Elena had always been perceptive—too perceptive, some would say. At just sixteen, she saw details others overlooked: the way Mr. Grayson always seemed to be standing at his window when she passed, the hurried whispers of her neighbors that stopped when she entered a room, the feeling of unseen eyes crawling over her skin. She cared about people, even those she didn’t know, perhaps too much. She was always the first to ask if someone needed help, always the last to give up on someone who seemed lost. But lately, the weight of her concern had begun to crush her. There was something wrong with her neighborhood, something unsettling in the way her street functioned like an intricate web—and she, the unsuspecting prey caught in its center. It started subtly. The sudden hush when she stepped outside, the eerie way people turned away as soon as she made eye contact. Then, one evening, she overheard a fragment of conversation between two neighbors. “She knows.” Elena had frozen in pl...