She didn't wait for an answer, just dashed up the steps, through the broken-locked door, and out into the hallways, dodging around oblivious teens her own age who were hustling to and from class. It was early morning, but Morganville High was in full session, and Claire had to shove her way through the crowd with a little more force than usual.
Somebody grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hauled her to a sudden stop. She flailed for escape, but it was just like always - she was too small, and he was way too big.
Her captor was wearing a shirt and tie, and had the drill sergeant hairstyle of school officials everywhere. He glared at her as if she was some bug he'd caught scurrying across his dinner table. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "No shoving in the halls!"
"I'm not a student!" she yelled. "Let go of me!"
He got a glance at the gold bracelet on her wrist, and his eyes went wide; he quickly focused back on her face. "You're that girl - Claire. Claire Danvers.The Founder's - Sorry." He let her go so suddenly she almost toppled over. "My apologies, miss. I thought you were just another of these rude punk kids."
There were a few moments in her new, weird life when it was all worth it - worth being the freak of nature with all the baggage that had been loaded on her in Morganville.
This was one of them. She braced herself, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him with the kind of icy calm that she imagined Amelie would have brought down like a guillotine blade. "I am a rude punk kid," she said. "But I'm a rude punk kid you don't get to order around. Now, I'd like you to leave me alone and go to your office. And shut the door. Now."
He looked at her as if he couldn't quite believe his ears. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I don't need you out here causing trouble right now. Go!"
He looked confused, but he nodded reluctantly and headed for a door marked ADMINISTRATION farther down the hall.
"Eat your heart out, Monica," Claire murmured. "Thanks for the bitch lessons." She broke into a full run, leaving him and his petty kingdom behind.
Myrnin had taken her through darkened corridors, but she remembered the turns; she also remembered a little too late that the way was dark, and wished she'd thought to grab a flashlight somewhere along the way. There was little light coming into the hall during the last leg, and desks and chairs stacked randomly in her path; she had to slow down or end up taking an epic spill.
Finally, she saw the locked doors at the end of the hallway, and lunged around a dusty teacher's desk to batter at the heavy wood panel.
"Hey!" No answer. She knocked again. "Dr. Mills! Dr. Mills, open up; it's Claire! I need your help!"
There was no answer. She tried the door handle.
"Dr. Mills?"
The door opened without the slightest resistance.
The room was empty. No sign of a struggle - no sign of anything, actually. It looked like nobody had ever been here. All of the equipment was back on the shelves, sparkling and clean; there was no sign of the production of serum and crystals that had been going on here. The only thing that gave it away was the lack of a coating of dust.
Claire dashed for the room behind - the teacher's office and locked storage, where the Mills family had been living.
Same story. Nothing there to show they'd ever been here, not so much as a scrap of paper or a lost toy. "Oh God, they were moved," Claire whispered, and turned to run back to where she'd left her friends. She hoped the Mills family had been moved, at least. The alternative was much, much worse, but she couldn't see Bishop - or his henchmen - taking the time and energy to clean up after themselves. They certainly hadn't in Myrnin's lab.
Claire let out an involuntary yell because a ghostly woman - black and white, shades of gray, no color to her at all - blocked the way out.
She looked like she'd stepped right out of a photograph from the Victorian ages. Big full skirts, hair done up in a bun, body slender and graceful. She stared straight at Claire, hands clasped in front of her. There was something so creepy and aware about her that Claire skidded to a sudden halt, not sure what she should do, but absolutely sure she didn't want to go anywhere near that image.
Claire could see the room behind right through her body. As she watched, the ghost broke up into a mist of static, then re-formed. She put a finger to her lips, gestured to Claire, and glided away.
"Ghosts," Claire said. "Great. I'm going crazy. That's all there is to it."
Only, when she checked the other room, the ghost was still there, hovering a couple of inches above the floor. So at least she was consistently crazy.
The phantom beckoned for Claire to follow, and turned - getting thinner and thinner, disappearing, then widening again to show a back view. Not at all like a real person, more like a flat cardboard cutout making a one-eighty. It was startling and eerie, and Claire thought, I'm not hallucinating this, because I'd never imagine that on my own.
She followed the ghost back out into the science lab, then out into the hallway. Then into another classroom, this one empty except for desks and chalkboards. The same dusty sense of disuse lay over everything. It didn't feel like anyone had been here in years.
The ghost turned to the chalkboard, and letters formed in thin white strokes.
AMELIE HAS WHAT YOU NEED, it wrote. FIND AMELIE. SAVE MYRNIN.
"Who are you?" Claire asked. The ghost gave her a very tiny smile. It seemed annoyed, and more than a little superior.