With every hour that passed, the hunger only intensified, until neither of us could recognise ourselves. We'd thought that, at the very least, the meat stocked up in the fridge could keep us stable, but we couldn't calm down. We really did try to get along, but our minds had been put on mute while our bodies warped us with instinct.

  "Move your hand." Autumn snarled between mouthfuls.

  I glared back, ripping a chunk off of a lamb chop instead of insulting her.

  At least we weren't fighting physically right now. It seemed like every half hour one of us would pounce at the other, and our hunger prevented us from healing to the best of our abilities. The whole left side of my face ached from when she'd slashed it, even though the skin had mostly reformed.

  I could feel her own pain radiating from across the table. The bite I'd left on her shoulder was risking infection, my venom not mixing well with her vampire DNA. The wound was still open, and slightly purple. It was a little concerning, given that almost every other injury I'd thrown her way had at least scabbed by now. I'd never bitten a vampire, I had no way of knowing what my venom would do to her.

  And at this point I was too hungry to give a shit. She'd tried to steal my food. It was her fault, really.

  I noticed her glance over to my plate.

  "Don't even think about it." I growled.

  She hissed back.

  "Wasn't gonna! Mine's better anyway."

  "Nuh-uh."

  "Yeah! Lamb sucks. It's all chewy and splits apart."

  "Chicken is worse! It's not even in one piece. White meat is disgusting."

  "You're just jealous that I have a whole chicken to myself, Zach!"

  "No I'm not! If I wanted the chicken, I'd have taken it by now."

  "Nah! You wouldn't even try."

  "You think I'm scared of you?"

  "I think you're a pussy, yeah."

  That sent me launching over the table to attack her. Autumn roared and clawed at my arms as we rolled to the ground.

  I felt like a backseat passenger in my own body. Watching, listening, but barely in control. Merely the observer, while pure generational instinct took the wheel. It had a very convincing voice, promising me that the thousands of years of evolution that had been passed down through DNA had taught it how to treat others of our kind. It said we were to protect what we've earned, our territory, and to eliminate any competition. I was too weak to argue.

  I could smell more and more of my own blood alongside hers the longer we scrapped. Fangs met flesh, claws grazed muscle. Blood spilled over every surface. It was only when I bit her neck that she suddenly cried out rather humanely.

  It woke me up for a moment, and I found the strength to get off of her.

  Dripping crimson and torn flesh, I stared down at her through bloody eyes.

  "Why are you upset?" I muttered, barely stable enough to remember how to speak.

  Autumn clutched her neck and sobbed, still on the floor. Her face had scrunched with a million emotions.

  "I'm not!" She insisted.

  "You're crying." I cringed. "It's weird."

  Autumn sobbed quietly for a few moments more as she tried to figure out what was happening.

  "Um... You just..." Her tone was trembling. "Reminded me of something. I don't know what."

  I felt myself slipping away again and rolled my eyes.

  "Get up and fight or get lost." I ordered. "Admit defeat."

  "I didn't lose!" She argued, rising to her feet and wiping her eyes. "I don't know what that was. I-I'm not weak!"

  "Liar!" I shoved her.

  Her back hit the bricks behind her and her breath caught upon impact.

  "You're not stronger than me!" Autumn yelled. "That food is mine!"

  "Go and take it, then!"

  "What if I ate you instead?"

  "You'd eat me?"

  "I'm considering it!"

  "You can't even beat me in a fight, Victoria! How the fuck do you think you're gonna tie me down and cut me up?"

  "I'm running out of options!" She shouted back. "I'm seconds from it!"

  "Then what are you waiting for?" I roared. "Eat me!"

  Silence burned through our ears like ultraviolet radiation. The air was thick, and the scent of blood even thicker. Scratches adorned almost every surface of the kitchen, and whatever they didn't was painted red regardless. Her scarlet eyes bore into my own. The sound of our laboured breaths and pants filled the scene. We weren't there anymore, all that remained were our instincts piloting our husks.

  And in the instant I truly expected her to attack me, I nearly fainted as her lips met mine.

  The familiar burning spread under my skin. Her touch was scorching yet so driven. Her bloody breath hit my lips before her mouth did. Maybe she really was trying to eat me, with how her fangs tore my lip.

  I was stunned.

  I couldn't stop her, and I couldn't stop myself. My sanity sat back and I witnessed my own hands reach for her waist, my own eyes flutter shut, my own breaths turn to growls.

  Autumn grabbed my neck and pushed me against the wall, and I nearly whimpered at the force. I hadn't ever expected her to be like this, but then again, I couldn't even predict my own actions.

  "I hate you." I huffed.

  "God, I hope so." Autumn growled back.

  My hand left her waist to grip the counter to the side of me, nails scratching the granite. This was ridiculous, I knew that, but for the first time in months, I felt alive. She felt alive. Her skin was warm, hot even. I could hear her blood rushing. Even though we wanted each other dead, and I felt like a male praying mantis right now, this was the one thing I'd always hoped for. I was finally able to do this with Victoria after years of considering it impossible – even if she had to have hijacked some random vampire's body to get here. She clearly wanted this, so who was I to say no?

