“I’m sorry about all those things I said earlier,” she told me, finally breaking the silence. “That’s a lot to take in, really. It’s still hard to believe that all of this is really happening. I still can’t really believe it, if I'm being honest.”

“Then you know how I feel,” I said.

I noticed Monroe and Travis moving around in the room, so I sat up. Mila must have noticed too, because she looked away and up at them.

“Hey,” she said, catching both of their attention. “I’m sorry about being all freaked out and stuff earlier. It’s kind of a twin thing, ya know?”

I noticed the confusion on their face when she said “a twin thing”. I couldn’t blame them.

A lot of people that we’ve told growing up would get confused, since we weren’t actually related at all. Mila and I have different parents, but we were born on the same day at the same time. When my mom met Mila’s dad—who we prefer calling our mom and dad—we were really young, and like many really young kids we didn’t see each other as being anything but twins despite our different ethnic backgrounds. And calling ourselves twins really stuck with us, even now.

I thought that Travis and Monroe would question it once it was brought up, with the way Monroe opened his mouth to say something. But he paused like he was thinking about it, and then he said, “It’s alright, we understand.”

“Yeah,” Travis said quickly. “I was worried that things would escalate in a bad way.”

“Because of your visions?” I asked Travis.

Mila looked back at me. “Visions?” She asked me before looking back at Travis. “Like, from the future?”

Travis nodded. “I am a seer,” they told her. “I get visions of what could happen in the future. They come extremely randomly, and sometimes they don’t happen. Well, they just don’t happen in the same way as my visions would show me.”

Mila looked completely unphased by what Travis said. It made me wonder if the bed had anything to do with it.

She looked over at Monroe. “So clearly, that makes you the werewolf.”

Monroe and Travis exchanged glances. “I-Is it the smell?” Monroe asked, completely surprised by the accusation.

“Actually no,” she told him. “Your eyes kinda give it away.”

Monroe looked over at Travis, who looked at his eyes and giggled. “You forgot to put on your contacts,” they said.

“Oh.” Monroe looked away and crossed his arms in a fit, almost like he was embarrassed. “Explains the shit vision.”

I noticed that Mila was completely calm like me. Her tone of voice was light and relaxed, like she was having a conversation with a bunch of pretty normal people rather than a group of supernatural beings. But I figured maybe this was probably the best way this whole situation could have played out.

But what I couldn’t figure out was why Mila came over here in the first place. Travis made it sound like Monroe brought her over with something in mind, but I just couldn’t understand why Mila agreed to go to a stranger’s house.

“Were you hoping to find me here?” I asked Mila.

“Huh?” She raised her brow at me.

“Monroe brought you over here, right?”

I waited for her to nod before continuing. “But, why? Did you have a feeling that I would be here, so you agreed to go with him? Or did you, like, have something else in mind when you came here?”

Monroe seemed to have caught on to what I was thinking. “Hold on,” he told me, standing right in front of us. He sounded almost provoked. “Whatever you think I brought her here for is not it. First off, I’m not into chicks—no offense to you, Mila—and second off, she asked me to take her to the—”

He paused for a moment, and I thought he was trying to avoid saying something.

“Monroe?” Travis walked over. “She wanted to go where?”

I looked over at Mila and saw the discomfort on her face. Something in the back of my mind told me exactly where she wanted to go.

“You wanted to see the crime scene, didn’t you?” I asked her.

Mila let a long sigh out before nodding. “I know that’s like the last thing I should’ve wanted to do, considering that I got told my brother died, but something told me I needed to go here.”

I almost knew exactly what she was talking about, but I couldn’t think of the word for it. “Maybe it’s a closure thing?”

Mila shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t even know, dude. It was like I had this feeling that I would know what to do once I went there and saw for myself. Like I could spot something out of the ordinary and figure out what happened to you. But…”

“But what?”

Monroe pulled out his phone, and I watched him as he scrolled through his camera for a photo. “There was nothing there.”

I didn’t understand what he meant until Monroe gave me his phone. The first thing I saw was an empty alley—but it was the alleyway where I died. The caution tape was gone, and the whole alley itself appeared as if it was scrubbed clean. All the blood was gone. There weren't even any leftover stains to indicate something bad happened there.

Whatever proof there was of my death was just suddenly gone, as if nothing ever happened.

“What the hell?” I zoomed in on various sections of the photo, just hoping to spot something familiar, but there was nothing. “How is that even possible. It was there last night. All of it!”

Travis looked over onto the screen. “This couldn’t be an illusion spell, would it?” I watched as they turned their attention to Monroe, who seemed just as confused as the rest of us.

“Beats me,” he said. “If it is, then that’s one hell of a spell.”

“Not helping,” Travis said, “but you’re right. We should talk with Dr. Sheng as soon as we get them home.”

I suddenly remembered the conversation Travis and I had about me going home. “W-when will that happen?”

They seemed to have recalled the conversation too and looked at me. “Whenever you’re ready to,” they told me. “You’re still welcome to stay here as long as you need, so you don’t have to worry.”

I felt Mila’s eyes on me and met her gaze. She looked shocked and almost hurt. “But what about mom and dad?” she asked me.

“This whole thing is why I can’t go home,” I told her. “Not now, anyways. I’m not ready to confront them about this.”

“But when are you coming home?” I could hear the pain in her voice. “They’re gonna freak out no matter what, cause you’re clearly not dead. If that’s what you’re worried about—”

“It’s not just freaking them out that I’m scared of.” Whatever calming spell I was under from sitting on the bed was starting to slowly wear off, and I felt myself getting agitated again. “I know they’re gonna freak out. That’s just a given. What I’m scared of is… I’m scared I’ll do something bad.”