THE PRICE OF FOCUS

CHAPTER 3: THE OBSESSION BEGINS

The first note appeared on Monday, slipped between the pages of Daniel's organic chemistry textbook like a clandestine love letter.

*Page 147: Your Henderson-Hasselbalch calculation is off by 0.4 pH units.

—E.C.*

Her handwriting was disturbingly perfect—each numeral and decimal point etched with the precision of an autopsy report. The red ink matched exactly the shade he'd used to circle his own mistakes.

By Wednesday, she'd reassembled his discarded rough work. The crumpled sheets now lay flat on his desk, taped together in a mosaic of equations, with corrections blooming in crimson along the margins like bloodstains.

But it was Friday's gift that stopped his breath.

Wrapped around his pencil case: a single strand of dark hair, knotted in an intricate surgeon's suture. The ends were freshly cut—razor-sharp.

Daniel's fingers trembled as he unspooled it. Too long to be his. Too coarse to be Sarah's.

The bell rang.

He turned to find Evelyn leaning against the lab table, her white coat pristine, a scalpel twirling between her fingers like a baton.

"Curious about tensile strength?" She nodded to the hair. "Human hair can withstand up to 3.5 ounces of force before snapping." The scalpel flashed. "But everything has its breaking point."

Behind her, the dissection trays gleamed under fluorescent lights. The frogs' pinned limbs quivered as if still feeling the knife.