'You're lucky I don't stake your undead Dracula wannabe ass.'
He just shook his head. 'Seriously. You going to be okay out there on your own?'
'Claire's out there,' I said. 'Alone. So yeah. I have to be, right?'
'She really can take care of herself, you know. She's proved it about a hundred times already.'
'I know,' I said. This time, my voice came out softer than I intended. 'That's kind of what scares me. Because what if she doesn't need me any more, man?'
That got me a sideways flash of a look before he turned his attention back to the road. 'She needs you for more than just protection. It's how it works. You want the strong girl, you understand that she's with you because she wants to be. Not because she has to be. You know that, right?'
'I guess. I mean, yeah, but ... hard to break the habit.' I turned toward the window, but all I saw was my blurry reflection in the darkened glass. Michael was looking at me again, I could feel it. 'How long 'til we get to the bus station?'
'Another half hour,' he said. 'Sleep if you want.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Yeah, I think I will.'
I didn't.
But I pretended.
It didn't occur to me until later, when I was on the bus and headed on a long, exhausting trip across country, that I'd forgotten to text Claire and tell her about my broken phone, and by then ...
By then it was too late.
CHAPTER FOUR
'Are you nervous?' the girl standing next to Claire whispered. 'I'm nervous.' She sounded it. They were in a fairly large group of incoming students being led around by an upperclassman at night. It was the end of Claire's first day of orientation, which had been exhausting and full of way too much info to absorb at once; her brain was swimming with maps, people, names, streets, stunningly gorgeous buildings ... she still hadn't met her Special Projects instructor, Professor Anderson, who wouldn't be available until the morning, but she'd filled up her day trying to learn more about the MIT campus.
But it had been impossible to resist the little orange slip of paper she'd received, that had told her where to meet for the 'special tour'. And it hadn't disappointed. An hour of complicated rules, and the Orange Tour had shown them absolutely incredible things ... tunnels, rooftops, secrets of all kinds. Claire hadn't thought she had a head for heights, but it turned out she did ... more than a lot of the others on the tour. She'd been able to stand right on the edge of the tallest building, and look straight down. It was exciting. Dizzying, but exciting.
MIT was ... unique. Like Morganville, it was pretty much a self-regulating system, with its own history, rules and environment ... once you were on the campus, it felt as if the MIT universe was the only universe that mattered. She'd met a ton of people, and they were all a blur. There were at least five upperclassmen leading the tour group, but only one wore a T-shirt that said I'M NOT HERE. His name was Jack, and he was the one who talked the most.
Seeing the cool, creative energy of the dorms taught Claire that it had probably been a huge mistake to stay off campus with Elizabeth, but done was done on that score. She was committed, and it would be too much of a drama to try to beg off now. Plus, she'd already prepaid the rent.
'Hey,' the girl whispered again. 'Are you nervous?'
'No, it's fine,' Claire said. She supposed to normal people there was something spooky about the tour - after all, it was after hours, they were trudging around in the dark, and the upperclassmen leading the tour were doing their best to freak them out. But she couldn't get nervous about it. She supposed Morganville had raised the bar way too high on that one. 'We're safe. They're not going to let anything happen to us, trust me.'
'I don't know where we are,' the girl whispered back anxiously. She shuffled maps, frowning; like Claire, she had a ton of materials, but unlike Claire, she hadn't come armed with a backpack to stow them in. 'Do you know? Because I thought we were heading for Baker House. Isn't that right?'
'I think so.'
'But - we're way off, right? Look, I think we're not even on campus ... no, wait, we are ...' The girl's anxiety teetered on the edge of panic, and there wasn't much Claire could do to help. She checked her phone, supposedly to look at the GPS, but quite honestly, she was checking to see if she'd gotten any messages.
She had. Voicemail from Michael. Again. She'd skipped listening to the last three because she was hoping Shane's name would pop up ... but just as she started to stow the phone away, she saw a text pop up.
It was still Michael ... but it said, This is Shane hit me back.
What?
Claire lagged behind a little, texting back - risky to do on unfamiliar ground, in the dark, but this couldn't wait. Y R U on Michael's phone?
A few seconds, and the text came back. Broke mine sry.
It sounded like an excuse. A bad one. But accidents did happen. Was waiting, she texted back. Saw vid.
No answer for a long moment, and then he typed back, I meant it. That was all. Just that.