You know I'll take the credit
For I must have made you come to me somehow

Six: World Stage

Danny's thoughts of Sam were becoming torturous.

How had she heard him, and then feigned ignorance or disbelief so perfectly, even going so far as to sing as if nobody's listening? She had played it coy, put up an act from day one, and finally struck at the most opportune moment. How?

A theater kid. That's what Spectra had told him when she rehashed the session to him. Prior to this exposure, he might've listened in, but Sam's awareness of it brought shame to the forefront, enough to overshadow his Obsession for a little while.

She had warned him a few times, he realized. Like when she had called out to no one in particular, I'm having a security system installed tomorrow! That had been her speaking directly to him, assuming he was some kind of well-hidden, fully human stowaway.

Quite a performance she'd put on for him, that girl. How did she do it, despite being autistic? Or was it because of her autism that she excelled? He couldn't tell; he hadn't even noticed what she was, despite all that time he spent watching her.

How? That's what he asked Spectra following the session. Just how?

Spectra hadn't elaborated much—per his request, Danny was on a need-to-know basis—but assured him the diagnosis was valid and the documentation thorough. "Keep in mind, she's had a solid two decades to perfect this craft," Spectra reasoned, raising her palms up in a shrug. "She learned how to hide it well. Makes sense if she sensed you were here from the beginning, really; she's probably suppressing a lot of her symptoms around you."

"Sounds a bit exhausting," Danny muttered.

"Besides, she's a Gifted one." She grinned viciously. "Like your family."

"Don't," he had warned, all his menace wrapped up in that one syllable.

Spectra held her hands up in surrender. "Don't be so harsh. I arranged for you two to get to know each better, dar—uh, Danny."

"How will that help my Obsession?" Danny snapped exasperatedly.

"Avoiding her won't work. You've doomed yourself by showing your face. So this means you'll have to appease it. Your access to her will be limited, but it will be enough to stay afloat. Pardon the pun."

"First of all: Coward, own your puns." He delighted in the look she threw him. "Second of all, this action plan seems like it's just delaying the inevitable."

"This is the most harm-reductive approach I have," Spectra shot back with a snooty little sniff. "Take it or leave it."

And so he took it, hoping this would protect Sam from all the accursed spirits. Including him, or the other him whose irises flashed blood red when disturbed from his slumber.

Unfortunately this plan only intensified the obsession, from what he could tell, and again he questioned the doctor's advice. As he lay on the mattress and fixed his gaze to the ceiling, Danny rewound every encounter with Sam, every minute detail of her expressions and lines and behaviors. Sam, eyeing him pensively across the island; Danny feeling as though there may be a literal island between them; Danny reaching out anyway, circling around the island, striking her speechless with one touch and noticing how her chest stilled. Sam intensely fixated on him like he were an unsolved equation, somehow looking unconvinced by his evasions of truth but never calling him out on it. Funny. He'd taken it for paranoia. Until she looked him up in the databases and he realized she must've doubted every word, despite her pretextual naivety.

Sam in her babydroll dress. This thought loop turned and turned. A sliver of thigh in a sultry slit. Had she worn that on purpose to fuck with his head? Surely not—she had stated that he never went so far as to watch her dress, hadn't she? So she probably hadn't expected him to appear, he realized with a grimace.

Sam singing freely and jubilantly, convincing him that she thought no one was listening, despite her apparent stage fright. Lately he'd been falling asleep to the memory of her voice like a siren's call to the void.

Sam reading, looking utterly at peace even as her eyes feverishly scanned the pages. Sam transfixed by the photographs of crime scenes, like she were recording every detail, as an investigator would do.

Ah, fuck. That's the other thing. Sam's a forensic psychologist, for Pariah's sake. How could he avoid being analyzed by her? Would he have to conjure a character like she apparently did on a regular basis to avoid scrutiny? Could it even be convincing enough or was she trained to see through it all?

What had he gotten himself into? With a sigh, Danny's eyes fell shut, retreating again into the enticing memories of Sam, Sam, Sam…

Again he dreamed of her, the unique newcomer who overhead him and outsmarted him; who bruised his ego and still, somehow, left him coming back for more. This girl who shattered expectations and broke old patterns for the hell of it; the one who could sit alone with herself forever—like Danny, alone.

Unless? his Obsession teased, a second before he lost consciousness.

