The world had gone quiet. Not peaceful—but hollow, like something sacred had been ripped from the land itself. Mystic Falls was no longer your home. It was a graveyard of memories.

They took Katherine. They killed your brothers. And you? You ran.

You hadn’t stopped moving since the night it all burned.

Your dress was torn, your feet bloody. The lantern you held flickered weakly in the dark, barely illuminating the twisted trees around you. Somewhere behind you, you knew they were still hunting. The ones who called themselves protectors—men who whispered about vampires and witches and sins that must be cleansed.

You clutched your locket, the last thing Damon had given you before the fire.

"Run, dove. Don’t look back. No matter what you hear."

You had looked back. You’d seen Stefan’s lifeless eyes, Damon’s bloodied face, both lying in the dirt where they'd been left to rot. But you hadn’t known they’d rise again.

Not until the night you felt someone watching you from the trees. A whisper of breath. A shadow too fast to follow.

And then you heard it—his voice.

“Little dove.”

You spun around, tears springing instantly to your eyes. He looked like Damon. He sounded like Damon. But his skin was pale as snow, and his eyes…

They were hungry.

“D-Damon?” you whispered, backing up.

He caught you in a heartbeat, pulling you into his arms. “You’re safe,” he murmured against your hair. “You’re safe now. I’m here.”

But you weren’t. Not really. Too much had happened. You’d been taken, beaten, used by people who wanted to know where the Salvatore brothers had gone. You didn’t speak for weeks. Not until now.

You buried your face in his coat and whispered, “Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“I was dead,” he said softly. “And now I’m… not.”

You looked up at him. “Are you going to leave me again?”

He pulled back, brushing a leaf from your tangled hair. “No,” he promised, voice low and deadly. “And no one who hurt you will live to see another dawn.”