DISCLAIMER: I don't own TVD.

Misnis09: Thank you so much for your review. We'll see more Enzo in this chapter. As for Mystic Falls, the more I write, the more "wrong" the town seems. They treat people who don't fit in with their perfect image as "other" like Vicki on the show, which is why I think Vicki ended up dying and no one other than Matt really cared. She was just a teenager who needed help. As for Caroline, even if Phoebe is talking about teaching Caroline magic, it's just a thought she has at the moment. I'm still on the fence about following the show canon and turning Caroline into a vampire or changing things. This is why I'm removing Phoebe's memories of her past life. I want her to make her own decisions without letting the show influence her.

Stachelbeere: This is Enzo's rescue chapter so let's see if your predictions are correct.

AngelElmarlienHenning: Wow. Thank you for the review. I'm so glad you think my story is good enough to be read repeatedly with each new update. I'll try not to disappoint.

RenTenTen: Yeah. I noticed that too.

Blu3b3rryT3a: Thank you. I love reading reviews because I find that sometimes the readers find something I could have overlooked. And yes, even though Phoebe's mental age is in the 30s, she still never experienced the pressures she has in her current life in her previous life, so of course, she'll feel inadequate and insecure sometimes, especially since she has no one to help her. She can't trust anyone with her deeper secrets yet.

It took forever to write this chapter. It's the longest one yet. I just started writing and then I couldn't stop. I wanted the theme of death in this chapter. Sorry about the typos.

Thank you all for all the reviews and follows. PLEASE READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER.

Chapter 6: Stench of Death

3rd person POV

October 26th, 1997

Like she's done every morning for years, Phoebe woke up one hour before dawn to practice her magic. Even after so many years, she never wavered in her conviction to learn and master magic. She was on her own and she was all she had. She was her own teacher so she put in more effort than any other witch, learning through trial and error. She was never discouraged by failure. Every failure served to push her to work harder. After all, she had many people she needed to protect.

Phoebe had worked with her sister Victoria for the last two years. She taught Ria to sense the magic around her, take it into her body, and use it to manipulate the natural world around her. Ria was still young, so Phoebe kept most of the dangerous spells out of her sister's hands. Matt had also recently begun his training in magic.

Both siblings were still young. They were in awe of magic and idolized their sister. They eagerly absorbed every lesson their sister taught them. She understood their bright-eyed curiosity as children so she taught them spells that would satisfy their curiosity and leave them in awe of their own power. The only things she kept from them were the more dangerous spells she knew of. As they grew older, she would teach them the fire spells, tempest spells, curses, and more complex rituals.

Phoebe crossed the room to the bunk bed her siblings shared. Almost every morning when she was home, she found herself looking at her siblings, watching carefully as their chests rose and fell with each breath. She didn't understand why she did it but there was just that urge. Every time she checked, her chest grew tight. She wanted to ensure that they were breathing, that they were safe.

She swore that she would protect them from the supernatural and even natural dangers, but she could not deny the touch of Thanatos. The natural death, the silent death, that comes in the night and took them painlessly, as it had her. If it came, she could not stop it. She did not dare to think herself great enough to change the natural balance of the world. Death was a part of life. She knew that. She accepted it. But, that did not mean she was not relieved whenever she saw their breaths enter and leave their bodies as they slept.

After her usual morning yoga session, Phoebe went to the kitchen and began preparing breakfast. It was a lazy Sunday morning and everyone was sleeping in. Her magic unconsciously reacted, following the routine which she had done hundreds of times before. Eggs, milk, waffles, cereal, and bacon levitated out of the fridge as the pan settled on the range.

The scent of freshly cooked bacon and eggs drew the siblings out of their room. "Morning, sissy," said Matt. He wiped his eyes as a wide yawn spread over his baby face.

"Morning, Matty." Victoria soon followed her brother downstairs in her pajamas. "Morning, Ria." Two plates settled in front of the siblings. They reached out with their magic, levitating waffles onto their plates.

Phoebe smiled as she watched her siblings use their powers freely. She had encouraged them to use their powers as much as they could so long as no one was around. Not even their mother and great-grandmother knew. It wasn't time yet and Phoebe was afraid that they would reject them.