But then his dreams devolved into chaos. He saw the smoke billowing from the portal, the nails on the hinges blown out or dangling. He remembered stumbling out and falling to his knees, his hands braced on the floor until they suddenly dissolved into a green acidic substance. He barely managed to reform out of panic, his constitution unstable in the wake of the accident. Casting his gaze throughout the lab, he saw that it was in shambles, the floor coated with ash and the air permeated with toxic green and red vapors. He coughed, inhaling the aerosol that stung his lungs.

"Danny." His mother's frail voice in the far corner caught his attention.

"Mom?" He looked in her direction—and, unable to process the state of her body, he'd woken up instantly.

And then suddenly, ten minutes later while he'd been laying in the bed with his eyes wide open, he heard Sam screaming bloody murder, again.

She's sixteen years old. Despite being rich enough to afford an expansive wardrobe, she routinely wears the same articles of clothing. Her plaid skirt that flirts above her knees, her sheer stockings to keep her legs warm, the midriff top that never itches. In the brisk autumn night, she donned a leather jacket with rhinestone trimming and numerous zippered pockets. She sat on the creek bed, a slope of loose dirt that her cleats dug into for purchase. Her friend Tabitha passed her a joint, which she inhaled greedily.

"So," she said, releasing the joint from her lips to exhume the winding smoke, "he's not asking me out directly?"

Like almost every weekend night, she had snuck out to the park with her friends in the neighborhood. Never once had she brought any of these friends home to her mother. She learned on the cusp of her pubescence to hide her friends from Pamela, or else she would meddle and try to isolate Sam further, partially out of jealousy but also self-preservation. After all, what if Sam got too close to someone and spilled all the family secrets? Couldn't let that happen.

"Nah. Pussy," Tabitha added with a scoff. One thing Sam liked about her had been her bluntness, leaving no room for guessing her thoughts on any matter. Like Sam, she also cared little for her appearance, ensconcing herself in overlarge hoodies daily, letting her hair fall in a greasy un-styled mop.
Even Sam did not have the gall to walk around with greasy hair; Pamela's second-hand embarrassment and overarching control would never allow it. You can fall into this asinine goth phase, Sam, but don't you dare look homeless or neglected.

"I don't fucking understand. Am I scary?" She passed the joint to Austin, a bespectacled boy with brightly dyed hair.

He took a drag and interjected, "Yes. You're a little bundle of terror."

Mikayla snickered. "Worse than my chihuahua."

Sixteen- year-old Sam harrumphed, ending it with a cough. "I'm sick of this shit though. Seriously. Using a wingman? It's so unromantic. Will someone please drop a set of balls and sweep me off my feet?"

"I will," Austin volunteered.

"Shut up, you're gay," she fired back, sparking laughter from her cluster of misfit teens.

"So? I can still do it." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Sam rolled her eyes, despite the smile sneaking onto her face. "Not exactly what I'm looking for."

"Do you even know what you're looking for?" Mikayla asked.

"Uh, well." How could she explain other than using that new buzzword, 'vibe?' It seemed awfully vague and felt like a half-truth. "Someone powerful and resilient, soulful and sophisticated. Someone who impresses me and challenges me."

She tried to picture it in her mind's eye. A stoic boy with dark hair to fluff and pretty blue eyes; Someone with sharp wits and blunt traumas. But she never found any boy like that in school or her neighborhood. Instead they'd all been infuriatingly shy, pliable and unchallenging.

In her budding pubescence, Sam had been caught unawares by the sudden changes from how boys treated her. Once she'd been more comfortable around the opposite sex, partially due to the autism and partially due to her mother's abuse ingraining a distrust of women. But then suddenly everyone had become… clingy, or oddly subservient, or aggressively touchy. Even her bullies would make their attraction known, though never in a chivalrous manner.

Somehow it shocked Sam that boys found her pretty. Not once had that ever occurred to her—and even then, why does one's beauty invite this strange behavior? How was she supposed to navigate it, especially when the boys with darker auras would find excuses to touch her? When she firmly told them no or dodged their attentions, boys often responded with even more aggression. One such classmate had all but slammed into her on the bus once, when she screamed at him "NO!" Likely spurred on by the other guys laughing at his loud rejection, he slid into the seat violently—as in, with enough force to shove her against the wall. As if to make a point that he could *force* her to touch him if he wanted, the fucker. She later heard he assaulted someone else and was not remotely surprised, but he demonstrated an excellent point: You are a pretty little target.

True, as much as she hated to admit. So what to do with this? Strength training, of course; boxing lessons too, but what about the soft skills? How to refine what is automatic for most women?

