Nocturne (4 page)

Emily grinned at her, a smudge of white glue marking her cheek. "We're making fall look fancy." She pointed to an army of glittered Styrofoam leaves drying in ranks on top of the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday paper. "Wanna help?"

Claire lowered herself to the floor. Emily's room felt strange—Claire was so used to it being just the two of them. Amy's presence shifted something in the air, knocking things off balance. "Um, sure."

"Oh, awesome!" Amy handed her a bowl of orange sparkles. "This is going to go so much faster with three people. Just scoop the glitter over them until they're totally covered." She looked down at her glue-and-glitter-smeared fingers and sighed. "We're going to be walking disco balls by the end of this."

"Can you believe Amy got roped into doing this?" Emily asked, handing Claire a glue-drenched acorn. "They're totally taking advantage of the fact that the word 'no' apparently doesn't exist in her native language—you know, Philadelphian." Emily shot Amy a meaningful look.

Amy laughed, an inside-joke sort of laugh that squirmed unpleasantly over Claire's skin. She and Emily were getting so close. Claire wanted that back. It would be too hard to keep her true identity a secret from Amy and Emily both, but watching the two of them start the sort of boundaryless friendship that she'd had with Emily, before all the secrets, before all the hiding . . . it made her chest ache so badly that her ribs were nearly cracking with it.

Claire dropped her Styrofoam into the bowl, turning her head as a puff of sparkles rose into the air and settled on her lap. "How many of these are you making, and why, exactly?"

"Five hundred," Amy announced. "They're decorations for the Autumn Ball. I know it's ages away, but I figured I needed to get a jump on it since I have so many to make. It's so nice of you guys to help!" She smiled at Claire. "You and Matthew are already going—now Emily and I just need to find dates and we'll be all set!"

The way she said it made it sound like they would all be going together. Claire looked up at Emily, trying to gauge her best friend's reaction. Emily was focused a little too intently on the half-coated leaf in front of her, and the tips of her ears were cotton-candy pink.

Slowly, Claire reached into the bowl and sent a drift of glitter cascading over the acorn while she chose her next words.

"Yeah. I'm excited about the dance." She tried to sound casual.

"You should totally join the dance committee," Amy said. "I mean, we need more people, and you're obviously good with glitter." Emily laughed, and Claire did too, surprised at the wit peeking through Amy's perky veneer. An unexpected warmth flared in Claire, catching her off-guard. For a moment she saw how it could have been—the three of them—if Claire hadn't had so much to hold back.

"I—that sounds fun, but I don't think that Kate-Marie Brown would approve of me having a hand in major school social events," Claire said.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Kate-Marie doesn't rule the world."

"She sure thinks she does," Emily groused, putting glue on another leaf. "God, Claire, remember when Yolanda wanted her to come to your birthday party last summer?" She looked over at Amy. "Kate-Marie blew her off just because she didn't want to deal with the pool thing."

Amy shuddered. "Well, that I can actually relate to. You really have a pool?"

Claire nodded, uncomfortable.

"Ugh. They terrify me. I can't swim at all. I'm a total solidground sort of girl. So, I guess Kate-Marie and I agree on one thing, at least."

"We'll try not to hold it against you," Emily joked.

From the kitchen came the sound of a griddle being thumped into the sink. "Girls?" Emily's mom called up the stairs. "The pancakes are ready! Come and eat them while they're still hot."

"Oh, yum!" Emily reached for a damp wad of paper towels and pulled off a handful, wiping her glue-coated fingers on them and handing the rest to Amy.

Amy wiped the glitter off the perfect ovals of her little fingernails.

"I'm starving," she announced. "And I totally want to hear about the after party and stuff last night. God, you must have been up all night—I can't believe you're not an exhausted mess today! What's your secret? Seriously. I have a billion quizzes next week. If you have a secret energy drink or something, I want in."

The questions sent an angry jolt through Claire. She worked
so hard
to keep her secrets hidden, and Amy, with all her cheerful and well-intentioned bonding crap, was on the verge of ruining everything. Claire had a sudden urge to snarl at Amy—to startle her into silent submission.

