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Authors: Kathy Reichs

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Then, recognition.
Ben, flying across the sandbank, a wild look on his face.
A second later, I knew why.
He was being chased.
CHAPTER 2
C
ooper exploded from the dunes, fur sticking out in soggy spikes.
The wolfdog puppy chased Ben down the beach, yapping like mad.
“Not so quick, are you Coop?” Ben shouted over his shoulder as he cut left, racing for the surf.
Coop skidded to a halt when Ben dove into the ocean. Thwarted, he barked and raced back and forth.
“Here boy!” I called.
Coop tossed one last yip at Ben before trotting to my side. Then he shook furiously, spraying seawater everywhere.
“Blech!” I wiped salty droplets from my face. “Thanks for nothing, mongrel.”
Coop looked pleased. I think. Hard to tell with dogs.
Hi, already doused, was nonchalant. “Did the bad Indian throw you in the water, boy?” Taking a knee, he ruffled Coop’s ears. “Been there.”
Hi was referring to Ben’s claim of ties to the Sewee, a North American clan folded into the Catawba tribe centuries ago. He’d even named his boat
Sewee
.
“I feel your pain,” Hi continued. “Thanksgiving was a huge mistake.”
Coop licked Hi’s face.
“Not nice,” I joked. “You’ll sour Jewish-Sewee relations.”
“It’s true, I take it back,” Hi said. “Our peoples have a rich history of mutual respect. Long live the alliance!”
I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. A wisp of gray passing through the forest. Sniffing once with my supercharged nose, I teased a scent from the air.
Warm fur. Hot breath. Musk.
Wolf.
“Look alive, Coop. Your mom’s here.”
“What?” Hi craned his neck. “Where?”
Three animals stepped from the trees. Whisper, the matriarch, was a gray wolf. A gorgeous, regal animal. All silver, with a hint of white on her nose.
Her mate, a rogue golden shepherd, stood by her side. I’d taken to calling him Polo. Behind them paced Coop’s older brother, another wolfdog hybrid. I’d dubbed him Buster.
For a moment, the pack watched the scene on the beach. Then Whisper barked once. Cooper sprang to join his kin. Reunited, the family loped into the forest.
“Have fun!” I called.
I was happy to let him visit his folks, but Coop lived with me now. Whitney and Kit just had to deal. So far, so good.
Well, sort of. Coop and Whitney weren’t exactly best friends.
Shrug. The opinion of my father’s annoying girlfriend was extremely low on my list of concerns.
“Did you smell her?” Hi asked.
I nodded. Downwind, I’d picked up Whisper’s scent at thirty yards.
“Amazing.” Hi stripped off his shirt, wrung it out. “Score one for your honker.”
“Thanks, I think.” I cocked my chin at Hi’s substantial midsection. “Nice abs.”
“Yeah, I work out twice a month. No exceptions. But stop hitting on me, it’s embarrassing.”
Hot day. Not surprising for mid-August in South Carolina. I wiped my forehead. My sweating talent was in full effect.
“Shoot.” Hi blinked, his eyes back to normal chestnut-brown. “I lost my flare. Stupid Ben.”
“Can you get it back?”
“I’ll try.” Hi’s face went blank in concentration. His pupils focused on nothing. Seconds ticked by. A minute.
Hi shook his head. “Still can’t burn back-to-back. Not since . . .”
He trailed off. I didn’t press. I knew what he was thinking.
The only time we’d flared twice in a row was at Claybourne Manor. The night when, somehow, I’d
forced
it on the other Virals. When I’d stepped inside their minds.
I don’t know how I did it. Had never been able to repeat the trick. Not for lack of trying. But no matter how hard I strained, I couldn’t reconnect. Couldn’t recapture that odd feeling of
oneness
. The cosmic link that broadcast my thoughts and let me hear theirs.
The close bond of a wolf pack.
“Do you want to try again?” Hi asked. Hesitant. I knew that this particular power gave him the willies. Same went for Ben and Shelton.
“Try what?” Ben joined us, water dripping from his shoulder-length black hair. “Are you talking about telepathy again?”
“It worked once,” I said. Defensive.
“Maybe.” Ben frowned. “Maybe not. It might’ve been part of the sickness.”
