Read The Morganville Vampires Collection (The Morganville Vampires #1-4) for Free Online Page A

to stay here, Michael. I really do.’ She was surprised at the conviction in her voice. ‘Yeah, I’m under eighteen, but I swear, you won’t have any trouble from me. I’ll stay out of your way. I go to school, and I study. That’s all I do. I’m not a partyer, I’m not a slacker. I’m useful. I’ll – I’ll help clean and cook.’
    He thought about it, staring at her; he was the kind of person you could actually see thinking. It was a little scary, although he probably didn’t mean it to be. There was just something so… adult about him. Sosure of himself.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, kid. But it’s just too much risk.’
    ‘Eve’s only a little bit older than I am!’
    ‘Eve’s eighteen. You’re what, sixteen?’
    ‘Almost seventeen!’ If you were a little fluid on the definition of almost . ‘I really am in college. I’m a freshman – look, here’s my student ID…’
    He ignored it. ‘Come back in a year. We’ll talk about it,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m sorry. What about the dorm?’
    ‘They’ll kill me if I stay there,’ she said, and looked down at her clasped hands. ‘They tried to kill me today.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘The other girls. They punched me and shoved me down the stairs.’
    Silence. A really long one. She heard the creak of leather, and then Michael was on one knee next to the chair. Before she could stop him, he was probing the bump on her head, tilting it back so he could get a good, impersonal look at the bruises and cuts.
    ‘What else?’ he asked.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Besides what I can see? You’re not going to drop dead on me, are you?’
    Wow, sensitive. ‘I’m OK. I saw the doctor and everything. It’s just – bruises. And a strained ankle.But they pushed me down the stairs, and they meant it, and she told me—’ Suddenly, Eve’s words about vampires came back to her and made her trip over her tongue. ‘The girl in charge, she told me that tonight, I’d get what was coming to me. I can’t go back to the dorm, Michael. If you send me out that door, they’ll kil me, because I don’t have any friends and I don’t have anyplace to go! ’
    He stayed there for a few more seconds, looking her right in the eyes, and then retreated to the couch. He unlatched the guitar case again and cradled the instrument; she thought that was his comfort zone, right there, with the guitar in his arms. ‘These girls. Do they go out in daylight?’
    She blinked. ‘You mean, outside? Sure. They go to classes. Well, sometimes.’
    ‘Do they wear bracelets?’
    She blinked. ‘You mean, like—’ Eve had left hers behind on the table, so she picked up the leather band with its red symbol. ‘Like this? I never noticed. They wear a lot of stuff.’ She thought hard, and maybe she did remember something after all. The bracelets didn’t look like this, though. They were gold, and Monica and the Monickettes all had them on their right wrists. She’d never paid much attention. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Bracelets with white symbols?’ Michael made the question casual; in fact, he bent his head and concentrated on tuning his guitar, not that it neededit. Every note sounded perfect as it whispered out of the strings. ‘Do you remember?’
    ‘No.’ She felt a pure burst of something that wasn’t quite panic, wasn’t quite excitement. ‘Does that mean they have Protection?’
    He hesitated for about a second, just long enough for her to know he was surprised. ‘You mean condoms?’ he asked. ‘Doesn’t everybody?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’ Her cheeks were burning. She hoped it wasn’t as obvious as it felt.
    ‘Don’t think I do.’
    ‘Eve said—’
    He looked up sharply, and those blue eyes were suddenly angry. ‘Eve needs to keep her mouth shut. She’s in enough danger as it is, trolling around out there in Goth gear. They already think she’s mocking them. If they hear she’s talking…’
    ‘They, who?’ Claire asked. It was his turn to look away.
    ‘People,’ he