But this wasn't the woods, and Amy wasn't a wolf.

"Yeah." She cleared her throat. "I'm pretty much all about caffeine."

Claire's lupine side lunged inside her, pushing at the cover of her human skin. She was right at the edge of transforming, balanced on a thread-thin line between human and wolf. She stayed motionless as marble, tracking Amy's movements with her eyes, until she was a hundred percent sure she could control herself. Until she knew she could stay human.

With shaking hands she set the bowl of glitter on Emily's bed, her gaze sliding over the bedside lamp. The memory of the epic fight Emily and her mother had when Emily broke it last year swam into Claire's mind. How Emily had come storming over to Claire's house. How, later, they had tried to glue it back together, adding shells and buttons and bits of yarn to hide the places where the ceramic was missing. She could still hear the echo of the two of them laughing so hard over the derangedlooking results that even Emily's mom couldn't stay mad.

Last year. When Claire still thought she was human.

With her wolf self roiling and snapping underneath the tender barrier of her smooth, pink skin, last year seemed untouchably far away.

It tore at her to do it, but Claire knew she had to leave. The stress of being around Amy—with her intense scrutiny and the way she made Claire so achingly jealous of her relationship with Emily—it was too much. Claire could feel her control slipping. She couldn't afford that. The risk to Emily was far too great. After all, if she ever found out what Claire was . . . It was against the laws of the pack to kill humans, except in cases of selfdefense. Killing someone who knew a pack member's identity definitely counted as self-defense, since it was only by keeping themselves hidden that the werewolves stayed alive at all.

The thought of Emily—happy, bouncing, warm-skinned, very alive Emily—being hunted by the pack made Claire's insides tremble. She would do anything to keep that from happening. Including telling a skyscraper-high stack of lies.

Emily stood in the doorway, looking back at her with a confused expression on her face.

"You coming?" she asked. "You're about a zillion miles away."
She doesn't even know how true that is.

"C'mon." Emily jerked her head toward the kitchen. "It's
pancakes
."

Claire wanted those pancakes more than anything. Wanted a normal Sunday morning with Emily—just Emily—when she wasn't endangering her best friend's life. She stood up, wiping her hands on her pants. "I think I'm going to head out, actually. I'm not all that hungry. Lisbeth cooked this morning—you know how that goes."

Emily's mouth opened and then shut again. "But—but how will you get home?"

"I'll run. It's just a couple of miles." Claire shrugged. She tried to keep her face calm, but she was dying to leave before her mask slipped—before Emily guessed just how upset she really was.

"You'll r
un
? God, Claire, you really have changed, haven't you?"

Hearing the question was like touching a live wire—painful and shocking and way too close to the truth.

"Hey, I'm still the same old Claire. I'm just in better shape." Claire fake-smiled, shifting from foot to foot, trying to get her wolf self to shut the hell up for a minute.

"Oh, sure. You had to go and get into something
athletic.
" Something wistful drifted across Emily's expression as she fiddled with the door's hinge. "We didn't even talk about KateMarie, though." "Yeah, I know." From the kitchen, the sound of Amy and Mrs. Lucero chatting pricked at Claire's ears. Made her feet itch to get moving. She edged toward the door. Emily noticed and stepped back to let her through. "Soon, okay?"

Emily caught up to Claire as she padded down the stairs. "We should go to The Cloister. We haven't been there since school started, even. The espresso machine is probably twitching from withdrawal."

The mention of the coffee shop on Fourth Street where Claire and Emily had been more regular than the regulars brought a smile to Claire's face. A sad, genuine smile full of years of history and meaningless secrets that she and Emily shared. All those things that had come before. She threw her arms around her oldest friend and squeezed hard enough to make Emily squeak.

"That's a perfect idea. Next weekend, okay? You and me and our old table by the window," Claire whispered.

"Emily? Claire?" Amy's voice called. "Are you guys eating or what? 'Cause I'm starving here."

