‘I know. But it doesn’t matter whether you are, or aren’t. I still owe you.’

She left it at that, because he wasn’t going to yield, and moved the conversation on to other things. Eve had been invited to join an exclusive Morganville club of the wealthiest ladies in town, all of whom were snobs; she’d turned it down (although she had considered joining just to cause them grief). Then she’d accepted an invite from the vampires to join some kind of tea association. ‘I figure that if the living dead have any kind of blue-haired old ladies, it would be the tea association,’ Eve said. ‘They’re too polite to be rude to me to my face. So, that’ll be fun. I’ll just pretend not to understand when they’re all subtle about their dissing.’

‘And she’s going to be on her best behaviour,’ Michael said. Eve mouthed silently, not likely, and Claire covered her smile with her hand. ‘Listen, I know it’s late, so you get to bed. Anything you want me to tell Shane …?’

‘Are you really going to tell him all the sexy romantic things I want to say?’

‘Not hardly.’

‘Then just tell him to call me when he can,’ she said. ‘Or text. If he can get his big fingers on the tiny little keys.’

She needed a hug, but she settled for extravagant air kisses from Eve, and a movie-star fond smile from Michael, and then she logged off to face the empty, cold house that had less personality than a broom closet in what she still thought of as home: the Glass House.

Still not sleepy, Claire unpacked some posters, unrolled them, and pinned them up on the walls. One was a gift from her parents, a poster of Hawkeye from the Avengers movie, because they knew she thought he was cute, and she wanted that bow and arrow, badly. A couple of her favourite band posters. Another movie one-sheet, this one from The Hunger Games. Katniss was cool, and again, she coveted the bow and arrows. Definitely of use in her normal life. Well, life before MIT …

She froze in the act of pushing the thumbtacks in on that one, because she heard the downstairs door rattle. Then, a knock.

Claire slipped down the steps, careful to walk on the edges near the banister to avoid creaks, and risked a quick peek out through the peephole. She expected loathsome Derrick, but what she saw surprised her – a group of people, boys and girls, talking among themselves.

And in the front of the group was Nick, who’d walked her home.

She unlocked and swung the door open. ‘Hey, Nick,’ she said. ‘Guys.’

Most of them smiled at her. A few were too deep in their own things to bother. Nick’s smile was especially bright.