I was so sick of car rides by now. So sick of forced proximity with Autumn. So sick of being tense. I really hoped this would be the last of it.

  The plan had completely changed. Tori was barely alive, Autumn was broken, London and Carly had neglected Tori like leaving a dog outside during a tsunami, and Hunter and Malachi couldn't help if they wanted to. So the current plan?

  Run.

  We were running away. Like utter cowards. We were going to drive up to New South Wales, swap seats every few hours, take breaks to feed on whatever strangers we could find, check on Tori frequently, and hide out in a hotel by the border to buy us as much time as possible.

  It was honestly one of the most stupid and sheepish ideas I'd ever had, and if Tori had been taken care of properly I wouldn't have bothered considering it at all. But we needed time. Just a few days remained, and now it seemed possible that those assholes weren't all that likely to keep their word and could come for us whenever they wanted. But... maybe they'd just show up, yell at us, and leave? Maybe they'd give us a slap on the wrist and call it a day?

  "I didn't care. Okay?" Autumn suddenly blurted. "I knew what was going on and I... really didn't give much of a shit."

  What a way to interrupt my monologuing. Rude. It takes time and effort to spiral this deep into your own internal thoughts while driving down a dirt road.

  "Huh?" I shook my head, trying to shut my brain up. "What are you on about?"

  "Her." Autumn nodded to Tori's unconscious form in the backseat. "I could feel the pain of every single injury. I felt her hunger. I felt her despair. She thought she'd been abandoned. I felt everything, and I knew I could've done something about it but I... I was hoping she'd kick it."

  "What?" I choked out, still struggling to follow. "WHAT?"

  "There, I said it! I want Tori gone. Permanently. As soon as possible."

  "You... You told me last night so confidently that you don't want to die."

  "And I don't. I hate being dead." She grumbled. "I want to keep on living like I am now, as who I am now, but I can't take it anymore, Zach. I can't handle my dead body being its own sentient being, and being forced to occupy her is an experience I couldn't describe if I tried. I want to be free. I want to cut the strings."

  "You were fine with her eating herself because you were hoping she would..." I shuddered before I could finish the sentence. "Okay."

  "Okay." Autumn nodded nervously. "...Okay?"

  "You just want one body. I understand." I shrugged. "I would too. I agree that she should be put to rest soon, given the burial she deserves, as long as you're still here."

  Autumn let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding and shuffled in her seat.

  "But I hate your reasoning anyway."

  "That's fair. It's selfish, I think. Very flawed." She gulped. "You're not gonna let her go until after we fix this mess, are you?"

  "I think I've said that like eight times by now. I'm really tired of repeating myself."

  "Sure, but I don't believe it's for the reasons you've given. Mind compulsion doesn't matter this much." Autumn crossed her arms. "I think you can't let go of her because she has my face. You still treat her like she's me."

  "Because she is you, now don't start another argument you'll lose–"

  "How is she me? All that's left of who I am is in this body. My memories, my personality, my identity, all here. She's just the physical components, like a computer's hardware. This body's literally turning into the old one anyway. Give it a few weeks and I'll be genetically identical to the night I died."

  "I know that. But she isn't a robot. She's still a living creature."

  "What are you clinging to?" Autumn raised her voice firmly. Not out of anger, more so out of determination. "Why can't you detach yourself from her? From it?"

  "It's a little hard to when I went through everything I did, alright? Until a few weeks ago, I had no reason to doubt that she was all that was left of you. I can't imagine being okay with letting you eat yourself to death. Those arms she chewed up are the same ones that would wrap around me when I'd cry. Her bleached white eyes are the ones that used to look at me with empathy when everyone else saw me as a monster. It was her distorted voice that was once the only thing to calm me down from a blackout."

  "Ship of Theseus." Autumn whispered as her eyes narrowed at me. "That's what this is."

  It was my time to fall silent. She was completely right.

  "Fine. Let's say I'm a damn boat." She sighed. "The reason the wood has to be replaced is because it's rotting. It's falling to pieces and the planks are deteriorating beyond repair. That's Tori's body. The ship is fixed piece by piece until there are no original components, and all that's left is a clone. That's Autumn's body. What you're doing is trying to rebuild the ship using those old planks. It's not gonna work, they're too damaged."

  "Okay, well that ship meant everything to me, and I know that I have a new fancy ship now that's the same in spirit and it just looks a little different, but I fell in love with the original and I'm not ready to throw the rotting wood away."

