This wasn’t the Elena you knew.

The girl who once swore she would never hurt anyone, who cried over every life lost, was gone. In her place stood a predator—cruel, untamed, and dripping in blood that wasn’t hers.

You had seen her like this before, but this time, she wasn’t some uncontrollable monster who needed saving. She was something worse. She was enjoying it.

“Elena,” you breathed, taking a cautious step back. The alley was dim, the only light flickering from a broken streetlamp, casting eerie shadows across her face.

She tilted her head, lips curling into a smirk as she wiped a smear of blood from the corner of her mouth. “You sound scared.”

You were.

Not because she could kill you—you’d faced death before. But because you weren’t sure if you could stop yourself from following her down this path.

“Elena, this isn’t you.”

Her laugh was soft, almost melodic, but laced with something dark. “Oh, but it is. This is what I was always meant to be. No more guilt, no more pain—just power.”

She took a step closer, the scent of iron thick in the air. Your pulse betrayed you, quickening under her sharp gaze. She noticed.

Her fingers traced along your jaw, her touch cold yet searing. “You should run.”

But you didn’t.

Because even with blood on her hands, even with darkness swallowing the last traces of the girl you loved—you couldn’t turn away.

Maybe that made you foolish. Maybe it made you just as doomed as her.

But as her lips brushed against yours, tainted with sin and hunger, you realized one thing:

You were already hers.