I want to see if I can smell his cologne."

“Oh good grief," Anthony said, annoyed that he was temporarily not the center of feminine attention. Not that he had anything against Dr.

Reichert, but he had his pride.

As much fun as it might be to let Joanna feel her up, she saw that Madison girl standing up to leave. Her friend was shaking his head and giving her a sorrowful glare.

“Be right back," she said, moving towards the entrance of the room. She got there just before the girl did.

“Hey . . . Madison is it?" she asked as the girl slowly navigated the crowd, most of whom were more than happy to avoid being near her.

"Yes?" the girl asked, "staring" straight forward. Her mouth parted slightly and she waited for a response.

"My mame is Heda," she said quickly, then realized she wasn't sure what to say. ‘Hey, I'd like to hang out with you because I feel sorry for the way you've been treated,’ she thought. Yeah, that'd go over well. People really dig being pitied.

"And?" the girl asked her mouth pursing a bit. She looked irritated.

"I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime or --"

Madison growled.

"Oh, so they're starting already. You're the Trojan Horse hunh? Well go tell Alvin . . . never mind," she said, her anger quickly deflated. She looked tired.

"It's not like anything I say is going to matter." She swatted at where she knew the other girl's legs would be with her cane.

“Hey! Heda said, jumping out of the way as Madison cautiously stormed past.

"Bitch!" she called after the bat girl. Madison kept going, and Heda headed back to her table. ‘What the hell was that about?"

“What did you want to talk to Madison about?" Joanna asked.

“I just wanted to say hi and she was a total bitch to me!"

“Probably just a defense mechanism or something. She gets ragged on a lot. Now, let's talk about what we're going to do this weekend. It must involve dancing, might involve alcohol," she added giving Anthony a sexy look, "if we can find someone to buy, and it will definitely involve going up into the mountains to let our wild sides out!"

Heda smiled, caught up in her roommates enthusiasm and forgetting all about bitchy Madison.

Outside, Madison Sloan made her way back to her dorm room. She pretty much lived on campus year round due to her summer classes.

She wanted out of this “shifter paradise" as quickly as possible. In many ways, it was worse than the changeling foster care system that she had grown up in. There, she at least had adults looking after her. Here, all she had were Billy and Sasha, and they couldn't be around all the time.

Once she was sure she was alone, she called her Gift again. Waves of sound well outside of the hearing range of humans or even other changelings emanated out, bouncing off objects for hundreds of yards in any direction. Her totem animal was a California Myotis bat, which was a small and nimble insect eater, but it's echolocation abilities were finely tuned. Madison's were a hyped up version of that. Even in human form, she could make out shapes, speeds, densities, and even directions of movement. In many ways, she could "see" better than most people, but she couldn't tell if someone was a shifter or not.

Since the ability also required her throat muscles, she couldn't echolocate and talk at the same time. Only she and her two friends knew that she even had the ability. It was her secret weapon, and one of the only things that kept her from being more victimized than she already was.

She took off at a jog, still angry at Alvin and this Heda character, who had to be just another of Alvin's new stooges. ‘Okay,' she thought, ‘I get it. You don't like me, consider me a genetic failure, and think I should've been put to death. My existence isn't interfering with yours, so just leave me the hell alone.’ At least being alone was something she knew how to do. Until she'd met Billy and through him Sasha, she hadn't had a real friend in . . . ever.

In the changeling foster-care system, they had to protect her. They didn't have to like her.

Jogging felt good to her. Not as good as flying, but it was a start.

She knew the campus like the back of her hand, and she could navigate it easily even without her echolocation. Assuming it wasn't filled with people. She was making good time, dodging around some objects and jumping over benches. She loved to move with this kind of freedom, and her sour mood quickly melted away. Then, she sensed something off.

She stopped in her tracks. Up ahead, there was a large box hanging from some kind of metal frame right outside Barber Hall, the main social sciences building. It hadn't been their earlier, and was oddly located.

'No,' she thought, ‘it's not a box. Too circular. And there are openings and . . . and there's something inside.‘ There was something in there, and it was human shaped. Then Madison heard something sniffle.

"Hello?"