I empty my guts into my bathroom toilet as Alastor holds back my hair, and Helia lightly rubs circles on my back in an attempt to comfort me.
"I did try to warn you, my dear. You may have been able to keep up with Queen Bee back in the day, but that was ages ago. I must say that your show last night was impressive regardless," I can hear the taunting in his static-laced tone. I can't even remember the events of last night too clearly. I was planning to have a few drinks, but then Bee showed up, and it was game on; I had a title to protect, after all!
"I did just fine!" I retort back angrily as another wave of nausea washes over me. "Honestly, just let me die at this point." I dry heave some more as Charlie brings in a glass of water.
"It probably didn't help when that imp, I think his name is Blitz started to call you a whiney little bitch either. You went overboard, however," she said, lightly setting down the glass and retreating to the bedroom.
"It made for simply hilarious entertainment regardless. I tip my hat to you for a night of distracting fun," Alastor ties my hair back for me.
"You have gotten shitfaced before as well! Don't act all high and mighty! Do you remember that one time we were watching Les Miserables and The Women? You couldn't stand straight!" I yell at him as he returns a blank stare and leaves the bathroom without another word, leaving me a tad bit confused.
We all ended up back at the hospital for the night because Niffty kept jumping off the balcony, resulting in a broken nose. Soran was not impressed when I brought a drunken group of idiots into the hospital at five in the morning. Angel and Husker are on the couch, sleeping it off, while Vaggie and Charlie take my bed to get some sleep. I chose the bathtub as the safest option, and Helia stayed with me. Alastor is only here to make fun of me. Eventually, I dozed off in the tub and woke up much later that day. Everyone had already packed up and returned to the hospital; Helia was the only one in my room, sleeping on my bed.
I take a rejuvenatingly hot shower that heals my inner soul as I start to feel better from my night of bad decisions. Whenever I have run into Bee, she always has me well under the table before she is even warmed up; I vaguely remember Charlie and her chugging a beer together. I'm glad everyone could have a stress-free night; it might be our last one together. I pull on some baggy clothes and an oversized sweater and throw my hair in a semi-neat bun. I take Meko with me. I leave Helia to sleep off last night's events and take Frazzle for a flight to the hotel.
When I walk in the front door, everyone turns to look in a bit of shock as a giant planning board with all sorts of papers and pictures pinned to it draws my attention. In big black ink, a title at the top reads, "Plan stop the extermination and save Vesper."
"I didn't think you would be awake so early, not with the way you were stumbling last night," Angel doesn't look up from his phone as he types away quickly.
"Yeah, you got completely shitfaced," Husker laughs at me from the bar as I glare at the both of them.
"I was actually there and experienced it firsthand, so thank you so much for that vivid reminder," I cross my arms, not in the mood to deal with them.
"You got pretty carried away, too, Husk and Angel; I'm pretty sure both of you passed out first when we got back to the hospital. Don't drag her through the mud; she was the one who had the best reason to get plastered," Vaggie scolds the two as Angel sinks into the couch and Husker turns away embarrassed.
"How is NIffty doing? It looked like she was hurting a lot when she fell off that balcony, the poor thing. When can she come back to the hotel?" Charlie asks me.
"She will probably be back later today; I can't imagine them wanting to keep her longer than they have to, considering she has already sexually assaulted two of my male doctors because she was quote 'looking for bad boys.'" Vaggie rubs one of her eyelids in annoyance as they go back to discussing how to stop the extermination. The topic of how sinners may become more desperate comes up when a loud explosion interrupts everything and irritates my still throbbing head.
"SHOW YOURSELF, ALASTOR! FACE MY WRATH!" I head back outside the building, noting a giant blimp hovering over the hotel.
"Who are you?" Alastor sits unbothered on the upper balcony, sipping his afternoon tea.
"Who am I? WHO AM I?" the voice from the blimp asks Indigent. "I am the great Sir Pentious! Inventor, architect of dissstruction," The voice actually hisses as Niffy appears behind Alastor with bandages all over her face.
