The group walked back to the bus, as MG opened the back door. Mazikeen who was carrying Dana's body, dumped her on the inside of the door, as Dana landed with a painful thud. Lizzie snorted at this.

"So, let me get this straight... Dana died with vampire blood in her system, so she came back to life, and now she's in transition, and she needs to feed or die...?" Landon asked as MG nodded happily in agreement. "Nailed it, bro. Easy decision, right?"

MG looked down to see a white, fibrous substance on his hand and frowned in confusion. "Huh." MG wiped the substance off of his hand and smeared it onto the bumper of the bus.

After a long moment, Kaleb finally spoke up. "All right, so we give her some human blood. It's that simple." Kaleb declared as Hope gave Kaleb a look. "Not everyone wants to be supernatural. Some people just want to be normal." Lizzie chimed in with feigned empathy and concern, "Dana's traumatized, you guys. This is a huge decision. Maybe we should give her a day or two..." She trailed off. Maze smirked, "That's a wonderful idea, Lizzie."

"She'll be dead in a day if she doesn't feed." Ari reminded the Saltzman girls, who both just shrugged. "Us Saltzman's aren't very good at Maths." Maze replied, smugly.

"You should tell her the truth. My guess is that she'd be psyched to be at a place like your school—I know I would." Landon confessed as Kaleb looked past Landon to MG and frowned, "You're awful quiet over there, MG." He admitted. "I'm a feminist, bruh. I'm not gonna tell Dana what to do with her body." MG replied before he pointed toward Landon, who was leaning against the back door of the bus. "Landon's right."

They all nod in agreement and look over at Lizzie and Maze, who, knowing that this is the right thing to do, groan and roll their eyes in response. "Ugh, fine. Okay. But, to be clear, she is not joining drill team." Lizzie growled. Maze just shook her head in disappointment, "Her dorm needs to be very far away from mine." She declared. Hope took a deep breath and cast a spell to wake Dana back up. "Surgere."

Dana groggily sat up as looked though she'd just awoken from deep sleep, "Did I pass out?" She asked as she got into a seated position. Dana groaned and closed her eyes, almost swaying in her seat. "...I don't feel so well." She confessed, looking to the students in front of her, who don't know what to do to help her.

Hope looked at her with a sympathetic expression, "We know how you feel... And it's okay. You're just hungry." She explained. Dana, not understanding where she's going with this, cut her off with a rude tone of voice. "Anorexia was sophomore year. This is something else."

"You'll feel better after you feed. I promise." MG assured her as Dana suddenly grabbed onto Ari, as she tried to stop swaying. Ari, surprised by this, awkwardly patted Dana's shoulder, before silently casting a comfort spell, but it didn't seem to be effective.

"Oh, shut up! For real. Even thinking about eating makes me want to—" Dana snapped, but stopped as she lets go of Ari, shoving her away before she heaved and vomitd a large amount of greenish-black goo onto the sidewalk.

Everyone's noses wrinkle in disgust, and Kaleb immediately jumped backward and looks down in disgust. "Oh, damn! What'd that girl eat?"

Dana continued to heave and gag up many more huge amounts of this strange vomit, much to everyone's horror. "I think her soul just got on my shoes. Ew." Lizzie cried. MG covered his mouth with a gag and stumbles backward, "I think I'ma be sick, too."

"Is this normal?" Landon asked Hope. "She's puking her guts out—literally." Ari confessed, feeling sick now.

"Honestly.. I think this is kinda funny." Mazikeen admitted, as the other students gave her unusual and disgusted looks.

Though everyone else is turned away from her, Hope frantically tried to get Dana's attention as she regurgitated more and more greenish-goo, "Dana. Dana!"

After a few minutes, Dana was laying in the puddle of her own vomit. However, instead of a whole body like there was before, Dana has just been reduced to a body-shaped piece of skin, hair, and clothing.

The Salvatore School kids were standing around Dana's body, looking disgusted by the sight and concerned about what actually happened.

"Should we call your dad...?" Ari asked, looking to Maze. Lizzie instead answered as she turned to Ari, before groaning "Why? So he can take another bullet for Hope?" Hope just glared at Lizzie, "No, because whatever did this is not a vampire."