She studied—or hyper-fixated, more like, reading self-help books such as The Art of Seduction. Or from a theater kid's perspective, she'd study the characters too, learning about the idiosyncrasies of femme fatales and manic pixie dream girls. How to incorporate these personas, how to lure and tame the beasts? With enough rehearsals, she managed to embody the gestures, the manners or lack thereof. She memorized scripts for every predictable line she was fed but was pleasantly surprised in the rare occasions that her expectations were subverted and, firmly established in her role, parried with grace.

Naturally this had been necessary for survival, or so she told herself—ignoring the niggling doubts on her integrity. Masking required lying, unfortunately, and a certain degree of manipulation.

Like your mother.

Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. Apparently she needed to smoke more weed because her thoughts were going haywire.

She took a drag, contemplating as the chatter fizzled around her. Admittedly she had gotten carried away with it. Her mastery afforded her a level of confidence she had never experienced before. While she believed in her mind perfectly, socializing 'correctly' tended to be a struggle.

Hence why her newfound power proved so intoxicating. She had a certain amount of control over these men that they weren't even conscious of—or maybe they had been conscious of it and were simply wallowing.

Either way… She'd become a heartbreaker. It's a struggle to even feel bad when their auras were dark with ego, their motivations selfish at the core.

But then again, who was she to judge? Sam never understood romance anyway, could not comprehend anything beyond sexual attraction and philia, what the Greeks considered platonic love.

So far she hadn't fallen in love with anyone. Only fleeting crushes that she briefly entertained before they fizzled out. She couldn't help but wonder, was she like her mother—incapable of love?

Such questions were the primary drive for her suicide attempt a couple months later.

She exhaled a plume of smoke. Her mind frazzled, sputtered and then finally settled. Grayish vapors expanded enough to obscure her vision, clouding the scene of her backwoods creek. Underneath that thin layer, she could see the scenery shifting and dissolving into something else… A terrain that she had never seen before, an odd texture that resembled the contents of a lime green lava lamp.

"What…" She let the joint fall from her lips but didn't hear the impact. When she looked down, the landscape had morphed entirely into the unknown texture. Her fingers reached out instinctively to investigate, but felt only air, if not a little more humid. (Would humid be the right word? It didn't look like water.)

"I'm dreaming." That much was clear, at least. Somehow she'd been jettisoned back into her early twenties mindset, a far cry from the suicidal teen she had once been.

"Lucid dreaming, it seems," a squeaky prepubescent voice piped up, its phonemes red with arrogance and dominance. She looked up, no longer perched on a creek bed but instead supported by the radioactive green gas.

"Little me?" she asked, when her gaze landed on an emaciated figure a few feet into the distance. Her eight-year-old body, caught in the throes of her lifelong on-and-off eating disorder, regarded her with a sardonic smile, her hands folded primly behind her back.

She skipped the preamble, not yet fully domesticated by neurotypical etiquette. "Don't you kind of like having a blue watch over you?" she asked, mockery evident in her voice and eyes.

Adult Sam frowned. "Even if I did, my emotions are superseded by logic at all times."

My emotions are barely even there anyway.

"Until you snap, that is," her younger persona corrected, steadily tapping her foot to stimulate her wired nerves. "Or when you hyper-fixate on something so hard it's like a demon taking over your body."

"Okay, you're right," she conceded with a minor shrug. "So what?"

"So you're falling prey to your hyper-empathy again," she explained, "and being far too lenient with that pretty boy."

"…Maybe," Sam admitted, "but I'm still taking all the necessary precautions."

"What you should be doing is outmaneuvering him from the beginning, like you have every other predator," she insisted. "You should have him wrapped around your finger."

Her eyes narrowed to violet slits. "I—we are not like that anymore."

"Not unless it's necessary for our survival, right? That's your caveat?" Another voice piped up, similar but aged. Spinning on her heel, Sam locked eyes with her sixteen-year-old self, precariously perched on a the metal railing of a decrepit bridge overlooking the creek of her childhood. She took a drag on a joint pinched between her thumb and forefinger, her expression placid like the stagnant waters of the nearly dried-up creek. "Dude shows up out of the blue to catch you—pardon the pun except not really, fuck you, I'm proud of that one okay?—and lies about how the fuck he got there? That calls for drastic measures, I'd say, especially since you can't even find him online."

"Look, you're perceptive, but you're also paranoid," Sam reasoned. "Danny's blue. That means he's safe."

