Excerpt: To Where the Roads Lead

She didn’t turn when he called out to her, didn’t acknowledge that he ran to catch up to her as she pushed through the doors of the library. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just walked in awkward silence next to her out to the parking lot.
“So what did you do to get on Mrs. Lawrence’s bad side?” Neil asked.
“None of your business,” Maei quickened her step, all too aware that he was almost towering over her. No he wasn’t almost, he was at six feet two inches if she was any judge of height.
“She’s always been so nice to me, I was just curious.”
“Well bugger for you then.” She stopped at her motorcycle, parked at the end of a long row of empty spaces.
“Seriously,” he gripped her arm and turned her. Maei stared at the hand gripping her arm and then up into his face. She pursed her lips and he let her go.
“She just doesn’t like me. I don’t have to do anything but step in the door and I am blamed for all the woes and worries of her library.” She secured her bag around her and pulled the hood of her jacket up over her head. Swinging her leg over the seat she inserted the key into the ignition and the bike breathed in life. Maei gently put a hand on a flat console near the ignition, it glowed, and the bike began to hum.
She almost kicked back from the curb but curiosity stuck in her gut like a sharp nail and she had to ask. “What are you a doctor of, if I may ask?”
Neil blinked at the question. “Archaeology and linguistic studies.”
“You’re Dr. Neil Hunter?”
“Uh, yep,” he stuck his hands in his pockets. “How do you know that?” But instead of answering Maei turned her bike from the curb and sidled out of the parking lot and down the dark road that led around the library and off the college campus.