Page 3 of The Alpha Experiment
“I finished writing the 201 midterm yesterday,” she said. “I hate teaching intro organic. Hate it.” She muttered something about her students not knowing an enantiomer from a hole in the ground, and someone crying during the exam prep session, and I nodded in sympathy. At least my 101 and 102 classes were basically remedial high-school chem, taken primarily by students from other majors looking to fill a requirement. They cared even less than I did. The pressure was comparatively low.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’m going to get some actual work done tonight now thattheyaren’t around. I think that enzyme I isolated last week might have some implications for treating pancreatitis…”
And she was off. I listened, because her research was all sound and interesting, as far as it went.
But it didn’t excite me, no matter how much more appealing it looked on a grant application than mine did.
“Oh! And this was in your box.” I recalled my wandering attention. Meredith held out a thick manila envelope. “I grabbed it on my way in since I was getting my own mail.”
“Thanks.” It was addressed with a standard printed white label. No return address. I flipped it over. Nothing on the back, either. Huh. I ripped it open and pulled out a thick sheaf of…photographs. Of me. And…oh, gods. Of Fiona, walking across campus, backpack slung on one shoulder and a coffee cup in her hand. My vision blurred. “What the fuck?”
Meredith dropped her pen with a clatter and stared at me. I didn’t curse out loud very much.
“Newton?”
Mutely, I held out the stack of photos. My hand shook, and the glossy prints rustled like a wind had swept through the office.
She took them, quickly flipping through the first few. “Shit,” she breathed. “What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know.” My voice cracked onknow, and I cleared my throat. “I have no idea.”
My hands still shook, and I balled them into fists and pressed them to my sides. I didn’t know what to do. What to think. Who the hell would be stalking me? Stalking mysister? Okay, to be fair, Fiona might attract stalkers, sick and screwed-up as it was. Female alphas had their pick of mates—and unfortunately, that meant they attracted potential mates no one would pick in even greater numbers than the average woman.
But an alpha were, any alpha were, wasn’t the greatest target. Fiona might be a nineteen-year-old coed, but her strength and resilience were way, way out of proportion to her appearance. Magic infused her muscles and her bones, and while she might not be able to stand up to another alpha with more mass and more experience on his side, she could more than hold her own with anyone else.
Not to mention, she had our father and brother. They had alpha magic, mass,andexperience. And like most alpha weres, they took protectiveness to a homicidal level. You’d have to be an idiot to piss them off by messing with Fiona.
So had whoever it was sent the photos to me because I was the family’s weak link?
That thought made my chest ache, but I couldn’t discount the possibility. No one would be afraid of me, puny average human that I was.
Were they suggesting that they’d hurt me if I didn’t…what? Persuade my sister to…I couldn’t even imagine.
Or they were threatening me, using Fiona as a weapon. They could hurt her, if I didn’t…again, I came up blank.
“Is there anything else in the stack?” I asked Meredith, my voice rusty and weak. “A letter? Anything written on the backs of the photos?”
She turned them over and went through the stack again, this time checking the backs of each, and separating them carefully to make sure nothing had gotten stuck in between.
She shook her head. “I don’t see anything. Newton, this is really—you don’t have any idea what this is about? You haven’t gotten any threats in the mail, noticed anyone watching you, anything at all? An ex-girlfriend with a grudge? A rival pack targeting your family?”
I bristled at her skeptical tone, but I’d simmered down before I even opened my mouth to retort. How could I blame her for asking that? How could something like this just come out of the blue, with no warning at all? I didn’t have any enemies. My pack lived peacefully with its neighbors.
The only other possibly threatening anomaly in my life was those emails from Dr. Greenwald. A little shiver went down my spine. I was an academic, a researcher, a teacher. Companies head-hunted all the time, and as far as I knew, that expression was figurative rather than literal. I simply could not believe that a recruiter from a pharmaceutical company would send someone to stalk me, and my sister, because I hadn’t responded to a job offer.
But maybe I needed to expand my imagination a little.
“I think I need to head home,” I said. Meredith frowned at me. “I’m sorry, those are all good questions. But I can’t think of anything.” Nothing I could share yet, anyway. My suspicions regarding Greenwald and Initech would sound insane spoken aloud. “And I need…”
I needed my den, my safe refuge from the world. Maybe I wasn’t a werewolf, not really, and the part of my mind that was always on the lookout for connections between genes and behavior made a quick note to consider whether non-magical wolf-like behavior might have its own set of exons. But I couldn’t get into any of that with Meredith. Worst-case scenario, she’d think it was interesting and start asking questions, something I’d welcome at any other time. But not tonight.
“I need to head home,” I repeated. “And make a couple of phone calls,” I added, out of sudden inspiration.
Meredith nodded, looking relieved. Probably assuming I’d be calling my family, or the police. “Okay.” She handed over the photos, and I shoved them back in the envelope. “Let me grab my keys and I’ll walk you to your car.”
I bit my lip to hold in the burst of laughter that bubbled up despite everything. I didn’t want to offend her, because she meant well and I knew that if push came to shove, she’d try to defend me, even if she didn’t have a chance. Meredith was awesome like that. But I didn’t know how much good a hundred and thirty pounds of overcaffeinated junior professor would do me if whoever had taken these photos decided to come after me in the parking lot.
“Meredith, that’s not necessary,” I managed. “These photos are meant as a threat, right? Someone’s watching me. Why would they do anything about it right when I got the envelope? That doesn’t make any sense. Threatening someone and attacking them in the same day doesn’t, I don’t know. Give me time to be threatened?”
