“Right. I’m Sam, from five-oh-five.” She gestured behind her. “You, uh, here permanently? Because, you know, these dorm rooms aren’t meant to hold more than one person.”

Athena found herself in something of a bind. “I’m certain that Big Sister Emily has permission, probably.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “Do you want to come with me? I’m sure there’s someone from the staff downstairs. The janitor, at least. He might be able to open the door.”

Open the door and reveal the mattress with Teddy on it. “I’m okay,” Athena said.

“Come on, I can’t just leave you out here,” Sam said.

Athena frowned a little, then, very carefully, she wiped away the expression and replaced it with a smile. Her power came on, like a dimmer switch given the faintest little nudge. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t trust the staff here.”

“You don’t trust the staff,” Sam deadpanned. She had a hand on her hip now and was looking increasingly unamused.

“No,” Athena said simply. She turned the dial up on her power. “Would you trust them? Do you even know who they are, or what they’ve done?”

“Uh,” Sam said. She looked past Athena, toward the elevators at the end of the hall.

“How much did you pay for your room? It wasn’t that much, was it? Did you ever consider there might be a reason for that?”

“Well, no?”

Athena pushed her power up another notch. She watched, carefully, as Sam shifted her weight from foot to foot, how her hand dropped, and her confident stance turned to one of a mouse darting across an open field. But through all that, Sam never saw the smiling Athena as a predator. “Do you really think I’d be here if I didn’t have permission? Of course not.”

Sam licked her lips. “Yeah, I guess,” she said.

“And if you go to the staff . . . you wouldn’t want them to start looking around, would you? What if they . . . find something?”

Sam was sweating now, despite the cool air in the corridor. She was eyeing the shadows and the corners, then frowning as if to herself. She knew there wasn’t anything there, nothing to be afraid of, that the staff obviously weren’t out to get her.

The mere idea was ridiculous.

But Athena’s power forced her to ask a simple “What if?”

What if the staff was malicious? What if they did look through her room? What if there was something hiding in those dark corners and in those shadows?

Athena held the dial on her power, keeping it steady. It was enough to have Sam doubt everything for now. She didn’t need to be pushed any further.

“I’ll be fine,” Athena said.

The words, after nearly a minute of silence, made Sam jump. “Oh?”