Emily turned to answer her, and without waiting, Claire slipped out the front door like a shadow and ran off down the street, relishing the stinging chill of the rain on her face. She willed herself not to turn around and check whether Emily was watching. Forced herself to move forward, step after step, until she was too far away to look back.

Chapter Four

TUESDAY MORNING, CLAIRE woke from an uneasy sleep and lay in her bed, trying to put her finger on what had woken her. Something was different.

Quieter.

It had stopped raining.

Claire's breath came rushing out in one long whoosh. Tonight, finally, she'd be able to practice. And with her mom extending her stay in New York, it would even be easy to sneak out to do it while Lisbeth slept.

The day dragged, but the afternoon finally faded into evening, and Claire sat in her room, half-doing her homework, rereading the same page in her history book three times without absorbing a word of it. She was itching to get into the forest.

Cracking her back, she stood up and headed to her closet. She had to move—going for a run was the only way she'd be able to stay sane until Lisbeth went to bed. Claire slipped on her shoes and bounced down the stairs.

Lisbeth was curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and a book.

"I'm going for a run," Claire announced. "I'll be back in a little while."

"Are you finished with your homework?" Lisbeth asked.

Claire shifted from foot to foot, aching to feel the rhythm of her feet against the asphalt—four feet against the forest floor would be better, but running in her human form was still better than nothing.

"Not exactly," she said, "but almost. I'll be back in plenty of time."

Lisbeth glanced out the window. "You'd better—it's dark out there.Wear something reflective, okay?"

"I'll put on my white jacket," Claire promised, backing out of the room.

She grabbed the jacket off the hook, and then she was outside, in the chilly, still-damp air. She took a deep breath and started to run.

Five miles out, she finally felt herself start to relax. Her thighs hurt from the pace she'd been keeping, but it was a good hurt. A distracting hurt. From the trees along the side of the road came the quiet sounds of things settling down for the night. It was better than listening to music.

The sound of a car's tires thrumming over the road came up behind her. Claire moved to the side to let the car pass, but instead it slowed, crawling past her and then coming to a halt. The growing darkness and solitude that had seemed so calming a minute before suddenly seemed precarious. Her senses flared as the wolf inside her swam to the surface, her instincts grabbing hold of her. Shaking her. Taking over.

Claire wasn't scared. Not exactly. She was mostly afraid of someone doing something to force her hand, putting her in a situation where she would have to defend herself. She widened her stance, ready to bolt into the woods.

Dr. Engle stuck his head out the window. "Claire? What are you doing out here by yourself?"

A rough-edged relief spread through her. Figuring that the danger she knew was better than the danger that she didn't— and also because it would look weird otherwise—she straightened up and walked a little shakily toward Matthew's dad.

"Just out for a run, Dr. Engle. Is that a new car? It looks really nice," she said. Her voice was a shade too bright. But she was already out of breath from jogging, which would probably be enough to hide her discomfort.

"A loaner," he said. "The brakes are out on the other one. Can I give you a ride home? This stretch of road is too deserted for a girl to be running alone on." As usual, his attempts to be concerned were too patronizing to ring true.

"Don't worry, there are plenty of bushes to hide in if the bad guys come driving up," she joked.

Dr. Engle leaned a fraction farther out the window, peering into the trees beyond Claire. "The woods aren't always safe, either. After last summer, you should know that."

The words froze Claire's blood, and she stood gaping at Dr. Engle. His lips thinned into a satisfied-looking line. She knew that he didn't intend the double meaning she heard in his words. He wouldn't be offering her a ride if he had any suspicions about her being a werewolf, but it still made her shudder.

"Thanks for the offer," she simpered, hoping a stickysweet act would get him off her back. "But I'm not that far from home." She'd been planning to run awhile longer, but she just wanted to get out from under Dr. Engle's probing gaze.

"Well, be careful," he admonished, pulling his head back into the car like a turtle retreating into its shell. "I suppose I'll see you at the house sometime," he called through the window. Slowly, it slid shut, and he drove away.

Claire could practically feel him watching her in the rearview mirror.

She turned and ran back toward her house with the ice from Dr. Engle's comments still chilling her veins.

