"Matthew said you were going to be late because something came up with your mom. That's such a bummer. What happened? Is everything okay?" She was trying so hard to be nice. But keeping Emily safe was hard enough—Claire couldn't imagine spinning enough lies to hide her secrets from another friend.
"Oh. Yeah. Fine. Just, you know, one of those stupid parent things." Claire waved a hand, as though she were only being vague because the details were so boring. She hoped that Amy would take the hint and drop it. She so didn't want to spend the rest of the night ducking Amy's questions about what Claire liked to do in her spare time and avoiding the I'llshare-if-you'llshare sort of confessions that she knew would follow. In another reality she'd probably really like Amy, but her world just wasn't big enough for that. The curiosity in Amy's eyes gave way to hurt, and Claire grew tense, her toes curling against the soles of her shoes. Amy looked over at Emily and said in a half-joking way, "So, she's your best friend—is she always this wildly communicative?"
Claire felt a little muscle in her jaw jump as she clamped her teeth together. "It was no big deal, that's all."
Emily looked at Claire and bit her lip. Claire could see it in Emily's eyes—the memory of last year, of all the other years, when Claire would have complained to her in excruciating detail if a Marie-related incident had made her hours late for a party.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn! Claire struggled for a way to rescue the situation—to make Emily forget that she'd even been late. Amy cleared her throat and linked her arm through Emily's.
"Being saved from a potential stalker makes me superthirsty. Come get something to drink with me?"
Emily squinted down at her cup. "Yep. I like that idea."
Claire sighed. At least Emily getting drunk was probably a pretty good way to make her forget about Claire's weird late arrival.
Well, "good" isn't quite the right word for it." Effective," maybe. God, I sound just like my freaking mom. Fantastic.
Amy and Emily wove their way toward the kitchen, and Matthew caught Claire's hand and dragged her back into the crowd of dancers. She wove her fingers through his, trying to shake off the awkward, bad-friend moment.
"C'mon. Let's dance." He pulled her tight against him, his clean, cinnamon-laced smell making her sigh happily.
It only lasted a few seconds.
Someone near the front window yelled, "Cops!"
"Shit. Let's go." Matthew grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the hall.
Claire's heart skipped a beat. Adrenaline flooded her veins, making her want to change. The light in the hallway hit them as she struggled to remain in her human form. Getting arrested would be bad, but transforming would be deadly. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to stay smooth skinned.
Around them, the party was half chaotic escape attempts and half drunk-and-ignorant partying. Since Claire and Matthew were sober, it was pretty easy to wind their way through the mess.
"Where are we going?" Claire asked as they broke into a jog.
"Garage." Matthew's face was grim as he pushed open a door and the cold, dank smell of cinder blocks and motor oil washed over them. "I figured this might happen, so I parked two blocks over," he said, his voice echoing a little bit. "We can cut through the backyard if we hurry. The cops never come in right away, 'cause then they have too many people to deal with. They give the people who are mostly sober a minute to make a run for it, and then they just haul in the really drunk ones." He sounded like he'd done this before.
Claire hoped he was right. And she hoped Emily and Amy were getting the hell out of the house too. Once she and Matthew were outside, her senses took over. She heard the whine of the sirens, saw every welcoming hiding place. Faintly, she heard the crunch of hard-soled shoes on the gravel walk at the front of the house.
"They're almost to the front door," she whispered, her pulse thudding in her ears.
"Then we'd better get a move on."
They darted across the lawn in the shadow of an evergreen bush and jumped over the picket fence into a neighbor's yard. Claire turned toward Yolanda's and saw people streaming out the back doors like rabbits scattering, hopping in crazy patterns, hiding in stupid places. She wanted to wait for Emily, to make sure she was okay, but getting caught would mean too much for Matthew. His scholarship hadn't come through yet, and Claire wasn't going to be the one responsible for ruining his chances at UCLA.
Her senses sharpened, begging her to run. Her fingernails itched to become claws, and the dull edges of her human teeth ached to turn sharp and pointed. Struggling against the pull of transforming, Claire forced herself to look away. She grabbed Matthew's hand, and the two of them dashed around the neighbor's house, across a street, and through another set of yards. In the last one a golden retriever came around the corner, and Matthew jumped a mile. The dog's ears went back,though, when it caught Claire's scent, and with a quiet whine it slinked back around the corner with its tail dragging on the ground.
Submissive, her mind said first.