The adrenaline from the fight lingered in my muscles, twitching like sparks under the skin, but mentally I was already somewhere else. By the time I walked out of the school gates, it had faded into a cold calculation. Twelve days. That was the deadline. Twelve days to turn Kaelen Vance's reputation, resources, and body into something useful before I was ripped out again and forced into someone else's life.
It was the kind of clock that didn't leave room for hesitation.
The first step was obvious. I needed answers. If these "transfers" were a cycle, if I jumped from one host to another — what happened to the people I left behind? Did they vanish? Did I erase them? Or were they still out there, living their same lives as if nothing had happened? I couldn't keep moving blind. I needed to see it with my own eyes.
The Host Lives On
After school, I slid into Kaelen's car — a sleek, black coupe that looked like it belonged in a rap video, not parked outside a high school. It practically screamed "spoiled rich kid." The leather seats hugged me in a way Eli Finch's bus pass never could. Every time I gripped the steering wheel, I felt the absurdity of the trade I'd made: from Eli's worn sneakers to Kaelen's custom Italian loafers. From a fridge stocked with discount noodles to a glove compartment that smelled faintly of expensive cologne and probably had a spare credit card tucked inside.
But luxury didn't erase paranoia. I kept my distance, driving a few blocks past Eli Finch's run-down apartment complex before parking. If anyone saw Kaelen Vance stalking around here, it would look bizarre. So I walked the rest of the way, Kaelen's designer clothes making me stick out like a malfunctioning streetlamp.
The building was the same sad two-story, paint peeling, half the windows covered with makeshift curtains. I moved toward the unit I remembered, heart thudding against my ribs harder than any post-fight adrenaline.
I peeked through the window. And froze.
Elias Finch sat at the kitchen table, hunched the same way I remembered, poking at a plate of food. His mother sat across from him, flipping through a magazine. They were talking — casual, meaningless conversation. He gestured with his fork, face animated in that same awkward, doughy way.
It was like watching a ghost.
But no, this wasn't a ghost. This was Elias Finch, alive and exactly as he had been before. His tired posture, his soft edges, his unremarkable life — all of it intact.
A cold realization spread through me. The hosts didn't vanish. They reset.
The $150 I had worked for, the study grind that had finally nudged Eli's grades upward, the small victories that had felt monumental when I was him — all of it was gone. Wiped out. The "real" Elias Finch hadn't been touched by any of it. He was still the same.
Relief hit me hard. My presence didn't destroy people. I wasn't rewriting their existence. I was borrowing it, wearing it like a suit until time yanked me free.
But that relief came with a price. Yui's words echoed in my skull: the struggle is yours alone. I couldn't lean on the idea that I was improving these people's lives permanently. When I left, they reset to what they had always been. No one else remembered the blood, the pain, the choices. The battle belonged to me.
I forced myself away from the window, swallowing the strange mix of guilt and liberation clawing at my stomach. One truth down, more to go.
Driving to Kaelen's house was like crossing dimensions. If Eli's world was cheap carpet, off-brand cereal, and secondhand textbooks, Kaelen's was glass walls, manicured hedges, and security gates that gleamed like the entrance to a fortress.
The house sprawled in cold perfection: sharp lines, polished stone, the kind of architecture meant to be photographed, not lived in. Inside, it was even worse. Sterile. Empty. Rooms too clean, too silent. The kind of silence that pressed down on you, reminding you how alone you were in the middle of all that luxury.
Kaelen didn't live with his mom. He lived alone, supported by a rotation of staff who came and went to keep the place pristine. On paper, it was a dream setup. In practice, it screamed neglect.
For me, though, it was gold. Privacy to experiment. Space to train. And most importantly: unfettered access to Kaelen's finances.
But before I touched the money, I had to cement Kaelen's most obvious advantage. His body.
Eli Finch had been short, soft, forgettable. Kaelen was tall, lean, a body that hinted at athletic potential even if he'd wasted it on late nights and indulgence. If I wanted to erase the shadow of Eli's "academic miracle," I needed a win that belonged purely to the physical. Something public, undeniable. Something Marcus Sterling would respect.
The upcoming School Sports Festival was perfect. Specifically, the running events.
That night, I dragged dusty boxes and old equipment out of Kaelen's cavernous garage and turned it into a makeshift training space. Free weights, a treadmill that looked brand new, resistance bands still in their packaging — all untouched, all waiting for someone to actually use them.
I pushed until my muscles screamed. Squats, sprints, push-ups until my arms trembled. Kaelen's body had potential, but it was soft from idleness. By the time I collapsed on the marble floor, lungs burning, every inch of me ached. It was the good kind of pain. Honest pain. Work Kaelen Vance had clearly never done for himself.
I stared up at the ceiling, sweaty and exhausted, and thought: When I win, they'll have no choice but to acknowledge me. Not as the bully. Not as a failure. As the winner.
Morning came too early. Not by alarm — Kaelen didn't bother with something so pedestrian. No, I woke to the relentless chiming of the doorbell, insistent and angry, like someone leaning on it just to be cruel.
Dragging myself out of the massive bed, I grabbed the first thing I saw — a silk robe tossed over a chaise lounge that looked like it belonged in an art museum — and stumbled downstairs. Who the hell visited Kaelen Vance at 8 a.m.? He was supposed to live alone.
The door was heavy, solid wood, and when I pulled it open the last thing I expected was the woman standing on the doorstep.
Perfect suit. Perfect makeup. Face cut sharp, features unmistakably Kaelen's — but colder.
"Mother?" The word slipped out, tentative, more question than statement.
Her hand cracked across my cheek before I even processed the syllable.
The sound echoed through the marble hall. My head snapped sideways, skin stinging, heart slamming against my ribs. I reeled back, stunned.
"Don't you Mother me, Kaelen." Her voice was low, trembling with rage she was fighting to contain. "The principal called last night. Another threat of expulsion. Another hundred thousand dollars I have to pay to keep your worthless posterior in that school."
She didn't wait for an invitation, just swept inside, heels clicking like gunshots against the marble floor.
"You skipped three days last week. You assaulted a student in the courtyard. And the dean tells me you're dealing drugs again!" She spun on me, eyes sharp enough to cut. "We had a deal. I provide the money. You provide quiet non-existence. But you can't even manage that."
I stood there, cheek throbbing, robe slipping from one shoulder, completely unprepared. I'd planned for rivals at school, for skeptical teachers, for managing Kaelen's public persona. But this? This wasn't on the list.
Kaelen Vance wasn't just despised by classmates. He was loathed in his own house. His "zero" status didn't stop at the schoolyard — it was baked into his family, etched into his mother's contempt.
The weight of it landed like another slap. My perfect plan to coast on Kaelen's wealth and resources suddenly had a massive hole in it. If I couldn't convince this woman — this cold, furious parent who saw Kaelen only as a liability — then my twelve-day clock wouldn't be spent training or strategizing. It would be spent fighting against her.
And she had a lot more power than a school principal.
I rubbed the sting out of my cheek and swallowed hard. If I was going to win this fight, it wasn't going to be on the track alone.