“What?”

  Vivienne backed away from me on the couch. I resisted the urge to chase after her.

  “R-Rosie,” she said. “You look just like- oh god.” She covered her mouth, all of the colour blanching from her face.

  Rosalyn, as in… Madeline’s wife? Was Vivienne saying I looked like Madeline’s dead wife? That didn’t… That couldn’t… Unless…

  “Show me a picture,” I demanded.

  Vivienne still looked like there was a chance she might throw up. “O-of Rosie?”

  “Yeah.”

  She nodded, shakily pulling out her phone and navigating through it for a minute before turning it around to show me what was on the screen.

  It was the woman I kept seeing in my dreams, hanging off of Madeline and Vivienne’s shoulders with a smile on her face. Our face.

  “And… you said she had fire powers?”

  “Yeah,” Vivienne whispered, voice husky.

  Everything crashed together in my head like an explosion. It all made sense now; the mysterious fire power I was exhibiting, the dreams, the fact that Father wanted me to hide my face, the way I was immediately drawn to Madeline from the moment I saw her.

  “I’m… I must be Rosalyn,” I said, more sure of it than I’d ever been about anything before. “That’s… that’s who I was before the accident. Everyone thought she died, but… Father must have taken her body and fixed her, but he couldn’t save her memories. That… that has to be it! Though, that means… Father isn’t actually my dad.” I shook my head. That wasn’t important right now. “Vivienne, do you understand what this means?” I grabbed her arms, excitement building up within me. “I know who I am now, who I was!”

  Vivienne seemed to have calmed from the initial shock of seeing my face, but instead of sharing in my excitement, the expression that was left held nothing but pain and pity. “Jordyn, you… I don’t think… your… fuck.” She ducked her head and sighed.

  I frowned. “What?”

  She looked back up. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up. You… You still might… not be her.”

  Just like that, the happiness of finally discovering myself turned to ash in my veins. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just… there are… ways of making a person that looks like someone else.”

  I grit my teeth, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill upon hearing that. “B-but, there’s still a chance, right?”

  Vivienne’s lips were a thin line, her brown eyes staring right into me. “I… suppose there’s a chance.”

  “How can we find out for sure?”

  Vivienne looked down, and didn’t speak for a long moment. She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her face. “I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this. Why couldn’t tonight have just been normal? It was going well. All I wanted was… fuck.”

  “Vivienne…?”

  She looked back up. “There’s one way to find out for sure.”

  Hope lit up in my chest. “Yeah?”

  “We can check to see if Rosie’s still there.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean ‘still there’?”

  “Still… still in her grave. If you’re really her, it’ll be empty.”

  I stood up. “Let’s do it. Right now. Come on, take me there!”

  Vivienne stared at me for a long moment, and sighed. “Okay, Jordyn. If this is what you want.”

  —

  Vivienne was a coward. All it would’ve taken was ‘no, Jordyn, you were actually grown in a vat. You’re definitely not Rosie.’ Instead, they were going to go exhume the fucking dead just to prove a point. They were going to desecrate Rosie’s grave because Vivienne was too fucking scared to tell Jordyn the truth and break that little flare of hope on her horribly familiar face, despite the fact that it was inevitably going to break in a moment anyway.

  If there was a hell, Vivienne was certain that she was bound for it, after what she was about to help do.

  —

  With a pop of air pressure and a rush of cold night wind, Vivienne and I teleported to the cemetery Rosalyn was supposedly entombed at. It was dark; the moonlight hidden by heavy cloud cover, but Vivienne pulled out her phone flashlight, shining it on the headstone in front of us.

  Rosalyn Garcia-Holmes

  Beloved daughter and wife. Activist and Hero. Firestarter.

  Gave her life for the people of Tombguard.

  “Screw Billy Joel, I started it.”

  I sucked in a breath, reading over the words inscribed on it. Daughter and wife. That was right, I was Madeline’s wife, and I had to have parents – real parents – out there somewhere. How would they react when they found out I was still alive?

  Though, was I really still Rosalyn? I had all these different memories. I was basically a different person, just in the same body.

  Either way, they had to be happy their loved one was still here in some way, right? I hoped I could live up to the woman I was in the past.

  “Are you… gonna do it?” Vivienne asked from somewhere behind me.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I was just… thinking about stuff. This is a lot to take in.”