  "Are you gonna kill me?" I mumbled as I caught my breath.

  "Are you gonna let me?" Autumn whispered back, her hand reaching for my waistband.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She kissed me like she owned me, and I knew in that moment that I didn't care if I'd lost the fight anymore. I let her win. All I knew was there wasn't any risk of me seriously hurting her this time, she wasn't human anymore. I didn't have to hold back.

  That was a dangerous, dangerous thought.

  -

  "Veronica, yes," Isabella sighed, "Gosh, how many years has it been?"

  "Around three months." Diego deadpanned.

  "Is that so?" The woman hummed. "Time moves slowly for a griever."

  The conversation was going nowhere yet driving Diego up the walls. From what he could tell, the whole family had screws loose.

  The house was in shambles. Cracks in the ceiling, holes in the walls, and absolutely cluttered. It was hard to find the carpet under all of the junk. The furniture was all mismatched, and hardly in acceptable condition. The strange smell coming from the kitchen was probably fine for the humans, but both Diego and Apple were having a hard time containing their disgust. Across the room, two young kids were chasing each other around the dining table while an exhausted teenager argued with them. The toddler from earlier found their way back to their mother's leg.

  Speaking of, the woman barely knew a thing about her own daughter. Diego had tried to push her for even just basic information about Victoria, but it seemed he knew more than she did. She couldn't get her name right, didn't know what year level her class had been, and knew almost nothing beyond that. Apple was fighting the urge to snap her neck as karma for her negligence.

  "Did Victoria ever exhibit signs of an anxiety disorder of any sorts?" Diego tried, despite knowing his attempts were useless. "Did she ever have any mental health issues?"

  "That girl was all over the place." Isabella scoffed, picking up the toddler on her leg. "One night she'd be happier than a daisy, the next she'd be all bossy and angry for who knows what reason. She'd come home late at night covered in bruises and cuts and scream at anyone who asked a thing."

  "Where did she go, those nights?" Diego's eyes narrowed.

  "Never told me." Isabella shrugged. "Probably to her boyfriend's house. I told her to stay away from him, no emo-lookin' boy is ever good."

  Apple stood from her chair and wandered around, studying the house in a mixture of pity and resentment.

  "Would you mind if I looked in Victoria's bedroom?" She asked.

  "Huh? Oh, yeah." The woman muttered. "It's the third one. I think."

  "I think." Apple repeated bitterly under her breath.

  Letting Diego continue his pointless investigation, Apple entered what she could only guess was Victoria's bedroom. It was hard to tell with all the junk covering it.

  The window was cracked. The bookshelf was cluttered with trinkets and trash. The bed was hiding under mountains of children's clothes. Boxes filled most of the open area. Apple felt like a drug-dog at a package sorting centre. There were so many scents and traces of individual things on every surface. From rubbish to candles to marijuana. One box specifically reeked of weed, and it was clear it didn't belong to the ghost who owned the room.

  Apple saw so much of herself in this place that she felt like vomiting and crying at the same time. It was hard to forget what her life had been like before Diego pulled her out of it. How her apartment had been so filled with empty bottles and blood-bags that she couldn't see the real mess beneath it all. How many spills and stains she shrugged off because she knew her immune system would simply protect her from the future mould infestations. The stench of cigarettes and drugs in every pillow. The only thing this place was missing was claw marks on the–

  Apple's eyes snapped wide as her gaze fell on five scratches in the wall beside Victoria's bed. She climbed over the wreckage and traced her fingers across the mark.

  "Is that..?"

  Right beside the pillow was a definite vampire claw mark, clear as day. Slashed in a hurry, from what Apple could tell. She sighed.

  "Okay, that doesn't really help." She muttered. "Already knew Vic knew about Zach. It's not surprising he'd show his claws around her."

  Apple couldn't shake off the solemn aura the marks gave off.

  "Right beside the bed. What, were they intimate or something?" Apple furrowed her brow as she looked around again. "I doubt she'd have survived if that was the case. Why, then?"

  "Find anything?" Diego called as he stepped in the doorway.

  Apple gestured to the scratch with an exhausted expression.

  Diego raised a brow.

  "She had a habit of getting too close, huh?" He scoffed. "She probably just pissed Zach off at some stage."

  "He wasn't violent, was he?" Apple murmured.

  "Never in purpose, from what I could tell." Diego shook his head.

  Apple sighed.

  "Diego, there's too many gaps." She rubbed her eyes. "We have to ask him directly. I think you know that."

  "I'd like to figure out as much as we can before that." Diego grumbled, crossing his arms. "Asking him would undo what we've done."

  "I just don't think we can do this without knowing everything."

  "What is there still to learn? We know Zach killed Victoria. We know she was transferred to a new host. We know how this works, Apple, four years later and we still have no hope at stopping Dahlia." Diego glared. "We know we have to stop Victoria before she gets to that point."

  "What we don't know is why she's trapped between her host and her husk." Apple ran a hand through her hair. "What if we mess it all up?"

