Wild Hunt Read Online Free Page A

before. (Counting business trips, it came to something over a dozen, but those were a different matter entirely.) It wasn’t my favorite place. It wasn’t that I disliked MIT; hell, aside from Nate’s psycho-control-freak advisor, most of the people I met seemed decent enough, and I shared the same attitude of bemused incuriosity that most Boston residents had toward this place. After all, most of their big defense work took place outside the city, and aside from theoccasional police car that ended up on top of a building, the university rarely made headlines.
    But I’d dropped out of Boston University after a semester and a half, and I hadn’t had the best record there even before family matters intervened. I wasn’t a college girl, and I had never been. It wasn’t just class issues—my mother might have worked two jobs just to scrape up rent every month, but she had all the dignity of a duchess—but there was a sort of intellectual pressure to which I was a little too sensitive. It made me itchy.
    Nate was about a year away from completing his doctoral work, which to an outsider like me meant that he ought to have an office all his own. But he didn’t; the last time I’d been here, all he had was a cubicle tucked away in one of the libraries. I locked up my bike and spent twenty minutes staring at a campus map trying to remember where I’d found Nate that last time—what was a cyclotron, anyway?—then said the hell with it and went with what I did know.
    The scent trails crossing the green were as vibrant as any on Boston Common, with if anything a greater taste of the bizarre to them simply because of the different blend of people here. I didn’t even need to close my eyes before I’d locked on to Nate’s scent, a fact that I noted with more than a flicker of discomfort.
    Nate had crossed the river on foot, probably after dropping off his little sister at day camp, then followed the river instead of taking the direct route. If I knew Nate, this was probably the only luxury of time he allowed himself. I followed his trail past the weird little brick thing that looked like a missile silo, past another building that looked like the rest of the buildings had been beating up on it, then into another, smaller hall. There wasn’t any security at the front door, but a desk stood on the landing of the third floor, manned by a sharp-nosed woman working on a crossword puzzle. “ID, please,” she said as I started to walk past.
    “I’m meeting someone.”
    “I still need to see your ID.” She held out her hand, and while she was still smiling, it had gone from the pleased-to-meet-you smile to the make-this-quick smile.
    I tried to look innocent, or, failing that, honest. I knew what she saw—grubby bike messenger with black hair sticking out from under her helmet in all directions and the kind of sunburn you only get if you’re naturally pasty white but insist on staying out in the sun. “I’m not with the university. I just need—”
    Down the hall, one of the chairs I’d thought was empty rustled, and a serious face—as serious as an eight-year-old could get, anyway—surrounded by flyaway brown hair peered out at me. “Evie!” Katie Hunter said, and slid out of the chair, lugging a book that was about as long as my forearm. “Are you here to see Nate? I brought my backpack!”
    She hefted a bag that looked heavier than she was. “What are you doing here?” I asked as she dragged it around the security desk.
    “I got out of day camp early. And Nate had to check some records.” She gave me a hug, whacking her book against the back of my legs.
    I winced and patted her head, a little awkwardly. I wasn’t good with kids, but Katie seemed determined to forget that. “I’m with her,” I said to the guard.
    Her eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Cute. But I still need ID.” She shrugged in response to my exasperated look. “Dean’s request. It’s just for the rest of the summer.”
    “Evie.”