One

The moment the door opened I knew an ass-kicking was inevitable. Whether I’d be giving it or receiving it was stil a bit of a mystery.

The smel hit me as I left the air-conditioned comfort of the language building for the heat of another north-central Texas summer, tugging my backpack higher on my shoulder as I squinted into the sunset. A step behind me, my roommate, Sammi, was ranting about the guest lecturer’s discriminatory view of women’s contributions to nineteenth-century literature. I’d been about to play devil’s advocate, just for the hel of it, when a shift in the evening breeze stopped me where I stood, on the top step of the narrow front porch.

My argument forgotten, I froze, scanning the shadowy quad for the source of the unmistakable scent. Visual y, nothing was out of the ordinary: just smal groups of summer students talking on their way to and from the dorms. Human students.

But what I smelled wasn’t human. It wasn’t even close.

Absorbed in her rant, Sammi didn’t realize I’d stopped. She walked right into me, cursing loud enough to draw stares when her binder fel out of her hand and popped open on the ground, littering the steps with loose-leaf paper.

“I could use a little notice next time you plan on zoning out, Faythe,” she snapped, bending to gather up her notes. Grunts and more colorful words issued from behind her, where our fel ow grad students were stal ed by our pedestrian traffic jam. Lit majors are not known for watching where they’re going; most of us walk with our eyes in a book instead of on the path ahead.

“Sorry.” I knelt to help her, snatching a sheet of paper from the concrete before the student behind me could stomp on it. Standing, I took the steps two at a time, following Sammi to a brick half wal jutting from the porch. Stil talking, she set her binder on the ledge and began methodical y reorganizing her notes, completely oblivious to the scent, as humans always were. I barely heard her incessant chatter as she worked.

My nostrils flared slightly to take in more of the smel as I turned my face into the breeze. There. Across the quad, in the al ey between the physics building and Curry Hal .

My fist clenched around the strap of my backpack and my teeth ground together. He wasn’t supposed to be here. None of them were supposed to be here.

My father had promised.

I’d always known they were watching me, in spite of my father’s agreement not to interfere in my life. On occasion, I’d spot a too-bright eye in the crowd at a footbal game, or notice a familiar profile in line at the food court. And rarely—only twice before in five years—I caught a distinctive scent on the air, like the taste of my childhood, sweet and familiar, but with a bitter aftertaste. The smel was faint and tauntingly intimate. And completely unwelcome.

They were subtle, al those glimpses, those hints that my life wasn’t as private as we al pretended. Daddy’s spies faded silently into crowds and shadows because they wanted to be seen no more than I wanted to see them.

But this one was different. He wanted me to see him. Even worse—he wasn’t one of Daddy’s.

“…that her ideas are somehow less important because she had ovaries instead of testes is beyond chauvinistic. It’s barbaric. Someone should…Faythe?” Sammi nudged me with her newly restored notebook. “You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

No, I hadn’t seen a ghost. I’d smel ed a cat.

“I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach.” I grimaced only long enough to be convincing. “I’m going to go lie down. Wil you apologize to the group for me?”

She frowned. “Faythe, this was your idea.”

“I know.” I nodded, thinking of the four other M.A. candidates already gathered around their copies of Love’s Labours Lost in the library. “Tell everyone I’ll be there next week. I swear.”

“Okay,” she said with a shrug of her bare, freckled shoulders. “It’s your grade.”

Seconds later, Sammi was just another denim-clad student on the sidewalk, completely oblivious to what lurked in the late-evening shadows thirty yards away.

I left the concrete path to cut across the quad, struggling to keep anger from showing on my face. Several feet from the sidewalk, I stepped on my shoelace, giving myself time to come up with a plan of action as I retied it. Kneeling, I kept one eye on the al ey, watching for a glimpse of the trespasser. This wasn’t supposed to happen. In my entire twenty-three years, I’d never heard of a stray getting this far into our territory without being caught. It simply wasn’t possible.

Yet there he was, hiding just out of sight in the al ey. Like a coward.

I could have cal ed my father to report the intruder. I probably should have cal ed him, so he could send the designated spy-of-the-day to take care of the problem. But cal ing would necessitate speaking to my father, which I made a point to avoid at al costs. My only other course of action was to scare the stray off on my own, then dutifully report the incident the next time I caught one of the guys watching me. No big deal. Strays were loners, and typical y as skittish as deer when confronted. They always ran from Pride cats because we always worked in pairs, at the very least.

Except for me.

But the stray wouldn’t know I had no backup. Hel , I probably did have backup. Thanks to my father’s paranoia, I was never real y alone. True, I hadn’t actual y seen whoever was on duty today, but that didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t always spot them, but they were always there.

Shoe tied, I stood, for once reassured by my father’s overprotective measures.