  "Zach revived her corpse. Simple." Diego offered.

  "Body-hopping can only occur when a vampire dies." Apple interjected. "At the swimming carnival the day she died, Victoria was perfectly human."

  Diego lost his words for a moment. His demeanour fell along with his expression.

  "Then he must've turned her that night before killing her again."

  "That makes no sense!" Apple groaned. "We need to ask him directly! If we don't know how or why Victoria has this curse, how are we going to get rid of it safely?"

  "Fine." Diego grunted, averting his gaze. "Fine. I guess we can confront him if it really matters that much to you."

  Apple sighed in relief.

  "Thank you. You won't regret this."

  "I already do."

  -

  I hadn't woken up to such a horrendous headache since that time Tori burned me by opening the blinds.

  Everything ached, even places I'd never strained before. My head pounded like I had a silverleaf hangover. I hadn't opened my eyes yet, so my other senses woke up first. From what I could tell blind, I was in my bed, I was wearing clothes I hadn't remembered putting on, I had healed injuries all over, and the bedding was covered in... dried blood?

  That, and Autumn was in the room.

  I sat right up the second I sensed her, and nearly fainted at the scene I found myself in.

  As I'd suspected, my blanket was drenched with dried blood. Vampire blood, at that. The fabric was all so torn up that it was barely in one piece. Claw marks littered the pillows and the sheets, too. God, even the bed frame. Even the wall! The handle of my door was broken, and the doorframe had scratches in it, too. As I subconsciously raised a hand to my chest, I realised my shirt was on backwards. Actually, it wasn't mine at all. It was Autumn's band tee. No wonder it felt tight.

  The devil herself was at my feet, half under the remains of the blanket, face down with her head hanging off the edge of the mattress.

  "Victoria!" I hissed in a whisper, climbing over to shake her shoulder. "Wake up!"

  She groaned and turned her head to face me, and it was then I noticed the dried blood on her lips.

  She frowned at me for a long few moments as she came to, before jolting awake just like I had. She scrambled back and looked around with wide eyes of panic.

  I chose to ignore the fact that all she was wearing was my favourite shirt.

  "The hell happened?" Autumn growled at me.

  "You tell me!" I barked back. "I don't remember!"

  "Did you blackout?" She sighed. "I think I did. Maybe from the hunger."

  "Probably." I nodded. "But that... wouldn't explain how we got to this point."

  Autumn held her hands over her face in embarrassment as she took in the room once more. As her gaze fell on herself, she yelped at her strange lack of any outfit and hid back under the blanket.

  "WHAT DID WE DO?"

  Before I could reply, the door swung open, and in waltzed Hunter of all people.

  "You guys made a mess of the house! I hope you know how to clean blood out of the couches, because–"

  He fell just as silent as us the moment we locked eyes.

  The seconds stretched like years. No one said a word. Autumn and I couldn't think of any excuses for a situation we didn't know the answers to. When Hunter finally found his voice, a wide grin found his face as well.

  "GUYS!" He called out. "Get in here!"

  Malachi and Carly rushed in and the silence plague infected them both as well.

  Autumn hid further under the blanket and whined. I merely blinked at the audience.

  "Oh my god, they did it." Carly muttered in disbelief. "Why did they do it?"

  "Is that even ethical?" Malachi murmured back, unblinkingly. "Morally justifiable?"

  "I don't know what to think." Carly replied. "I knew they were hungry, but..."

  "But is it even legal? It's Autumn's body and Victoria's soul, so who consents?"

  "Okay, shut up!" I barked.

  The group gulped in unison.

  "You left us alone and starving." I growled. "Whatever happened – AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED – obviously wasn't planned. So can we agree to never speak of this again? Because I'm still fucking starving and I do not have the patience for this."

  The others nodded. Malachi cautiously came over to my side of the bed and rolled up his sleeve, while Carly approached Autumn's blanket fortress.

  "We'll never speak of this again." Hunter shook his head and left the room. "God knows I'll want to."

  After the whole fiasco calmed down, and so did the hunger, I helped the others clean up the mess. Hours passed, and before we knew it, Autumn had to leave. She'd explained that the double life she lived was complicated and busy, and she couldn't simply drop everything and go AWOL as Autumn Laurence the way she could as Victoria Evans. I was hesitant to see her leave, because I'd already grown so used to technically having her back, but she promised that she wouldn't be far, and would come if I called. That made me feel a lot better.

  With her out of the house, Tori was invited back home, and it almost felt like things had reset. So much had happened in only a few days that I found myself wishing I could get drunk to take the edge off. If only.

  It was past sunset when I went outside to take the trash out. I hadn't thought much of it, it was the most mundane thing I'd done all week. But on my way back inside, I noticed the mailbox had been tampered with.

  Curious, I headed over and pulled the lid open. Inside lay a simple envelope, with the words 'To Zachary Manchester' written in ink. I sliced it open with a nail and read the letter it held.

  East docks. Midnight.

  Come alone.

  Diego Vance.