“I can’t leave,” she said. It came from her heart, and she meant every word. Her voice stayed absolutely steady, too—for once. “Mom, Dad, I know that you’re afraid for me, and I—I love you. But I need to stay here. Michael isn’t telling you this, but they put themselves on the line for me, and I owe it to them to stay until it’s settled and I’m sure they won’t get in trouble for me. It’s what I have to do, you understand? And I can do it. I have to.”

“Claire,” Mom said in a small, choked voice. “You’re sixteen! You’re a child!”

“I’m not,” she said simply. “I’m sixteen and a half, and I’m not giving up. I never have. You know that.”

They did. Claire had fought all her life against the odds, and both her parents knew it. They knew how stubborn she was. More, they knew how important it was to her.

“I don’t like this,” her dad said, but he sounded unhappy now, not angry. “I don’t like you living with older boys. Off campus. And I want these people who hurt you stopped.”

“Then I have to stop them,” Claire said. “It’s my problem. And there are other girls in that dorm getting hurt, too, so it isn’t just about me. I need to do it for them, too.”

Michael raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t answer. Mom wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. Eve appeared in the doorway wearing a huge apron with a red-lips emblem that read KISS THE COOK, peered uncertainly at them, and gave Claire’s parents a nervous smile.

“Dinner’s ready!” she said.

“Oh, we couldn’t,” Mom said.

“The heck we can’t,” Dad said. “I’m starved. Is that chili?”

Dinner was uncomfortable. Dad made noncommittal grunts about the quality of the chili. Shane looked like he was barely holding on to his laughter most of the time. Eve was so nervous that Claire thought she would jitter right out of the chair, and Michael…Michael was the calm one. The adult. Claire had never felt more like the kid at the big table in her life.

“So, Michael,” Claire’s mother said, nibbling at a spoonful of chili, “what is it you do?”

Haunts the house where he died, Claire thought, and bit her lip. She took a fast sip of her cola.

“I’m a musician,” he said.

“Oh really?” She brightened up. “What do you play? I love classical music!”

Now even Michael looked uncomfortable. Shane coughed into his napkin and drained Coke in huge gulps to drown out his hiccuping laughter.

“Piano and guitar,” he said. “But mostly guitar. Acoustic and electric.”

“Humph,” Claire’s dad said. “Any good?”

Shane’s shoulders were shaking.

“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I work hard at it.”