"Dahlia Lovett?" The woman frowned. "Why're you asking about someone like her?"

  "It's a long story." I replied, leaning in a little closer. "Someone I care about has a similar curse to her. I want to find out as much as I can so that history doesn't repeat itself."

  "Is that right?" The woman sipped from her glass and sat straighter. "Don't know how much I believe you on that, but I respect your guts."

  This was the third of the bar patrons I'd asked so far. The first two had been the girls that were on their phones. As I'd expected, they'd never heard of the legend, and dismissed me quickly. This woman, however, seemed knowledgeable. I stood a little awkwardly beside the booth she and her companions were occupying as I talked with her, sharing the occasional glance with the men. They gave me suspicious looks back.

  "I was friends with the girl back in the day, matter of fact. We drifted after she started losing her mind." The woman shrugged. "But she was shattered long before she became a parasite."

  "How did it all happen?" I asked cautiously. "Did she have really bad luck and kept dying or something?"

  "A person like Dahlia doesn't just happen out of the blue. What made Dahlia what she is now is how she died." She explained. "Dahlia was turned against her will. She was a fractured, mentally ill teenager who saw no future for herself, so she jumped off of a building. Dahlia once told me that in that single moment before she hit the ground, she changed her mind and wished desperately for some miracle to take back her decision. I suppose her wish was granted when she woke up in pieces."

  "Are you saying someone turned her corpse?"

  "That's the theory. Whether it was an empathetic vampire who found her and wanted to grant her a second chance or a mindless vampire who did it by accident, we'll never know for sure. Regardless, Dahlia recovered, only to realise vampirism can be much worse than death."

  I nodded in agreement, thinking back to the times throughout the years I'd wished I'd stayed dead. It made sense that that was a universal thought pattern.

  "The moments before a person is turned greatly affects how they come back, as I'm sure you know. That's where we get our curses and such." The woman fiddled with her glass. "The stronger the emotions, the stronger the curses. I'd imagine that regretting your choice while you plummet fifty floors would be very emotional. As far as I'm aware, that's what made Dahlia a parasite. So desperate to survive, so desperate to escape death... it almost feels like karma to be forced into immortality through body theft."

  While I initially fell quiet out of empathy for such a story, my thoughts turned to my priorities. If Dahlia had gotten her curse because she wanted to live, had the same been true for Victoria? However she died – presumably the second time – had she been in a situation to beg for her life in some way?

  "So how did she turn from a suicidal vampire to a body-stealing parasite, exactly?" I spoke up. "Doesn't feel very linear."

  "Well, I guess once the reality settled in that being a vampire was far worse than the life she'd thrown away, self hatred boiled up." The woman replied. "I know she tried to kill herself again, only to switch into someone else. That would've been its own mess. She simply tried again. And again. And again. You get the picture."

  "So she just wants to die?" I frowned. "She doesn't want world domination or anything like that?"

  "Nowadays? Who knows." The vampire let out a low whistle. "It's been years. The soul is only half of an individual. I can imagine that hundreds or transfers would deteriorate it bit by bit each time. If there's even a fraction of the original Dahlia in there somewhere, I'd be very surprised. It's more likely that she's lost. Doesn't know who she is, or what's happened, just that she wants to disappear."

  "Oh." I gulped. "I had pictured her being some evil maniac."

  "Unlikely." The woman scoffed. "So what's this about your friend? You said you know someone with a similar ability?"

  "Uh, yeah. Someone close to me died, but we really don't know how." I crossed my arms, a little guarded. "I think she was turned and then died afterwards, but the whole situation's a big mess. She did what Dahlia did, though. Now she's in someone else's body and isn't fully herself. There's missing pieces."

  "Sounds like a fun little puzzle." The vampire chuckled, sipping her glass. "It does sound similar to Dahlia, I'll give you that. Is she much like her?"

  "Total opposite, I think." I shook my head. "She used to beg me to turn her no matter how many times I said no. She wanted to spend eternity with me. But that was before everything happened."