"Oh, he's a bad boy!" her glee apparent. Oh, Niffty, when will you learn that bad boys can be classified until you know the person? I'm assuming this guy in a blimp is a nerd. They go back and forth about Alastor not knowing who he is, and then Alastor turns to me.
"Would you like to do the honours of scrambling this egg?" he points his staff at the blimp.
"Nah, you can have him; I'm still trashed," I yawn.
"Now cower! For when I have slain you, the almighty Vees will acknowledge me as their equal! I am right here, Vesssper. You will see my powerrrr." Alastor wastes no time sending his black shadows after the blimp and starts playing with it as if it were some familiar toy you would play with in the bathtub.
"Uh, Alastor, I think he has had enough," Charlie tries to intervene as I watch, unamused by the whole ordeal.
"Nah, I still think he has a few more hits in him," Angel encourages Alastor to go on as I try to remember where I put the med kit. The snake known as Sir Pentious falls out of the crippled blimp and lands flat on his face; it's weird that he also broke his face just mere hours after Niffty did the exact same thing.
"Thanks for another forgettable experience," Alastor taunts the man as he's down as he weakly lifts a finger.
"Thanks for LETTING YOUR GUARD DOWN," his tail whips out and grabs a piece of Alastor's tailcoat, which only aggravates my dear friend, Sir Pentious, being the one who gets sent sky-high.
"Oh dear, it seems I need to make a trip to the tailors. Would you accompany me, Vesper?" He starts walking off, leaving the others in protest. He then summons some workers to fix up the hotel wall. Once we are out of earshot, I hear him chuckle.
"Did you find that snake that amusing?" I ask him curiously as we make our way down the street.
"No, not at all, my dear. I was curious to know if Charlie knew her beloved big sister had been around this entire time. In fact, she has been secretly helping her out with her little redemption delusion and running hospitals and clinics just around the block. It's fairly amusing to me that I didn't see the obvious truth right in front of me, Vera," I can feel my blood run cold as I come to a dead stop, and my head starts spinning more, but not from the copious amount of alcohol I consumed. Meko, who was trailing behind me, takes notice of my tension and gets in front of me.
"There is no need for violence. I would never dream of bringing harm to you, my dear. We have become too good of friends, technically twice. I won't tell a single soul; I'm just curious as to why you have presented yourself differently." We continue our pace, and I keep a few steps behind him.
"I'm curious how you knew that I am Vera. I have been meticulous. Did I transform last night?" I get worried as he shakes his head with a hearty laughter.
"No, no, my dear. You see, I have never watched Les Miserables and The Women with you. I showed Vera those movies because she was once curious about the media I consumed back on Earth. You brought it up this morning, and everything clicked together. The reason why I couldn't find Vera anywhere in the Pride ring was because she was you the entire time. I was starting to worry something had happened to you in my absence. I'm glad you are still alive, even though you have now painted an extraordinary target on your back. Regardless, I am indebted to you and will do what I can to prevent your demise," we make it to the tailors, and he turns to look at me.
"Thanks, Alastor." I wait outside for him with Meko on my shoulder, purring contently. I start to notice the crowd forming around the TVs across the street. I pull out my phone to see what is going on when I notice the hundreds of texts I have gotten from Vox. They range from accusing to anger as he goes off the deep end about not telling him that Alastor had returned. I don't bother responding as Vox starts a broadcast by roasting the fuck out of Alastor.
He exits the tailors, and we quickly head back to his radio tower. The two of them start beefing in front of literally everyone as I sit in Alastor's booth, amused by their behaviour.
"I may not have gotten you to join the Vee's, but I did get Vesper, you old-time prick. I bet you're real happy that I have taken your dear acquaintance from you," Vox seethes into his headset as Alastor loses his cool for a brief moment and digs his nails into his steel table. He pisses off Vox some more as the city loses power, and his proper form lurks around the both; I remain quiet while he does his thing. I get even more texts demanding that I see the Vees immediately, and I slip out of the radio tower.
