I had stated in the dungeon this morning. Apparently, when I jumped out of the window in my overpowering fright, I had ripped a huge hole in the curtains that blocked out all sunlight, and I didn't have a special jewel to prevent me from burning. Damon had offered me his, but I turned it down. It didn't fit me anyhow. Besides, what was he to do during the day when he didn't have one? He was recognized in this town, and needed to be outside to take care of tasks that he wouldn't tell me about when I asked. Needless to say, he kept his ring, and I was continually confined to the night. I will say that I looked at Damon's ring when he offered it to me. He'd told me that the design was the Salvatore family crest, and the letter in the center stood for their first name. Stefan had one just like it, but his letter was, of course, an "S".

At the moment, I was sitting at the corner of the cold cement floor at the far end of the door, knees up to my chest, and arms folded over my knees. My head was back against the wall and I was looking up at the ceiling in hopes to find an answer to all of my problems, as if it would be there in a dusty dungeon.

I was listening to Damon speak with Stefan on the top floors when I heard a knock at the door. I waited a few minutes and then heard a voice in the room that sounded familiar to the one named Bonnie that I heard last night.

"I'll take it down," Damon said. "For some reason beyond my knowledge, she's deathly afraid of you."

"I see that she's the smart twin," the voice of Bonnie spoke. After a minute, the door slammed shut.

Not much else was heard except heavy but lithe footsteps coming down the steps striding down the stairs into the depths of the dark room. By the sound, it seemed that there were two people approaching.

"Good afternoon, Sunshine," Damon said as he entered the room. I stood up in one quick inhuman movement. "Happy birthday, or Merry Christmas, whichever comes first."

Of course he knew that Christmas came before my birthday; we shared that day, and we'd just turned a new year older nearly two months ago, not that it mattered.

He'd approached with a bit of caution, and set a little item in my hand before closing my fingers around it.

When he stepped away, I opened my hand to see a little ring with a quaint blue jewel placed in the center with a small crest over it with a letter "L" placed in the center.

My mouth was slightly open in shock and my eyes were big, "What's this?"

"You know what it is, Lucia," Stefan said.

"You're the Salvatore sister," Damon said. "Regardless if we've known about you or not for our lives, you're still our sister. You deserve to dwell in the daylight as much as we do."

I didn't know what to say, other than "thanks" over and over.

Stefan was the only one that came over to hug me after he flashed his huge smile. I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on the tips of my toes to kiss him on the cheek. I may be older, but those two were taller.

Once Stefan stepped away, Damon looked at me with a smile with his lips and he looked at me in an odd way with his eyes that I found intimidating, yet cute for a brother in a way. He wasn't a hugger, but he was still happy for me. I smiled back at him.

"You can come out of the dungeon now," Stefan said.

I shook a bit at that statement. What if the ring didn't work? I knew that it was enchanted by a witch to help stop from frying into the sunlight. Was it Bonnie who enchanted it? She didn't know, and she was quite worried that it was rigged not to work.

As she was about to protest, Damon quickly took his ring off and put it on my right middle finger, then took mine and set it on his left pinkie.

"I wouldn't dare put my big sister in trouble," he said. "Besides, I know how to test them the best."

He pulled me up the stairs with lightning speed with Stefan in tow, and we stopped at the entryway to the living room.

"Watch, Lucia," Stefan whispered in my ear.

With the suspense building in the pit of my stomach all the way to my throat, all I could do was watch as my little brother, who was not little one bit, set his hand out into the sunlight. I wanted to lunge and pull him back from the enemy that he was putting his hand into, and I was ready for him to scream in pain…

But it never came.

He looked back at me and smiled, "It works."

Just as I was about to smile, Stefan came up from behind me and pushed Damon into the living room.

Instead of smiling, I screamed.

"Damon!"

Neither of the boys screamed, though. They just playfully wrestled in the sun, laughing and smiling as they took turns pinning each other.

I desperately wanted to run after them and tell them to wait until night to do that, but I couldn't bring myself to step into my immortal enemy. I was born into darkness of this second life, and I was to be confined to darkness, or face the punishment of death. That's how I felt, and I don' know if anybody else felt that way. I've seen vampires burn in the light, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

It took all my strength, but I went against my gut and stuck my hand out into the sunlight, imitating Damon's actions.

I didn't burn.

I slowly stepped into the sunlight with my full body, and continued to stay in one piece.

The sight made me want to laugh, so I did, and my brothers looked up from their current position, Damon pinning Stefan, whose legs were up to his chest.

They laughed with me, and I did something that surprised all three of us.

I jumped in the pile with them and started wrestling.

"Look Damon," Stefan commented as he pinned me. "We have a boyish sister. Thank goodness." We all laughed, and I laughed harder while Damon pinned Stefan and got him off of me. I then pinned Damon, then Stefan, and then they got me together. That's mainly how it went until I realized something.

Damon's ring had fallen off of my hand.

I watched as it rolled along the floor until it rested under the table, and I couldn't retrieve it, because the owner of said ring was too busy pinning me until the last minute when he noticed, but it was too late.

I scrunched up under Damon's body, that was now protecting me, but I still felt the sun hit me as I cried into him. I couldn't say goodbye yet; I just couldn't. I'd only just gotten to meet my family, and I just could not say goodbye yet!

I felt the sun, hot on my skin as my brother yelled my name over and over, but I didn't much hear them. I was busy waiting for the sun to burn me to a crisp.

It never came, though.

After a minute, Damon got up off of me and stood next to Stefan as they hovered over my unharmed body.

I looked up at them in shock, mirroring their facial expressions of the same feeling.

I got up and remained in the sun as I went over and picked up Damon's ring and came back to place it on his finger…but he wouldn't touch me. He just stared at it as I offered it to him.

So, I took his hand and placed his ring back on his finger in one swift movement before he snatched it away from me. He had taken my ring back off and tossed it to me, giving me a glare of fury and disgust.

"What are you?" Stefan finally asked, and I immediately felt cold and abandoned.

"I don't know," I mumbled, but they could still hear.

"Get out," Damon said in a controlled tone with hints of anger below them.

I looked at him with pain for about two seconds, and then ran upstairs to grab my bag and the book. I then proceeded to jump out the window and run away. My ring was in my pocket, and I didn't burn.

I had never dared test my inability to be out in the sunlight. I was just taught that sun was bad and to not go out in it. I never thought that I wouldn't burn, because I did before that day.

The day of which I didn't want to speak of.

The day that made me different from my kind, and apparently hated by my brothers.

I hate witches…