  "Well as the ship, I can see why you're so attached, but you can't be surprised that others are too grateful that there's still have any ship at all to feel the same way as you do."

  "I've already said I'm eternally grateful I still have the ship in any form because I watched her sink down into the water and was helpless to stop it, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't disconnect that original ship from being the one I've known and loved."

  "And I'm over being compared to a boat, it feels a bit objectifying." Autumn rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm not saying we should dump her in a lake, but I am saying you need to accept that she's not me anymore. She's a coyote with rabies begging for food. Sure you offer some up and you show it love, but it's dying and viscous no matter what you do. You need to ignore the puppy eyes and let it pass on sooner rather than later, else you're dragging out a long and agonising death. A death that I can feel even as Autumn."

  "It's so hard." I whispered, voice cracking from forming tears. "I love you so much, Victoria, and I always will. Unfortunately I love all of you, and that includes Tori. I know I have to cut ties and remind myself she's a headless chicken like you said the other day, but... I'm just not ready."

  "You never will be." Autumn frowned. "I know fixing this mess isn't as simple as killing Tori, because that would set me free enough to hijack someone else's body if or when I die again, but I really do think we should consider doing it before anyone else can."

  I wiped my eyes.

  "We've gone in circles about this all week. I'm sick of arguing... I'm sick of crying, actually! God! I'm just a fountain at this point. It's embarrassing as hell."

  "Don't apologise." She smiled faintly.

  "Whatever. I can cry later. We need supplies. Not really food, since we can't eat, but we do need water. Maybe flashlights, chargers," I rambled under my breath, "I'll pull in at the next servo."

  "Think they'll sell hair dye?" She muttered.

  I shot her an exasperated look.

  "That's a priority right now?!"

  So there we were, awkwardly standing beside each other while I finished fuelling up the car, back at the same 7/11 where I'd first met Autumn.

  Tori's drugged out form slept soundly under the blankets in the back, hidden among other junk in case someone caught a look through the window. Being found driving around with a missing person's rotting corpse in the car was not ideal. I'd thought Autumn and I had finally settled down, but somehow we'd started another rant.

  I was going to tear my damn eyes out.

  "You don't think it was premeditated?" Autumn crossed her arms. "Come on."

  "People can do really fucked up things without realising how bad they could turn out." I defended despite myself, nose scrunching at the smell of the petrol. "Don't get me wrong, I sure as hell will never forgive them, but part of me knows that they probably thought nothing would go wrong."

  "That chemistry test was so not more important than Tori being supervised." Autumn scoffed. "I'm just saying, you're allowed to hold a grudge. You don't have to be so mature all the time and see everything from every angle. Be mad for more than an hour for once."

  "I promise you I'm livid. I'm just confused as to why you're bringing it up again." I slammed the fuel door shut and pushed past her. "I thought we agreed to stop fighting. You're the one who said I bounce off of other people. If you raise your voice, I'll scream back."

  "I'm not fighting. I'm just venting my thoughts." She followed after me. "London left for school on time and Carly left an hour late. She was in her room studying until the very second she grabbed her bag and walked out the door. They didn't tell me anything, didn't mention anything. Malachi said the two wouldn't talk about it. Don't you think that's weird?"

  "Why are you trying to piss me off right now?" I hissed under my breath. The door chimed as it slid open. "I already kinda hate everyone. Don't give me more reasons."

  "I'm pushing because I know in a minute you'll feel guilty and move on like it wasn't as bad as it actually was." She whispered back, searching a shelf. "If you're gonna stay mad at me, stay mad at the twins too. They're the ones who left Tori for dead."

  "Says the one who let them."

  "It's different when I want her gone!" Autumn stuttered out with a sudden frown. "It's my body. I can throw it away if I want. But Carly and London have gotten away with way too much and for what?"

  "I've forgiven them for little things because they moved in when I was at my lowest. They fixed up the house, pampered Tori, helped me stabilise my mental health when I was so clouded in delusion that I genuinely believed Tori and I were having hour long conversations." I muttered. "I promise I'm not forgiving them for this. Okay? I've already said that. But you're painting them as these criminals who left her like those crazy parents who lock their kids in basements."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "London's never cared about Tori! She's such a filthy liar!" Autumn growled.

  The blue in her eyes flashed red for just long enough to convince me she wouldn't let this go. She was trying to take me somewhere without letting me see the directions.

