“A black eye?”
“It’s gone. See?” She batted her eyelashes. Mom’s gaze searched her face with agonizing care. “Honest, it’s over. Done. Everything’s fine now.”
“No,” Michael said. “It’s not. But Claire’s handling it, and we’re watching out for her. Shane especially. He—he had a little sister, and he’s taken an interest in making sure Claire stays safe. But more than that, I think Claire’s taking care of herself. And that’s what she has to learn, don’t you agree?” Michael leaned forward, hands loosely clasped, elbows on his knees. In the glow of the lamps, his hair was rich gold, his eyes angel blue. If anybody ever looked trustworthy, it was Michael Glass.
Of course, he was dead and all, which Claire had to bite her tongue not to blurt out in sheer altered-state panic.
Mom and Dad were thinking. She knew she had to say something…something important. Something that would make them not drag her home by the ear.
“I can’t leave,” she said. It came from her heart, and she meant every word. Her voice stayed absolutely steady, too—for once. “Mom, Dad, I know that you’re afraid for me, and I–I love you. But I need to stay here. Michael isn’t telling you this, but they put themselves on the line for me, and I owe it to them to stay until it’s settled and I’m sure they won’t get in trouble for me. It’s what I have to do, you understand? And I can do it. I have to.”
“Claire,” Mom said in a small, choked voice. “You’re sixteen! You’re a child!”
“I’m not,” she said simply. “I’m sixteen and a half, and I’m not giving up. I never have. You know that.”
They did. Claire had fought all her life against the odds, and both her parents knew it. They knew how stubborn she was. More, they knew how important it was to her.
“I don’t like this,” her dad said, but he sounded unhappy now, not angry. “I don’t like you living with older boys. Off campus. And I want these people who hurt you stopped.”
“Then I have to stop them,” Claire said. “It’s my problem. And there are other girls in that dorm getting hurt, too, so it isn’t just about me. I need to do it for them, too.”
Michael raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t answer. Mom wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. Eve appeared in the doorway wearing a huge apron with a red-lips emblem that read KISS THE COOK, peered uncertainly at them, and gave Claire’s parents a nervous smile.
“Dinner’s ready!” she said.
“Oh, we couldn’t,” Mom said.
“The heck we can’t,” Dad said. “I’m starved. Is that chili?”
Dinner was uncomfortable. Dad made noncommittal grunts about the quality of the chili. Shane looked like he was barely holding on to his laughter most of the time. Eve was so nervous that Claire thought she would jitter right out of the chair, and Michael…Michael was the calm one. The adult. Claire had never felt more like the kid at the big table in her life.
“So, Michael,” Claire’s mother said, nibbling at a spoonful of chili, “what is it you do?”
Haunts the house where he died, Claire thought, and bit her lip. She took a fast sip of her cola.
“I’m a musician,” he said.
“Oh really?” She brightened up. “What do you play? I love classical music!”
Now even Michael looked uncomfortable. Shane coughed into his napkin and drained Coke in huge gulps to drown out his hiccuping laughter.
“Piano and guitar,” he said. “But mostly guitar. Acoustic and electric.”
“Humph,” Claire’s dad said. “Any good?”
Shane’s shoulders were shaking.
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I work hard at it.”
“He’s very good!” Eve jumped in, eyes bright and flashing. “Honestly, Michael, you should quit being so humble. You’re really great. It’s just a matter of time before you really do something big, and you know it!”
Michael looked…blank. Expressionless. That didn’t quite hide the pain, Claire thought. “Someday,” he said, and shrugged. “Hey, Shane, thanks for dinner. Good stuff.”
“Yeah,” Eve said. “Not bad.”
“Spicy,” Dad said, as if that was a flaw. Claire knew for a fact he ordinarily added Tabasco to half of what he ate. “Mind if I get a refill?”
Eve jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. “I’ll get it!” But Dad was at the end of the table, closest to the kitchen, and he was already on his feet and heading that direction.
Michael and Shane exchanged looks. Claire frowned, trying to figure out what they were looking so alarmed about.
They sat in silence as the refrigerator opened, bottles rattled, and then it closed. Dad came back, one cold-frosted Coke in his hand.
In his other hand he held a beer. He sat it in the center of the table and glared at Michael.
“You want to explain why there’s beer in a refrigerator with a sixteen-year-old in the house?” he asked. “Not to mention that none of you is old enough to be drinking it!”
Well, that was that. Some days, Claire thought, you just couldn’t win.
She had two days, and only because Dad agreed to allow her to go to the admissions office and file transfer paperwork. Michael tried his best, but even angelic good looks and complete sincerity weren’t good enough this time. Shane had stopped finding it amusing at some point, and started yelling. Eve had gone to her room.
Claire had cried. A lot. Furiously.
She was so angry, in fact, that she barely cared that Mom and Dad were going to be driving out of Morganville in the dark, unprotected and unwarned. Michael took care of that, though, with a story about carjackers stealing SUVs in the area. That was the best anyone could do, and more than Claire wanted, anyway.
Dad had looked at her like she was a disappointment.
She’d never, ever been a disappointment before, and it totally pissed her off, because she didn’t deserve it, not one bit.
Michael and Shane stood in the doorway, watching her parents hurry to their SUV in the dark. Shane, she saw, had a big hand-carved cross, and he was ready to charge to the rescue, even though he was mad as hell. He didn’t need to, though. Mom and Dad got in their truck and drove away, into the hushed Morganville night, and Michael closed and locked the door and turned to look at Claire.
“Sorry,” he said. “That could have been better.”
“You think?” she shot back. Her eyes were swollen and hot, and she felt like she might vibrate apart; she was so mad. “I’m not leaving! No way!”
“Claire.” Michael reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “Until you’re eighteen, you really don’t have the right to say that, okay? I know, you’re almost seventeen, you’re smarter than ninety percent of the people in the world—”
“One hundred percent smarter than anybody else in this house,” Shane said.
“—but that doesn’t matter. It will, but it doesn’t right now. You need to do what they say. If you decide to fight them, it’s going to get ugly, and Claire, we can’t afford it. I can’t afford it. You understand?” He searched her eyes, and she had to nod. “Sorry. Believe me, it isn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but at least you’ll be out of Morganville. You’ll be safe.”
He hugged her. She felt her breath leave for a second, and then he was gone, walking away.
She looked at Shane.
“Well, I’m not hugging you,” he said. He was standing close to her, so close she had to crane her neck way up to meet his eyes. And for a long few seconds, they didn’t say anything; he just…watched her. In the living room, she heard Eve talking to Michael, but here in the hallway it was very quiet. She could hear the fast pounding of her heart, and wondered if he could hear it, too.
“Claire—,” he finally said.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sixteen. Heard it already.”
He put his arms around her. Not the way Michael had, exactly—she didn’t know why it was different, but it was. This wasn’t a hug; it was—it felt—close.