“Don’t go where, Mir? And what are you doing here? I thought you left town!”

“I tried, but I couldn’t go,” Miranda said, and swung the door all the way open. It was a storeroom of some kind, piled with boxes. “I’ve been hiding in here.”

“You don’t need to do that. We’d let you stay with us …”

“That’s not a good idea,” she said, with confidence that was far too firm for her age. “You know that things happen when I’m around. I try to stay on my own as much as I can.”

“Miranda—”

“I only wanted to tell you not to go. That’s all.” Her blue eyes studied Claire with eerie focus. There was something sad about the girl’s expression that didn’t make Claire feel any better. “You should go back to Shane. He’s okay now. I don’t think he’s going to be all crazy anymore.”

“Was he going crazy?” Claire asked.

Miranda shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “It’s not exactly easy to tell with him. I think that’s because I don’t understand boys very well.” She said that with utter seriousness, and Claire had to fight not to laugh.

“Who does? Anyway. Where is it I’m not supposed to go?” Because Miranda’s warnings, while usually on the nose, rarely occurred in a logical fashion. It was always beforehand, but how long before it would happen was an open question. Once Claire had tried graphing the intervals. It was as random as the value of pi, and made her head hurt in Myrnin-like ways.

“Home,” Miranda said immediately. “Don’t go home.”

“I’m not likely to be going home before the situation outside gets better,” Claire said gently. “So it’s probably not an issue, right?”

“Maybe,” Miranda agreed, but she still looked troubled. “I just—it keeps moving. I don’t understand. Maybe you should just stay here with me and not go anywhere. It might be safer here.”

“I can’t stay here, sweetie. Listen, do you have any food? Water?”

“I took some from the other closets. Power bars and water and those energy drink things. Do you ever read the labels? It’s a little scary. And they don’t taste very good. Next time Eve makes cookies I’ll get some.” Claire couldn’t tell if that was a promise or a prediction. She decided to let it go.

“Mir, thank you, but I really need to go now. Are you going to be okay here?”

“Here?” Miranda nodded. “I’ll be okay here. But you really shouldn’t go home.”

“I won’t,” Claire promised. “Not soon.”

“Don’t tell anybody I’m here.”

“I won’t,” she repeated, and backed out the door. “Stay safe.”

Miranda caught the closing door and locked gazes with her. “I mean it,” she said. “Claire, don’t go home. Bad things happen if you go home.”

That sent a little shiver over the back of Claire’s neck. “Promise,” she said. “Not going home.”

Miranda nodded and closed the door, then locked it.

That is one screwed-up kid, Claire thought, though Miranda wasn’t a child anymore, not really. Maybe she had never been. But she was more than fifteen now, probably sixteen—the age Claire herself had been when she’d arrived in Morganville. Wow. It didn’t seem so long ago, but at the same time, it seemed like … forever. Like there was no world out there beyond the borders of the town.