Narrator

Roxy and Lily were both making their way towards the library, Roxy having booked a private study room for Lily. She was going along because you needed a minimum of 2 students to book a room... Or so Roxy had told Lily.

Roxy had booked it two days in advance.

Which is why when the twins got there and saw someone already in it...

Roxy: "You're fucking shitting me." She said, voice deadpan. She leaned against the entrance doorway and crossed her arms. Her ears folded flat and her tail flicked unhappily.

Lily was frozen just behind Roxy, peeking her head around Roxy. Lily's ears and tail were a mirror of Roxy's.

Lily: "R-Roxy... Someone's in there already..." She whispered, clutching her book to her chest for dear life

Roxy scoffed.

Roxy: "No shit Lily. I can see that." She didn't uncross her arms to point at the intruder, just extended a single finger. "You. You have ten seconds to explain why you're in here before I chuck you out the window."

Lily let out a startled squeak behind her.

Lily: "Roxy, no..." She said, barely audible over the ambient hum of the library.

Roxy ignored her and stared.

Roxy had just gone for a short ride. It was always a short ride. She didn't like to make Lily worry too much.

The light was green. She knew it was green.

That didn't stop the SUV from coming out of nowhere and clipping her front wheel.

The next thing Roxy remembered was staring up at the blue sky and everything hurting.

People were yelling somewhere.

Distant. Muffled.

My fucking head hurts.

Then... blackness.

Lily was practically vibrating with how hard she was shaking. Her ears folded flat and into her hair and her tail was in her lap.

She had found out yesterday that she was being assigned a new lab partner, since her old one had graduated, or transferred, or something. She had been too busy trying not to die to hear the whole story.

Which meant that today was the day she had to actually meet them.

And she was not okay.

Not even slightly.

She sat on the stool, hands petting her tail, eyes strictly on the table.

Please don't hate me. Please don't think I'm weird.

Roxy was already regretting coming to class.

She had taken her usual seat in the back corner ten minutes early, mostly because it was the only one with a wall to lean against. Her bag sat on the chair beside her while she scrolled through her phone, half-reading a message from Lily and half-listening to the room slowly fill around her.

At the front, Dr. Davies shuffled through a stack of papers before setting them on the lectern.

Davies: "Alright, settle down. As outlined in the syllabus, your midterm project will be a full case analysis and psychological profile. It accounts for forty percent of your grade."

Roxy barely looked up.

Davies: "I've assigned partners."

Her ears twitched.

Roxy: "Ugh."

She opened her messages with Lily.

group project. kill me

Davies began reading through the pairings. Roxy ignored most of them, picking at a chip in her black nail polish until she heard her full name.

Davies: "Roxanne Yukimura. You'll be working with the new transfer."

Her finger stopped over the screen.

Roxy slowly lifted her head and looked across the room.

Roxy: "Of course I am."

She dropped her attention back to her phone.

if they suck i'm dropping out

The cattery smelled faintly of bleach and dry kibble, with the sharper scent of fresh litter underneath it. Dogs barked somewhere deeper in the shelter, their noise muffled by two sets of closed doors. In here, the only sounds were the occasional meow, the rustle of plastic bags, and the quiet scrape of Lily's scoop against the bottom of a litter tray.

Lilianna knelt on the linoleum floor in front of one of the lower cages. Her braid had slipped over her shoulder sometime during the last ten minutes, but both of her hands were occupied, so she left it there.

Inside the cage, a large ginger cat watched her work with half-closed eyes. His name card said Marmalade, though someone had written Bites underneath it in red marker.

Lily had yet to see any evidence of that.

Lily: "You're not very frightening."

Marmalade answered with a low purr.

Lily: "I know. Terrible thing to say about you."

She tied off the trash bag and set it aside, then wiped down the empty litter box before filling it again. Marmalade stood long enough to inspect what she was doing, sniffed once, and settled back onto his blanket as if he had personally approved the work.

Lily measured out his food and checked the notes clipped beside the cage.

He had eaten less than usual yesterday.

She frowned and looked back at him.

Lily: "Are you feeling sick, or are you just trying to make everyone worry about you?"

His eyes slowly closed.

Lily: "Roxy does that too."

She replaced the food bowl, refreshed his water, and made a small note on the sheet for the morning staff to keep an eye on his appetite.

When she closed the cage, she kept one hand on the latch until it clicked into place.

Then she tested it.

Once.

Twice.

Marmalade reached through the bars and caught the end of her braid between his paws.

Lily froze.

Lily: "Excuse me."

He pulled it closer.

Lily: "That is attached."

Marmalade began chewing on the black ribbon tied around the end.