  Alright, where does she want me to go?

  "You think London only ever helped out for an ulterior motive?" I treaded carefully, eyeing her closely. "What about Carly?"

  "Carly's a puppy dog. She follows that snake like she's lost." Autumn blinked too many times while she grabbed a flashlight from a shelf and kept following me. "She'd piss on an electric fence if London told her to."

  "You two used to be so close. I can't think of any reason why she'd want you dead now." I grabbed a basket from the end of the isle before turning into the next one. "I thought she'd been treating you alright since you came back as Autumn."

  "I thought so too. Sometimes she'd say something nice when no one was looking, which really brought my guard down." Autumn threw a few water bottles in the basket. "Other times, before she knew Tori wasn't just a mindless husk, she'd whisper in Tori's ear about how disgusting she looked... or rather I looked."

  "... I'm listening."

  "It wasn't just a few times. As Tori, when she'd cut my hair, she'd purposely nip the back of my neck and get annoyed if I flinched. She'd urge me to eat foods other than raw meat when she knew I couldn't handle it. She'd glare at me whenever I was around you. It wasn't just that she didn't like the situation, she kept trying to hurt me. One time she was home alone with me and she cut her finger just to see how I'd react. Of course when I panicked and tried to attack her, she hurt me until I backed off, then she called Carly like she was the victim."

  My hand halted halfway through reaching to pick up another item. I had to take a minute to process that. I'd known London had her moments of being bitter or jealous for whatever reason, Autumn had told me before. But to go that far?

  I really had no words.

  "I'm fine now. Maybe Tori's not, but I got over it. All I'm saying is I'm not surprised she'd convince Carly to leave Tori home alone."

  "Carly's not stupid." I glared, marching out of the isle. "She has a mind of her own. She had nothing against you, why would she ignore the risks just because her sister told her to?"

  "Do you know anything about teenage girls?" Autumn bared her fangs. "They're a fucking hive mind! All they ever want is approval from each other. All they care about is the people they like liking them back. Carly's SO insecure, and London's the only friend she has that isn't a guy."

  "So you think London convinced Carly to leave Tori home alone? Why, because she wants Tori gone? The same way you were hoping Tori would wind up ending her life somehow?"

  "London wants me gone! All of me! She's the one who brought up the idea that she wanted to kill both of my bodies to let me 'rest.' She convinced our friends in seconds! Even Hunter of all people! How do you not see that?!"

  "London's not like that!"

  "Yes she is! You clearly don't know her as well as you think you do!"

  "She's never had any reason to hate you to that extreme!"

  "Are you kidding? To her I'm just a threat! I know her better than anyone else!"

  "SO WHY WOULD SHE WANT YOU DEAD?"

  "BECAUSE SHE'S IN LOVE WITH YOU, ZACH!"

  ...

  We both froze.

  Her expression fell like she'd broken a long running promise. Mine shattered like I'd watched a car run over a duck.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Goosebumps spread from limb to limb. The buzzing from the beverage freezers leaked through the thin air. The cold white of the ceiling LEDs left purple holes in my field of view whenever I switched which of Autumn's eyes I was staring at in my disbelief.

  I nearly dropped the basket.

  "Um, excuse me." The cashier beside us cleared his throat awkwardly. "Were you going to pay by card or–"

  Autumn suddenly whipped her head around and snarled at him.

  "Faint."

  THUD.

  The man had immediately collapsed unconscious.

  I stepped back, lip quivering.

  "... Did you just..?"

  Autumn slumped slightly from guilt. She quietly tapped her phone against the eftpos reader and timidly walked out of the servo.

  I leaned over the desk to stare at the worker. My eyes wouldn't shut. My lungs wouldn't take in any air.

  "Come on. I'll drive." Autumn called softly from the car.

  I swallowed, ripping myself away from the sight.

  "Okay..."

  Uh...

  Well at least we weren't fighting anymore?

  No, this was honestly much worse. Way worse. And now I was in the passenger seat so I had all the time in the world to overthink.

  London was in love with me.

  With me?! Of all people?

  Was Autumn just lying or exaggerating or was this something she'd kept bottled up for years? Seemed more like the latter, as much as I hated to admit it. I couldn't... wrap my head around it. It made no sense, right? I couldn't think of any times London had acted remotely flirty or sentimental over me in that way. She clearly had never tried to make any sort of move. Wasn't that totally against girl-code, too? Liking your best friend's boyfriend, I mean.

