The group walked back to the bus, as MG opened the back door. Monica dumped Dana's body down in the back of the bus, as it landed with a painful thud that caused Ruby to cringe, but Lizzie to snort in amusement.

"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 frowns in confusion. "Huh." He 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." He 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. "She'll be dead in a day if she doesn't feed." Hope huffed. "Girl math." Monica giggled under her breath.

"Though honestly Mikealson, is anyone going to miss her once she's gone? Good riddance I say." Monica spoke up as she crossed her arms. Ruby felt anger surge through her, hearing this. She turned to Monica with a glare, "How can you even say that?!" She snapped. Monica just raised an eyebrow at the girl, "We went over this. I'm careless.. I don't care. I told you I didn't kill her.. but honestly I'd be doing everyone a favour if I had of." She hummed as Ruby felt her blood boil. Hope frowned, putting a hand on Ruby's shoulder, giving her a look as if to say, it's not worth it.

"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 nodded in agreement and looked over at Lizzie and Monica. The blondes knew that this is the right thing to do, regardless they groaned and rolled their eyes in response. "Ugh, fine. Okay. But, to be clear, she is not joining drill team." Lizzie reminded them. Monica just shook her head in disappointment, "If she comes anywhere within a five metre radius of me, there will be consequences." She declared. Hope took a deep breath and cast a spell to wake Dana back up. "Surgere."

Dana groggily sat up as though she'd just awoken from deep sleep, "Did I pass out?" She asked. Ruby frowned, feeling bad for the girl. The pinkette took a step forward, and helped Dana to rise to a seated position. She groaned and closed her eyes, almost swaying in her seat. "...I don't feel so well." She confessed, looking to the girl in front of her, who doesn'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 Hope was 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 Ruby, as she tried to stop swaying. Ruby, surprised by this, rubbed the girls back gently, unsure what to say. "Oh, shut up! For real. Even thinking about eating makes me want to—" Dana snapped, but stopped as she lets go of Ruby, shoving her away before she heaved and vomitted a large amount of greenish-black goo onto the sidewalk.

Everyone's noses wrinkle in disgust, and Kaleb immediately jumped backward and looked 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 stumbled backward, "I think I'ma be sick, too."

"Is this normal?" Landon asked Hope. "She's puking her guts out—literally." Ruby stated the obvious, covering her mouth in shock as she walked over to Hope and Landon.

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 had 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...?" Ruby asked, looking to Lizzie. Lizzie turned to Ruby, 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."

Hope then 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 suggested. "What? Are you serious?" Landon asked, offended by this accusation. Ruby frowned, walking over to stand beside Landon. "You guys are being ridiculous!" She declared, sticking up for her foster brother.

"You're just saying that because you're blinded by it— 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." Ruby glared at the Hawkins.

Other than Ruby, everyone was quiet. It was clear that no one else believed him. Landon, visibly hurt by this accusation, took one last look at Hope. "You guys don't believe me.." Landon sighed, as Ruby was the only one to defend him. "Got it. Say no more." Landon decided as he turned and headed toward the school, Hope watched him leave with a guilty expression on her face.

"Seriously— you guys?" Ruby asked, disappointedly. "What? Can you blame us pinky? We barely know him and Kaleb is right, none of this stuff started happening until mophead showed up and stole the knife." Monica defended them. "You guys are assholes! Landon isn't just some mophead and if you got to know him instead of just straight up judging him, you'd realise he is no monster." Ruby insisted.

Growing frustrated with the group, Ruby turned on her heels to leave, so she could cool off. Monica just scoffed, "She might not have broken that werewolf curse but she sure does have the anger of actual werewolf." She spat as Hope shot her a frown, before she left, to go after Ruby.

❤︎

"Ruby?" Hope asked softly, walking over to the girl, who had walked a fair distance from the group. "What do you want, Hope?" Ruby snapped, not turning to face the tribrid. "I'm sorry... I want to believe Landon, I really do.. but he's lied to us so much already." Ruby didn't respond, as Hope walked over to her. The werewolf understood their reasons for not believing him, but couldn't help but feel frustrated by them labelling Landon as a monster.

"Rafi and Landon.. they're all I have." Ruby spoke up, turning to Hope. "They're my family.. and it's just instinct to protect them with my life." She explained. Hope nodded, understanding as she thought about her family... how they'd do the same for her. "It hurts me to see how everyone treats Landon.. with attitudes like these, he's probably just going to get shoved to the curb again." She confessed sadly.

Hope locked eyes with Ruby, giving her a sympathetic look, "I've noticed since I met you.. you always put your brothers first.. all you do is worry about them. You're a great sister Ruby, but you need to stop worrying so much." Hope insisted. "Whatever happens with Landon, we're going to help him." The tribrid insisted, before offering a smile, in which Ruby smiled back weakly, hoping that Hope was right.

❤︎

MG, Lizzie, Monica and Kaleb were cleaning up the evidence of Dana's death. MG was ripping pages out of a 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 made 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 spoke as he gestured around at the group before turning and walking away from them. Lizzie, rolled her eyes whilst MG went back to cleaning up his shoes.

"Come on, guys. If it's not Landon, then what else could it be?" Monica asked. MG frowned when he noticed something on the page he was using to wipe off his shoes before suddenly being stricken by an idea, "Spider."

Hope and Ruby rejoined the group, MG giving the pink haired girl a sympathetic smile before he continued, "A big spider! An arachne, if you want to get specific." MG smoothed out the page and held it up to show the girls. 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.

"So were dragons and gargoyles! 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 to the others. .

Lizzie looked at Monica, still skeptical, but Monica seemed to be on board with MG's theory. "I mean.. anything's possible." The vampire agreed. "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?" Ruby then asked.

Lizzie looked over at Hope with a snide expression, "My money is still on your boyfriend." Hope shot Lizzie a glare, "He's not my boyfriend!" She responded quickly and annoyedly. Despite her best efforts to disagree with MG, Lizzie finally came around, "If we had something from it, we could do a tracking spell..."

Suddenly, Landon appeared behind them, "Would its face work?" He asked, as he held up the piece of flesh Landon punched off of Connor's face. "Aah— What the fuck?!" Ruby blurted out. "Gross!!" Monica added with a frown. MG, Lizzie and Hope also wore horrified looks on their faces.