"So," said Lily's dad, carefully, "could you tell us a bit more about what Lily went through, and what separates the two of you? You were talking like you were two completely separate individuals, but what I'm reading here describes a transformation."

They were unpleasant memories, even for me, but if he really wants to know, there's no harm in sharing. Not in front of Ben, though. Oh, never mind; looking down, I saw that he'd fallen back to sleep, still tucked up in my wings.

"Yes, a transformation," I answered, as quietly as my screechy voice would permit. "Locked in a prison cell, stuck watching her body changing with nothing she could do about it. But her mind remained completely intact almost until the end. First it was food, with human meals starting to feel unappetising, then came anger, claustrophobia and hunger, all of which she struggled to keep bottled up. One morning, she lost control and all of those instincts burst out and took over, giving birth to me. She somehow held herself together, even after I took over, but was left as nothing more than a voice at the back of my head, with no control over what used to be her own body."

"I have to say, the way you've acted so far doesn't strike me as some embodiment of rage and hunger. And you seem quite at home here, despite being indoors."

"I ate before I came, and I know I'm not trapped here," I pointed out. "Anyway, despite her situation, she held on, and when the police raided the place, she did her best to give me advice on how to escape. She gave me direction, and tried to keep me from being just another mindless beast. She gave me my name. When snipers came after me, she helped me to escape. She told me what a country was, and why I should leave this one. She helped me so much... But then, once we'd escaped, she... I don't really understand what she did, but we kinda merged. Before then I couldn't think for myself, or at least not clearly. I was just operating on instinct. But then Lily was gone, I was suddenly fully sentient, and I could remember both of us."

"I see," he said. "So you really are Lily after all."

"What? Weren't you listening, I..."

"Yes, I was," he said, cutting me off. "As you just said yourself, you merged. You are Lily, and you are Leona. I would even go so far as to say you weren't two different people to start with, and pretending that you were was simply Lily's way of coping with her changes."

"What? How can I possibly be Lily?! I'm a monster! I've murdered over two dozen people. I ate half of them! How is that Lily?!"

Ben stirred in my wings, and I did my best to calm down, not wanting to wake him. But... why did I care if some little kid woke up. It wouldn't hurt him. No, why did I care even if it did hurt him? Weren't all humans just prey for me?

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"It isn't," answered dad. "At least not the old Lily. They mutilated you, in mind as well as body. Added in Leona. There are bits of you both; that's what's meant by a merger. There's Leona, the monster, and Lily, the girl who is currently embracing her little brother so gently. Can you remember a little more of what Lily actually did, or said?"

What she said? What had she said, just before she vanished, and the world suddenly went complicated? Those few minutes were... confusing, but yes, there had been something. "I'm sorry for pushing you away, Leona. I'm ready to accept you now."

"Well, there you have it then. And if Lily could accept 'Leona' as part of herself, then so can we, so stop pretending you aren't our daughter."

Okay, starting to lose my respect for him again now. Perhaps he missed the part where I said I'd murdered two dozen people? But, for some reason, I didn't want to correct him. I found myself wanting a family. People to hang around with, talk to, and hug. People who meant more to me than just being food I hadn't eaten yet. Was I allowed? Could a monster like me be allowed such a thing? Ben was still squirming in my wings, his sleep disturbed but unbroken. Wings that were shaking...

My cheeks were tickling again, but this time it was both of them. My vision blurred, my eyes awash with tears. So, I'm supposed to be both? It was impossible to think of myself as Lily, given what I'd done. I regretted nothing, and would do more in the future, things that the old Lily could never do. And yet, why did I think of myself as Leona? It was easy to claim I wasn't Lily because I had so many years of her prior behaviour to point at, to show how I was now so different. I couldn't do that with Leona, because she had only been a few days old.

A few days in which she wasn't even sentient. How was a change from mindless to intelligent any less than the change from Lily before to me now? Had I simply pretended Lily was gone because I didn't want to admit how much I had changed? Had I kept the name 'Leona' so that I could continue to use the 'it wasn't really me' excuse to excuse my actions? Telling myself it was fine to kill people because I wasn't Lily, I was Leona, and Leona was supposed to kill people? Wasn't lying to myself like that doing a disservice to Lily, spitting in the face of her acceptance?

Was this what set me apart from all the other attempts? Lily's acceptance? Did everyone else resist their newfound monstrous instincts to the bitter end, until they either went insane or their human minds decayed away to nothing, leaving nothing but their own version of Leona behind? How many of them would have worked together with their monster half, instead of fighting it? How many of them named their monster half, for goodness' sake? If that was the case, all that the mayor needed to do in order for his scheme to be a complete success was to find some willing participants, instead of resorting to kidnapping his own populace. It was fortunate for the rest of the world that he didn't seem to be that sort of person.

So Leona was a fraud, an excuse, something that never really existed from the beginning. I was still Lily, changed and broken, but still 'me', and pretending that I wasn't was simply easier than acknowledging how thoroughly I'd been violated. I blinked my eyes clear, only to find mum standing right in front of me. She reached down, scritching at my inhuman ear. Well, after being Leona for so long, being Lily for one night wouldn't hurt, would it? "Hello mum..." I said, shyly. "I'm home."