  Vivienne didn’t reply.

  I got down on one knee, the damp grass soaking through my trousers, and placed a hand on the ground, reaching out to the shadows around me. They sank into the dirt like a liquid, slipping between each individual grain of soil and loosening them until they found the wooden coffin buried six feet deep. I got up and stepped back, pulling upwards. The dirt shifted, grass ripping as its foundation piled up and outwards, making way for Rosalyn’s coffin. Finally, it surfaced; dirty and worn, but still intact.

  “I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Vivienne muttered as I placed the coffin down next to the hole. Tentatively, I walked up to it. This was it. The answer to the biggest question in my life, hidden just beneath an inch of wood. Was Rosalyn in there, or was I her all along? There was only one way to find out.

  “Are you ready?” I asked Vivienne.

  She shook her head, turning around. “No, nope, I’m not doing this. Do what you need to, but I can’t watch. I don’t… I don’t want to see her.”

  Maybe if I’d stopped to consider that statement for a moment, I could have saved myself the surprise to come. But, hindsight was 20/20, wasn’t it?

  I nodded. That was fine. She didn’t need to see inside it to know the truth. I did, however. No more putting it off.

  I forced my shadows under the lid, and with the crack of splintering wood, tore it off.

  There was a woman inside.

  She was gaunt and pale from years of chemically-slowed decay, with sunken eyes and yellow teeth visible between pulled-back lips, but that face was still unmistakeable. I saw it in the mirror every day, after all.

  Rosalyn Garcia-Holmes still slept in her final resting place, just as dead as she’d been for the past five years.

  Then, what did that mean for me?

  I backed away from the corpse, hands shaking, heart racing. My chest burned. If Rosalyn was still there, then she couldn’t be me. But then, who was I? Where did I come from? Why the fuck did I look like her?!

  “Jordyn, Jordyn, just calm down. Breathe, baby. It’ll be okay.”

  Vivienne’s voice echoed through my ear, but it sounded distant and muffled. I could feel her arms around me, warm and familiar like that night we shared together. The grass was cold under my knees. When did I fall?

  “I…I don’t understand,” I panted, struggling to suck in enough air. “I- I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m sorry, Jordyn. I’m so sorry.”

  This was all too much. I started sobbing, leaning into Vivienne’s embrace and trying to find a balance between desperate gasps for air and bawling so hard it felt like my insides would shrivel up and die.

  “I don’t know… I don’t know what I am.”

  “It’s okay,” Vivienne whispered against my hair. “It doesn’t change who you are. How much you matter to us. To me.”

  “You’re wrong!” I yelled, squeezing a fistful of her hoodie. “It changes everything about me! F-for one beautiful, fleeting moment, I th-thought I had a fucking place in this world! I… I thought I was something more than just… Just a fucking weapon with no past! B-but I have nothing… I am nothing. I’m just some… freak of nature body double whose… whose only purpose is to hurt people! I don’t even know why I exist! I don’t know why I look like a… like a fuckin’ dead woman! Where the fuck did I even come from?! What am I?!”

  “Oh god, Jordyn. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry,” Vivienne whimpered. She was crying too now, holding me tighter in her arms like I would turn to dust if she let go.

  “I can tell you,” said a familiar voice from behind.

  I whirled around, shadows sharpening at my sides and flame bursting from my hands, flaring and dimming with each influx of frustrated rage through my gut. The realisation that the fire power was actually real barely lingered in my mind for even a second. There was too much else going on for that.

  “Jordyn, you…” Vivienne was saying something, but it faded away when I processed who was in front of me.

  A woman with black wings. She wasn’t wearing a mask this time. We had the same face.

  Maggie.

  “We’re clones,” she said, matter-of-fact as if that explained anything at all.

  I dropped my guard, wiping the tears out of my eyes, a little too stunning to keep crying. “Wh… what?”

  Maggie stepped closer. “Clones. Y’know, copies. Of her.”

  She pointed her chin at the coffin behind me. Ice rushed under my skin.

  “A… a copy of her?”

  Maggie nodded. “My best guess is, Andreas took genetic material from Rosalyn’s body when she died, and used it to create us. Do you… remember the green?”

  For a moment, I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then it all came flooding back. The warmth, reaching out and seeing straight through my own skin. The day I woke up.

  “I… I remember.”

