Chapter 2

The bustling city crowds were exactly what Sophie needed as she moved through them expertly. Over the last month, she'd become an expert at keeping her head down and staying out of sight. Not that she minded that. It was something she and Katie had always dreamed of being able to do when it mattered. They'd always liked the peace and quiet. The time alone to be who they really were. And her only regret now was that she was doing it alone.

Actually, that in itself was probably a lie. She was getting money from two sources- one was her dad who paid for the motel she was staying in and the other was an anonymous donor who set up a Go Fund Me and was funnelling money to the same burner account her dad sent her money on. With hers and Katie's names, faces and story plastered across every newspaper and TV show in America, getting support wasn't hard to come by. She had pretty much everyone in the country saluting her. But that was also the problem. She didn't want to be saluted by an entire country. She wanted to be left alone to adjust to her new life.

Pausing at the mouth of an alleyway, she took a breather. She'd been trying to stave off going out as much as possible due to fear of being recognised. Unfortunately, the shitty motel only had a mini fridge to store food in that only worked about eighty percent of the time which meant she had to eat food that little bit quicker to stop it from spoiling. That meant the fridge ran out of food that much more frequently and in the absence of any food fairies to deliver food, she had to go and get it herself. She had considered subscribing for a food delivery, but she only had her mother's card details memorised. If her mother caught wind of it, she'd hunt her down and kill her. Her dad wouldn't have minded, but half the time she wasn't sure if he even owned a credit card. He always used to use it so rarely. And her mother had done all the online ordering. That left her with only one option: go out in person.

Carrying two bags of shopping shouldn't have been as laborious as it was. Unfortunately for her, the circumstances were more than a little unique. When her sister had died, she'd revealed that there were not two siblings born on the day of their birth but four. Quads. Two had been absorbed early on- one into each of the twins that provided the psychic link that they'd enjoyed throughout their lives. But upon Katie's death, she'd accepted the mantle of absorbing Katie's mind and the second presence contained within it into her own consciousness. Four minds in one body was easily enough to vampire the energy right out of her. But if it meant Katie got to live on, it didn't matter how high the price was. She would pay it gladly.

"Hey, are you okay there?" She looked up to see a cop making his way over. Clearly he'd spotted that she looked exhausted and was making his way over. Great. That was just what she needed.

"Get ready." In her head, she could feel the other three presences awakening and readying for what was to come.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She knew she wasn't fooling him as he approached. She could tell she was pale and sweating profusely. That was actually pretty normal for her now. If there was one thing to be glad of, it was that the motel shower worked. Usually. Still, that didn't help in this instance. In fact, it only made the officer more suspicious as he approached.

"Hey, I recognise you! You're that girl from the news! Sophie, wasn't it? Sophie Fun or something like that?" Sophie cringed. The news had initially mistyped her last name until some scathing anonymous comments from sock accounts and some rechecking of the original e-mail and the Mirrored Life document they enclosed with it caused them to print a retraction and put it right. Unfortunately, the damage was done. It was almost as spectacular a failure as when the word 'Aluminum' came to America. But the cop had reached her now and she knew there was only one way out of getting identified. She raised her head, meeting the man's gaze fully and focused in on him.

"No. You don't know who I am. And it doesn't matter."

"No..." The cop repeated, seeming to fall into a daze. "I don't know who you are. And it doesn't matter." With that, he turned around and walked away as Sophie tried to gather strength that she simply didn't have and leave the scene. The backlash hit full-force, almost sweeping her off her feet. She knew both she and the cop would be feeling this one at least four days from now.

"Well, you were the one who had the idea to splash our identical faces across the news, get yourself disowned and then decide you wanted a quiet life." Katie's musical voice resonated throughout her head and eased her pain somewhat. And unfortunately, she had to agree.

"Just keep talking to me." Sophie instructed as she kept trudging on, clutching her shopping bags to her. Most of the food in one of the bags was comprising her meal for the night. The rest was food she would ration out over the next few days. That was how she lived now: a big meal on shopping days to reward herself for doing it and then meals that couldn't even be called meals for the next two or three days to ration it out and still try to get it eaten before it spoiled. And eighty percent sounded like a high number, but when every salad leaf mattered, twenty percent of waste could be beyond detrimental.

"Our powers are growing." Nowadays, making that observation was like pointing out like the weather was good. There was no question they'd grown exponentially stronger since being unified, even branching out to affecting other minds. But that drained far too much energy. She could only do it once a day at best. "I know it hurts you when the other two talk. And we still haven't given them names yet. Not that it's the most important thing right now."

"I honestly don't know I like what we can do now." Sophie replied as she fought on. The motel wasn't far and she knew that once she was there she could collapse on her bed and shut the world out as usual. "When it was just you and me, we had our own way of talking without talking. We could just enjoy the silence around us while talking without risk of being eavesdropped. We had all the time and solitude in the world, no matter how many people were around. The whole concept of invading a mind that doesn't belong to either of us- it just doesn't sit right with me." As Sophie walked through the parking lot gates to the motel, she felt a phantom sensation start pressuring her brain. It was like Katie was rubbing her aching head from the inside. She didn't have a clue how it was happening, but she knew she liked it. It relieved the pain instantly and made her feel sorry that the cop wouldn't have anything like that. He was doomed to be off work for days at minimum.

"Jesus Christ, girl!" Katie said as she kept working. "You've got so much pressure in here it's a miracle you don't have a stroke!"