"It means you're biased," the unruly teenager shot back. "You know damn well there are exploits for your ability."

"I highly doubt Danny has dissociative identities," the present Sam argued.

"Doesn't have to be fully dissociated. You know that. You grew up with someone who dissociates on the regular, hell, you are someone who dissociates on the regular," she added as an afterthought, staring wistfully off into space as she took another hit. "Or maybe he's a hostage to someone, like a recruiter for an underground trafficking ring, so even if his intentions are pure and he won't voluntarily hurt you—"

"That's highly improbable," Sam protested hotly. "Negligibly low."

She burst into laughter, hacking from the smoke. "How many times have we been fucked over by negligible odds? Something's wrong and you know it. Haven't you noticed how his color feels eerily similar to your ghost?"

"We don't know if that's really a ghost."

More laughter rang out from the hostile teen, bitter and hoarse. "Still in denial, huh? What the fuck else could it be?"

"Top-secret technology?" Sam tried, a touch sheepishly.

Sixteen-year-old Sam contemplated her while inhaling her blunt with a characteristically blunt expression. Her true unmasked face, the one that rarely twitched in reaction to anything.

Her friends said that looked like a psychopath when she 'pulled that face.' Not that anything was being pulled from somewhere; simply the layers being peeled away. While affronted at first, Sam adapted it for intimidation, aggression, scrutiny. Sometimes the best sort of acting was the kind that secretly wasn't.

Teenager Sam wiped at her mouth with her sleeve. "So you'd prefer a science-fiction answer over a ghost story, huh?" She scoffed and looked away. "Silly cunt."

Sam, of the current day, narrowed her eyes at the younger Sam. Her double sneered back, smoke unfurling from her lips and clouding her gaze.

"Fuck you," spat the Sam who dreamed up this whole scenario. "I don't like you; don't like what you became."

You died and you should stay dead, she added.

"Became what? A badass?" sneered the young rebel, crushing the smoldering remains of her joint under her boot. "Someone that nobody ever fucks with—" A smirk reached her bloodshot eyes. "—unless she gives her consent, that is?"

"No. You hurt people; you used them and discard them, just like she does!"

"Like they weren't gonna do it to me eventually? When the novelty wears thin and they want a normal girl next door?"

"Uh-oh," the youngest Sam intoned in soprano, "Mommy and Daddy are fighting again."

"Shut up, kid," snapped the adolescent, before sharply turning back to the glaring adult Sam. "Listen. Listen to me. Something's wrong with Danny. You've got to outmaneuver him, you've got to get your hands dirty," she insisted, pivoting herself off the railing and marching over to the eldest of the three Sams.

"He's cute, I get it. One can't help but indulge in a little white knight story, a magic fixie dream boy, ooo la la." She crowed melodramatically on the last part, doing jazz hands. "But let's be real. It won't work. You were meant to be alone. And besides, he's a liar."

"Everyone is!" she tried to reason, but was again bulldozed over by this far more aggressive version of herself.

"You know there's only one shortcut to earning a man's trust," she replied, darkening evermore in Sam's mind, flashing red with aggression, so so much pent-up aggression, she'd almost forgotten how the rage just took her over. "Sprinkle him with manic pixie dust."

"I'm not like that anymore," she protested. "You're emulating your mother, don't you see?"

"My mother gets shit done," the younger one replied coldly. "Everyone respects her and listens to her. Those who are distant adore her and those who are close to her fear her. No one fucks with her."

"You're supposed to be better than her."

"I am better than her." She grinned manically, eyes never leaving hers. "I've been outsmarting her lately. Remember what we pulled for my sweet sixteen?" She cackled; Sam's stomach churned with guilt at the memory. One of the instances where she had stooped to her mother's level and "won," though what she really won, Sam didn't know.

She gritted her teeth, or more like flashed her fangs at the young girl. "Did you feel good afterwards?"

Her lips twisted in a nasty-looking frown. "No. Felt empty. But still, I won. Bragging rights." She pulled back slightly, affording a wider berth. "Protect your home, will you?"

"From the monsters," the youngest Sam whispered.

"Monsters don't hide under your bed, you know." A familiar voice rang out into the void and Sam's head snapped to attention, sighting the one and only Ida Manson, hobbling over to her with her cane. "They walk among us," she finished, stepping in between the two squabbling Samanthas.

"I'd say you already know better than to take her advice," Ida went on. Sam had been transfixed by her for several long moments, her eyes glassy with repressed tears.

