I didn't know how long I stood there, staring down at myself.
My body.
My dead body.
The face looking up from the passenger seat was pale and bloated, eyes clouded, mouth open like it was still trying to scream. It didn't even look like me anymore.
The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled like wet metal and smoke. Steam rose from the twisted wreck of the car. The silence was wrong—too thick, too still.
When I finally looked down at my hands, they weren't mine. They were my sister's—smaller, softer, the nails short and clean. My arms were leaner, my hair longer, sticking to my face in clumps. The ring she always wore—a plain silver band—gleamed on my finger.
It hit me then. I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't hallucinating.
I was her. Lily.
Her body. Her pulse. Her breath.
And she was me—gone, lying broken on the road a few feet away.
I stumbled back, clutching my chest. My heartbeat felt strange, off-rhythm, like I'd been dropped into a body that hadn't invited me. I couldn't even think straight. Every sense was screaming—smell, sound, touch—sharper, faster, different.
That's when I heard them.
Laughter.
Low and mean, drifting through the trees that bordered the highway. The same voices I'd heard before the darkness took me.
The scavengers returned.
My stomach twisted. They'd come back. For what? What else could they possibly want?
I dropped into a crouch behind the ruined car, pressing my sister's back against the cold metal. My hands shook as I tried to steady my breathing.
They were close now—boots crunching on gravel, the wet slap of footsteps against the road.
"Check again," one of them rasped. "We left the blue pack."
"Thought we took everything worth a damn."
A snort. "Bodies still got jewelry. Maybe she's got something under the clothes."
My blood ran cold.
They were talking about me. About her. Getting back to the tower before it got darker.
I risked a glance over the hood. There were three of them again—two men and a woman. Greasy hair, patchwork armor, filthy clothes. The kind of people who survived by cutting others open.
One of them—the tall one—had my sister's backpack slung over his shoulder. My backpack, now.
Rage flared before fear could.
I looked around. No weapons. Nothing I could use.
Then my gaze landed on her—my old body, half-buried under broken glass.
My father's gun.
I'd taped it to the inner lining of my jeans years ago, just like he taught me. A "last resort," he'd called it. And now here I was, needing it more than ever—except I'd have to dig it out of my own corpse.
I swallowed bile and forced myself forward.
Flipping my body forward was… wrong. They hadn't gotten close enough to the car to see me in it. But everything about what I was doing was ugh, wrong. The skin was cold, the limbs stiff. My own face lolled to one side, and I had to look away. I shoved trembling fingers down into the soaked waistband until I felt the hard, cold, familiar shape of metal.
Got it.
The pistol came free with a wet sound that made my stomach heave. I wiped it on my shirt, trying not to look at the blood.
Then I heard it, their laughter, closer this time.
"Check the car," the woman said quietly. "If there's any gas left, we'll siphon it. Camp's running dry."
Shit.
I ducked behind the trunk, heart pounding. I thumbed the safety on the gun. My sister's hands—steady, sure. The muscle memory kicked in so naturally that it startled me.
Wait.
I knew how to shoot, but not like this. Not with this kind of precision, this practiced ease. My stance shifted without thought, my weight balanced just right.
Something wasn't adding up.
I looked down at the pistol, then at my sister's arms. The way the muscles flexed, the calm way she—I—breathed under pressure.
This wasn't fear. It was training.
The scavengers rounded the wreck.
The woman spotted me first. "Hey—"
The shot tore through the night before she could finish.
The recoil barely moved me. She hit the ground with a scream, blood spilling into the puddles.
The tall one swung his weapon, an old pipe wrench, but I was already moving. I ducked, kicked, and brought the butt of the gun down across his jaw. Bone cracked. He dropped.
The third man froze, wide-eyed. "You, what the hell are you?"
"I wish I knew," I said, and pulled the trigger again.
He went down.
The silence after was sharp and endless.
Three bodies. Two breathing. One not.
I lowered the gun, staring at the trembling hands that weren't mine. My breathing was too steady. My aim is accurate, steady. My heart didn't even race the way it should.
"What the hell did you get into, sis?" I whispered.
I crouched beside one of the wounded scavengers—the leader, the one who'd taken the first hit. He clutched his shoulder, glaring at me through blood and the rain that had restarted right on cue.
"You're one of them, aren't you?" he rasped.
"One of whom?"
"The Recruits," he spat. "Government soldiers. Experiments. Heard they used women first. Strong ones. Smart ones. Then everything went to shit, and they just—vanished."
I stared down at him. "That's a hell of a bedtime story."
He smirked weakly. "Guess you don't remember."
Before I could ask, his eyes rolled back. Out cold.
I looked around the wreckage—guns, blades, rags, and my sister's backpack. I grabbed it, rummaging through the contents: canned food, ammo, a knife, and medical tape. Nothing unusual, except for the black ID card tucked behind a bandage roll.
No name. No photo. Just a symbol, three circles intersecting, like a triple helix.
It looked military. Experimental. Classified.
"What were you doing, Lily?" I whispered. "Who were you working for?"
The world didn't answer, but the body I wore seemed to hum with memory. I knew how to reload, how to check for movement, how to read a perimeter. These weren't my instincts—they were hers.
Whoever my sister really was, she hadn't told me the truth.
I dragged the scavengers off the road and stripped their weapons. When I was done, I stood over my old body one last time.
She—me—looked small. Fragile. Human.
But the person standing over her?
Not so much.
I holstered the gun, wiped the rain from my face, and looked north. The man had mentioned a camp—an old radio tower. Maybe that was where the answers were.
I started walking, each step steadier than the last, the gun heavy but certain in my grip.
The storm followed me down the road, whispering through the trees like the world itself was trying to warn me.
Too late.