Sophie opened the door and walked in, shrugging her hoodie off and throwing it in the corner as she set the bags down on the counter. Thanks to Katie's efforts, she was going to be able to put the shopping away much more easily. And since it was a mini fridge that didn't take long at all. Then she turned her attention to her supper. Since she was only living on three-hundred dollars a month- a sum that she was eternally grateful for but still went hardly anywhere when motel fees and human necessities came into it- she had to find ways to cook good food cheaply. Today, it was one of her and Katie's old favourites: stir fry. Even then, it was problematic as hell. The motel didn't have a wok or skillet big enough, so she had to make do with a frying pan that was so small it just barely accommodated enough for one person. By the time the meat had started cooking, the pan was almost full and she hadn't even got around to adding the noodles or bean sprouts. No way around it. She was going to have to fork out for a better pan with money she didn't have. One way or another, she couldn't keep going on like this. Then again, it was only supposed to be temporary anyway. She didn't know how long her dad intended to keep supplying the money. Until her mother caught on, she guessed. But for as long as it happened, she would keep on keeping on.

By some miracle, she managed to get all the food in the pan. It was stacked way too high and she was constantly at risk of spilling it everywhere, but she managed to get it to the point it was all heated through. It wouldn't be anywhere near as good as her dad's cooking, but she didn't need it to be. She just needed it to taste decent and fill her up somewhat. She tipped it into a giant bowl with about a billion cracks in the bottom that had been there when she moved in and carried it to the table before grabbing a fork.

All things considered, she vastly preferred the motel. Sure the tap water tasted disgusting, the mini fridge was dodgy and there were at least three points where a draft got in and the thin duvet was no match for it so she often found herself using her hoodies as secondary blankets since she couldn't afford new ones. But what got to her the most was the bed. And it wasn't because it was a repeat of the apartment they were placed in after their house burned down. Quite the opposite in fact. The mattress was actually good. And somehow, that just made it worse. Katie wasn't there anymore. If there was any bed they had to be stuck on, why couldn't it have been this one? One that didn't kill her back and would have made the two of them able to actually enjoy Katie's last two months of life.

"You know I'll always be with you." Katie said as Sophie wiped the tears from her eyes for what must have been the thousandth time in a week. "Maybe not as I used to, but I promise I'll be here until our stories have been told, Sophie. I promise I'll be here until the end."

"Good." Sophie couldn't suppress the flush of relief at her words. She'd lost her sister once. She didn't know how she could have lived if that connection hadn't survived.

"It's good that Dad's still supporting you." Katie continued as Sophie finished up and took her bowl to the sink.

"How could he not after the dance?" Sophie countered, remembering it fondly.

The party had been for their father after he'd gained a massive promotion to manage his own branch of the technology firm he worked for under the watch of his boss, Mr Garneau. He hadn't been getting far previously on account of his inability to speak English properly. But when Garneau took over, he brought it to the forefront that having a PhD made up for shaky language skills. His own heavy French accent had held him back long enough for him to know when someone's career was being unfairly stalled. So to celebrate, the family threw a massive party. People from both halves of the family came, so that was a whole new level of awkward. It was amazing how their mother's entire family suddenly approved of her marriage now that her husband was doing well for himself.

Sophie and Katie had always been very private. Sophie especially. As a result, they took great delight in watching each other's backs and making sure other people stayed away. They just found interacting with most people other than each other exhausting. This sentiment was only magnified whenever someone came over and tried to hit on them. It was baffling. What did they hope to gain? They were twins! Polyamory wasn't a crime, but the odds of them both being interested were incredibly low. Especially when most of them were guys and Sophie wasn't into guys. That was why that particular party had been such a relief to them. It was mostly a family atmosphere.

Sophie was snapped from her stroll down memory lane by a noise from outside. Without even thinking, she moved to the couch and reached down below it to grab the M1911 taped to the underside. She'd been mostly unconscious when they'd retreated to Ali's house, but they knew her dad had guns stashed everywhere. She'd learned from Katie's memories that one of those places was taped to the underside of the couch. It had been a good idea and there had been an M1911 in the survival box her dad had given her shortly after her mother had banished her from the family and Sharpied her out of every family photo. Apparently it had been a classic during his mandatory service and was widely available in the US, so he'd bought it as soon as he'd moved over. The fact that he'd trusted her enough to give it to her so freely had brought tears to her eyes.

Now armed, she headed to the door and crouched by the doorway, getting ready for trouble. From the noises she could hear outside, it sounded like a typical street fight. She wasn't going to open the door to check and she was definitely taking the gun to bed with her tonight. The Prescotts having hired an army of cheap fixers to make her vanish and save literally anything they could of what was left of their family name was never out of the question. They may have taken crippling financial hits in the destruction of their Pan Estates projects both in Oregon and Seattle, but they weren't ones to let bygones be bygones. And the fact that someone sounded like they were heading to the door only served to put her further on edge. Her nerves only doubled when they knocked.

"Who is it?" she called as loudly as she could through the door.

"Please... Help...!" The voice sounded breathless and absolutely frantic. "My name is Alan! I'm here alone and I have information you need to see!" Sophie grit her teeth as her mind started racing. On one hand, this could be genuine. On the other, if she even cracked the door and then immediately got shot then she would be pissed beyond words. Caution and curiosity clashed in the middle to produce an unholy hybrid of a plan that was riddled with holes. But that was fine provided it was the plan that had holes in it and not her.

"I'm opening the door on the chain!" she called through. "Pass what you have through the crack. Try anything dumb, I will blow your fucking head off!" The instant the door opened, bloodstained fingertips popped through the crack with a USB stick held between two fingers. She grabbed a tissue from her hoodie and wrapped it around the USB before she took it to avoid getting blood on her hands. After shutting the door again, she wasted no time in booting up the piece of crap laptop that her dad had given her and plugging it in. It didn't take more than a glance to tell her this was legit. And with that realisation, only one coherent thought crossed her mind.

'Fuck!'