There was no room for error with him around—he was too vigilant. Too committed.

And much, much too scary. Claire sprinted up the drive with her sweat-dampened shirt slapping against her as she went. Lisbeth was going to freak out about how long she'd been gone, and Claire wanted to have time to shower and shake off her encounter with Dr. Engle before she headed back out into the woods to practice. The minute Lisbeth went to sleep, she promised herself, she'd be out the door.

She opened the back door and stepped inside, wavering the tiniest bit from the weird sort of vertigo that came with stopping after a long run. Lisbeth was waiting for her.

"Forget something?" she asked Claire in her best I'm-thegrownup-here voice.

Claire blinked, looking down at the white jacket she'd put on before she'd left.

"Like, your phone?" Lisbeth held it up and Claire reached for it, as if she could erase the mistake by getting the phone into her hand—as if her fingertips could apologize. She was supposed to take her phone with her when she went for a run.

"Um, sorry?" she offered.

Lisbeth shook her head. "I swear, keeping you safe is like trying to make the rain fall up." She held out the phone. "It's been ringing off the hook. Since I know you're not dead in a ditch somewhere, I'm going to bed."

"Okay." Claire took the phone and checked the screen. Five missed calls. "Good night."

"Come get me if you need anything," Lisbeth sighed, heading for the stairs.

Claire nodded, only half-listening. Her voice mail icon was flashing frantically. All the missed calls were from Emily.

She dialed the number.

Emily answered on the first ring. "Finally! Where have you been?"

"Sorry," Claire apologized. "I went for a run and forgot my phone."

"Again? Seriously, Claire, the phone only works if the battery is charged and you have it with you."

The memory of Dr. Engle's pale eyes peering into the woods shivered over Claire's skin. "Trust me, I know. Is this a bad time? Is it too late?"

"Nah. I'm just trying to make a green glaze to put on this pot that Amy helped me throw yesterday."

Amy's passion for pottery was right up Emily's alley. Nothing artsy held any appeal for Claire, but right then she wished it did. Maybe she should take another crack at sculpture.

"So, what's up? Why all the calls?" She glanced out her bedroom window at the night-covered woods. Just a few minutes and she'd be out there.

Emily took a little, hitching sort of breath. "It's Ryan."

The guy from art class. At least this time Claire remembered. "What about him?"

"So, you know we've been flirting like crazy for days, and I really thought he was on the verge of asking me out. But after the last bell today, I saw him in the parking lot with Lindsay McCracken."

Emily was crying. Claire could hear it. She went into the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the counter, not wanting to lie on the bed in her sweaty clothes. "Okay," she said slowly. "Well, maybe he needed a homework assignment or something."

Emily choked out a little laugh. "Unless she wrote the vocab words on her tonsils, I don't think so. They were steaming up the car windows, and they weren't even in the car."

Claire made a face. "Ew. Ouch."

"Just wait," Emily sniffled. "It gets worse."

Claire looked at the clock. She was dying to get into the forest, but Emily's voice had that just-getting-warmed-up sound to it. Claire stared at the shower, wondering if she could put Emily on speaker while she cleaned herself up.

The choked sob that came from the other end of the phone answered her question. Emily needed her. And not on speakerphone.

"Worse how?" she asked.

"I ran into Yolanda—like, literally ran
into
her because I was watching the PDA horrorfest, and she said that Ryan asked Lindsay to the ball today." The last word was more of a wail.

Claire took a deep breath. "Oh. Wow. That sucks."

"I know! I mean, I really, really thought he was going to ask me out, but apparently he's just an outrageous flirt." Emily bawled.

"Well, then, aren't you better off with someone else?" Claire offered.

"Not necessarily. I mean, as a long-term boyfriend, obviously he's not a good choice. But I need
someone
to take me to the dance, and it would have been nice to have a couple of warm-up dates first. I could have dumped him afterward if he was still playing Prince Charming to half the school. Now what am I going to do?"

"You have time to find another guy to go with." Claire bit one of her cuticles, trying to think through some possible dates for Emily.