  Tori and I started dating pretty quickly after she moved to my school. That was five years ago. We had almost a whole year together before I was turned into a vampire. So when in that timeline would London have started crushing on me?

  Now that I thought about it, for Autumn to know with confidence, those feelings would've had to have started before Tori died. Before February.

  So at least four months. Oh god.

  After Tori died, London had swooped in and become my right-hand-man. All the times I'd fed from her, gone to her for consolation, opened up to her... Did she take them differently than I'd intended? Surely not. Right?

  Puta merda, cara.

  "You weren't lying, right?" I finally spoke up with a thick gulp.

  Autumn looked over to me and then back at the road, shaking her head.

  "Wasn't supposed to tell anyone. She only told me because she was drunk."

  "Oh... um... when?"

  "Uh..." Autumn sighed, clearly pained to say the words. "Like two years ago? She's mentioned it briefly a few times since. You know her, she's not the type to open up."

  "And you're sure it wasn't a fleeting thing?"

  "I've seen the way she looks at you." Autumn's tone darkened with jealousy. "And the way she looks at me."

  "Right." I hugged my knees tighter and peered out the window. "She's pretty sealed off."

  I'd known London longer than I'd known how to walk. Our parents had joined the same online group for Latino families in Melbourne before she was even born, of course we were forced into being friends from the get-go. I felt a little uncomfortable at the thought of her seeing me in such a way when I considered her a sister. Clearly I didn't know her as well as I'd thought.

  Gazing out at the setting sun, my attention was caught by the side mirror. For the first time in hours a car was behind us. It only served to remind me that we were driving in the middle of nowhere.

  "Why would you stay friends with her after she confessed?" I couldn't help but ask. "And why bother keeping it a secret just because she asked you to?"

  "I didn't have many friends growing up, you know that. I had to fight to get you to pay any attention to me, even blackmailed you into hanging out with me a few times, saying I'd tell everyone about the cat you accidentally sliced in two." She smiled slightly at the memory. "Once we were friends I slid into your friend group, but honestly I got really lucky they liked me. You're the only friends I've ever really had at all, and with everything we've gone through over the years, something as small as a crush didn't feel like a good enough reason to cut ties."

  "Except it led to her neglecting, harassing, abusing, and straight up bullying Tori. You." I frowned. "I can't believe she wants to get rid of you over a stupid crush. That's... Insane isn't a good enough word, that's psychotic."

  "None of us are good people anymore, that's never been more clear." She shrugged. "I used to be the weird one for torturing insects and drawing gore as a child, but somehow now even though I've killed people with nothing more than my teeth I don't seem awfully crazy compared to the rest of the group."

  I poked my head out the window for fresh air. The sun finally ducked under the long and empty horizon line. Its golden hues danced off of the dead grass and began to sink back to the underworld. Another day had passed. I'd lost track of how many remained.

  "I miss being human." I whispered.

  "Wow. Took you four long years to say that." Autumn chuckled. "Never thought I'd hear the damn words."

  "I miss what we were like." I continued gently. "I miss when it wasn't complicated or dangerous. I miss how perfect our relationship was. We were dumb and we were kids and we were too scared to hold each other's hand, but we were so..."

  "Human." She smiled. "Yeah."

  I noticed the car behind us had gotten closer. My eyes narrowed at the mirror.

  "On another note, I've been thinking, and I'm starting to wonder if you died of shock." I admitted. "The first time, I mean."

  "Shock?" She repeated. "Why, because I had no fatal injuries?"

  "It's not just that. If I consider how your personality is now as a vampire, it would make sense." I kept my eye on the other car as it drew unnecessarily close to our rear. "You're skittish, paranoid, and an anxious mess to be honest. You act tough or mean to try and hide it but you're terrified of nothing in particular every second of the day. You get possessive over me like you think I'm gonna leave you alone and never come back. You were never like that before at all."

  "I guess..." Autumn shifted in her seat. "Yeah. If the reason you're scared of the dark and an empathy mirror is because of how you were before you died, which adds up, you could... reverse your way into my death."

  "Maybe I did leave you alone. Maybe that's why you're so dependant now you have me back." I kept talking in hopes she wouldn't notice that the car tailing us had a man and a woman in the front seats. I was trembling horribly. "Maybe I bit you, you ran off scared, and died out on your own."

