ADVANCE READING COPY
1
ONE
Feeding Day
My mother always told me
never to fall in love with my food.
There was no chance of that today. Jordan Rex was not
someone I—nor anyone with half an
iq
point—would ever
fall in love with. He
was
food though. I could smell his blood
from fifty feet away, the scent mingling with the alley’s stink
of dried urine and curdled milk.
I padded along on bare feet, the
Bachelorette
-style high
heels I’d worn to the bar stuffed into my backpack purse.
Stilettos are helpful in a waitress interview or on the dance
floor, but hunting shoes they’re not. I scanned for security
cameras. The blurred images of me feeding in Boston had
forced the move to Seattle. I was already deathly sick of the
constant drizzle.
Mr. Rex was wobble-weaving a path farther and farther
down the alley into sketchy territory—buildings with broken
windows, a few rusted fire escapes hanging loosely on the
walls, no lights in any of the windows. He stood at least six