  “It was where we grew. In these… big, glass tanks, full of green liquid. I saw them when I escaped. I saw you, when you were just a tiny little harmless speck, floating in it. Look at you now; little sister’s all grown up.”

  “Jordyn, who…” Vivienne appeared at my side, grabbing my arm. “Who is that?”

  “Maggie,” I answered. “My sister.”

  I could feel Vivienne’s eyes boring through the side of my head, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from Maggie’s face. She looked just like me. It was still impossible to wrap my head around.

  “You knew you had a sister, but you didn’t know you were a… a clone?” Vivienne whispered.

  “I didn’t know she looked like me. She wore a mask last time we met. And… I hadn’t heard that word before today.”

  Maggie nodded her head. “It’s a pleasure, Miss Matthews. I admire your work.”

  “You know me?”

  Maggie tapped the side of her nose. “I like to keep tabs on all of Andreas’ activities, and that included keeping tabs on Jordyn. I’m glad she found you guys.”

  The shock of Maggie’s appearance and the subsequent bombshell she dropped was starting to fade, and in its place there was only cold, painful understanding. The truth.

  “So, I’m just… a copy of her,” I muttered to myself. “This whole time, I’ve been wondering who I was before all this, and there’s just… there’s nothing? No wonder Father treats me the way he does. I’m barely even a person. I was never born, just… created.” I dropped to my knees again, too exhausted to keep standing. I could barely feel the tears that had begun trailing down my cheeks. “What am I meant to do now? There’s nothing for me to go back to.”

  Maggie walked up and kneeled in front of me, pulling me into an embrace. Her wings stretched out, wrapping around me and shielding me from the cold night air. It broke the numb wall inside me, and everything quickly became that much more intense. I grappled desperately at her back, wailing into her shoulder. She smelled like home.

  “It’ll be okay, Jordyn,” She whispered. “I’ve been exactly where you are. It’s hard. It feels impossible, but you’ll recover. You’re strong.”

  “I-I’m no one…” I whimpered.

  Maggie pulled back, holding my cheeks so she could look me in the eye. “You’re not no one. You’re Jordyn. You’re not just Andreas’ weapon, and you’re not just a clone of Rosalyn. You are your own person, and nothing can ever take that away from you. It doesn’t… it doesn’t fuckin’ matter where we came from, okay? The- The shape of our bodies doesn’t matter. It matters what we do. We don’t belong to anyone. We are people. We have feelings and friendships and… and motherfuckin’ dreams. I want to have a family some day, and the barcode on the back of my neck doesn’t take that away from me. It doesn’t take shit away from you, either.”

  She was tearing up too, now. Her words rocked through me, hitting me right in the heart. Somehow, she understood the exact feelings burning inside me, when I couldn’t even put words to them. No, actually… maybe it wasn’t so mysterious. Maggie understood. Of course she did.

  I nodded, sniffling, and leaned back in to hug her again.

  “How did you know we’d be here?” Vivienne asked after a long moment of quiet.

  Maggie got back to her feet, helping me up with her. She pulled away from the hug, but kept one of her wings tucked against my back like a blanket. It was comforting.

  “I like to come here every now and then to pay my respects to the original. It was just a coincidence that you guys happened to be here.”

  Vivienne smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her do that since she first saw my face. “Pay your respects, huh? You… care about Rosie that much, even though you’ve never met her?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I’ve heard a lot about her. All the… circumstances notwithstanding, it’s a pretty huge honour to be cloned from such a true hero. Did you know she led the protests when Sebastian Beaumond was first running for office and campaigning on gutting federal protections for immigrants?”

  Vivienne chuckled. “Yes, I was there. She also set a cop’s pants on fire for pepper spraying a protester.”

  “Oh, Y-yeah, of course.” Maggie scratched her face, looking bashful all of a sudden. She cleared her throat. “Anyway. Um, my boyfriend’s family are immigrants, so it’s cool to know my predecessor… did all that.”

  “So was Rosie’s,” Vivienne said. “So, y’know. It was a personal issue for her.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What’s an immigrant?” I asked.

  Maggie and Vivienne both laughed. “I’ll tell you later,” Vivienne said.

  “Good call,” Maggie said. “You’re probably running out of time.”

  Anxiety suddenly shot through my gut. “For what?”

