She felt her lips trembling, and hated herself for it. Why couldn’t she be a badass, stone-cold bitch? Why couldn’t she stand up for herself when she needed to, without breaking down into tears like a baby? Monica wouldn’t be crying. Monica would be snapping some comeback at him, telling him that her stuff was already in the room. Monica would slap money down on the table and dare him to turn it down.

Claire reached in her back pocket and pulled out her wallet. “How much?” she asked, and started counting out bills. She had twenties, so it looked like a lot. “Three hundred enough? I can get more if I have to.”

Michael sat back, surprised, a little frown bracketing his forehead. He reached for his beer and took another sip while he thought about it. “How?” he asked.

“What?”

“How would you get more?”

“Get a job. Sell stuff.” Not that she had much to sell, but in an emergency there was always the panicked call to Mom. “I want to stay here, Michael. I really do.” She was surprised at the conviction in her voice. “Yeah, I’m under eighteen, but I swear, you won’t have any trouble from me. I’ll stay out of your way. I go to school, and I study. That’s all I do. I’m not a partyer, I’m not a slacker. I’m useful. I’ll—I’ll help clean and cook.”

He thought about it, staring at her; he was the kind of person you could actually see thinking. It was a little scary, although he probably didn’t mean it to be. There was just something so…adult about him. So sure of himself.

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, kid. But it’s just too much risk.”

“Eve’s only a little bit older than I am!”

“Eve’s eighteen. You’re what, sixteen?”

“Almost seventeen!” If you were a little fluid on the definition of almost. “I really am in college. I’m a freshman—look, here’s my student ID….”

He ignored it. “Come back in a year. We’ll talk about it,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry. What about the dorm?”

“They’ll kill me if I stay there,” she said, and looked down at her clasped hands. “They tried to kill me today.”

“What?”

“The other girls. They punched me and shoved me down the stairs.”

Silence. A really long one. She heard the creak of leather, and then Michael was on one knee next to the chair. Before she could stop him, he was probing the bump on her head, tilting it back so he could get a good, impersonal look at the bruises and cuts. “What else?” he asked.

“What?”

“Besides what I can see? You’re not going to drop dead on me, are you?”