  "So she wanted to live?" The woman arched a knowing brow.

  My words fell short.

  "I don't think it's the same." I continued. "She wanted to be a vampire, Dahlia didn't."

  "Well, the end result's the same." She rolled her eyes. "You refuse to die, you turn, you die again, and you hop."

  "Do you know if there's any way to stop the... hopping?" I bit my lip. "I don't want her to do it again. Especially since she goes into the nearest vampire. If she dies near me, for example, won't she take over my–"

  "Hold on, bud. Who told you that?"

  "What?"

  "Parasitic vampires don't just spring into the closest vampire no questions asked." The woman shook her head like I'd said something ridiculous. "It's agreed upon on both sides. A whole process. The host vampire has a sort of confrontation with the hopping soul, that is to say they both pass out and have a shared dream before the dying vampire's heart gives out. They talk. They plead their case. If the chosen host doesn't want to give themselves up, they wake up and forget it happened, and the parasitic soul moves onto the next option."

  I was speechless.

  I hadn't known that. Diego and Apple clearly didn't either. Autumn definitely had no recollection of that from either perspective. But this woman knew Dahlia firsthand, had conversations with her, really known her. Her words held more value than anyone else's had on this.

  Autumn Laurence had consented to Victoria taking over her body. Victoria had convinced her before dying. That changed everything.

  "How do you know this?" My eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Don't they forget?"

  "Dahlia talked about it once or twice, rather briefly." She admitted. "By the time I'd met her, she'd done it all a handful of times and stopped forgetting afterwards."

  "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that not only does she choose who she takes over, but they give themselves up willingly?" I pinched the bridge of my nose, a headache forming. "Are you absolutely sure? I've had different stories from different parties."

  "Kid, I promise you, your friend won't be launched into the nearest vampire without a warning if her head falls off." The woman spoke firmly. "Worst case scenario, she'll lose her mind a little. Whether that's in a crazy way or a depressed way, that depends on her."

  I slumped against the edge of the booth, baffled. Diego and Apple saw Dahlia as a monster who mercilessly possessed vampires for power and left a trail of bodies in her wake, and they wanted Victoria dead because they saw her as her successor. But none of that was true. If I were to trust what this stranger was saying, and in all fairness she had no real reason to lie to me, then nothing mattered.

  The fear of Victoria's soul taking over someone at random didn't matter. The worry of her turning evil or cruel and using her abilities to cause harm didn't matter. Now that I really thought about it, how could Dahlia be some criminal mastermind? Just one body transfer had messed up Victoria so badly that she struggled to look at herself, the damage that doing that hundreds of times would cause to a soul would be inconceivable. Was that the real danger? That Victoria would forget who she is?

  That was barely comparable to what Diego and Apple expected from her future.

  "How much does your friend know about Dahlia?" The tan guy beside the woman spoke up.

  I was tugged out of my thoughts by his gruff voice. I'd almost forgotten there were other people there, too.

  "Nothing." I mumbled. "She barely knows a thing about what happened to herself. I'm worried that telling her will freak her out."

  "I think you should talk with her." The man spoke firmly. "She has a right to know."

  I nodded, still a little too overwhelmed to reply much.

  "What if you're wrong?" I looked back to the woman. "Why should I trust you at all?"

  "You're an undead teenager in a vampire-run bar all alone, asking around about things you couldn't possibly understand at your age. Heavy, serious topics." She tilted her head, her eyes narrowed sympathetically. "You look scared."

  "I'm terrified." I whispered under my breath. "So?"

  "I have a heart." She smiled sadly. "You clearly need help. We look out for each other here, especially the young."

  I tried to smile back in thanks but it didn't reach my eyes.

  "Can I have your name?" I asked. "In case I need to talk to you again?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Maxine Byrne." She said. "You?"

  "Zach Manchester." I replied. "Thanks for telling me everything."

  On the drive home, I'd practiced my big speech over and over again. I'd predicted the responses it would get and thought up counter arguments. By the time I pulled in the driveway, I was confident I had it down pat.

