"It's okay," I murmured, my eyes hollow and unfocused. "I'll manage to die eventually..."

I dragged my feet, pain ground into every bone, stumbling step after step toward Cole's study.

My hands shook as I opened the computer.

I pulled up the security footage from the villa, timestamped to the periods I'd been "unconscious."

And there she was, on the living room feed. The same body as mine, but a completely different person wearing it.

A chill crawled up from the soles of my feet.

My brothers and Miriam.

From outright rejection and disgust, to tenderness and doting.

From snapping "Miriam! Get out of our sister's body!" to "Miri, please don't leave us, okay?"

Tears struck the keyboard one by one. My rigid fingers moved again.

I clicked on the study's camera feed.

"Cole, I feel guilty," Finn said, clutching fistfuls of his own hair, his head bowed in anguish.

"Lorna is our real sister. But now, in my heart, Miri already matters more than she does..."

Malcolm sighed in agreement.

"Yeah. It's not just you. I feel the same way."

"Lorna and I are twins. But I haven't thought about her in a long time. I even hope Miri stays forever."

Cole took a deep drag of his cigarette, his brow knotted tight.

After a long silence, his Adam's apple bobbed, and what came out was hoarse and utterly devoid of warmth.

"You think I'm any different?"

My breath seized.

Something behind my eyes collapsed and fell into a place it would never come back from.

On the footage, Miriam appeared.

Her face was pale and frail.

"Cole, Finn, Malcolm. Lorna might be about to take back control..."

All three shot to their feet, panic flooding their faces.

"What?! How is it happening so fast? Isn't there any way to suppress her?!"

Miriam leaned into Cole's arms.

"The System says if Lorna experiences genuine terror while she's conscious, or something that shatters her mentally, it should work..."

Before she even finished, Miriam collapsed.

"Miri!" All three screamed in unison, scooping her up and sprinting out of the room.

And after that, I supposed, came the moment they found me awake instead. The shock. The irritation. The barely concealed revulsion on their faces.

The footage froze.

I slumped back in the chair and let the despair swallow me whole.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up, and my body jerked upright.

Lorna, save me!

"Marilyn Marsh..." I choked through the agony and bolted for the door, reason gone. "You have to be okay!"

I should have known. Of course. The moment I woke up this time, they'd use my best friend's life to break me.

To bring Miriam back.

My thoughts were a tangled wreck. Grief, fury, and something close to hatred.

I barely made it out the door and into the car before the driver slammed the brakes, then wrenched the steering wheel hard.

The car flipped.

A black van plowed straight into us.

Men poured out and dragged me from the wreckage.

"Beat her!"

My body was already studded with glass shards from the shattered windows, each one buried in my skin.

"Ahhh!"

They snapped my leg while I was barely conscious. The white-hot burst of pain ripped my eyes open and tore a scream from my throat.

When they were done, the van sped off without a backward glance.

I lay on the ground, watching the blood from my own thrashing pool beneath me, spreading and spreading.

The grief stacked higher. Layer upon layer upon layer.

I blacked out.

I didn't know how long I was gone. Voices filtered in, distant and overlapping.

"That should do it, right? When she wakes up this time, it should be Miri."

My eyes stayed shut. My consciousness drifted in and out like a bad signal, but my ears caught every word.

Finn paced back and forth, his anxiety filling the room.

"It has to be Miri! So why isn't she waking up?!"

Malcolm's voice was rough.

"To trigger Lorna's most primal, genuine fear of death, the van wasn't told to hold back."

"Don't worry, though. It's not life-threatening. Otherwise, how would Miri take over the body?"

My lashes trembled. Inside, I was screaming, clawing, sobbing.

Why are you doing this to me? Why?

They hadn't mentioned me once. Not a single time, from start to finish.

No one cared how I felt.

Whether I might actually die.

A moment later, I opened my eyes slowly. The conversation between the three of them cut off at once.

"Miri!"

My eyes were hollow as I fell into Malcolm's warm, trembling arms. Above my head, his voice cracked with joy.

"You're finally back. I missed you so much."

"The System can block your pain, right? Use it now. We'll get rid of Lorna and—"

"Malcolm!"

Cole's voice sliced through the air, sharp enough to stop Malcolm mid-sentence.

Malcolm turned, confused, and met Cole's wide, stricken eyes.

"It's Lorna."

Malcolm's body went rigid. He jerked back three inches, pulling away from me.

I tugged at the corners of my mouth, playing dumb.

"Malcolm? Who's this 'Miri' you were talking about?"

The air in the room solidified.

So quiet I could hear all three of their heartbeats, uneven and panicked.

