"You're in my chair," she said. "Move."

The two girls — shorter and pudgier than Monica — stared up with saucer-huge eyes. One of them stammered, "Which one of us?"

"Both," Monica snapped. "I like my space. Get out."

They gathered up papers and books and hurried away, nearly dumping coffee all over Claire in their haste to go. "Did you have to do that?" Claire asked.

"No. It was just fun." Monica sat, crossed her smooth tanned legs, and patted the table. "Come on, Claire. Have a seat. We have so much to talk about."

She didn't want to, but it was stupid to stand there, looking obvious. So she sat, dumped her backpack on the floor next to her feet, and concentrated the scarred wood of the table top. She could see Monica's flip flop living up to its name as the other girl casually jiggled her foot. It reminded her ridiculously of Myrnin, and the dirty flip flops he wore.

"That's better." Monica sounded way too pleased with herself. Not cool. "So. Tell me all about it."

"About what?"

"Whatever Amelie's got you doing," Monica said. "Your super secret stuff. I mean, she picked you for a reason, and it's not for your charm and good looks, right? Obviously. It's for your brains, right? You don't have any family here, you've got nothing anybody wants other than that."

Monica was smarter than she looked. "Amelie's not asking me to do anything," Claire lied. "Maybe she will later, I don't know. But she hasn't yet." She nervously twisted the gold bracelet circling her left wrist. It was starting to remind her of those bands biologists put on endangered species.

And lab animals.

Monica's eyes were half-closed when Claire risked a glance upward. "Huh," she said. "Really. Well, that's disappointing. I really thought you'd have something good I could use. Oh well. Then let's talk about making a deal."

"A deal?" First Jason, now Monica. How had Claire stepped into the role of negotiator?

"I want to negotiate with Amelie for Protection. You can give me an introduction. And a recommendation."

Claire nearly laughed. "Ask her yourself!"

"I would, but she won't let me near her. She doesn't like me."

"I'm shocked," Claire muttered under her breath.

Monica gave her a long look, one strangely missing the usual hip, ironic, contemptuous features. It looked almost ... earnest. "Since Brandon died, Oliver took over his contracts. The thing is, he's not keeping most of them. He's trading them for favors with other vampires. If I don't make a better deal, there's no telling what could happen to me." Monica pointed at Claire's bracelet. "Might as well start at the top."

Claire drummed her short fingernails on the table, glaring at the bar where it seemed like Oliver was taking forever to deliver their drinks. It occurred to her to wonder if it was really safe to drink something prepared by a vampire who'd been threatening her just a couple of hours before, but honestly, if Oliver wanted to get her, it wasn't like it would be hard for him.

And she really wanted the white mocha.

"Oliver's your Patron now?"

"For now. Until he finds something he wants more than holding onto my contract, anyway."

"Is he behind you asking about why Amelie signed me up?"

"Do I look like I run somebody else's errands?"

Claire glanced back again at the bar. "Maybe."

Monica went quiet. It wasn't the comfortable kind of silence, and Claire was glad when Oliver called out their orders. She jumped up to get hers, hesitated, and then picked up Monica's as well. She managed to do it without making eye contact with Oliver. He was just a dark shape at the corner of her eye, and she turned her back on him as soon as she could.

Monica had gotten up, and she looked honestly surprised when Claire handed her the drink. "What?" Claire asked. "It's called being polite, they probably didn't teach you that at home. Doesn't mean I like you or anything."

Monica seemed to have to think hard about what to say to that, and finally came up with a simple "Thanks." Which, Claire had to admit, might have been the nicest thing Monica had ever managed to say to her. Claire gave her a nod and sat down again. Peace in our time, she thought wryly. And promptly blew it by asking again, "Did Oliver put you up to it?"

Monica didn't even glance his direction. "No." But somehow, Claire didn't believe her.

"Do you have to do everything he says?" she asked, as if Monica hadn't just lied. And Monica lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. No other answer. "So you don't really want to talk to me, do you? You've just been told to do it."

"Not exactly." Monica smiled slightly, and very bitterly. "Check it out: you're a star. Everybody wants to know about you, vampires and humans. They're looking into your history, your family's history. If you farted in grade school, somebody in Morganville knows it now."

Claire almost choked on her first mouthful of white mocha. "What?"

"The Founder isn't what you might call accessible. And most of the vamps don't understand her any better than we do. They're always looking for clues about who she is, what she's doing here, with this town. This isn't normal, you know. The way they live here." Monica's gaze flicked to Oliver, then away. "He's old enough to know more than most, but he still needs inside information. And the word is, you could be the way to get it."

Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm nobody. And if she cared about me at all — which she doesn't — she'd never let anybody know it. I mean, look how she treats — " She stopped herself cold, heart suddenly hammering fast. She'd almost said Myrnin, and that would have been bad. " — Sam," she finished lamely. Which was also true, but Monica had to have noticed her stumble.

Which Monica emphasized by waiting for a full ten seconds of silence before she continued. "Whatever. The point is, you're sort of famous, and by hanging with you, I get seen by the right people doing the right thing. Which is all I care about. You're right, I don't care if we're BFFs. We're not going to trade clothes and get matching tattoos. I've got friends. I need allies." She sipped her complicated drink, her eyes steady on Claire. "Oliver wants what you know, yeah. And this — " She tapped her own bracelet. " — This says that I do what he says, or else."

"Or else what?"

Monica looked down. "You've met him. Best case, it means he hurts me. Bad. Worst case ... he trades me down."

"That's worse?"

"Yeah. That means I get handed to the bottom-of-the-barrel vamps, the ones too lame to get the good earners and the pretty people. That means I'm a loser." She looked down and fidgeted with her ceramic coffee cup, frowning at it. "Sounds shallow, maybe, but around here, it's survival. If Oliver blackballs me, I can't get anything but the freaks and the skanks, the ones who get their fix the hard way. They'll kill me, if I'm lucky. If not, I end up some strung-out junkie fang-banger."

She said it with such dry, matter-of-fact intensity that Claire could tell she'd spent a lot of time thinking about it. It was a long way to fall, from the darling daughter of the mayor to some addict trying to please a kinky freak for protection.

"You could be neutral," Claire blurted. She felt oddly sympathetic, even after everything Monica had done. She had been born here, after all. Not like she'd ever had a real choice in what she was going to be, or do. "Some people are, right? They're left alone?"