I get Frazzle to take me to the headquarters and nervously head inside. I'm glad I brought Meko today. I might need her support to get through this. I tip-toe down the hall and into the meeting room, where the other three Vees are already seated around a long table.
"Respectfully, Vesper, WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN? I HAVE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR AN HOUR ALREADY!" I see Vox's box glitch out in anger.
"Respectfully, Vox, you don't need to know," I retort, unimpressed.
"Why didn't you inform me that the Radio Demon was back in town? And why are you hanging around that shit hole of a hotel with Lucifer's little brat?" He slams his hands down on the table, causing it to shake a little as I sit at the far end and cross my leg over the other. His head was spazzing out majorly; I'm assuming the outage from earlier has his wires all twisted in a bunch.
"You never asked, first of all. If you needed to know Alastor's every location, why don't you just put a bell on him or something? It's not that healthy to be this obsessed with someone, you bloody stalker. And as for Lucifer's kin, it was a request from the big man himself when he came by the hospital a few years back. I think we all know you don't refuse a request from Lucifer Morningstar." I use the same lie I told Charlie ages ago.
"It might be good to have a Vee around the little princessita. She can also keep an eye on my whore while he resides there," Valentino puffs out a cloud of red smoke and places his legs on the table. "She can be a constant reminder of the Vees to Alastor and Angel Dust." My eyes narrow at the suggestion, but I keep my mouth shut. If that is what they want to take away from this little girl scout meeting, so be it. I can't jeopardize Anthony. If I do one of these days, he really will end up dead because of Valentino's hands.
Vox doesn't say much more to me; they know if they try to attack me, they might lose more than a couple of limbs, especially since I brought Meko out with me today. "Shit! It's OK, everything is just fine. Thank you for coming to the meeting, lady Vesper. We will contact you again very soon, so please do your best to keep your phone on you." I get dismissed from the meeting, get back outside on the street, and let out a sigh of relief. That could have ended very badly. Meko earned a special treat today for being such a good girl. I took her to the store to pick out whatever she wanted and returned to the hospital. When I arrived back in my room, Rosie and Helia were both sitting on the couch sipping some tea.
"Hey, sweetie, I wanted to stop by to see how you are doing with the whole threat against your soul thing. I brought some of your favourite candies and made you dinner. I think we really need to discuss what to do about the dire situation you are facing," Rosie happily smiles at me as I take a seat behind my desk and pour myself a cup of tea.
"It will be fine, Rosie. I need to get blood from Adam anyway, so it is kind of convenient that he is coming right to me first," I admit sheepishly as they both shake their head at me in disappointment.
"Vesper dear, we think you need to call your dad for help. Adam will wipe out your soul without the help of your father and your sister," for the second time today, I freeze in place as my mind starts racing.
"That fucker! Did Alastor tell the two of you? He said he would keep his damn mouth shut!" I feel betrayal sink deep into the pit of my stomach.
"No honey, Alastor also knows too? I only know because you change in your sleep. I was here helping you with the report for Carmilla, and you dozed off and changed into Vera Morningstar; Vesper appeared around the same time she went missing," Rosie calmly explained.
"I've known for a long time as well for the same reason; I didn't say anything because I figured you would tell me if I needed to know. I personally don't care how you look; both sides of you are beautiful," Helia says. He takes a sip of his tea. I place my head into my palms. This all went wrong so fast; the rest of Hell will know about this before too long.

Dear Charlie,
I know that I was trying to keep the whole two-identity thing under wraps, but it's a relief that some of the close people in my life know what is going on. They might be right; I might have to talk to Dad. I can't do this on my own, not against Adam anyway. Where would I even start? Should I call him, hoping that he will help me out? Does he even care anymore? I've been gone so long that he might have just moved on and forgot he had two daughters. I'm at a loss, Charlie; I wish someone would tell me what to do. Mom would have the answer, but you can't even get a hold of her. The scariest part is I've already lost my ability to heal others; what if someone becomes seriously hurt during the extermination? I need to get to the bottom of what has happened to my ability and if I can get it back. I know you will always be there for me, and I will always protect you, even if I have to die. As always,

Love, Vera