  “It probably won’t be long before Andreas and his cronies check their system and find out that you’re here, and… well, it won’t be hard for them to figure out why. We need to get the tracking chip out of your neck before you go anywhere else. Also, we should probably put Rosalyn back in the ground. This much exposure is really bad for your skin when you’re a corpse.”

  My hand shot to the back of my neck instinctively. I had a feeling I knew what she was talking about, but still, I asked; “Wh-what chip?”

  Maggie raised an eyebrow. “I assume by the way you’re holding your neck, you know where the pain comes from when Andreas does that electricity bullshit on you. That’s the chip’s doing. It also tells them where you are at all times. If you wanna get away from him, step one is removing that thing.”

  Vivienne stepped up, a determined look in her eyes. “I’ll go get a scalpel and a suture kit.”

  Maggie grinned. “Shit, I wish I had you around when I had to get mine out. I just used broken glass.”

  Vivienne winced, then teleported away. Maggie turned to me.

  “Let’s put big sis back to bed, yeah?”

  I swallowed, gritting my teeth, and nodded. This was all so surreal.

  Rosalyn was right where we left her. The moon had poked its head out from between the clouds, and it shone down on her. She looked almost peaceful, in a very, very dead sort of way.

  Maggie picked up the lid where it had been thrown off on the grass. “Shit, you really did a number on this thing.”

  “S-sorry,” I replied. “I… I didn’t think she’d actually be in there. I didn’t think it would matter.”

  Maggie shrugged. “Well, she’s dead; I’m sure she won’t mind much. It’ll just be that much easier for her to escape when she rises again as a zombie.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t seen Night of the Living Dead? I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  Maggie put the lid back onto the coffin. It wasn’t really secure now that all of the nails had been ripped out, but it would have to do. Together, we put the coffin back in its hole, and I used my shadows to push the dirt back in to cover it up. It wasn’t as deep as before thanks to the way the dirt had fallen when I lifted her, but that shouldn’t really matter. It was obvious someone had tampered with it due to all the missing grass, but there was nothing I could really do about that.

  Vivienne reappeared, carrying a red bag with white cross on it. She looked around and breathed a relieved sigh.

  “Thanks for cleaning up. I… didn’t want to have to see that again.”

  Maggie clapped her hands. “Come on, let’s get this shit going. We’ve probably wasted too much time already.”

  Vivienne shook her head. “No, I’m not doing it here. Grab hold of me, I’ll take us somewhere sterile where I can actually see what I’m doing.”

  Maggie sighed. “Fine. Come on, Jordyn.”

  She didn’t need to tell me twice. I ran over to Vivienne, grabbing her hand. She smiled at me and Maggie rolled her eyes. She walked up and put a hand on Vivienne’s other shoulder.

  In an instant, our surroundings shifted from the dark cemetery to a familiar room with bright tiled walls. Brianna stood at the sink, washing her hands.

  “You said sterile! This is a public toilet!” Maggie said.

  Brianna yelped and jumped, whirling around. “Who’s there?!”

  “It’s just us, Brea,” Vivienne said. “Sorry.” She turned to Maggie. “And for your information, this is not a public toilet, it’s the Union toilet. We don’t really have that many options, so a private place that I can attest is kept clean is better than nothing.”

  Maggie waved a hand at Brianna. “Private?”

  “It’s okay, Maggie,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling it down. “I trust Brianna. She can know.”

  “Know what? What’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story, Brea,” Vivienne said. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, we have to get this tracking chip out of Jordyn’s neck before de Vygon finds out where we’ve been.”

  Brianna blinked. “I left you guys alone for thirty minutes.”

  “It’s been an eventful night,” I muttered. Had it really only been that long? The kiss felt like it was weeks ago.

  Vivienne put the pack down on the bench and pulled her equipment out of it. “Kneel down, Jordyn. We’re doing this.”

  I took a deep breath and did as I was told, fear whirling around my gut like a cyclone. “Is this gonna hurt?”

  “Yep,” Maggie said. She kneeled down next to me and grabbed my hand, squeezing it. “But I’m gonna be right here.”

  I swallowed, nodding. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  Maggie stood back up, and Vivienne wiped my neck with something wet.

  “It won’t be hard to find. Cut there. It’s not deep.”

  Brianna carefully walked up to us, taking Maggie’s place and holding my hand. “Who is that?” she whispered.

