"Oi, new guy!"

　　I stopped with my hand on the knob to my room and turned to find a woman flagging me down. She was introducing herself, but I was too distracted to pay attention to what she was saying. From the looks of things, she was only a few years older than me, no more than twenty-five, and pretty in a flower child, boho, hippie sort of way with her short, thin linen skirt and one of those macrame, mostly see-through crop tops with a plunging neckline. Just looking at her triggered me, and I found myself justifying the forming plans to check her out more discreetly at a later time& and then I remembered my rehab training and forced my brain to engage. "... 5C, so I guess we`re neighbors! Tell me your name?"

　　"Oran."

　　"Oran," she repeated. "Well it`s nice to meet you, Oran."

　　She extended her hand in greeting, and I accepted the gesture with a handshake that lasted probably three times longer than it should have while I gawked and tried not to appear like I was gawking. "Sorry, tell me your name one more time. It`s& been a long day."

　　She laughed, light and airy& like her top-

　　Focus!

　　"... to be expected. I remember when I first signed on. Keeping everyone`s name straight just takes time. My name is Daisy."

　　"Daisy. Fitting," I muttered.

　　"What`s that?" she asked, leaning in to better hear me with the secondary, unintended effect of giving me a perfect view down her shirt. And for the first time in my life, I looked away! Stupid prison rehab&.

　　"Uh, um, your name. It seems fitting& for you."

　　"Oh," she laughed again, "that`s cute. Well, thank you."

　　"Sure."

　　"So& have you eaten dinner yet?"

　　"S-sorry?"

　　"Dinner. Have you eaten yet?" she repeated.

　　"Not yet."

　　"Care to join me then? I could show you around, introduce you to some of the other team members?"

　　"That could be nice," I agreed. And then I realized that if she was on my team`, I was going to have to maintain a professional relationship with her, and that made having dinner together- under these circumstances- inadvisable. "But actually, maybe not tonight."

　　"Oh? Why? Do you have other plans or something?"

　　"Well, n- uh, yeah? Sort of?"

　　"What sort of plans?" she pressed.

　　"I don`t& um&."

　　"So you`re just trying to get out of it."

　　"N-!"

　　"No, it`s fine. So, are you just going to creep on me more indirectly? Is that preferable?"

　　"W-what?!"

　　"We all know already," she shrugged, the barest hint of a smirk quirking the corner of her lips.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

　　"Y-you do!? Know what? Who`s we`?"

　　"You didn`t think Argus would hire a guy out of the pen without running his file by us first, did you?" Daisy seemed to be teasing, but I still wasn`t certain how to respond. "Argus specifically asked if I was ok bringing you on as the only woman on the team. Just a fair warning, Kane will knock your teeth in if you try anything with me."

　　My tongue unconsciously scraped against my incisors at the thought. "Uh, who is Kane?"

　　"He`s the guy you creeped on this morning during the audition."

　　"It`s not creeping," I found myself protesting. "I was just-"

　　"- spying?" That smirk grew a little darker, and I prickled at the underlying disgust such an expression held. "Kane said he never saw you. How does your gift work, exactly? If you can project your reflection into another reflective surface and watch and listen, shouldn`t people be able to see your reflection?"

　　"If you know where to look," I shrugged, trying to play off a flare of rising anger. "I`ve gotten pretty good at hiding it."

　　"I`m sure," Daisy`s eyes narrowed, taking a small, challenging step forward. "As a sign of good faith, tell me what to look for."

　　"How about I show you?" I countered the challenge head on.

　　Her posture and expression relaxed; instead, something more akin to surprise lifted her brow microscopically. "Right now?"

　　"Sure, but first, do me a quick favor."

　　"What`s that?"

　　"Change your shirt."

　　"My shirt?"

　　"You said it yourself that you`ve seen my file. I`m a recovering addict, or at least, I`m still deciding whether or not I want to recover. While I`m figuring that out, I don`t need the& distraction."

　　"Are you trying to shame me?!" she balked.

　　"Not at all. But you know what I am, apparently, so I don`t see much point in pretending otherwise. Addictions are somewhat compulsory, or so the prison psychologist told me. If you don`t want me to creep` on you, don`t give me a reason to."

　　"I am not responsible for your lack of self-control, and I`m not your mother," she spat with obvious indignation.

　　"No, of course not," I snapped back with an equally bitter sneer, "but just like a supportive friend wouldn`t smoke in front of someone trying to quit smoking&."

　　"I see your point," came the reluctant growl.

　　"It`s nothing personal. And for the record, you do look good, but most girls find that disturbing coming from me."

　　Her face twisted. The tease was gone. The anger was gone. The confidence of introducing herself to me in the first place was gone. I`d seen it countless times. She was shrinking away from me, making herself smaller, an unconscious effort to become a less attractive target- to not become my next victim. Anxiety merged with disgust in the way her nose scrunched and face otherwise pinched. I hated that this was always the response I got from people, women especially.

　　A creeper`s gift.

　　A villain`s gift.

　　Which meant I was a villain. And I was&.

　　She shuffled off into her room, and I slumped against the wall of the hallway, sliding down to the floor to wait for Daisy`s return, contemplating the events that had led me to this moment.

　　I hadn`t always been like this. Most early pubescent boys were at least a little curious about the fairer sex. The difference was, most thirteen-year-olds couldn`t readily do much with that interest. Me, on the other hand? Full access, any time I wanted, all I needed was a mirror. As an early teen, I had no idea that that sort of crap was every bit as addicting as Cozmic, and apart from a knowledge that I should probably keep my spying a secret, I certainly never equated it with assault or abuse. At most it was a breach of privacy, and by the time I`d developed the maturity to question those assertions, the habit- the addiction- was already way too ingrained for my mere willpower to conquer on its own. So I didn`t bother to try.

　　In some ways, prison was good for me- the whole getting counseling and rehab treatment part, anyway. And, yeah, as much as I hated it, getting cut off from using my gift cold turkey for six months was something of a hard reset.

　　Sitting in the hallway, I ran through one of the mental exercises I`d been taught by the prison therapist, pondering who I wanted to become and what I needed to do to get there. My answer to that thought experiment was always the same: I wanted to be someone whom people wouldn`t automatically look at in the way Daisy had looked at me just moments before& which meant I had to figure out how to beat this addiction.

　　"Is a t-shirt and jeans better?" Daisy exited her room to ask.

　　My head snapped up to look at her, from her strappy sandals, over her conservative outfit and exasperatedly cocked hips, to the almost judgmental pursing of her lips and electric stare. I smiled weakly and nodded. "Thanks."