Okay. Okay. Erin's not reading her mind, but if the energy has changed due to her recent catastrophic levels of overthinking regarding her own thoughts and feelings, then Helena's still in danger. Thankfully, Johnny didn't know her against her will but by her own admission in conversation, and Mr. Smith doesn't know her well enough to start prying up the floorboards of her consciousness. Being perceived by Ava was bad enough, and that was in the gentlest capacity.

All of this takes place in about two seconds, but Helena breathes, lets it go to be filtered back into the categorized boxes that she keeps all thoughts that need to be dwelled on when she's unable to write.

"All right. I'm not irritated at you. I'll think of it as a sort of advanced intuition and live with it."

That's bearable. That's within her capacity.

"But that doesn't answer my question."