  I was so wrong.

  "What else have you been lying about?" London raised her voice for the fifth time. "How many times have you snuck out to have your little vampire meetings?"

  "That's what you're focusing on right now?" I shot back. "Not anything I actually said?"

  "Were you just gonna stay silent the whole week?" Carly joined in, her voice cracking. "Wait for the time to run out and let them 'deal' with Victoria on their own?"

  "Fuck no!" I hissed. "You think I'd let her die?"

  "You're the one who killed her!"

  "Stop bringing that up every time you start to lose an argument!" I snarled, feeling my fangs slip out. "You have no right!"

  Carly averted her gaze, protesting guilt.

  "I'm not gonna let anyone touch her. Either of her." I growled. "Especially now I know Diego and Apple are wrong about everything."

  "You're gonna trust some strangers at a bar over them?" London folded her arms. "Why? Because they were nice to you?"

  "If there's even a chance of Victoria not being a big enough threat to deserve erasure, then yes!" I stepped forward. "You wouldn't throw someone on an electric chair because you're 'worried about the future'. That Diego guy's an ex-detective, for god's sake, he of all people should know you need actual concrete proof before executing someone!"

  "You have a serious problem with withholding information, mate." Hunter glared from the couch where he was forced to rest his leg. "After all the shit we've all gone through for you, you still hide things from us."

  "Every time I try to tell you anything it becomes a fight." I threw my hands in the air. "I was told I had a week to fix Victoria two nights ago. I found out Dahlia's not the threat everyone thinks she is an hour ago. I'm sorry I didn't come up with a miracle solution on day one! Shit takes time to process!"

  "We don't have time!" Hunter barked back. "You've used up two days already, and for what?"

  "I spent the first day trying to accept the bullshit thrown at me and spent tonight gathering information that could help." I scoffed. "It's not like I sat on my ass."

  "Zach, get out of your head." Malachi finally joined in, his expression more hurt than angry. "You're not by yourself anymore. It's not you and zombie-Tori against the world anymore. We're here. Use us."

  "For what? Dumping more trauma on?" I glared. "Do you all forget you're human or something? You have school! You have homework! You have attendance percentages you need to meet to pass! You can't go out and do whatever whenever you want like I can. If you can't graduate because you were too busy fixing my messes–"

  "I'd happily take being homeless forever over Victoria being murdered by our damn principals!" Hunter yelled. "Stop caring about us so much. We're offering help all the damn time and you're so deep in self-hatred that you take it as you forcing us to tag along after you. What we do is our own business. We know what we're risking by helping with all this. Hell, with just associating with you!"

  "Fine! You wanna help? Cool! Let's all go find Apple and Diego and decapitate them in their sleep!" I hissed.

  The room fell quiet.

  "No?" I looked around. "Not up for first degree murder? You've all had your fair share of disposing bodies, how's that much different?"

  Still, no one spoke. No one looked at me.

  "So you can justify me eating the flesh and blood of conscious victims when I have a blackout, and you can justify cleaning up crime scenes, but none of you have the guts to be the one who ends a life?"

  Nothing.

  "Why don't you tell us anything, Zach?" I mocked, losing patience. "Maybe because you're all talk! You want Victoria to be safe, you want her to be left alone, but you won't do anything about it!"

  "We're going to help!" Malachi retorted. "But that doesn't mean any of us want Diego and Apple dead. They don't deserve that any more than Tori does... or you do."

  My gaze sharpened at his last comment.

  "They're vampires. They're not people. Just because you see them in suits with clipboards in the hallways or smiling to the kids at lunch breaks doesn't make them humane." I muttered. "Mind you, they're much older than me. You think I'm bad? You think I've killed too many people? Those two have been vampires far longer. Diego probably turned before I was born, and he was a damn detective at the same time. Saving lives in the day, taking them at night. Sound ethical?"

  "I don't want anyone to die." Carly mumbled, shaking her head. "Can't we just talk to them? Explain everything?"

