The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,2

would suffer during that time. All feared what she had already suffered… if she still lived. “If they’ve harmed Amiriska,” he vowed, “they will be punished.”

His father nodded. “They will be punished.”

Chapter One

Texas

Lisa Holt stuffed her binder and heavy Biology II book into her backpack and rose.

“See you in sociology,” Vanessa said as she passed.

Lisa smiled. “See you there.” As she strode up the aisle of desks, she glanced at her professor. A couple of students chatted with him. Lisa held back until they were finished and let them pass. “Hi, Dr. Aguera.”

“Hi, Lisa,” he replied with a smile. “How are you? Hanging in there?”

She nodded. Dr. Aguera was her favorite professor. Not for the reason some of her female classmates loved him—because he was tall, handsome, and in his thirties. Lisa had just found him to be a very nice person. And, more than any of her other professors, he had really helped her after her father’s unexpected death. “I wondered if you’d glance at some of these and tell me what you think?” She held up a handful of flyers.

“Sure.”

Leaning back against his desk, he took the pages and began to peruse them.

Lisa waited patiently. Though Dr. Aguera was not her assigned academic advisor, he was the one she had turned to when the world had crashed down around her and she’d had to drop out of school last year. Unlike the friends she’d had in high school, Lisa hadn’t been able to leap right into college after graduation. Her mother had needed her too much after her cancer diagnosis, as had her father. The college fund her parents had spent years scrimping and saving and accumulating had instead gone toward covering high insurance deductibles, travel costs for treatments, medications and fees insurance wouldn’t cover, and the loss of her mother’s income. Her father had worked two jobs while Lisa stayed home and cared for her mom. She worked part-time at a bookstore to help make ends meet and to try to reduce the debt her parents were steadily racking up as her mother’s long battle continued. A battle she had ultimately lost after six years.

Lisa’s father had fallen apart. He had loved her mother dearly and couldn’t forgive himself for not being with her when his wife had died. Both he and Lisa had thought there would be more time, so he had been at work, struggling to avoid bankruptcy. The fact that he had not been with the woman he loved during her final moments had utterly crushed him.

Lisa had suppressed her own grief and done what she could to help him. She continued to work even while she started college on a partial scholarship. But her father never recovered. A year ago, halfway through her freshman year, a car accident had taken him from her, too. He’d been driving drunk. The other accident victim had survived with thankfully minor injuries. But lawyers and insurance companies had swooped in and taken everything, as had the hospitals still awaiting outstanding payments.

Lisa had spent the past year trying to get back on her feet. Dr. Aguera had been her lifeline here on campus, ensuring her other professors dropped her from their classes instead of failing her when she’d suddenly found herself without a home or a job and no way to attend classes shortly before finals. Once she’d found a full-time job at an all-night Superstore and rented a crappy apartment, he’d helped her apply for grants and scholarships so she could resume taking classes.

“I would avoid this one,” he murmured, handing back one of the flyers. “They’re being too cagey on the details.”

“Okay.”

He’d also tipped her off to alternative ways to earn a little extra money on the side. He’d had to work his way through grad school. And one way he’d made ends meet was by participating in clinical studies various medical groups advertised on the science building’s noticeboard.

Lisa hadn’t even thought of that, nor had she paid attention to the notices, assuming they were mostly students looking for roommates or frat-party announcements. But there were also, she discovered, calls for paid volunteers for studies, just as Dr. Aguera had said. So far she had been paid to participate in several. Her favorites had been a cholesterol study and a blood pressure study. Both had paid her for participating and supplied all her meals, so it had been a win-win… and the first time since her father’s death that she had been able to eat three