She was also the only person who didn’t allow me any excuses because of it. And for that, I appreciated her more than she could ever know. So her question didn’t piss me off the way it would have coming from someone else.

“I’m totally up for it, Dr. Lowell,” I said, injecting as much confidence as I could muster into my voice. Maybe if Dr. Lowell believed me, I could believe myself.

Dr. Lowell’s smile was a bit thin, and I was almost certain the tiny woman was a mind reader—that she somehow saw into my head and bore witness to my floundering confidence.

Because it was one thing to study the psychological effects of substance abuse. I could recite the textbooks inside and out. I could connect the dots from A to B. I could read the case studies and pretend that those people didn’t exist.

It was something else entirely to sit in a circle and hear their stories firsthand, to listen to strangers spill their guts as they shared how close they had come to losing it all. I knew that would make it all so very, very real.

And all that realness was a scary thing for a mind still reeling from a three-year-old trauma.

“Have a good evening, Aubrey,” Dr. Lowell said as I walked down the hallway of the psychology building. When I got outside and started my walk through the quad, it was already getting dark. The January air was cold, and I could smell snow.

My phone chirped in my back pocket, and I fished it out, finding a text from my roommate, Renee Alston. The vague words on the screen left an uncomfortable knot in the pit of my stomach.

Heading out. See you tomorrow.

I thought about texting her back, demanding details. Once upon a time Renee had been the ultimate fun girl. She had been the first to blast her music and get crazy drunk.

She used to be my complete opposite in every possible way. The wild girl with the heart of gold. The total extrovert who was the life of the party. Beautiful bombshell with guys falling at her feet. Taking full advantage of her long red hair and killer curves, she worked a room and enjoyed every moment.

But that was before Devon Keeton had entered the picture.

I squeezed the phone tightly in my fist and forced myself to put it back in my pocket. Responding to the text in any way would only further alienate the shadow girl who wore my best friend’s clothing.

At one time, our friendship had started to heal the snarly tangles of my wounded psyche. I had opened myself up to Renee in a way I never thought I’d be able to open up again.

So feeling like I was losing something I had come to depend on made me anxious and sometimes bitter.

And more than a little angry.

The campus was surprisingly busy for a Friday evening. Usually the place became a ghost town by four o’clock. The college was small, so most weekend entertainment happened away from the manicured lawns and perfectly pristine brick buildings.

I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and hunched my shoulders, feeling the cold. I was making some outrageous and rowdy weekend plans in my head that included digging out the rest of my winter sweaters and categorizing them by textile and color. Watch out, world, Aubrey Duncan was getting her cleaning on!

I noticed a group of people standing in front of the brick wall that ran along the north edge of the campus. The students gathered there were pointing, and there was a definite excitement as they stared at something that had grabbed their attention.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I made my way over to the crowd. Shouldering my way through the group, I was confused by what I saw—more particularly, by why it was creating such a reaction.

I tilted my head, trying to make out the detailed picture that had been spray-painted onto the brick. A massive hand was holding a grip of figures meant to be people. Some were screaming, some appeared to be laughing, and others were falling to the ground, a mass of flailing limbs, as they jumped from the grasping, God-like fingers. The picture had been painted in vivid reds and oranges, and the people were outlined in thick bands of black.

Beneath the picture in sweeping block letters was the word Compulsion followed by a series of numbers.

It was definitely impressive, for graffiti. I just couldn’t understand why people were staring at it as though it held the meaning of the freaking universe.

I turned to the two girls standing beside me. They were talking in excited whispers, pointing at the painting. “I don’t get it,” I said blandly, arching an eyebrow.

The girl closer to me looked shocked. “X did this,” she replied, as though that would explain everything.

“X?” I asked, feeling like I had missed an important lesson on college cultural relevance. From the way the two girls were staring at me, I might as well have a damned L tattooed on my forehead. Look at me! I’m the loser who has no appreciation for spray paint on a wall!

“Uh, yeah,” the second girl said, over-enunciating her words as though she was talking to a total idiot. Apparently, I was the idiot in this situation.

“He leaves these pictures for everyone to find. You know, to help people find where Compulsion will be over the weekend. You can tell it was him. See the line of tiny Xs in the drawing along the back of the hand,” girl number one answered, with just enough nastiness to make me want to slap her.

But again, my curiosity got the better of me, and I overlooked her huge case of bitchitis. “What the hell is Compulsion?” I asked, throwing a little of my own bitchiness into the question.

“Are you kidding? Have you been living under a rock for the last decade?” a guy snorted from behind me. Bitch One and Bitch Two snickered, and I gave them a look that was meant to shut them up but only prompted simultaneous eye rolling.