Page 115 of Molt

The skin separates by itself. I feel it sliding. A whole layer. Shoulders. Back. Waist. The old skin sloughs down my body in one wet sheet.

I sob against his chest.

He holds me while I come apart.

When it finally drops to the floor, we both stare.

There are markings across the inside.

Not one name.

Dozens.

SARAH.

JUNE.

ANNA.

ELEANOR.

LENORA.

Names layered over one another.

Some crossed out. Some barely visible. Some I’ve never heard before. And beneath them, written into the tissue itself VESSEL 09

I stop breathing.

August reads it and his face empties. “No.”

I look at him. “Specimen eight.”

He understands.

The jar wasn’t labeling Lenora.

It was counting hosts.

The word on my skin wasn’t NINE because this was our ninth life. It was nine because I am the ninth vessel.

My stomach turns.

August whispers. “Jesus Christ.”

“No.” I stare at the skin that used to cover my body. At the names of dead women woven through it. “This isn’t a love story.”

His eyes meet mine. “No.”

“It’s a breeding process.”

The realization makes me sick. Something has been using August as permanent source material. Using women as temporary bodies. Using love as the trigger that begins the transfer. His biology replaces ours. Lenora’s memories overwrite ours. Then August regenerates after the cycle completes, ready for the next host.

Not immortality. Harvest.

I look at him. “You don’t come back because you’re immortal.”

His face goes pale.