Miriya

Chapter 2

When the first scalding mouthful of coffee slid down her throat, Miriya Templeton was still not entirely sure she was fully awake. She wrapped her fingers around the mug to warm them as she stared blearily at the crowd bustling past the coffee shop in Harvard Square.

She allowed her mind to drift, to listen to the quiet flutter of passing thoughts preoccupied with daily toil—uncompleted homework, an upcoming exam, approaching work deadlines, conflicting job schedules, unpaid rent, a dirty kitchen, a traitorous girlfriend, an unreliable babysitter, a failing marriage, gossipy roommates, an overdue oil change, and inevitably, the general crappiness of the weather.

Miriya sighed. It just went to show that telepathic eavesdropping rarely paid off. The thoughts of others were, as a rule, boring, and worse, depressing. Occasionally, she picked up a gem, but she had to hunt for it, usually by sitting in graduate-level classes—undergraduates were almost always more preoccupied with finding the next party than delving into the secrets of the universe—or, when she had the time to make her way down to D.C., wandering the halls of Congress and listening to the thoughts of members of the House Committee of Ways and Means.

The last tip she picked up had made her several hundred thousand dollars richer. It paid, in cash, for her Cambridge condominium as well as her sporty red coupe, and freed her from the burden of keeping men company—men whose only two claims for her attention were wealth and a weak mind. Her telepathic capabilities had kept those dates short and devoid of sex while rich, literally, in outcomes.

Ever since she found a way to keep her income flowing, she no longer had to trouble herself with dull dates and the occasional irate wife or girlfriend, leaving her an abundance of time to do precisely nothing.

Miriya stared at her untouched croissant. Now that she had everything she needed, she was no longer certain what she wanted.

Well, until she figured it out, she had her routine to keep her busy. She reached for the backpack nestled at her feet and pulled out her electronic tablet to check the class schedules for the day. Miriya glanced at her watch. Classics 407: Violence and Sacrifice in Ancient Greece sounded decidedly irrelevant, which made for perfect cocktail-party-chatter material. The class started at 11 a.m. She would have just enough time to make it across the Harvard campus.

She poured her remaining coffee into the thermos flask, slid her backpack over her shoulders, and started on her trek to the next class.

Something brushed against her mind—an almost tangible touch. She jerked to a stop and looked sharply over her shoulder. The crowd flowed around her, the endless babble of their inane thoughts fading into white noise as she tried to zero in on the sensation of another mind, as honed as her own.

Elusive, it remained out of reach—a hint of a shadow rather than actual darkness. Had she only imagined it?

Frowning, she pushed to a brisk walk. Her eyes stayed focus on the path ahead, but her mind swept out. Once or twice, she brushed against that something, but each time, it retreated.

She threw out a thought. Quit playing with me.

She could have sworn she heard a chuckle—a warm male voice, rich with good humor rather than malice.

It did not say anything else.

Her ratty sweatshirt and faded denim jeans helped her blend into the ranks of shabbily dressed graduate students as she walked into the classics class and took a seat at the back of the room. With an affected air of boredom, she pulled her computer notebook from her backpack and opened it, ostensibly to take notes.