The first cut was a hot, shocking tear across her ribs. Reina's breath hitched, a small, confused sound swallowed by the grimy brick of the alley she'd foolishly taken as a shortcut. Her work files, a frustrating testament to a fourteen-hour day, fluttered to the wet pavement like wounded birds.
The second was deeper, a brutal puncture just below her collarbone. The air left her lungs in a choked gasp. Her attacker was a silhouette against the distant, indifferent streetlight, his face a mask of twitching, unfocused rage. He wasn't robbing her. He was just… erasing her.
This can't be real, her mind screamed, a frantic, panicked thought as her legs gave way. The cold seep of a puddle met her cheek. The coppery scent of her own blood filled her nose, thick and cloying. Each ragged breath was a struggle, a wet, gurgling effort that brought no relief. The world narrowed to the gritty texture of the asphalt, the distant hum of a city that didn't care, and the slowing, painful drum of her own heart. Alone. I'm going to die alone.
The thought was a final, icy certainty.
Then, a presence. Not the man—he was gone, his footsteps already fading. This was something else. A consciousness that pressed against her fading mind, vast and ancient and utterly alien.
You are bleeding out. Your consciousness is fading. In approximately ninety-three seconds, it will cease entirely.
The voice wasn't a sound. It was pure information, implanted directly into her dying neurons. It held no pity, no malice. It simply was.
Terror, sharper than any blade, lanced through her. No. Please.
An alternative is available. A transfer. A new beginning in a place where this wound does not exist.
Hope, desperate and wild, flickered. Yes. Anything.
The cost is your past. All of it. Every memory, every joy, every sorrow. You will be a blank page. You will retain only your name. Do you accept these terms?
What was there to consider? A life of faded photographs and forgotten birthdays versus the utter void? The warmth spreading beneath her was not life, but its end. She grasped at the offer with the last shred of her will.
Yes.
There was no sound, no light. Just a sudden, profound sensation of unspooling. It felt like every cell in her body was being gently, meticulously emptied. The face of her first kiss, the smell of her mother's perfume, the crushing weight of her daily struggles—it all flowed out of her, leaving behind a pristine, terrifying silence.
Then, nothing.
*
She woke to the smell of rain on sun-baked stone.
Reina's eyes fluttered open. She was lying on a polished wooden bench, her head pillowed on her own arm. She sat up slowly, her body whole, her skin unbroken. No pain. No blood. Just a profound, dizzying emptiness where her life should have been.
She knew her name. Reina Durant. That was the only fact in the vast, silent expanse of her mind.
She was in a piazza, ancient and beautiful. The buildings were a warm, terracotta orange, their shutters closed against the afternoon sun. A fountain bubbled musically in the center. The air was cool and carried the faint, melodic strains of an argument from a nearby café. The words were Italian, and though she understood none of them, the language felt strangely familiar on some deep, forgotten level.
She stood, her legs steady. She wore the same clothes from before—a simple blouse and skirt—but they were clean, pristine, as if the attack had never happened. With no memory to guide her, no home to return to, she simply began to walk. Her movements were aimless, a leaf caught on a current she couldn't see. She traced a hand along the rough, cool stone of a building, the sensation the first real anchor in the void of her self.
Her wandering led her down a narrower, shadowed street. The tourist crowds thinned, replaced by a quiet that felt… watchful. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She wasn't alone.
At the end of the lane, two figures stood silhouetted against the fading light. One was tall, pale, and preternaturally still, their posture radiating an aura of coiled power that made the air itself feel heavy. They were flanking the second, a smaller figure.
Reina's feet carried her forward, a moth drawn to a terrifying, beautiful flame. As she drew closer, the smaller figure turned.
It was a woman. Her hair was blonde, styled in a severe, elegant cap that framed a face of impossible perfection. Skin like marble, lips the color of a faded rose. And her eyes… they were a startling, deep crimson.
Those eyes locked with Reina's.
The world ceased its turning.
A jolt, violent and seismic, passed between them, a current of pure energy that had no name. Reina's breath caught in her throat. Her heart, a moment before a quiet, confused drum, began to hammer against her ribs like a wild thing trying to escape. The emptiness inside her… ached.
Across the street, Jane Volturi went utterly, completely rigid. The casual, predatory grace she had held a moment before was gone, replaced by a statue's stillness. The faint, perpetual smirk that played on her lips vanished. Her head tilted, just a fraction, a predator encountering a scent that defied all known logic.
Her brother, Alec, shifted beside her, a whisper of movement. "Jane?" His voice was low, a note of confusion in its usually monotone cadence. He followed her frozen gaze to the human girl who had stopped dead in the middle of the cobblestone street.
Jane did not—could not—respond. The human's scent was… everything. It flooded her senses, overwhelming the familiar smells of dust and ancient stone. It was warmth and sunlight and a potential she had not known existed. It called to the deepest, most barren parts of her, parts that had been cold and dead for a millennium. This fragile, breathing creature was a key sliding into a lock she never knew she possessed.
Reina could only stare back, trapped in that crimson gaze. She didn't understand the terrifying beauty of the woman before her, or the raw power that radiated from her like heat from a furnace. She only knew that in the void of her existence, this… this was the first thing that felt real. A terrifying, magnetic real.
She saw the vampire's chest swell with an unneeded breath. She saw the minute tremble in her otherwise perfectly still hands.
Alec took a step closer, his own dark eyes narrowing as they darted between his sister and the unknown human. "What is it?" he murmured, his voice now edged with a sliver of alarm. This was not their way. Humans were cattle, entertainment, occasionally a meal. They were not… this.
Jane finally moved. Her head turned slowly, mechanically, toward her brother, but her eyes remained glued to Reina, wide with a shock so profound it looked like agony.
Her voice, when it finally came, was not the whip-crack of punishment she was known for. It was a hushed, ragged thing, stripped of all its ancient power, reduced to a stunned and wondering whisper.
"Alec… I can hear her heart… and it is… calling to mine."