  "You can't even look at me right now." I stepped closer to her. "You can't look at me when I'm mad because you're scared I'll lash out. You can't look at me when I'm hungry because you're scared I'll attack. How are you gonna handle a confrontation with two mature vampires who are stronger than I am?"

  She hung her head, trembling.

  "Arguing wont fix anything." London cut through the silence.

  "That's a nice way of saying you don't want to voice your opinions." I turned to her. "Mind if I ask what they are?"

  London shot me a look and stood straighter.

  "I'm with Carly. We shouldn't kill them. If we tried and failed, we'd only be in more trouble." She said.

  "Uh huh. And what do you think should be done with Victoria?"

  "I think we should find a way to... fix her situation."

  "Elaborate."

  "Well, she can't keep switching between the two bodies forever. Especially when Tori's still decaying."

  "So how should we stop that, then?" I sat down on a chair at the kitchen table. Rage simmered below the surface, buried under the blank expression I'd glued on. "What do we do?"

  "Maybe, we... make it so she only has one body to be in..."

  "You're really trying to dodge the bullet." I laughed bitterly. "If you want to kill Tori, just say that."

  Silence came again as all eyes fell on London. Conflicting emotions danced from face to face. Confusion, agreement, hurt, betrayal. London gulped and blinked a little too fast.

  "Tori's falling apart. We can't keep a corpse forever. Victoria has a new, perfectly healthy body to stay in, she doesn't need Tori. It only makes sense for us to cut the line." She blurted defensively. "I see no reason to keep her zombified and half sentient corpse. We should let her body rest. Bury her, even. Give her a funeral."

  "We kill Tori's body, we eliminate Autumn's compulsion." I countered. "I'm not sure you understand how damn important her being able to refresh that ability is."

  "What do you want us to do, keep Tori's zombie body in a cellar for a hundred years or something?" London's teeth gritted. "Let Autumn possess her whenever she needs to compel some idiot? That's insane!"

  "We can bury Tori after we fix this mess." I sighed. "But Autumn absolutely needs compulsion if we want any hope of saving her soul."

  "Diego and Apple want to kill both Autumn and Tori so that Victoria can't body-hop like this Dahlia person can," Malachi thought aloud, "But dying is what makes her hop in the first place. Isn't that hypocritical?"

  "I'd assume they'd thought up a way to get around that." My knee began to bounce. "Can't imagine them making it a clean, painless death."

  "What options do we have?" Hunter grunted. "We either kill those vampires, die trying, surrender the girls and let them do what they want to them, or do nothing and they come here and do things by force."

  "I can't think of a solution where everyone lives." I admitted. "I'm not letting Victoria die."

  "You're not letting Autumn die." London corrected. "The name thing gets so confusing. Tori's this and Victoria's that and ugh, it hurts my head."

  "I'm not letting Victoria's soul die." I growled back. "That better?"

  "Could we report them to the police?" Carly asked quietly. "Or at least get them fired? They're technically serial killers disguising themselves as school faculty. That puts students at risk–"

  "My god, Carly." I groaned into my hands, exhausted. "Firstly, we don't have anywhere near enough evidence to convince a court that those two are murderers. We also wouldn't be able to accuse them of anything when we have so much blood on our own hands, especially mine. Even if we could, it would take months or even years for either of those two to see prison bars, you can't just point a finger and throw someone in for life the next day."

  "What if Autumn compelled police to arrest them and give us more time?" Carly continued. "Could she compel her way into getting them locked up early?"

  "Compulsion only works on one person at a time and it's exhausting to use. No, she wouldn't be able to use it like that." I grunted. "Not to mention that Diego could rival her. I think his curse is similar to compulsion. Maybe because he was a detective, I'm not sure. But from what you guys have told me, it sounds like anyone forced into a one-on-one confrontation with him gets affected by some truth serum bullshit. That could be an ability."

  "We really don't know much about who we're up against, do we?" Malachi murmured. "We're screwed."

