"No, I know," he said, "but there's nothing I can—"
"Do about it," Claire interrupted. "You've said that before. Actually, you've said it in one way or another every time I try to bring up stuff about the pack. Any time I mention it, you act weird." The anger built inside her, rattling her voice the way steam would rattle the lid of a boiling kettle.
"I'm not acting weird," he insisted, but Claire noticed that his eyes stayed firmly fixed on the ground next to him.
She resisted the urge to reach out and shake him—to make him look at her. "Yes, you are! I mean, you got me a flower for my damn chemistry test, but I practically had to drag you to the new moon gathering, and watching me try to light a fire made you absolutely reek of freaking out."
A shocked look crossed his face. "You could smell the way I felt?"
"Of course I could. I'm a werewolf, Matthew. That's what we do."
He crumpled up the paper bag that the food had come in, crushing it into a tiny ball.
"I know," he whispered. "I get it, I swear to God, I do. Can we just drop it, please?"
The conversation felt unfinished —like an eyeless jack-o'lantern. But Matthew was obviously done talking, and the idea of fighting for the sake of fighting seemed stupid.
"It's getting late," she said finally. "Maybe we should get back, huh?" Matthew threw the remains of his dinner into a nearby trash can. "Yeah, maybe we should." He leaned in and kissed her cheek, like he was smoothing things over.
Under the touch of his lips, though, irritation still scratched at Claire. It had been a hard day, and she wasn't quite ready to soften. That night, Claire lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She'd gone to bed early, exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. The day had been too much—too weird, too intense. Her mind was whirling like an out-of-control carousel, all loud music and flashing lights and freaky animals, going round and round and round without getting anywhere at all. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore. She threw off the covers and sat up, checking the clock next to the bed. It was a little after one.
She pushed her tangled hair off her face and stared out the window at the star-flecked sky. She wondered what Emily and Amy were doing. If the strangeness of running into Katherine, with all her blabbering, had stuck with them. Of course—her breath caught—there was a way she could find out.
She could transform. Use her abilities to listen in on them.
Claire smoothed the sheets underneath her hands, hesitating. Thinking. It felt weird to eavesdrop on Emily. For one thing, it was a huge invasion of privacy. But also, it was like using her werewolf talents to do something really . . . human. Of course, if Amy weren't trying to make Emily think Claire was a bad friend, weren't planting all sorts of slightly-tooclose-to-the-truth suspicions in Emily's head, then Claire wouldn't even have to be thinking about the whole thing. What the hell. I might as well try.
She didn't want to go all the way into the woods. And she really didn't want to think about what her mother would say if she tried to explain why she was leaving the house at this hour. Claire looked around her room.
It was more than big enough. And it wasn't like there was anyone around to catch her—Lisbeth wouldn't be back until Monday morning, and Marie was down in her darkroom. If her mom happened to notice that her room smelled too much like wolf, Claire could always blame it on the stack of unwashed laundry stashed in her closet.
Slowly, Claire crept out into the open space in the middle of the room. She licked her lips. There really wasn't anything to lose. . . .
Tossing off her pajamas, she squeezed her eyes shut and reached for her wolf form. The fur. The teeth. The claws. As her lupine self swept aside her human skin, terror came crashing over Claire. She crouched on the carpet, the chemical smell of the fibers burning her nostrils. The walls were too close, the scents were too artificial. She felt penned in. Caged. There was no way to open the doorknob.
Nowhere she could run.
With her heart thudding and squeezing in her chest, Claire dug her paws into the rug and scurried backward into the corner where her nightstand met her bed. She lay there, trying to calm herself down. She'd never transformed indoors before.
There's no threat in here. Jesus, Claire, get a grip. It's your freaking room. This is all your stuff.
But the more primitive part of her brain, the one that had so much more reign when she transformed, screamed at her that it was human stuff. That anything human was dangerous. That the only safe place was a place she could leave.
That she was trapped.