Midnight Bites by Rachel Caine

it, you need backup. I’ll go with you.”
    â€œTogether?” Oh, God, was there any other way to make herself sound like a total fool today? “I mean, we’re blood donor buddies?”
    â€œYeah,” he said, and smiled slowly enough that it made her swallow. Hard. “Together. Okay with you?”
    â€œSure,” she said, and tried to pretend like it hadn’t just been the pinnacle of her life, right there. “Whatever.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    She floated through the rest of school, and the walk home, even though she didn’t see Michael again the entire time. For the first time, she really, really wanted a best friend to blurt out all her excited feelings to, but she’d long ago decided that no Morganville girls were to be trusted with valuable intel like that. She’d been burned too many times. Hell, once upon a time, she’d thought Jennifer—now one of Monica Morrell’s wing-girls—was a good friend. Granted, that had been elementary school, but betrayal still stung.
    Her good feeling faded fast when she got home, because her dad was already there. If he was home early, it meant he’d quit work early, and stopped off at the bar, and worse, they’d already cut him off. Eve paused at seeing his car in the driveway, and thought about heading away again, but this time of year dark came fast, and she didn’t want to be out roaming at night. Sure, technically, she was underage and
should
be free from predatory vamps, but nobody in Morganville trusted that kind of thing.
    She compromised and headed around back, creeping low past the living room window, and made it to the back porch. The door was locked, of course, but she keyed herself in, eased the door closed behind her, thumbed the lock back on, and . . . ran right into her dad, who was standing at the refrigerator, grabbing another beer.
    He glared at her, and she froze, hesitating between rushing past him and trying to pretend all this was sitcom-normal.
    â€œAbout time you dragged your ass home,” her dad said, and popped the top on his beer. He was swaying a little, which meant he was only an hour or two of steady drinking from falling down andleaving them alone the rest of the night—but it was a dangerous couple of hours. “I had to pick your damn brother up from school. He got in trouble again. Didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on him?”
    There was no point in explaining, again, that it was pretty tricky to keep an eye on a junior high student while actually attending high school across the street, so she said nothing. He drank two big, quick mouthfuls, then set the beer down on the painfully clean kitchen counter. Her mom kept it spotless, all the time, because if she didn’t . . . well. If she didn’t.
    â€œWhat did he do?” Eve asked. It was vital, at this point, to keep Dad talking. It was also important to try to ease away, one small step at a time, to keep distance between them and angle for the hallway so if she had to run, she could.
    â€œSmarted off to some teacher,” he said. “And then he pulled a knife when she tried to march him to the principal’s office. Stupid kid. Don’t know where he gets this stuff.”
    Eve knew. She couldn’t believe her dad didn’t. “Did he hurt anybody?”
    â€œWhy the hell would you say that? No, of course he didn’t. The kid’s stupid, not crazy. I brought him home and tanned his ass for him. He won’t be sitting down for a week.” That brought on another drink from the can, but he returned it to the counter, and his mean, narrow eyes stayed on her. “I told you to watch him, didn’t I?”
    â€œDad—”
    â€œDon’t you
Dad
me, and when are you going to grow up and stop painting yourself up like some damn clown?” He charged at her, but there was a kitchen chair in the way, and he bumped into