By the time I reached what was left of an old gas station, the rain had thinned to a drizzle. Half the sign was gone, and the rest flickered weakly—STATION hanging by a single wire. Inside, the glass was shattered, shelves overturned, everything reeking of mold and gasoline.
I found a cracked mirror behind the counter and froze.
For a long moment, I just stared. The reflection wasn't mine anymore.
Lily's hair was plastered to her face, streaked with mud and rain. One eye swollen, cheek bruised, lip split, chin flayed from the asphalt. Blood traced her nose, dark and drying. She'd made it through the wreck. Through the fight.
Still standing.
For now.
Physically, anyway.
I couldn't say the same for me—or what used to be me. My body had been broken, twisted beyond saving. Lily died from head trauma. I died from everything else. Bones, organs, whatever makes a person hold together.
Now here I was—alive in the body that killed her.
I touched the bruise under my eye, wincing at the sting. "Lucky you," I muttered. "You got the better end of it."
The sound of my sister's voice startled me. Hearing it come from my mouth felt like a betrayal.
I leaned closer to the mirror, searching her eyes for something—recognition, memory, anything. But there was nothing. Just reflection and silence.
I tried again, concentrating. If I could wake up in her skin, maybe I could wake up in her head too. Maybe there were memories buried somewhere, waiting for me to unlock them.
Nothing.
Just blank space.
No flashes of her life, no faces, no sounds. Whatever made Lily who she was—her thoughts, her laugh, her secrets—was gone.
What I had instead were instincts. Reactions that didn't belong to me. My muscles knew how to move, how to fight, how to handle a weapon with precision I'd never had. It wasn't knowledge. It was reflex.
Muscle memory.
Maybe, I thought, things would come back eventually. Maybe one day I'd remember who this stranger was I'd been living with for twenty-two years.
I didn't even know if she'd had a middle name.
I found a rag on the floor, tore it in half, and used it to wipe the blood from my face. The mirror gave back a version of Lily I didn't recognize—harder, colder, eyes rimmed in exhaustion. Maybe it was me shining through. Or maybe she'd been that way all along, and I'd just never seen it.
A crash outside made me spin. Instinct again—gun raised, stance firm. My heart didn't even spike until after.
The wind had knocked over a piece of metal siding. Nothing else moved.
I lowered the weapon slowly. "Calm down," I whispered. "You're jumpy as hell."
My voice cracked. I hadn't realized I'd been crying until I tasted salt. I swiped at my face with the back of my hand, smearing dirt and blood together.
I needed to move. The longer I stayed here, the greater the chance the scavengers' friends came looking.
Still, I hesitated—one last look at the mirror, at the bruised, unfamiliar face staring back.
"I don't know who you were, Lily," I said quietly. "But if you were part of whatever those bastards called the Recruits, I guess that makes us both survivors now."
I checked the gun's magazine—half full. More than enough.
The gas station's back door hung crooked on its hinges. I pushed it open and stepped into the wet air. The clouds were thinning, a dull moon breaking through. I could see the highway stretching north, a thin scar of broken pavement leading toward the radio tower the scavenger had mentioned.
Somewhere up there were answers.
I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder and started walking again, my shadow long and uneven in the moonlight. Every step in Lily's boots felt alien and sure at the same time. My stride was different, longer. The balance of her body was efficient, tuned. She'd been built for this world, even if I hadn't.
When the wind blew, it carried the smell of fire—wood smoke, maybe burning fuel. Civilization, or what was left of it. A settlement.
Or a trap.
Didn't matter. Either way, I had to keep moving. Standing still meant dying twice.