  “My sister Maggie,” I replied. “Again, long story,” I quickly added when I saw the question forming on her lips.

  She frowned, but nodded. “Okay.”

  “I’m about to cut, Jordyn. Try to keep still.”

  I grit my teeth and nodded. “Do it.”

  White-hot pain erupted from my neck, sending alarms through my entire body. I whimpered, biting my lip to try and redirect my pain centres. It wasn’t very effective. Brianna squeezed my hand.

  “I see it,” Vivienne said. “Hand me the tweezers.”

  “You sound more like a surgeon than a nurse,” Brianna said, thankfully distracting me from the feeling of Vivienne rummaging through my neck muscle. “Maybe you chose the wrong medical profession to go for,” she joked.

  “Yeah, I’m not interested in doing this ever again,” Vivienne replied. “Okay, I got it.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. I saw the bloody chip drop on the ground in my peripheral vision, right before Maggie’s boot crushed it to dust.

  “Gonna stitch you up now, Jordyn. You’re being real brave.”

  Finally, something I was used to. I relaxed a little, buzzing with pride at the complement.

  “Yeah, I cried like a bitch when I got mine out,” Maggie said.

  “Maybe that’s because you used broken glass, genius,” Vivienne teased. “It’s not exactly medical standard.”

  “Hey! I was a little starved for options at the time! Also, I’d literally never been outside when I did it, so how was I supposed to know… anything?”

  Vivienne chuckled. “Chill out, I’m just kidding.”

  They finished stitching me up in silence, and Vivienne placed a bandage over the top of the wound. All in all, it wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. No worse than most other medical procedures I’d been through, anyway. Maggie helped me to my feet and, surprisingly, pulled me into another hug.

  “Andreas is probably gonna be coming here to look for you soon, so I have to go.” She pulled back, looking me in the eye. “I’ll, um… I’ll be in touch. Somehow.”

  She turned to Vivienne, “Matthews, would you mind taking me back to the cemetery?”

  Vivienne rolled her eyes. “You got wings, yet you need my help. Typical. Fine, birdbrain. Grab on.”

  “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” Maggie turned back to me, giving me one last look. “See ya, Jordie.”

  I waved, not really knowing how to feel. This had been a weird night. “Bye, Maggie.”

  With that, they teleported away.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Brianna asked. “Seriously.”

  “I… don’t even know where to begin,” I answered truthfully, running a hand through my hair.

  Vivienne reappeared. “Brianna, can you go get Ashley and tell him to meet me in his office? I’m gonna go get Maddie.”

  “Vivienne, what’s happening? Talk to me.”

  She sighed, rubbing her face. “I’ll tell you along with the others, okay? I promise. I’d just… rather not go over all of this more than once.”

  Brianna stared in her direction for a moment before nodding. “Okay. I’ll hold you to that.”

  She grabbed her cane from where it was resting against the sink bench and left the room, leaving Vivienne and I alone.

  “Jordyn, I… think we should talk.”

  She turned to face me. Something about her tone made my gut flip with nerves.

  “What is it?”

  She was silent for a moment before taking a breath. “I like you. I really do. It’s just… Well, to be honest I wasn’t really expecting any of this. When I came here tonight, I thought… you and I could just… get together and it would be normal. But… It’s not. With everything that’s happened, and everything that’s about to happen, I… don’t think a relationship is a good idea right now. For either of us. Like I said, don’t get me wrong; I do like you, Jordyn. I really care about you. And someday, I would like to try a relationship. But not right now. It’s just too much.”

  I didn’t really understand what she was saying, but I could tell it wasn’t good. “Wh-when you say… relationship. You mean… we’ll still be friends, right?” My voice cracked on the last word.

  Vivienne’s face dropped. She came over and hugged me. “Oh, Jordyn. Of course we’ll still be friends. I just mean romance.”

  “Right, right…” That was still… disappointing, but as long as I could be near her, I didn’t care that much. She said there was still a chance for the future; that would have to do for now.

  She pulled back. “Alright, I need to go get Maddie. Stay here.”

  “W-wait, why are we…?”

  Her expression went slack. “We need to tell them. Maddie… She deserves to know what’s going on, and Ashley can help us figure out what to do.”

  I stepped away, hugging myself. “B-but, that’s so soon. I’m still… None of this even feels real yet. How am I supposed to explain any of this? Especially to her?”

