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CHAPTER 1

Shayna Prentiss left the bar near the University of Washington, wondering if soht-headed and from the corner of an eye, she was sure she saw ain the air When she turned to look, though, nothing was there

Had to be drugs

But she’d been so careful, never letting guys buy her drinks and, once she had a drink in hand, keeping it there In her undergrad days she’d been through the gauntlet of insanity that accoe journey and had made it a point to learn vicariously from stories that traveled like wildfire around the dorms More than one student had ended up in the hospital

But tonight, sootten past her Had she been distracted? Had she turned her back to talk to sole uard down

Or maybe it was just stress Her replace for Malaysia in teeks to start her fieldwork She’d booked the flight ht up in putting together as many chapters of her dissertation as she could before she left that she’d soed to lose her passport

She wasn’t the y with a passion and intended to earn her PhD before she was thirty

The dizziness returned, forcing her to stop to plant a hand against a light standard And now she had a headache as though so in

She took deep breaths

On a Friday night students headed everywhere, even at ten at night She’d met up with friends for a drink, happy to unwind for a couple of hours, but now she was ready to get back to work She tended to pore over her books until the early-e, she’d scheduled afternoon and evening classes whenever possible She did her best thinking after the sun went down, preferably with books and papers scattered all around her Antique statuary helped, as well as the oh-so-stereotypical eodes she looked at or turned over and over in her hands when she was puzzling out some aspect of theory

The air sathered to for of thunder explained things loud and clear

Great, noas going to pour—and as usual, no umbrella

A couple of guys stopped in front of her “Shayna, how’s it going?” They were in one of the classes she was required to teach as part of her doctoral progra-to-get-laid look And unfortunately, she never looked older than eighteen no matter how much makeup she wore

With thoughts of her latest paper on herany kind ofand flirt with girls your own age”

They both grinned She didn’t always get the saish features She’d be carded forever, but there was nothing she could do about that

Waving the as thunder once rateful she’d worn her jeans and not the short skirt she’d actually considered