Page 52 of Conner's Luna

I tell him the password and we sit in companionable silence as I log into the program. I select the page I want and watch as the data filters by. I double-check yesterday's results, first (always a good practice) and see that only black and pink flags are next to the unusual gene sequences.

"You're frowning," Sarj says idly twenty minutes later.

"It's strange..." I murmur as I place a pink flag next to the same anomaly on the new page.

"What is?" he asks.

"Usually there would be more than two data analysts for each set of DNA, but it's just me and Dr. Honekier. Maybe he already had someone check these?"

Sarj scootches closer. "Maybe he turned off the other data checks?" he says after he looks over my shoulder at the screen.

"No. I checked that already. There's a function that toggles between the old data and new results."

Sarj runs his fingers down the screen. "You have more flags than Dr. Honekier. Is that also unusual?"

"Yes," I admit. I had noticed that, too, of course. "I think Dr. Honekier is just really busy."

"Or he's not as sharp as you," Sarj says with a warm smile shot my way. "How smart are you, anyway?" he says teasingly.

"Smarter than the average bear," I say in Yogi's voice. Oh, my God. I just spoke in a cartoon bear's voice. I'm such a dork.

"Whatever you say, Yogi." He taps me on my nose and settles back down into his chair.

Oh, he's Canadian. They probably love bears up there.

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Conner

"Another girl vanished over this past weekend," I tell Dad, rubbing my hand roughly over my face. I'm exhausted.

Dad swears colorfully before letting out a sharp exhale, "Caluna may have been targeted."

I sit up straighter from my slumped position on the couch. "How?"

"Dev says that he spoke with a female from the LaNu house. She was stalked by two men in a dark-colored van Saturday night. She went into a nearby convenience store and called a friend."

"Why does Uncle Dev think that it's related to whoever killed Jolena?"

"Just a hunch. The she-wolf claims she could scent the taint of blood in the air, wafting from the van. What are the odds?" he muses.

It's not impossible that there's more than one killer stalking females in Colorado, but I get the point. "Two men, huh?"

"Fuck," Dad sighs. "Yeah. Seems like Sarj's idea of this being a group is more and more likely. Autopsies on the females show signs of medical torture and a cocktail of drugs that suggests access to medical supplies." Dad sounds like he's reading the report off to me. Pharma isn't his forte.

"Did Uncle Mattie see it?" I ask quietly.

"He did and agrees with the report."

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Dad agrees.

"So did they move on to Caluna or are they hunting over that large of an area?"

"You left Caluna," Dad says slowly.

I jerk with realization. Fuck me. By leaving Caluna, did I inadvertently make my old campus a target of these nutjobs?

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