  "That's horrible." She hissed inwardly at the thought. "In the cold? In the woods? At night? I like the theory that some stranger stabbed me with a branch more."

  "Eh, you have point with that. I keep forgetting that little detail."

  I stared the driver down from the rear view mirror like he was the grim reaper himself. My limbs began to freeze over one by one. My ears began to ring. I felt like I was sinking... because I couldn't do a single thing about this.

  We were the only people on an endless dirt road through Tallarook, where the population was less than a thousand people. All I could see in any direction was bushland. Not a single building.

  Fuck.

  "I think I'd be okay with never knowing the whole story." Autumn spoke softly. "As much as the closure would help comfort me, the risk of actually remembering those moments feels too heavy in comparison."

  "Yeah." I sat straight in my seat, eyes wide and chest heaving.

  Autumn glanced over to me and immediately knew. Her heart skipped a beat and she quickly checked her mirrors.

  "... Oh god."

  "It's fine." I gulped. "It's fine."

  "Maybe it's not them." She nodded anxiously, gripping the wheel tighter. "They'd be more stealthy, right?"

  "That's definitely fucking them." I whimpered. "This is it. There's nothing out here. There's no one to watch."

  "I-I'm sure they'd want it all to be much more dramatic than this, right?" Autumn began to hyperventilate. "A big fiasco? Something fitting?"

  "Or maybe they knew we'd run away so they waited until we were out in the sticks where no one would find us." I raked my hands through my hair. "Maybe they'll follow us until we run out of fuel or you pass out from exhaustion."

  "Both of those would take days!"

  "I know!"

  "Call the police!" Autumn barked, checking the mirror every second blink. "No one will find our bodies. We need something to prove we were here."

  I snatched my phone and immediately tried and failed. A desperate grunt escaped me.

  "We're in the sticks! There's no service out here!"

  "Oh how fucking convenient!"

  CRACK!

  We shot dead cold. Motionless.

  "... Was that a gunshot?" I whispered.

  "The hell else would it be, Zach?" She whispered back.

  "I've never heard one before. No one in this fucking country owns guns, it's illegal."

  "Unless you have a permit. Like a detective might."

  CRACK!

  The rear window shattered into a million splintering shards, slicing forwards and blanketing Tori's covered body. Autumn screamed. I hissed at the few that had cut into my arm.

  "What do I do?!" Autumn cried.

  "Drive!" I barked. "There's nothing else you can do!"

  "Could we get out and fight?"

  "They're armed!"

  CRACK!

  The sound of the tires screeching overpowered our screams as the car began to spin. Autumn fought to keep the car centred on the road, but we braced for impact nonetheless.

  It was all so sudden. How did they find us? Why were they shooting from the road instead of waiting for us to stop for a break? How long had they been on our trail?

  I didn't have time to overthink. Autumn was busy with the wheel, Tori was covered in glass, and I had nothing on me that would help. While deep down I knew we'd almost definitely survive a crash on a flat road given how many other ridiculous injuries we'd healed before, like that time I broke my leg jumping off a roof to test if I could fly and managed to walk it off minutes later, I still understood that we could feel pain. Very easily.

  Some injuries were much worse than death was. Trust me, when I turned into a vampire I woke up with half of my organs on the concrete, I was halfway to being decapitated, and my flesh was absolutely mutilated. I spent weeks in and out of surgery. If it wasn't for vampiric healing, I'd still look like a patchwork doll.

  We couldn't escape this. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do. I wasn't ready to be torn to shreds again. Neither was Autumn.

  "You're gonna be okay!" I yelled to her over the noise of the tires, grabbing her wrist. "We're gonna be fine!"

  She sobbed through clenched teeth as she wrestled with the steering wheel. At least Tori was still unconscious.

  I turned to look over my shoulder at our attackers. With the rear window gone, I could see them clear as day. Diego was busy driving, a serious scowl crossing his features, and it had actually been Apple who fired. I wasn't good with gun knowledge, I couldn't identify what type was in her hand any further than the fact it was small and black. At least with her being the shooter, the odds were she'd never held a gun before and had bad aim.

  That's what I had hoped, at least.

  She scrunched her face to try and hide whatever her expression had been from me and lifted the gun again. I held Autumn's wrist as tightly as I could once I realised where it was pointed.

  The earsplitting rattle of the next bullet firing sliced through the air as time slowed down to single frames.

  Before I could even blink, the bullet met my jaw.