A shadow slid across the wall as I passed Shelly's room. I quickened my step, trying not to look at the half-open door. The scent of lavender, always strong in her room, seemed suffocating, almost cloying, today.

Shelly... She was strange. She always had been. Since we'd met, she'd been paying me a certain... attention. At first, it was flattering, then awkward, and now, frankly, frightening.

She knew all my habits, my favorite books, even what I ate for breakfast. She would appear where I least expected her to be, as if she could read my mind. And her gaze... It would burn through me, as if she was trying to extract something from me that I didn't want to give.