter and floor.