"Not really. People are mostly paired up. The posters Amy plastered all over school kicked everybody into date-finding high gear. I
so
don't want to go stag, Claire, not when this is the first-ever dance that you're actually going to. Stupid Ryan with his stupid flirting. Hang on." There was a muffled sound as Emily dropped the phone and blew her nose. "Sorry. Anyway, I'm going to end up being that lame-o dateless chick who's hovering by the DJ during all the slow dances. I just freaking know it."

A mix of sympathy and frustration rolled through Claire, sweet-sour as a lemon drop. She wondered if this was how Emily felt all those times she'd gone to a dance while Claire stayed home.

They spent awhile batting around possible date ideas, none of which went very far.

Claire sat up suddenly. "Hey! What about one of Matthew's friends? The whole soccer team can't possibly have dates. I could ask him—see if he could put out some feelers."

"Okay, first of all, don't say 'put out some feelers,' because it sounds squicky. Secondly, I do
not
want to be that überdesperate loser friend who needs a mercy date. I have
some
dignity left, you know."

Claire squeezed her eyes shut. "I didn't mean it that way. Really. I was just thinking it might be an easy solution is all."

Emily's exhale hissed and rattled in Claire's ear. "I know. I didn't mean to be so edgy. I'm just not used to being in this situation. I swear to you, this is the last time I ever put all my eggs into one potential-date basket."

They talked awhile longer, until finally, Emily quit crying and started to pull herself together.

"Okay," she said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's not the end of the world."

"Not even close," Claire assured her. "We'll fix it, I promise. Tomorrow is another day and all that, right?"

"Right," Emily said. "Actually, shit. Today is another day. Oh my God, it's already after midnight. I'm sorry—I didn't mean to keep you up so late."

"It's okay, I didn't have anything else to do," Claire lied. "But you'd better go to bed or you'll be all puffy in the morning."

"You're right. You, too. I mean, not the puffy bit, but the rest of it."

They hung up, and Claire stared through the open bathroom door at the clock on her nightstand.

Damn.

She hopped off the counter. She'd shower later. If she hurried, really hurried, she'd still have a little time to practice. Claire knelt on the damp ground, focusing on the tiny pile of sticks that lay in front of her. She'd searched the thickest parts of the forest to find branches that weren't completely sodden. She'd made a little circle out of stones and everything. There were dead leaves underneath, for tinder. But the sticks were in exactly the same state they had been an hour ago.

Not burning.

Frustrated, she tossed her head, attempting to get her bangs out of her eyes. She was going to have to get home, and soon.

Claire stared at the little pyre she'd made. One of the leaves fluttered in the breeze, and a shower of leftover raindrops pattered down onto her.

Why couldn't she
do
this?

She could hear her mother's voice in the back of her head admonishing her to move inside the wood and leaves with her mind. To bring in a hot little spark, the same way she could hold a feeling of heat in her wolf form when it was cold. Claire groaned in frustration. She'd tried imagining a spark. She'd tried picturing big flames and little flames and freaking house fires' worth of flames. Nothing ever happened. No matter how hard she tried to visualize the branches getting hot enough to light, they never so much as twitched.

She wanted to just reach in there and start rubbing two of the sticks together until they caught. At least she'd be able to say she started a fire without a match. That would almost count, right? Of course, she didn't really know how to start a fire that way, either. She was pretty sure it was something about friction, about the way the edges of the wood rubbed up against each other until they made so much heat, a little spark just sort of appeared between them.

Just then, a sensation she couldn't quite place slipped through her muted human senses, bringing her sharply to attention. It was like she was standing on a boat that had suddenly listed just a bit—a shifting.

Something had changed.

A tendril of smoke drifted up from her pile of kindling, and Claire froze, watching it. The misty gray curl rose into the air like a hot breath, then broke apart and disappeared. Nothing caught fire, but there had been smoke. And that meant
something
had happened. A wild little giggle rose in her throat, and she had an insane urge to dance around the clearing.

Because even though something had been holding her back from starting the fires, the smoke scribbled across the sky told her that she might not be an incomplete wolf.