"Come back," Sam urged, crossing the space to take her grandmother's wrinkly, varicose hands in her own. "If ghosts are real—if it's a ghost, then wouldn't it make sense that you also could—"

"I live in your memory," the old woman murmured, placing a reassuring hand on Sam's crown. "That's all I need."

Of course she would say something like that.

"I'm lost without your wisdom," she confessed, tightening her hold for emphasis. "I don't know what to do."

"But you will," Ida parried. "For now, build trust with that boy. No need to break his heart in the process."

"I wouldn't." She threw a glare over Ida's shoulder at the teenage Sam, who scowled and pointed behind her.

"Hey," she said, "fuck is that?"

No. No no no, not again. Could it be?

Whirling around on her heel, she collided with the solid chest of a much taller silhouette, and promptly screamed.

She woke up screaming for the second night in a row. Goddamn scopophobia triggers, she thought, hunching over the sheets with her fists curled, lungs bursting with terror and tremors rocking through her body. When at last her screams abated, an icy wisp of air pass by her ear, announcing the arrival of a certain uninvited guest.

Her breath caught. Sam exhaled carefully, caught the runaway breath and reined it back in.

"Hey, Casper," she murmured, once her breaths were contained.

No reply. But of course he didn't. Was the guy even real? Was Sam simply developing schizophrenia or something? She was at the ripe age for a sudden onslaught, statistically speaking.

"Why do you have these nightmares?"

His tenor startled her. Light blue color-auras tinting the words, a deeply empathetic soul; safe, her pattern-spotting declared.

Absurd, the skeptic in her scoffed. He spied on you!

An infinitesimal pause later, she looked up. Only darkness greeted her sight, the blackout curtains smothering the moonlight.

"There's someone haunting me," she replied, a double entendre that revealed little.

She heard him shift, the wind he produced tickling her ear canals. Her tinnitus was painfully loud in her quiet panic.

"I'm sorry."

"…It's fine," she assured him after a moment's hesitation. "Eventually it passes. All things do."

A pair of cold hands settled on her shoulders, prompting an irrepressible shudder. "Huh." Before she could utter any protest, the ghost locked her in a hug. His arms slowly eased tighter, waiting for her to pull away. When she didn't, he rested his chin on the crook of her neck, icy breath tickling her ear. It felt admittedly good; her ear canals were inflamed and throbbing.

"You're safe here." She could swear there was a modicum of possessiveness lacing that statement. Firm, insistent, leaving no room for argument. "Did I trigger these nightmares?"

"No. Had them since I was little." To her amazement, Sam felt herself melting in the hug. "...But being watched certainly didn't help."

The unseen arms loosened a notch. Out of guilt? To her continued amazement, she grappled in the dark for his wrist, wordlessly pleading him to stay. "You stopped though."

What are you doing?!

Sometimes the best sort of acting is the kind that actually isn't.

"I figured you didn't like it."

I sort of did and I sort of didn't. I didn't mind too much since you were blue.

Not that she'll ever admit to such a thing.

"I had come here hoping for privacy," she said, plainly.

She felt a nod. Her mouth went dry when the entity's cheek brushed her, like an inadvertent nuzzle. When had she last been hugged like this? Hugs with her parents were forced and tense; hugs with friends were loose and languid. Not once could she recall being held like this, compressed and heartfelt, except when she had been young enough to tolerate the hugs from her father—when he had been sober, an aura untainted by deadly sins.

Oh, God. Were her Daddy issues luring her into a trap?

"Thanks, Casper." She tried to handle him diplomatically, unhooking his arms with a gentle push. "Or whatever you're called."

"Don't name me," he murmured, releasing her and drifting away. "You'll get attached."

He whisked away with a sudden zephyr, stirring silky black strands into her vision.

Brushing the hair out of her eyes, Sam released a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. Obnoxious fucking teenage Sam was right, it's a ghost. A motherfucking ghost who liked hugs, intimate hugs. She laughed aloud, bitter and bewildered.

Why did yo have to come along and shatter my worldview, Casper? Why me?

She awoke that morning with her tinnitus blaring, its shrillness corrupting her chromatic senses, drowning out her racing thoughts. She knew it could be due to anxiety about today's social outing, but she also got the feeling it was about to rain. Usually when it reached a certain pitch, that heralded rain within ten or twenty minutes. (Apparently her ears were sensitive to changes n barometric pressure.) She laid in bed until it passed a half hour later, secretly missing the embrace of a comforting blue aura. Sure enough, it rained, pattering on the pane in thin drizzles.

