“Ah, perhaps so,” he said. “Let’s crack on, then. The night won’t last forever.”
Jenna pointed at Miranda. “You’re staying here,” she said. “I know you want to go, but stay with these two. Promise me.” Mi- randa nodded soberly. Claire grabbed Jenna before they headed out and whispered quick instructions on where to find Myrnin’s medications.
Shane let out a slow breath as the door shut and locked behind them. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded exhausted, and he sank down into a crouch against the wall and cradled his head in both hands. “God, I’m sorry. What the hell was that?”
“I think— I think it was just the stress, and him being so close,” Claire said. “You’re okay now.” She said it with confidence, but in truth, she really wasn’t as sure as she pretended, and after a few seconds of silence, she bent her head and half whispered, “Please, tell me you’re okay.”
“He killed someone, and he doesn’t seem to care much,” Shane said. “I don’t think I’m your biggest problem right now.”
“What do you think he’s planning to do?”
“Whatever it is, I guarantee you that it’s not going to be safe for anybody near him.”
“I wish Jenna hadn’t gone,” Miranda said. She looked paler now, and a little translucent. Without the Glass House sustaining her, it was hard for her to stay visible and solid, and with her connection to Jenna fading through distance, she probably couldn’t manifest a body much longer. “What about the house? Who’s go- ing to protect it now? We’re all here!”
“Eve’s not,” Claire said.
“Eve’s with the Daylighters. She can’t help the house from there.”
Miranda was right, and Claire felt a surge of anxiety when she thought about the house all alone, vulnerable, and still under threat— maybe more now than before, since everyone knew they were on the run.
It was the perfect time to strike.
“We need to go,” she told Shane. “We need to get there in case they try something.”
Miranda was thin as glass now, her eyes huge and dark in that ghostly face. “You need to go now,” she said, and it seemed as if her voice, like the body she inhabited, was growing hollow and faint.
“Now! Go now!”
And then Claire felt it, too . . . a sense of something shivering inside her, a vibration almost like an earthquake, not physical but emotional, mental, psychic.
The house was crying out.
Six
Claire ran for the front door.
“No!” Shane got in her way fast and pushed her back.
“No, you know they’re looking for us. You can’t—”
“You heard her!” She didn’t try to make an end run around him— he was way too good on defense. She simply reversed course and went the other way. She didn’t know Jenna’s house, but it was square and small, and it made sense that there would be a back door on one of those compass points. She bet on the back, since Morganville architects were more cookie cutter than cutting edge; she spotted the door, set in the right corner of the kitchen, as she plunged into that small room. Jenna kept her kitchen spotless and pretty, and Claire had a moment of pure envy, but just a flicker, because the panic inside her was starting to take over.
She threw open the back door, hit the back porch, launched herself off it at a run, and dashed around the house. She heard Shane calling after her, but he clearly didn’t want to make a public fuss, so it was just the one mention of her name, and then she heard the door thump shut and footsteps on the path behind her.
There was no way she could outrun him, but she wasn’t intend- ing to . . . only to try to lead him most of the way, so that he’d see it was a better idea to go on than turn back.
She’d made it to the brightly lit parking lot of Morganville’s one and only apartment complex (ten whole units, built in an old- fashioned L shape) when he stretched out one long arm and dragged her to an unwilling halt. Then he grabbed her other arm.
“Claire. This is crazy. We can’t be out here. You know that!”
“You’re the one making us get noticed,” she said. “I was just a girl out for a jog. Now I’m getting accosted by an angry boyfriend.”
“I’m not—” He took a deep breath and let go. “Okay. Just walk back with me. Calmly. We can do this. Let’s just—”
“No,” she said, and turned on her heel to head toward the Glass House, still several blocks away.
“What is wrong with you?”