Lily stared at him for several seconds before carefully working her braid free.

Lily: "The warning label might be justified."

His purr only grew louder.

Lily stood, brushed the litter dust from her knees, and picked up her cleaning supplies.

There were six cages left before the morning volunteers arrived.

She moved to the next one.

The psychology building was mostly empty after ten.

A vending machine hummed at the far end of the hallway. Somewhere downstairs, a custodian dragged a trash bin across the tile.

Roxy had claimed one of the small observation rooms for herself.

She sat sideways in the chair, shoulder pressed against the wall, with a paper cup of coffee beside her and an anonymized case file spread across the desk.

The coffee had gone cold.

She kept drinking it anyway.

The subject claimed he had never met the victim.

Roxy flipped forward two pages.

He also knew the victim kept a spare key beneath the planter outside her apartment.

Roxy: "Sure."

She circled both statements in red and drew a line between them.

The next interview had gone worse.

The subject gave short answers until the investigator challenged his timeline. Then he suddenly remembered the exact route he had driven, every stoplight along the way, and the song playing when he supposedly arrived home.

Roxy underlined the entire answer.

In the margin, she wrote:

Rehearsed timeline. Adds detail when challenged.

She turned another page.

The investigator mentioned a witness.

The subject stopped answering questions about the victim and spent the next six minutes demanding the witness's name.

Roxy added another note beneath the first.

Needs control. Anger increases when denied information.

Her phone buzzed against the desk.

Lily:

Are you still in the psychology building?

Roxy glanced at the time.

10:43 PM.

Roxy:

define still

Lily:

Roxy.

Roxy:

yes

Lily:

You said you would be home an hour ago.

Roxy:

i lied

Lily:

I know. Please come home before midnight.

Roxy looked at the twelve pages she still had left.

Roxy:

bossy

Lily:

Correct.

Roxy stared at the reply for a moment.

Roxy:

fine

Lily:

Thank you.

Roxy set the phone facedown beside the file.

Roxy: "Ugh."

She took another sip of cold coffee and turned the page.

The subject had changed his story again.

Lily hated oral reports. Usually, she had a medical exemption from them, but their professor had been replaced midway through the term, and the new one wasn't being so accommodating.

She had to do at least one oral report...

And it was fifteen percent of her grade.

So she did the Lily thing.

She planned meticulously. She tried to cover every single angle someone might ask a question about.

She looked over her report, asked Roxy to look over her report, and spent hours with her trying to predict every possible question.

She was ready...

Or so she thought.

Someone asked a question she had not prepared for.

Lily: "I... Uhm... I, uh..." she stammered. "The... the q-quantum insta... insta..."

Her ears were flat, and her tail was whipping like a particularly stressed metronome.

She couldn't finish.

Lily: "I gotta..."

That was all she got out before she turned, dropped her papers, and fled the classroom.

She made it halfway down the hall before her legs gave out.

Lily sank against the wall, pulling her knees against her chest. She pressed her hands against her ears as her breathing came so fast that the edges of her vision began to darken.

Lily: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64...

She lost count.

Lily: 2, 4, 8, 16...

Roxy and Lily had been looking forward to the release of The Conjuring: Last Rites for months, and now the release date was finally here.

Neither of them had bought advance tickets because Roxy had repeatedly assured Lily, "No one's gonna see it. The Conjuring hasn't been popular since The Nun!"

And Lily had believed her.

Why?

She didn't know. She always planned ahead.

And now...

Roxy sighed as she tapped at her phone.

Roxy: "Fuck."

Lily looked over. Her sister's ears were folded flat, and her tail flicked in obvious annoyance. Lily's ears and tail subconsciously matched hers.

Lily: "What, Roxy? Don't tell me the seats are all taken! You said there'd be seats!"

Roxy aggressively tapped at her phone and pointedly did not look toward Lily.

Roxy: "Fuckin'... No. They aren't all taken. There are actually two left."

Lily sighed in relief, and her ears began to relax.

Then Roxy spoke again.

Roxy: "They're on either side of someone."

Lily's ears went right back to being flat. She grabbed her tail and hugged it against herself.

Lily: "Roxyyyy..." she whined softly. "What do we do?"

Roxy locked her phone and finally looked at Lily.

Roxy: "We'll just ask if they'll swap seats with us. Or we'll sit on either side of them, and maybe they'll feel so awkward sitting between twins that they'll offer to move."

There was a brief pause.

Roxy: "Or I'll stare at them until they combust."

Lily groaned.

Lily: "I'm going to die of a panic attack," she grumbled before heading inside the AMC theater.

Roxy followed right behind her.

A few minutes later, they found their row.