Maze gave Landon a pointed look, "It's got to be another monster from the knife." She insisted. Kaleb looked up to Landon, "Well, maybe the monster has been right in front of us all along." He said. "What? Are you serious?" He asked, offended by this accusation. Jesse frowned, walking over to stand beside Landon before he signed, "At least hear Landon out."

"You're just saying that because you're blinded by this friendship, Jesse— none of this started happening until Landon showed up and stole that knife, which is exactly what the other monsters came here to do. You saying it's a coincidence?" Kaleb asked. "Yes. Yes I am saying this is a coincidence." Jesse signed with his hands before he frowned.

Other than Jesse, no one seemed to want to stand up for Landon. It was clear that no one else believed him.

Landon, visibly hurt by this accusation, took one last look at Hope before taking off on foot. "You guys don't believe me.." Landon sighed, as Jesse is the only one to defend him. "Got it. Say no more." Landon decided as he turned and headed toward the school, Jesse watched him leave with a guilty expression on his face.

❤︎

Maze and Jesse stepped away from the group, as Mazikeen tried to reason with Jesse, who was still angry. The Saltzman sighed before she said, "I'm sorry.. I want to believe Landon, but he's lied to us so much already." Whilst signing for the Hale to understand.

Jesse's face fell, as he couldn't argue with that because it was true, but still he wanted Landon to be innocent. Maze threw her arm loosely around Jesse's shoulder to comfort him, before they made their way back to the parking lot.

Ari, MG, Lizzie, Hope and Kaleb were cleaning up the evidence of Dana's death. Ari had been using her magic to clean, but stopped to smile at Jesse and Maze as they approached her.

MG was ripping pages out of his comic book to use to wipe the goo off of his shoes while Lizzie hosed the remnants of Dana's liquified organs off of the pavement. Kaleb walked up behind the girls and makes another disgusted face. "Nasty."

Kaleb then turned the topic back to himself as he starts to back away. "Yeah, so, um... I'm out of here. But, little piece of advice? Landon could be in there right now, eating fools. So... I'll holla." Kaleb said as he gestures around at the group before turning and walking away from them. Lizzie, rolled her eyes whilst MG went back to cleaning up his shoes.

"If it's not Landon, then what else could it be?" Maze asked. MG frowns when he noticed something on the page he's using to wipe off his shoes before suddenly being stricken by an idea, "Spider— A big spider! An arachne, if you want to get specific." MG smoothed out the page and held it up to show the group. On it is a very large spider creature. Lizzie yanked the page out of MG's hand to look at it before scoffing and handing it back. "This is nerd porn, not real life." Lizzie snapped.

"But Lizzie... So were dragons and gargoyles!" Maze stated, as Lizzie looked at her sister, realising that she did make a good point.

"The writer bases her comics off of Greek lore. An Arachne was originally a beautiful woman who was cursed by a jealous god and turned into a giant spider. Uh, all it wants to do is be human, so it wears the skin of its prey to pass. Oh, my God! It's.... it's fangs are huge, so they could pass for a vampire bite! And its bite liquefies its victims! Plus, I found a web in Dana's hair!" MG explained.

Lizzie looked at Maze, still skeptical, but Maze was definitely on board with MG's theory. "That would explain why it couldn't follow the knife out of town. An SUV-sized insect can't exactly hitch-hike unless it inhabits the body of someone." Hope added. "Who? Sasha, maybe?" Ari asked.

Lizzie looked over at Hope with a snide expression, "My money is still on your boyfriend." She said as Maze felt a sense of anger at Landon being referred to as Hope's boyfriend. The Saltzman didn't know why, but the thought of Hope and Landon being a thing, repulsed her.

Hope shot Lizzie a glare, "He's not my boyfriend!"

Despite her best efforts to disagree with MG, Lizzie finally came around, "If we had something from it, we could do a tracking spell..." She trailed off.

Suddenly, Landon appeared behind them, "Would its face work?" He asked, as he holds up the piece of flesh Landon punched off of Connor's face. "Aah— What the fuck?! Gross!!" Maze blurted in disgust. MG, Lizzie and Hope also had horrified looks on their faces.

"Wait... weren't you just giggling over the bubbly remnants of Dana's body?" Ari asked Maze quietly, as the Saltzman looked at her best friend in surprise. "Yeah but I didn't see her peeled off face." She shrugged back casually. "This is more disgusting."