When our powers first presented, we’d been slammed for days. A terrible, soul-crushing illness that left us weak as kittens. The major symptoms eventually subsided, but random oddities continued to afflict us.
Would the symptoms ever disappear for good? I had no answer.
But the current topic of conversation was an old argument.
“It wasn’t the sickness,” I said. “I felt a real connection, even with Coop. We’re linked now.”
“Then why can’t you do it again?” Ben had no patience for things he couldn’t understand.
“I don’t know. Let me try now.”
Never one to wait for permission, I closed my eyes, slowed my breath. Tried to crawl backward into my psyche.
I pictured the Virals in my mind. Hi. Ben. Shelton. Even Coop. Then I forced the images together, into one shape. A single unit. A pack.
Something twitched inside my brain. A tiny surge, like a breaker flipping. For a brief moment I felt my mind
push
, find resistance.
An invisible wall separated my thoughts from others outside my being. Encouraged, I shoved again in a way I can’t describe. The barrier buckled, yielded slightly.
A low hum filled my head. Then it fragmented into murmurs, like hushed voices in a distant room. Coop’s form appeared in the center of my consciousness, but vague, indistinct.
As suddenly as it formed, the bond frayed. I heard a thud, like a book slamming shut. The image slipped its tether and dissolved into cerebral darkness.
SNUP.
Blink.
Blink blink blink.
My eyes opened.
I was slumped in the sand, flare long gone.
Hi’s voice broke through. “Cut it out, Tory! You’re going to faint again.”
Ben and Hi took my arms. Eased me back to my feet. Held on until satisfied I wouldn’t collapse again.
“Let it go.” The nimbus faded from Ben’s eyes. “The mind talk was a delusion. It’s making you crazy.”
Before I could disagree, a voice carried down the beach. Our heads whipped as one.
We were no longer alone.
CHAPTER 3
“Y
ou jokers could leavea note next time!”
Shelton strolled up the sand, hands in his pockets. Short and skinny with thick horn-rimmed glasses, he wore a blue Comic-Con T-shirt and oversized white gym shorts.
He also wore a lopsided grin. Shelton knew he’d startled us.
“Well, well, the caged bird sings,” Hi said. “When did you bust out?”
“Pardoned this morning.” Shelton wiped sweat from his dark chocolate brow, a gift from his African American father. The high cheekbones and hidden eyelids came straight from his Japanese mother. “I figured you’d be out here. And I can guess what you’re doing.”
“Tory’s trying to play mind-bender again,” Hi said. “She ended up face-planting on the beach.”
Shelton’s grin faded. “Can’t we just pretend that never happened? I can’t sleep as it is.” One finger nervously spun a key ring containing his prized lock-pick collection. A hobby of Shelton’s that often came in handy.
“Pretend it never happened?” I scanned their faces. “We need to
understand
the changes. We can’t just ignore them. What if we have more reactions?”
“I know, I know.” Shelton’s palms came up. “I’m just freaked out. I tried flaring a little, when my parents were gone. I still have no control. Then I caught a cold, and for two days I was sure the virus was killing me.”
Ben nodded. “Even when I
can
flare, the powers are never the same. Or stable.”
“We’ll get there.” I sounded more confident than I felt. “We just need practice.”
“Or lobotomies,” Hi muttered.
“But we experiment
nowhere
but here.” Ben’s gaze traveled from Viral to Viral. “Loggerhead is safe, but we have to be careful. It’s too dangerous to use our powers where someone might see. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded. Our fear of discovery was ever-present. The ramifications of being caught were too horrible to contemplate.
“We can only trust each other,” Ben finished. “Never forget that.”
“Enough doom and gloom.” Hi slapped Shelton’s back. “How’d you find us, anyway? Expert tracking skills?”
“I ran into Kit at LIRI.” Shelton turned to me. “Your dad’s looking for you. He told me to find ya’ll and bring everyone back ASAP. I think something’s up.”
“Great,” Ben said sarcastically. “What’d we do this time?”
“They probably heard about your assaults on me and the dog,” Hi said. “You’re looking at hard time, pal. Hope it was worth it.”
“It was.”
I whistled. A few beats, then Coop burst from the scrub, circled us twice, and shot down the beach.
“Well, no point guessing,” I said. “Let’s go find out.”
Ten minutes later we reached LIRI’s back gate.
