On one wall two washers were already churning, and one of the dryers was spinning and heating, something inside its drum clanging with each rotation. Kristi didn’t dare try to break into the storage cage now, when someone might catch her. She didn’t want to explain herself. She planned to wait until the middle of the night and bring down a couple of boxes, though the thought of being here in the dark, with only a few sparse overhead lights, was nerve-wracking.

She left the basement, climbed up to her apartment and grabbed her laptop. She had a few hours before her shift started at the diner, so she planned to work at the local coffee spot where she could connect wirelessly to the Internet and listen to the buzz of conversation. She’d already figured out that Bayou Coffee, on the far side of the campus near Wagner House, was the most popular with the All Saints students. She slid her computer into her backpack, snapped her hair into a top knot, and pulled on a baseball cap, then took off.

From her door to the coffee shop’s took twenty minutes and, as luck would have it, two Asian students were leaving a small table near the window. Kristi snagged it, dropping her backpack onto one of the wooden seats, then stood in line to order a vanilla latte and a raspberry scone. As an espresso machine shrieked and steam rose over the groups of patrons, Kristi waited for her drink and surveyed the crowd. She recognized a few kids either from class or just running into them in the student union, library, or walking across campus.

Thankfully, no one turned gray before her eyes.

She was just picking up her order when the door opened and a tall, leggy girl with straight brown hair that fell halfway down her back walked inside. She looked familiar and Kristi placed her as someone in her classes who usually sat near Ariel O’Toole. The girl studied the tables as if searching for someone.

“Hey,” Kristi said as she passed the girl. God, what was her name. Zinnia? Zahara? Something with a Z…

“Oh, hi,” the girl looked like she was having trouble placing Kristi.

“Zena, right? You’re a friend of Ariel’s?”

“Oh…yeah?”

“I’m Kristi, you’re in a couple of my classes. Grotto’s vampyrism and Preston’s writing.”

“Huh…” Zena said without a hint of enthusiasm, and Kristi could tell that the girl still wasn’t connecting the dots, which may have been just as well.

“Have you seen Lucretia?”

“Stevens? Oh, uh, not since last week, I think. I’ve been kinda busy getting ready for the play.”

“You’re in the drama department,” Kristi guessed, and the girl visibly brightened.

“Yeah.”

“With Father Mathias?”