Do I Belong Here?

When Carter hears knocking at his door at 2:17 a.m., he expects trouble.
He doesn't expect a girl.
Barefoot. Shivering. Silent.
She doesn't remember where she came from. She doesn't understand why the streetlights hurt her eyes. And she definitely doesn't understand why her chest feels tight every time Eli looks at her.
But underneath her skin - beneath the warmth, the pulse, the almost-too-perfect smile - something hums. Something mechanical. Something not entirely human.
Her name is Nova. At least, that's what she tells him.
As Eli helps her learn how to blend in - how to laugh at jokes, how to eat without calculating nutritional data, how to pretend her heartbeat isn't slightly off rhythm - he starts to realize she isn't just hiding from the world.
She's hiding from the people who built her.
And the more human she becomes, the more dangerous it is for her to stay.
Because falling in love was never part of her programming.