Entering, we secured the barrier behind us. We’d forgotten once, and curious monkeys had spent a night testing doorknobs. Not good.
Around us, a dozen modern glass-and-steel buildings gleamed in the midday sun. Arranged in two rows, they faced each other across a central common. A concrete path bisected the grounds on its way to the main gate and, eventually, the dock. An eight-foot fence encircled the whole complex.
We paused outside Building One, at four floors the largest structure on the island. In addition to LIRI’s administrative offices, Building One also housed the marine biology laboratory, my father’s little fiefdom.
A tiny alarm piped in my brain. Something felt off. The facility seemed hushed, and strangely empty for a weekday.
Coop barked once, shattering the stillness. I placed a hand on his head.
“Easy, boy.” Ear scratch.
Kit emerged from the building. Fast. Too fast. He must’ve been standing in the lobby, watching for me. He eyed his watch, impatient.
“That’s my cue. Later guys.”
Nods and grunts in response.
Spotting me, Kit strode forward. We met at center court.
“Hey kiddo! Ready to head home?”
Uh oh. False bravado, laid on thick. My BS sensors triggered. Why was Kit trying so hard to be cheerful?
“Sure,” I said. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Kit pulled a face. “No!
Pssh
. Relax.”
Nonsense answer. My anxiety skyrocketed.
Kit was avoiding something, but I held my tongue.
The crossing was weird. Cooper sat beside me on Mr. Blue’s shuttle boat, his large head resting in my lap. Kit kept the conversation light, focused on trivial subjects.
So why the parental summons? By the time we reached Morris Island, I was on high alert.
A note about Christopher “Kit” Howard. He’s my biological father, but I call him by his nickname. Not Daddy, or Pappy, or Father, or Sir. We’ve known each other less than a year. For now, it feels like a good fit.
I came to reside with Kit nine months ago, after a drunk driver killed my mother. The shock of losing Mom had been doubled by meeting “Dad.” I’d barely had time to grieve before being shipped hundreds of miles to my new home.
Hello Carolina, good-bye Massachusetts. Whatever. I’d only lived there my whole life.
Kit and I are still figuring each other out. We’ve made progress, but there’s a
long
way to go.
“Home sweet home!” Kit stepped onto the dock and made a beeline for our front door. I followed, baffled. Home sweet home? Seriously?
Most of LIRI’s senior staff lives on Morris Island, in a row of townhomes owned by Charleston University. Constructed on the remains of Fort Wagner, an old Civil War fortification, our tiny community is the only modern structure for miles. The rest of the island is a nature preserve held in trust by CU for the state of South Carolina.
Morris Island is pretty far off the beaten track, even for Charleston. An outpost on the ass-edge of nowhere. I live in almost total isolation. Tough at first, but I’ve grown to love it.
“Come on, Coop.” I slapped my side. “Let’s get the news. Whatever it is.”
When I arrived, Kit was seated in the kitchen, toying with a napkin. His eyes met mine, darted away. Shooing Coop to his doggie bed, I took a chair at the table.
“You’re clearly uncomfortable,” I said. “Spill it.”
Kit opened his mouth. Closed it. Crumpled the napkin. Tossed it. Put his face in his hands. Rubbed his eyes. Looked up. Smiled.
“First of all, we’re going to be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.” One hand made a chopping gesture. “At all.”
“Okay.” Now I
was
worried.
“There’s a
chance
, that maybe,
possibly
, I might . . .” Kit searched for words, “. . . lose my job.”
“What!?! Why?”
“Budget cuts.” Kit sounded miserable. “Charleston University may have to shut down the whole LIRI facility. Obviously, that would eliminate my position.”
Bad. Very bad.
“Close LIRI? Why would they do that?”
Kit sighed. “Where do I start? The institute is in turmoil. We’ve had no director since Dr. Karsten . . .” awkward pause, “. . . left. The press has been brutal. Rumors are flying about Karsten running unauthorized experiments, maybe taking corporate bribes.”
I sat bolt upright. That hit
way
too close to home.
“Unauthorized experiments?”
“They found a new lab in Building Six,” Kit continued, oblivious. “Secure. Unregistered. It had a ton of expensive equipment, but no records. Very strange. We have no idea what Karsten was doing.”

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