  “I can handle that, okay? If we put this off, it’ll only get harder. I’m serious. Maddie… she’ll take it personally. It’s already gonna be a shitshow when she finds out. It’s better to not keep it from her. She has a right to know what happened to her wife.”

  I looked down, trying not to cry again. This was all happening so fast. Why couldn’t I just have some time to figure out who I was before I had to face the wife of the woman whose body I stole?

  Vivienne sensed my feelings and stepped close to me again. “I’m so sorry, Jordyn. I don’t want to take your agency away. I just… don’t know what the fuck else to do. I can’t do this alone. I can’t help you alone.”

  “It’s fine,” I muttered, staring at the tile floor. “Other people usually know what’s best for me, anyway. Why would this be any different? Father always said I wasn’t… very smart.”

  Vivienne’s breath hitched. It sounded a little like a sob, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up and check.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Vivienne teleported away.

  —

  “Shit, are you alright?”

  Vivienne gasped for air, trying to stop crying. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to teleport straight to Maddie’s apartment right after… that.

  “I- I’m fine. I’m fine,” she whimpered, gaining a small modicum of control.

  “Did Jordyn do something? I’ll kick her ass if she did,” Maddie said, holding Vivienne’s shoulders.

  Yes, she did, Vivienne thought. But, no, that wasn’t fair. Jordyn didn’t intend to hurt her with what she said, and frankly, it was fucking true. Vivienne was a fucking bitch. Taking Jordyn’s decision away during one of the most important discoveries of her entire life; making her feel like she didn’t get to decide for herself. She was no better than de Vygon. The worst part was, Vivienne was still going to go through with it. Because, despite it all, what she said was the truth. She couldn’t handle this alone, and Maddie deserved to know.

  Nothing she could ever do would make up for this, but it had to be done.

  She sucked in a breath, forcing herself to stop crying. She didn’t deserve to. “N-no, it’s not that. Something just… I’ve just discovered something really important. We need to have a meeting. Come on.”

  Maddie looked down at herself, wearing just a tanktop and boxers. “Can I at least get dressed first?”

  Vivienne shook her head. “You won’t want to wait for this.”

  Maddie sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They teleported to Ashley’s office. Thankfully, he and Brianna were already there.

  “Vivienne, what’s going on? Why do you look like you’ve been crying?” Ashley asked.

  She grit her teeth. “Look, it’s… it’s… ugh. I need to get Jordyn. You’ll understand once you see.”

  “I won’t,” Brianna said.

  “I’m sure you’ll… get the picture,” Vivienne replied, very quickly running out of energy for this situation.

  She teleported back to the bathroom, finding Jordyn right where she left her; hugging herself and staring at the ground. Guilt immediately rocked through Vivienne like an avalanche.

  “Jordyn, are you… are you ready? Everyone’s here.”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  Vivienne felt like a plant with no sun. That would have to do. She placed a hand on Jordyn’s shoulder and teleported them back into Ashley’s office.

  “Oh my god,” Ashley said. Madeline looked like she’d seen a ghost; eyes wide, jaw hanging open. Vivienne heard Jordyn suck in a breath. She was squeezing her eyes shut. This must be so hard for her.

  And it was all Vivienne’s fault.

  “R-Rosie…?” Maddie muttered, taking a single step forward.

  Vivienne shook her head, her entire body roiling with rage at herself. She was hurting everyone. “No. It’s Jordyn. She’s… um… She's a clone.”

  Maddie froze. “What? How? How… do you know?”

  Jordyn made a small noise in the back of her throat. “We… we checked,” she said, still staring at the carpet.

  “How did you check…?” Ashley asked, sounding like he didn’t actually want to know the answer.

  “We… had to dig up Rosie’s grave… to see if her body was still in there,” Viv answered. “It was. So… Jordyn can’t be her. Also… we met another clone at the grave, who confirmed it. She’s the one with wings.”

  Ashley frowned. “The one that shot her?”

  “She was trying to protect herself…” Jordyn muttered. “From me. She knew Father would send me after her.”

  Maddie looked like she was going to be sick. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said quietly, before quickly running out of the room and slamming the door behind her.

  A few seconds later, a gut-wrenching cry of anguish and rage echoed through from outside, accompanied by something banging against the walls. Jordyn covered her ears, whimpering. Vivienne was tempted to comfort her, but… Jordyn probably didn’t want anything to do with her right now.

