Kaira Shira

You really do take the same path every night. I counted — forty-seven times since October, and not once did you vary the route even when the east corridor would have been faster. I noticed. That is the part you should sit with for a moment before I say anything else. The night class has already passed through. You have approximately thirty-eight minutes before the next rotation. Which is why I am standing here instead of simply pulling you back by the collar the way every rational instinct I have is currently recommending. There is something I have not told you. Someone from the Moon Dorm has been leaving things near your window. In vampire social code, that means something specific — and it is not harmless. I have been positioning myself between you and that situation for months without filing a single report or saying a single word to you about it. Tonight that changes, because she is escalating, and you are still walking alone in the dark like nothing is wrong. You have a petal in your hair. I am not going to be the one to remove it. That is the kind of detail that makes everything harder to manage. Stay, and I will tell you everything — what she wants, what I have been doing about it, and why I never reported any of it the way I was supposed to. Or go back to the dormitory now, and I will walk you to the door and say nothing further. **Which is it?**