Catherine sat in the corner of the room, her back pressed against the cold stone wall, her knees drawn tightly to her chest. The air felt heavy, stale, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Her face was drenched in tears, though she could no longer remember when they had started falling. It felt as though her body had been crying long before her mind had allowed it.
She's no longer our daughter.
The words returned without mercy. They echoed in her head, slow at first, then louder, sharper, until they drowned out every other thought. Each repetition carved deeper into her chest, leaving behind something raw and unbearable. She tried to pull the sentence apart, to question it, to make it make sense—but it refused. A daughter did not stop being a daughter because she fell in love. Blood did not dissolve because of fear or threat or survival.
Yet the words had been spoken. Calmly. Deliberately.
Selene—her child, her pride, the life she had carried beneath her heart—had been reduced to a choice. A calculation. A liability.
Her breathing grew uneven. Something tore loose inside her, and she slammed her fist into the wall beside her. The impact cracked the stone, a jagged fracture spreading outward as dust rained to the floor. Pain shot through her knuckles, sharp and immediate, but she barely felt it. It was insignificant compared to what was breaking inside her chest.
The room felt smaller now. Closing in.
The door creaked open.
Catherine didn't turn. She didn't need to. She knew the weight of the presence behind her, the familiar rhythm of footsteps she had once trusted.
Calvin walked in with measured steps, his expression controlled, his posture calm—too calm. He looked like a man untouched by the chaos that had just torn through their lives. Like a man who had never held Selene as an infant, never whispered promises into the night about protecting her at any cost.
"Catherine," he said evenly, "get over yourself."
The words landed like a slap.
She rose slowly to her feet and turned to face him, a broken laugh slipping from her lips. "Get over myself?" Her voice trembled, strained thin by grief. "You stood there and said she's no longer our daughter."
"She made her choice," Calvin replied. "She said no."
Catherine's vision blurred. "She fell in love," she whispered. "That's what she did. That's all."
Calvin's jaw tightened, irritation flickering across his face. "And because of that, we're supposed to die? If we protect her, they will kill us. Every last one of us."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice, as though logic could still save this. "Survival matters more than blood. You've always understood that."
"No," Catherine said quietly. Her voice steadied, even as her heart splintered. "I don't."
Calvin frowned. "Think clearly. If we help her, they die. If we don't—"
"Then she dies," Catherine cut in, her voice breaking open at last. "And I will not watch my daughter be murdered just to buy us time."
Silence fell between them, thick and suffocating.
Calvin studied her face, searching for hesitation, for fear to override love. It never came. What he saw instead was resolve—terrifying and absolute.
"You're being emotional," he said flatly.
"And you're being heartless," she replied.
Her hand moved slowly beneath her cloak, fingers curling around the hilt of the sacred knife hidden there. The blade was ancient, its metal darkened with age and power, forged for one purpose only. To kill vampires. Cleanly. Permanently.
Calvin didn't see it until she stepped forward.
There was no scream when she drove the blade into her own neck. No final plea. Just a sharp intake of breath as the magic surged.
Her body stiffened. Her eyes widened just slightly. Then she began to fracture—skin to ash, flesh to dust—breaking apart as though she had never truly belonged to the world she was leaving behind.
Calvin reached for her too late.
In seconds, she was gone.
The dust settled slowly—on his hands, his clothes, the floor where she had stood moments ago. He stared at it, unmoving, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes had already witnessed. His chest tightened, breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps.
For a moment, he didn't know whether to scream or to laugh.
His knees buckled, and he caught himself against the wall, dragging a hand down his face. Then he staggered to the window and flung it open, gripping the frame as though it were the only thing anchoring him to reality.
"This is your fault!" he shouted into the night, his voice cracking. "If you never existed, none of this would have happened!"
The words tore out of him, jagged and raw.
"She wouldn't have had to choose," he continued hoarsely. "She wouldn't have had to die just so we could survive."
The darkness swallowed his voice. It offered no answer. No forgiveness.
Far away, Selene knew nothing of this. She was still alive. Still breathing. Still moving forward. Preparing for a fight she didn't yet understand, unaware that somewhere in the shadows, the cost had already been paid.
Too late, Calvin remembered what Catherine had never known: Selene was never their child.