  “Jordyn,” Brianna beckoned from where she was sitting on the uncomfortable leather couch. “Come here.”

  Jordyn went to her, and Brianna wrapped her in a side hug, whispering something Vivienne couldn’t hear. It was for the best. Brianna was much more suited to this than Vivienne was; having trained to be a social worker.

  The screaming stopped after a few awful minutes. By the time it was done, Jordyn looked like she had totally shut down; blank-faced staring into space, leaning on Brea’s shoulder. Ashley was cradling his head in his hands at his desk, rubbing his temples. Vivienne was still just standing there, feeling like an interloper in this place that she usually found so much comfort.

  Madeline came back in, cradling a bruised fist. “I’m gonna kill him,” she said in a hoarse, eerily flat voice.

  “Let’s talk about this, Madeline,” Ashley replied. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do now that we know the whole situation.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” she said, walking up to his desk and leaning on it. “Andreas de Vygon cloned my dead wife. He tortured, traumatised, and killed those clones; the- the last piece of Rosie still alive on this earth. I am going to rip him limb from limb and freeze his torso in an ice block, and watch him slowly die of frostbite. This is not a discussion. This is what I’m going to do.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Everyone turned to look at Jordyn. Her cheeks reddened, and she shrunk back into herself. “He’s… I know he’s bad, but… please don’t kill him.”

  “She’s right,” Ashley said, trying to regain control of the situation. “I understand how angry you are, Maddie. I’m angry, too. But we need a plan for now, not some half-baked revenge fantasy that we’d never be able to achieve anyway.”

  Maddie slumped, going slack and landing on the chair opposite the desk. “I’m sorry, I- I just…” Her eyes kept flickering to Jordyn. “Every time I look at… at her, I think about it again, and it… I don’t know what to do with all this rage. He violated her.”

  “And he’ll pay for it,” Ashley said. “In time. My friend in the DA said that a small investigation against de Vygon has been launched thanks to those research notes, but now that we know the truth, we could start building a proper case with Jordyn and the other clone’s testimony. But, I’ll handle all that. What we need right now is to calm down and plan.”

  “De Vygon’s going to be coming for her now,” Vivienne said. “She had a tracking chip in her neck; he would’ve seen that we went to the cemetery, and he’ll know the chip’s offline now that I’ve removed it.”

  “If he wanted to, he could claim we kidnapped her and take this place with a SWAT team in a single afternoon,” Ash muttered. “We need somewhere for Jordyn to lay low while I prepare the investigation. That way, even if de Vygon raids the Union, he’ll get nothing from it.”

  That gave Vivienne an idea. “My grandparents had a little cabin way out in the country. I could teleport us there, and go back and forth for supplies and stuff. It’s totally off the grid; no internet or anything. Just a generator for electricity and a rainwater tank.”

  “How many people know about it?” Ashley asked.

  Vivienne shrugged. “My parents, I guess, but that’s it. My grandparents died years ago, and the deed for the land never passed on to anybody, so it shouldn’t be in any records with our name or anything. Even if he did find it, it should buy us a few weeks at least.”

  Ashley smiled. “That sounds perfect.” He turned to Jordyn. “What do you think? Do you want to stay there while everything cools off, or do you have something else in mind?”

  Jordyn reeled back, nervously glancing around the room.”Y-you’re asking me? No, I… I wouldn’t know. You guys just… you make the decision. You would know better.”

  Vivienne got the distinct impression that this was her fault. Jordyn had been making such good progress with finding herself and her agency, and now it seemed like she’d completely backslid, all because of what Vivienne did. She needed to fix this, and this might be her only chance.

  She walked over and sat down next to Jordyn, tentatively taking her hand. When she didn’t immediately pull away like Vivienne had half-expected her to, she squeezed tighter.

  “I know I made you feel like you didn’t get to choose when to tell everyone about you, and for that, I can never apologise enough,” Vivienne said in a low voice. “But it wasn’t because I didn’t think you were capable of making the decision for yourself. You’re smart, Jordyn. So smart. You’re, what… not even two years old, technically? And yet you already know how to walk, talk, interact with the world around you. You know more forms of martial art than I can count; you can read and write and draw and paint. You’re starting to pick up cooking. You’re more than capable of making your own decisions, and you should get to decide for yourself how this is gonna be handled. We all trust you on this; it’s okay to trust yourself.”

