Lilianna’s hand rose.

It shook badly enough that she missed on the first grab, her fingers closing on air.

On the second attempt, she caught the barrel of the syringe and pulled it from ’Helena’’s grip with the clumsy urgency of a starving person snatching bread.

There was no hesitation. Not even a moment of doubt.

Lilianna brought the needle close to her shoulder, then up to her secondary gland. The pointy part sat just above the skin, there to the small cluster of tissue that regulated her alpha pheromone production and stabbed it in with a force that would have made a medic wince.

The plunger automatically dispenses the contents into Lilianna’s secondary gland.

’Helena’’s face could have been carved from stone.

The effect was almost instantaneous.

Lilianna’s body went still, every muscle locking simultaneously as if she had been electrocuted.

Soon, her back arched off the ground, spine curving into a bow. Then, a sound came out of her, something guttural and mechanical, like something being twisted past its breaking point.

Her limbs began to spasm uncontrollably. Her heels hammered against the concrete rapidly. Her fingers clawed at her own shoulders, and her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.

’Helena’ stood perfectly still throughout with devoid emotion, waiting.

The convulsions lasted less than a minute before Lilianna stopped.

Like a switch being flipped, her body suddenly went limp, her muscles unclenched. She lay there in the pool of blood and dirt under the dim red light, utterly motionless except for the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest.

Three seconds passed.

Five.

Lilianna finally opened her eyes.

But they were no longer amber or honey-colored.

The warm golden-brown that Lilianna Gringer had been born with, that her sister Sarah had always envied, that photographers loved to capture in close-up—was gone.

In its place: blood-red irises bisected by vertical slits.

The exact same eyes that ’Helena’ has right now.

The woman on the ground, Lilianna with red eyes, blinked once and twice. Then, she slowly looked around, the way someone does when waking from a long sleep in an unfamiliar room.

She looked at her own hands. Turned them over. Flexed the fingers, testing each joint.

’Helena’ smiled like welcoming a colleague back from a business trip.

"Good morning, sunshine."

’Lilianna’ met ’Helena’’s gaze, incredibly irritated as she seemed to recognize who was behind ’Helena’’s eyes.

When she spoke, the voice was ’Lilianna’’s, but the cadence and aura were completely different.

"Took you so long, bitch." As ’Lilianna’ said, she was already moving.

She placed both hands flat on the ground, pressed down, and pushed herself upright. Midway through the motion, there was a series of sounds that no human body should make.

Wet cracks, grinding pops, the muffled thunk of bones realigning within flesh.

’Lilianna’ was resetting Lilianna’s skeletal damage, forcing shattered kneecaps back into position, straightening fractured ribs, and realigning a dislocated shoulder.

Her expression didn’t change throughout, and she even cracked her knuckles like she was just stretching.

’Helena’ didn’t flinch at the gore scene and nonchalantly said, "I’m a busy person."

That earned ’Helena’ a glare from ’Lilianna’. It was brief but searing, the kind of look that promised violence at a more convenient time.

"Got a change of clothes?" ’Lilianna’ asked, looking down at the blood-soaked white dress with undisguised contempt, Lilianna’s flesh and body rapidly recovering as they spoke.

’Helena’ glanced at the nearest corpse. It was a female researcher, with roughly the same build as Lilianna, wearing the institute’s standard black lab coat and pants.

’Helena’ unhesitatingly stripped the clothes off the corpse’s body and tossed them over.

"Bear with it." ’Helena said, which earned her a grunt instead of gratitude.

’Helena’ watched as ’Lilianna’ peeled off the ruined white dress without ceremony and pulled on the dead woman’s clothes.

The black fabric was already soaked with a bit of blood, but it wasn’t visible due to the color. It also hid the worst of the blood still drying on ’Lilianna’’s skin.

Although the pants were still damp at the hems, where fresh blood had run down her legs before the internal repairs had fully taken effect.

"How’s the new body?" ’Helena’ asked curiously.

’Lilianna’ rolled her neck. The vertebrae popped in sequence, top to bottom, getting a good feel of her body. She flexed her arms, rotated her wrists, tried to bounce with her newly repaired feet and knees.

"Not as bad as the one before." ’Lilianna’ said with a smirk.

"Of course not." A note of envy crept into ’Helena’’s voice. "Since Master was the one who personally put you inside this one."

’Lilianna’ didn’t respond to the jealousy of ’Helena’.

"Thought you would just let this body die and let me come out like usual," she said, straightening the black lab coat across her shoulders. "Seems like you have other plans."

’Helena’ gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Well, someone specifically said to take you out using this body. I had no choice in this matter."

’Lilianna’ raised an eyebrow and asked, "The price?"

"Guess." ’Helena’ smugly said.

’Lilianna’ stared at Helena’s expression for a second and then said, "Congrats." 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

’Helena’ exaggeratedly pouted and whined, "Aww~ what a bummer. How could you know already?"

"Predictable as always." ’Lilianna’ said, she didn’t look at ’Helena’ as she continued to adjust her clothes.

"Are you done?" ’Helena’ asked, eyeing the way ’Lilianna’ was smoothing down the stolen clothes.

The black fabric concealed most of the damage, but blood was still seeping down one pant leg in a thin, persistent trickle.

"Wait." ’Lilianna’ raised her right hand.

The nail on her index finger suddenly elongated, narrowing to a point and hardening until it was no longer a nail at all but a pair of slender, articulated pincers.

Without so much as a sharp breath, she drove the pincers into her own shoulder, directly into the flesh of her right arm.

’Helena’ raised an eyebrow, waiting to see what was going on.

When the pincers withdrew, clamped between their tips was a metallic device that was no larger than a grain of rice.

It was a military-grade tracker.

The kind that broadcasts a continuous location signal to the Imperial Military.

’Lilianna’ held it up, inspected it for a second, and then crushed it between her fingers.

The device crumbled to dust.