CHAPTER 36

Alph's P.O.V

University felt different now—off-kilter, almost empty. I walked around the grounds with this strange feeling. There was some form of peace since she left; quietness that was never present, I didn't realize how much her presence clogged this place until it was not here anymore. Same campus, same buildings, same roads, same faces, but something essential was deleted.

I passed by a group of students on my way to practice. They nodded at me, a few offering half-hearted hellos. I nodded back, but didn't stop to chat. Not that I ever did, but now it was like they didn't expect me to. Everyone had been tiptoeing around me ever since Maxine left, like something had shifted, even if they didn't understand what.

Adding to this atmosphere of weirdness, it had been a week since Coreen had gone to school. People talked about her, put in theories of why she had disappeared, but I knew better. Coreen wasn't the kind of person who would keep out of school for no reason at all; whatever