  "I think killing them is our only option." I shrugged, my tone a little blunter than I'd intended. "I reckon we could figure out a way to do it if we tried."

  I was met with several harsh 'no's.

  "This is the only way we can defend the girls!" I stood up. "Whatever we do, those assholes are coming for the two of them. We have five days to stop them. You said you're gonna help, so fucking help."

  "We have five days to think up a better plan!" Hunter argued.

  "Or they could come tomorrow!" I shot back. "Who's to say they'll keep their word? Maybe they're on their way to go stake Autumn as we speak."

  "I think I'd rather that than us killing two innocent people!" London blurted.

  I paused, feeling my skin turn cold.

  "What?"

  "There! I said it!" London huffed. "I'd rather Tori and Autumn die than us die because we failed to kill two powerful vampires."

  I didn't dare speak. The quiet prompted her to continue anyway.

  "She's shattered, Zach. That's not her anymore. Victoria died. Maybe part of her is living on in this other girl but you have to accept that she's gone." London pleaded, shaking. "Would you rather her follow in Dahlia's footsteps and break again and again every time something horrible happens to her, and give her a slow and torturous fate, or let her go in peace?"

  "How can you say that?" I whispered.

  "Her body deserves to be buried. Her soul deserves to find peace. She's haunting the earth against her will, trapped in someone else." London continued, her tone wavering. "I know it's horrible, and I'm not happy in any way with the idea, but doesn't she deserve to pass on?"

  I stood there frozen, turned to stone from shock.

  For once my mind was empty. No internal rambling monologue, no panicking thoughts, not even any images or ideas. Just an endless fog. My gaze turned to the others. They seemed distressed by what London had said too, but also weary of how I was acting. As always.

  "Victoria Evans died on February 23rd." London cleared her throat, still pretending she had even an ounce of the confidence she was plastering on. "You said that yourself. She's gone. There are people desperate to help her move on to the afterlife and you're so against it because you cling to her like a lifeline."

  I felt my fangs retreat back into my gums slightly.

  "You're selfish, Zach."

  A shuddering breath fell from my lips. I kept my eyes locked on a floor tile, else I'd be faced with their expressions.

  "Maybe we should let her find peace." Malachi joined in rather shyly, watching me closely. "She doesn't deserve this mess."

  "We don't have to hand her over." Carly nodded. "We could do it ourselves. Respectfully."

  "The last thing that girl needs is more pain." Hunter agreed. "Zach?"

  I had no words left. No response would fit any of that. The rage was gone. I didn't feel anything anymore.

  With a sharp hiss through my teeth, I grabbed my phone and marched to the door. No one followed me. No one said a thing. I didn't care anymore. I ripped the front door open and ran to my car before the tears could fall from my eyes. The second the door shut, I started the engine and wiped my eyes.

  As I turned to drive off, I stupidly glanced back to the house, and was met with the sight of Tori standing in the doorway. She looked so confused and upset.

  "Not her." I grunted. "That's not her. It's just a body. A headless chicken."

  I sped out of the street, my heart hammering against my ribcage.

  "FUCK!"

  I screamed, claws digging into the steering wheel. Tears burned like acid as they slid down my skin.

  Victoria wanted to live. Why hadn't I said that to them before I left? Why couldn't I get the words out? She didn't actually want to die, even if this whole situation made her pull her hair out sometimes. None of the others had had the conversations with Autumn that I had. None of them had tried to get to know her any further than 'are you Victoria or not?'

  They really thought she'd be okay with dying? Victoria never cared about meeting some peaceful fate, she was a nerd obsessed with vampire biology who wanted to become one. She wanted to celebrate my 200th birthday with a surprise cake in bed. She'd said that herself.

  None of them knew her. No one did. Why couldn't I tell them that? Why was it so hard?

  She'd gained her curse because she refused to die. Even now, she refused to die. Even when it got rough. Even when she spent every night crying her lungs out. That girl had a determination I'd never seen in anyone else.

  Victoria was going to live, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let some asshole vampires come and tear her apart.