Natalia took my hand and led me through the dark hallway. Her room was three doors down from mine. The door opened silently because Natalia maintained everything in her life with obsessive care. The room smelled like her. Cold flowers and expensive shampoo and the ozone undertone of someone whose Aspect leaked frost into their sheets.
She closed the door behind us. The lock clicked.
Maki sat in the hallway, tails swishing. I heard a faint, disappointed mewl before Natalia's room swallowed all outside sound.
The moonlight through Natalia's window turned everything silver. She stood at the foot of her bed and let the towel fall. It puddled around her feet like a surrendered flag.