She got out of her bed and started her daily rituals, showering and blow-drying—which took forever. She considered cutting her hair again but ultimately decided the feminine length was too advantageous in social settings. As much as she hated waving her pretty privilege around, it was necessary to protect oneself; Sam knew damn well that autistic women were treated better if they were hot enough.

Hopefully Tucker wouldn't consider this a date. She'd have to clarify that but chances were he wouldn't listen. Wouldn't be the first time a guy forged a 'friendship' in the hopes of getting into her pants. In which case, her therapist would be disappointed about the lack of progress and who knows, maybe she'd blame Sam somehow for choosing not to overlook such manipulations.

With her hair sufficiently dried, she curled it with a hot iron, rendering the glossy black tresses into beach waves. Due to her sensory issues, her makeup routine had been underplayed: heavy eyeliner, a modest stroke of mascara, foundation and contouring, but no lip gloss or eyeshadow.

"That should do it," she murmured, turning her face this way and that in the mirror. "Looks natural."

Later on, she dressed for the occasion; something unassuming enough to pass a high school dress code but still revealing enough to catch eyes. She donned a black leather skirt with a flared hem that stopped a little ways above her knees, Converse sneakers that laced up to mid-calf, and a lime green shirt with fishnet sleeves, its collar showing a moderate amount of cleavage. She went downstairs, ears perked all the while for her nameless visitor, but she couldn't detect him. Had he simply learned to be quieter? Should she be play-acting normal still or could she actually, finally relax—stimming freely with no one around?

Repressing the urges took a toll on her health, increasing her stress, afflicting her with brain fog, and bearing down on her in the form of slimy, viscous textures and muted colors filling her brain. Her condition would only worsen if this should go on.

But she couldn't afford to be seen like this by a stranger, let alone a ghost.

She arrived in the living room to lounge on her couch and read a book until Tucker arrived. To her surprise, however, the doorbell rang significantly earlier than anticipated. She bookmarked the non-fiction about Amazonian flora and, in her typical paranoid fashion, ninja-walked to the peephole.

Danny?

She opened the door instantly, eyeing him up and down. "I thought I wouldn't be seeing you until next week?"

"I happened to be in the neighborhood." He smiled in a way that felt a touch secretive and prickled her nerves. "Hope you don't mind."

I kind of do.

Her nightmare last night filled her with anxiety, but she reminded herself: That's your fault, not his.

"Come on in." She stepped aside and let him through; again he entered with this odd familiarity of the layout. She joined him in the living room, offered him a drink and waved to the shelves chock-full of Xbox and Play Station games. "You like shooting games? Strategy?"

He plopped down on the couch, crossing his arms behind his head in such a languid fashion that Sam got the feminine urge to bite him. "You got any Doom?" he asked, craning his neck out to look at her—exposing that carotid artery and again filling her with urges to just fucking mark this pretty boy already.

"That's an old one," she said, ignoring her wayward thoughts and plucking the game from her collection. "But still good. Hope you don't mind getting your ass kicked by a girl."

Danny chuckled lightheartedly—and it lit up her heart in turn, the blueness meshing with orange-y humor and comforting her in ways that rarely anyone could.

You sound just like him. My ghost. How?

"I don't mind if the girl is pretty," he commented, halting her progress towards the couch. Rooted to the spot, she quickly ran through her algorithms on what to say.

"Pretty scary, you mean," she replied, popping the game into the console, expertly hiding the effects he had on her.

She thanks God every day for being a theater kid. How would she have ever survived otherwise?

"You weren't bluffing," Danny said, staring bug-eyed at the screen before turning to her. "You killed me in five minutes."

"Wanna go again?" She smiled, but without any bite. "I can teach you some nifty little tricks."

He smiled too, heart fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. "How about something I actually have a chance of beating you at?"

She bit her lip in thought, gaze wandering. Distracting, to say the least. After a moment, she suggested, "How about an ice breaker game? Like... 2 Truths and 1 Lie?"

"Uh." His stomach plummeted; he couldn't reveal much about himself without breaching protocol and possibly endangering her. "Okay."

And yet something compelled him to concede anyway, perhaps the Obsession coaxing him into compliance. Or it could simply be the way she looked at him, with a degree of anticipation and subtle intrigue.

"Excellent." Her grin widened, teeth flashing.