  Jordyn’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “You think so?”

  “We do,” Brianna said, reinforcing Vivienne’s statement.

  Jordyn clenched her fists. “I… I like Vivienne’s idea. After everything that’s happened tonight, I… I feel like I need some time to just… figure things out. I need something new. I need somewhere I can go to get away from Father. I- I mean, Andreas.”

  Ashley nodded. “It’s decided, then. You should start packing right away. As for the rest of us, we should decide who’ll be staying with her. She can’t be there alone.”

  “I’ll do it,” Vivienne said. Really, she was the obvious choice, given her powers.

  Madeline stood up. “Me too.”

  Ashley tilted his head. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “It’s not fair on Vivienne to have to shoulder this all on her own. We can rotate out. Also, we want someone that can fight to be there just in case de Vygon’s men find us. I… Maybe it’s stupid, because you’re not her, but…” She turned her head to look at Jordyn. “I want to protect you.”

  Jordyn’s mouth opened a little, her eyes widening before she steeled herself, bottom lip still quivering. “Thank you, Madeline.”

  Maddie’s face broke a little at that, but she kept herself from breaking down, turning back to Ashley. “I can do more good out there than here.”

  Ashley nodded. “Alright. I’m proud of you.”

  “Pack some books or something,” Viv said, standing up. “There’s not gonna be a lot of entertainment out in the woods.”

  “It’s… probably best if I stay here,” Brianna muttered, a regretful look on her face. “New environments can be… tricky for me.”

  “You’re right,” Ashley said. “We’ll want to maintain a fa?ade of normalcy here if the police come looking. You’re a resident here; having you disappear as well would make it even more obvious we were planning something.”

  Jordyn pouted. “I’ll miss you.”

  Brianna pulled her into a hug. “Aw, I’ll miss you too, Jean Shorts.”

  “Don’t worry too much,” Vivienne said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to bring you over to visit every now and then.”

  Ashley tapped his desk, standing up. “Let’s get to it. Vivienne; take Maddie home so she can start packing, then check to make sure the place is as you remember it. I’ll start grabbing supplies for you. Jordyn, go to your dorm and do the same. We’ll meet back here in thirty minutes.”

  Vivienne raised an eyebrow. “No packing time for me?”

  “You can come and get new clothes or supplies whenever you want. How much packing time do you need?”

  It was true, but she wasn’t gonna admit it. She rolled her eyes, reaching out to Madeline. “Come on, then. Vivienne’s taxi is at your service.”

  —

  Much like the rest of this shitshow of a night, the proceedings of this meeting happened so fast, I could barely keep up. But, despite it all, I was happy with the outcome. I’d be going away to a place where Father couldn’t get me or hurt me anymore. I was… finally free of him. Every throb of stinging pain in the back of my neck was another reminder of that.

  “One sec, Viv,” Madeline said, walking up to me. I looked up at her, fear spiking in my throat. I’d been beginning to think that she wasn’t mad at me, even though I stole her wife’s body, but maybe I was wrong.

  But, instead of hitting me, Madeline pulled me to my feet and wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace. I whined; my cracked ribs protesting the pressure, and she loosened a bit, but didn’t let go. My head rested against her shoulder, her scent filling my nose. She smelled like sweat and smoke and grass, but for some reason, that was comforting like nothing else. Like this, everything seemed so much less daunting than before.

  Madeline breathed in against my hair and let out a tiny, almost imperceptible sob. I leaned against her more heavily, trying to make up for the pain I was no-doubt causing her. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to see someone she knew to be dead; someone that she loved above all others, for the first time in so long. And how much it must hurt to know that I wasn’t really her.

  “Sorry,” Madeline muttered, pulling back. “I just, uh… I really needed that.” She sniffled. In her eyes was five years of grief, all spilling out in one moment.

  “It’s okay,” I replied.

  Madeline turned back to Vivienne. “You can take me home.”

  Vivienne placed a hand on her arm. Our eyes met for one last, lingering second before she disappeared.

  Fuck, what a night.

  TRUTH. And also what I've been dying to talk about since I started this bloody thing lol. only took 100k words to get here. Jordy's a clone of Rosie!!!!! But you probably already knew that with how unsubtle about it I was teehee