“Um…Eve? Can I talk to you for a sec?” Claire asked. Eve nodded, opened a black-painted dresser, and took out a black lacquer box. When opened, it had a bloodred interior. There was a black silk package inside, which, as Eve unwrapped it, proved to be a deck of cards.
Tarot cards.
Eve held them between her two palms for a few seconds, then cut the deck several times and handed it to Miranda. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and went out into the hall with Claire, closing the door behind her. Before Claire could say anything, Eve held up her hand. She wouldn’t meet Claire’s eyes. “The guys sent you up?” At Claire’s nod, she muttered, “Pansies, both of them. Fine. They want her out, right?”
“Um…yeah. I guess.” Claire rocked uncomfortably back and forth. “She is a little…weird.”
“Miranda’s—yeah, she’s weird. But she’s also kind of gifted,” Eve said. “She sees things. Knows things. Shane ought to get that. She told him about the fire before—” Eve shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. If she came all the way over here in the dark, something’s wrong. I should try to find out what.”
“Well…can’t you just, you know, ask her?”
“Miranda’s a psychic,” she said. “It’s not that simple—she can’t just blurt it out. You have to work with her.”
“But—she can’t really see the future, right? You don’t believe that?” Because if you do, Claire thought, you’re crazier than I thought you were when I first met you.
Eve finally met her eyes. Angry. “Yes. Yes, I do believe that, and for a smart kid you’re pretty dumb if you don’t understand that science isn’t perfect. Things happen. Things that physics and math and crap that gets measured in a lab can’t explain. People aren’t just laws and rules, Claire. They’re…sparks. Sparks of something beautiful and huge. And some of the sparks glow brighter, like Miranda.” Eve looked away again, obviously uncomfortable now. But not half as uncomfortable as Claire felt, because this was…wow. Space cadet city. “You guys just leave us alone for a little while. It’ll be fine.”
She went back into the room and shut the door. It wasn’t quite a slam. Claire swallowed hard, feeling hot all over and wishing she hadn’t let the boys push her into that, and slowly went back down the stairs. Michael and Shane were sitting on the couch and playing a video game with open beers on the table in front of them. Elbowing each other as their on-screen cars raced around turns.
“Not exactly legal,” she said, and sat down on the steps. “The beer. Nobody here’s twenty-one.”
Michael and Shane clicked bottles. Honestly, it was juvenile. “Here’s to crime,” Shane said, and tipped his up. “Hey, it was a birthday present. Two six-packs. We’re only one down, so give us a break. Morganville’s got the highest alcoholics per capita of any place in the world, I’ll bet.”
Michael put the game on pause. “Is she leaving yet?”
“No.”
“If she starts trying to tell me I’m going to meet a tall dark stranger, I’m leaving,” Shane said. “I mean, the kid’s a head case, and I don’t want to be mean, but jeez. She really believes this stuff. And she’s got Eve half-convinced, too.”
There was no half about it, but Claire wasn’t going to say that. She just sat there, trying not to think too hard about anything…about her plans to get Shane free of his agreement, which had seemed really good back in the coffee shop and not so solid now. About the dull-knife scrape of pain in her back. About the desperation in Eve’s eyes. Eve was scared. And Claire didn’t know how to help that, because she was scared half to death herself.
“She was looking at the secret room,” Claire said. “When she was standing down here. She was staring right at it.”
Michael and Shane looked at her. Two sets of eyes, both guilty and startled. And one by one, they shrugged and went for the beer. “Coincidence,” Michael said.
“Total coincidence,” Shane agreed.
“Eve said that Miranda had some kind of vision about you, Shane, when—”
“Not that again! Look, she said she had a vision of the house on fire, but she didn’t say that until later, and even if she did, fat lot of good it did.” Shane’s jaw was tight. A muscle fluttered in it. He punched a button to release the game from pause, and road noise poured out of the television speakers, closing out any chance of conversation on the subject.
Claire sighed. “I’m going to bed.”
But she didn’t. She was tired, and aching, and jittery…but her brain was way too busy picking over things. She finally nudged Shane over on the couch and sat next to him as he and Michael played, and played, and played….
“Claire. Wake up.” She blinked and realized that her head was on Shane’s shoulder, and Michael was nowhere to be seen. Her first thought was, Oh my God, am I drooling? Her second was that she hadn’t realized she was so close to him, snuggled in.
Her third was that although Michael’s part of the couch was empty, Shane hadn’t moved away. And he was watching her with warm, friendly eyes.
Oh. Oh, wow, that was nice.
Embarrassment flooded in a second later and made her pull away. Shane cleared his throat and scooted over. “You should probably get some sleep,” he said. “You’re beat.”
“Yeah,” she said. “What time is it?”
“Three a.m. Michael’s making a snack. You want anything?”
“Um…no. Thanks.” She slid off the couch and then stood there like an idiot, unwilling to leave because he was still smiling and…she liked it. “Who won?”
“Which game?”
“Oh. I guess I was asleep for a while.”
“Don’t worry. We didn’t let the zombies get you.” This time, his smile was positively wicked. Claire felt it like a hot blanket all over her skin. “If you want to stay up, you can help me kick his ass.”
There were not one but three empty beer bottles on the table in front of Shane. And three where Michael had been, too. No wonder Shane was still smiling at her, looking so friendly. “That depends,” she said. “Can I have a beer?”
“Hell no.”
“Because I’m sixteen? Come on, Shane.”
“Drinking kills brain cells, dumbass. And besides. If I give you one, that’s one less for me.” Shane tapped his forehead. “I can do the math.”
She needed a beer, to stay down here next to him, because she was afraid she was going to do or say something stupid, and at least if there was alcohol involved, it wouldn’t be her fault, would it? But just as she opened her mouth to try to convince him, Michael came out of the kitchen with a bag of neon-colored cheese puffs. Shane grabbed a handful and stuffed his mouth. “Claire wants a beer,” he mumbled through orange goo.
“Claire needs to go to bed,” Michael said, and flopped down. “Scoot over, man. I don’t like you that much.”
“Dick. That’s not what you said last night.”
“Bite me.”
“I want another beer.”
“You’re cut off. It was my birthday present, not yours.”
“Oh, that’s low. You really are a dick, and just for that, I’m totally thrashing you.”
“Promises, promises.” Michael glanced at Claire. “You’re still here. No beer. I’m not corrupting a minor.”
“But you’re a minor,” she pointed out. “At least for beer.”
“Yeah, and by the way? How much does it suck that I’m an adult if I kill somebody, and not if I want a beer?” Shane jumped in. “They’re all dicks.”
“Man, seriously, you are one cheap drunk. Three beers? My junior high girlfriend could hold her liquor better.”
“Your junior high girlfriend—” Shane brought himself up short without finishing that sentence, and flushed bright red. Must have been good, whatever it was. “Claire, get the hell out of here. You’re making me nervous.”