Rachel Caine & Kristin Cast & Claudia Gray & Nancy Holder & Tanith Lee & Richelle Mead & Cynthia Leitich Smith & P. C. Cast by Immortal_Love Stories, a Bite

also left me to burn alive in a cage, Dad . So excuse me if I’m not getting all misty-eyed while the music swells.”

    His expression—worn into a hard leather mask by wind and sun—didn’t change. “It’s a war, Shane. We talked about this.”
    â€œFunny thing, I don’t remember you saying, If you get caught by the vampires, I’ll leave you to burn, dumbass. But maybe I’m just not remembering all the details of your clever plan.” Feeling was coming back into my fingers and toes. Not fun. It felt like I’d dipped them in battery acid and then rolled them in lye. “I can get over that. But you had to go and drag my friends into it.”
    That was what I hated the most. Sure, he’d screwed me over—more than once, actually. But he was right, we’d kind of agreed that one or the other of us might have to bite it for the cause, back when I believed in his cause.
    We hadn’t agreed about innocent people, especially my friends, getting thrown on the pile of bodies.
    â€œYour friends , right,” Dad said, with about a bottle’s worth of cheap whiskey emphasis. “A half-vampire, a wannabe morbid freak, and—oh, you mean that girl, don’t you? The little skinny one. She melted the brains right out of your head, didn’t she? I warned you about that.”
    Claire. He didn’t even remember her name. I closed my eyes for a second, and there she was, smiling up at me with those clear, trusting eyes. She might be small, but she had a kind of strength my dad wouldn’t ever understand. She was the first really pure thing that I’d ever known, and I wasn’t about to let him take her away. She was waiting for me right now, back at the Glass House, probably studying and chewing a pencil. Or arguing with Eve. Or . . . wondering where the hell I was.

    I had to get out of this. I had to get back to Claire.
    Painful or not, my feet were functional again. I tested them by standing up. In the corner, Dead Jerome put aside his book. It was a battered, water-stained copy of The Wizard of Oz. Who did he think he was? The Cowardly Lion? The Scarecrow? Hell, maybe he thought he was Dorothy.
    â€œJust like I thought, this is all about the girl. You probably think you’re some knight in shining armor come to save her.” Dad’s smile was sharp enough to cut diamonds. “You know how she sees you? A big, dumb idiot she can put on a leash. Her own pet pit bull. Your innocent little schoolgirl, she’s wearing the Founder’s symbol now. She’s working for the vampires. I sure as hell hope she’s like a porn star in the sack for you to be betraying your own like this.”
    This time, I didn’t need a knock on the head to see red. I felt my chin going down, my lungs filling, but I held on to my temper. Somehow.
    He was trying to make me charge him.
    â€œI love her, Dad,” I said. “Don’t.”
    â€œLove, yeah, right. You don’t know the meaning of the word, Shane. She’s working for the leeches. She’s helping them regain control of Morganville. She has to go, and you know it.”
    â€œOver my dead body.”
    In the corner, Jerome laughed that scratchy, raspy laugh that made me want to tear out his voice box once and for all. “Could be arranged,” he croaked.
    â€œShut up,” my dad snapped without taking his eyes off of me. “Shane, listen to me. I’ve found the answer.”

    â€œWait—let me guess—forty-two?” No use. Dad wasn’t anywhere near cool enough to be a Douglas Adams fan. “I don’t care what you’ve found, Dad, and I’m not listening to you anymore. I’m going home. You want to have your pet dead guy stop me?”
    His eyes fixed on my wrist, where I was wearing a bracelet. Not one of those things that would have identified me as vamp property—a hospital bracelet, white plastic with a big red