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Chapter 1

8:20 AM

PREDATOR

Bixby High&039;s late bell shrieked in the distance, like so wounded and ready to be cut fro in confusion from one class to another, late with his father&039;s pills or forgetting the up for school It didn&039;t help that he&039;d unplugged his clock a few nights ago, unable to sleep with the soft buzzing sound itjust out of ar had turned every electronic contraption into so

But it was more than just the clock&039;s noise; it hat it meant, with its false day of twenty-four hours Since what had happened to hi marked out in the sky - the rise and fall of the sun, the spinning stars, the interlocking ratios of the light moon and the dark

The rest of the world still had their clocks, though, so Melissa had banged on hisagain this e new dreams

"Smells like asse lot, her head tipping back a bit, nostrils flaring

All Rex could s vinyl - the upholstery of Melissa&039;s crappy Ford broken down by thirty-odd Oklahoh the floorboard froine Hu memory informed him They scoured the desert for it, used it to asoline

Rex shook his head to clear it On e hunts all night, he had e inside him seemed more real than his sixteen years of human memories Sometimes Rex wondered if he would ever recover froe they&039;d effected before Jessica had rescued hi from the experience? Or was the darkness they&039;d left inside hier?

As Melissaplace, Rex spotted a few stragglers ymnasium entrance The sound of an amplified voice echoed out froht," Melissa said, gripping the steering wheel tighter "Pep rally today"

Rex groaned and closed his eyes He hadn&039;t faced anything like this since the change, and he wasn&039;t looking forward to it The thought of all those bodies pressed in close around hiht a trickle of nerves into his sto across to take his hand "I&039;ll be there"

At her touch, with no more insistence than a cool breeze, a calrowing still as Melissa&039;s serenity poured into hith becao it had been Rex who&039;d had to talk Melissa through the beginning-of-football-season pep rally Now she was the sane one, and he was

What, exactly?

He didn&039;t know yet, and Rex hated not knowing There were no halflings in the lore, ht?

Rex sh as clear as speech They could have whole conversations noithout her uttering a sound

Her control was alht anywhere, so different from the vomited rush of fear and pain that had struck hih so moments when he saw all of Melissa at once

When his mind was focused, he hardly had to speak himself; Melissa si he was too much of a wreck

"Yeah, some bad drea dreaer as he tracked prey for days across the plain, anticipation building as the weakest were cut fro rush of the kill

But of course, there&039;d been those other dreams as well,back The beginning of the end

"Jeez, lighten up," Melissa said, pulling her hand away and rubbing it, as if to wring out the ancient horror she&039;d felt in his "

"Sorry, Cowgirl Yeah, I guess I could use a cup Or six" Rex shook his head again His brain felt stuffed full, his own thoughts als had implanted to et back to normal"

Melissa snorted "When were you ever normal, Rex? When were any of us?"

"Well, maybe not normal," Rex adhed and touched his shoulder, and he felt a spark of her pleasure even through the fabric of his long black coat "You&039;re totally human, Rex Trust

Melissa&039;s fingers stayed on his shoulder, drulance strayed to the open gymnasium door Rex realized that howevera pep rally still made Melissa anxious

"You&039;ll be okay," he said softly, pulling her closer

She turned to him, and their lips met

At first Rex felt serenity in the war into him But then Melissa allowed her co inside her crashed out in a torrent: the enduring wounds of all those years alone,of othertouched She let it well up and spill over, pouring into him Rex was overwhel, responding to her need He twisted in the car seat to take her shoulders, and the kiss built, his strength beco hers, until he felt Melissa&039;s hed as they separated "I say again, Rex: fully hu The heavy dread that he had felt since waking and realizing that it was a school day - and a Monday at that - had lifted froers played across his cheek, and she grinned "You taste electric now, like you do after a jolt of coffee"

"H is sort of like nature&039;s coffee"

"Actually, Rex, coffee is nature&039;s coffee It is a plant, you know"

"Ah, right Good point, Cowgirl"

He looked at the gymnasium door A pep rally couldn&039;t be that bad, could it? Better than the hated first-period math class it would replace, and he could use the ti about carrying ancient memories of an elder species around in your head, it could royally screw up your interpretation of Catcher in the Rye

Rex checked his backpack No English book "Listen, I have to go by my locker Save me a seat?"

"Back row?"

"Of course" He snorted "I haven&039;t changed that much"

She nodded slowly, then her eyes narrowed "Should I coue across his teeth They never felt as sharp as he expected the as they should be Phantoht, as if parts of his body were hts from his mind He couldn&039;t coranted so that any seer would die for: a chance to learn s than the lore could ever teach, to understand the and transfor as his huirl," he said "I can take care of ht as always, sunlight spilling through the doors, the fluorescents buzzing overhead in a constant drone

Rex squinted in the light, ree since the change: his vision was lasses at school any here: the e and invention, aeverything crystal clear and so

It was almost too much Soain, distanced behind the thick glasses he&039;d worn since third grade Everything was so sharp now It wasn&039;t just the buzzing fluorescents that annoyed him; Rex could feel the fire alarms and public address system behind the walls, those razor-fine wires that clever hu in a e with electrified bars

And huly Rex noticed for the first tih that the tiled floors were the exact saers Whose idea of interior decorating was that?