"You misheard."

Finn was the first to speak, breaking the silence.

"Lorna, the car accident scared Malcolm half to death. He was rambling. He's just worried about you."

Malcolm nodded frantically in agreement.

His face was stiff, the color all wrong.

"...Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry, Lori. I was just so worried about you."

I pulled up the corners of my lips and didn't ask again.

But under the blanket, my fingers curled tighter and tighter until my nails bit into my palms. The pain was blinding, and I didn't so much as flinch.

My mind kept circling back to what Malcolm had just said. The System blocks her pain.

So that was it.

I'd never been able to figure it out before. They tortured my body so brutally. Wouldn't Miriam feel the pain too, once she took over?

But no.

Everything was rigged in her favor. In theirs.

What a joke.

"Cole. Finn. Malcolm."

I lifted my head suddenly, my gaze bleak. "It hurts so much. My whole body. It hurts so much I want to die."

Their expressions froze. "What?"

I didn't answer. Just looked at them, eyes full of mockery.

Then I bolted, limping and lurching, and threw myself into the oncoming traffic.

The second attempt failed too.

Finn yanked me back from the edge of death, his face white with shock.

The driver leaned on his horn and screamed out the window. "Are you insane? You wanna die, do it somewhere else!"

All I felt was disappointment that I'd failed again.

Next time, I'd have to use the simplest method. The most final one.

Cole and Malcolm caught up, doubled over and gasping for air.

Cole kicked me hard enough to send me stumbling. "You don't get to die, Lorna Harding!"

"I'm telling you, I—"

"Cole! Finn! Malcolm!"

A sweet, urgent voice rang out from down the street, cutting him off.

All three of them whipped around. A figure fluttered toward them like a butterfly and threw herself into their arms, clinging.

"I missed you all so much!"

Cole's cold eyes erupted with pure, unguarded joy. "Miri?!"

He shot a wary glance at me, then turned his back and lowered his voice. "How did you—"

Miriam bit her lip, her face crumpling with rehearsed hurt.

"I missed you too much. I begged the System to give me five minutes to see you."

"Cole..." Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"You have to hurry. If you can't take the body back soon, the System will declare my mission a failure."

Three men who commanded boardrooms and crushed rivals were suddenly helpless, tripping over themselves.

"Don't worry, Miri. We've got you."

I stood off to the side, forgotten, watching them cling to each other like a family being reunited. Like I wasn't even there.

They never really knew me. Otherwise, how could they have forgotten I could read lips?

Miriam, wearing someone else's body, turned back before she left.

She walked up to me, leaned down, and curled her lips into a smile.

"Then let me thank you in advance for your body, Lorna Harding."

The next day I was discharged. My three brothers, dazed and distracted, brought me home, deposited me in my room, and left without another word.

They hurried into Cole's study.

I put on my earpiece. Their voices came through, urgent and agitated.

"This attempt failed because we didn't push hard enough! If this keeps up, Miri's going to die!"

Malcolm kicked a chair over.

He noticed the water stains on the keyboard and frowned, but the thought passed as quickly as it came.

Cole drew a long breath.

"Tomorrow is Lorna's birthday. Get a few vagrants in here, have them waiting in her room. I refuse to believe this won't work."

My hands went limp. My phone hit the floor hard, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

My legs gave out. I sank to the ground, laughing. The sound was hollow and desolate.

The next day. The birthday banquet.

Perhaps to maximize the shock, to grind my dignity into dust so completely that Miriam could take over for good.

They had invited half of D.C.'s elite and nearly every major media outlet.

"Here. You're nineteen today. Old enough to drink."

I took the wine glass Finn offered and spotted the faint residue of powder at the bottom, almost invisible.

"Thanks, Finn."

I lifted my face and smiled, bright and trusting, exactly the way I used to when I was little and would throw myself into his arms.

Maybe he remembered that too.

Finn's expression froze. Something flickered behind his eyes, a moment of struggle.

Then it was gone.

I drank it down. My head began to swim almost immediately. At the same time, my tongue grazed the capsule of lethal snake venom hidden inside my mouth.

One bite, and I'd be dead within ten seconds.

Finn steadied me. "Dizzy? Let me take you back to your room."

I nodded.

I caught the look the three of them exchanged.

The moment we stepped inside, I was placed on the bed. Then a wave of rancid stench hit me.

"The Harding heiress herself! We can die happy!"

"Get her!"

I smiled faintly and didn't resist. My gaze stayed fixed on the photograph hanging on the wall. The four of us, together, happy.

Then I bit down hard. The venom flooded my throat.