Victoria took well to water magic as she easily moved orange juice from the carton into her cup. She levitated the jug of syrup, holding it just above the plate as she tilted it so syrup would fall on her waffles. She grinned satisfyingly as she poured just enough syrup to drench her waffles before placing the jug back on the table before she began eating.

Matthew, ever the pleaser, emulated his sister. He placed cereal in his bowl before -holding out two hands- he slowly levitated the carton of milk over his bowl of cereal. The carton wobbled as it was too heavy for his inexperienced power, causing him to spill it over the bowl.

Before the milk could touch the table, it stopped in midair. Phoebe assembled the liquid into a ball before she poured it over her brother's cereal and placed the carton back in the fridge.

Ria smirked as she looked smugly at her brother, who pouted. "Nice try, Matty. That was good." She placed the fried eggs and a few strips of bacon between two loaves of bread. "You too, Ria."

"Hey sis, are we still doing that thing for Halloween?" Ria asked with her mouth full.

"Ria, don't talk with your mouth full," Phoebe lightly scolded.

The younger girl finished chewing her food. "Are we still doing the magic ritual?"

"Yep." Not long ago, Phoebe had gained two new powers around the same time. Necromancy and prophecy.

She was at a gymnastics meet, doing friendly competition with some other teams from around the state when a group of random girls walked onto the mat. They began stretching and doing tricks, not minding everyone else in the gym. Then she noticed that all the girls were wearing different uniforms. They weren't a team. She also noticed that her teammates and the spectators on the bleachers were not paying much attention to the girls.

She understood something was wrong but she didn't realize what until one of the new girls walked right through Laura, her teammate, who immediately shuddered. "Laura, you okay?" she asked her teammate.

The young woman hugged herself, passing her hands along her skin as though she was trying to warm herself. "Ye- yeah. I think. Just a little chilly." Surprisingly, Laura was sensitive to magic. Phoebe had made glass flowers for her friends on the team and gave one to Laura. The magic she used to make the flower reacted to Laura in a peculiar way, wrapping around her. Phoebe was the only one who sensed the change. She had already thought about bringing Laura into the fold to tell her about magic and her potential to be a witch.

Laura's reaction to the specter told Phoebe that specters were supernatural. With all the spirits roaming around, Laura could barely focus on the meet. Her nerves were on end as her body sensed a large number of spirits around her but her mind could not comprehend the strange signals it was receiving. She almost injured herself on the bars that the coach benched her for the rest of the meet.

That same night, Phoebe had a dream. Less a dream and more of a retrocognitive vision. She saw an ancient coven of witches performing a ritual with hundreds of spirits gathering in a cemetery as they chanted the same chant repeatedly through the night. After that day, she began seeing spirits of the dead everywhere she went. The image of the ritual played in her head repeatedly. She wrote down everything she saw because she understood that she would have to perform the ritual. And with all the spirits and with Halloween approaching, she knew exactly when she needed to perform the ritual.

"Did you guys memorize the chant?"

Victoria and Matt nodded as they ate before reciting the chant word for word to their sister. They were ready. Just 5 more days until Halloween.

As breakfast was winding down, Kelly finally came for breakfast. She silently sat in her seat, eyes dazed as though she had yet to awaken, placing food on her plate before she began to eat without a word.

"Morning mom."

"Morning mom," Ria repeated before Matt chimed, "Morning mommy."

Kelly yawned as placed the spoon in her mouth before she drawled, "Mornin'."

Phoebe arched her neck toward the stairs when she saw no sign of her grandmother coming down even when breakfast was almost over. She prepared a plate of leftovers for Amy but she couldn't help the knot in her stomach whenever she thought about her granny, who was usually awake just before or just after her, still sleeping when Kelly was already eating her breakfast.

Her breath caught in her throat as her heart raced. No. Something isn't right. Granny!

All the hairs on her body stood on ends. She sensed them from all directions as the stench of death grew more suffocating than any other time before. Her breathing ragged and her eyes tearing, her body shook uncontrollably causing a wave of magic to leave her body with violent force, shaking the house around them.

While Kelly looked around confused at the sudden tremor, Matt and Ria's eyes immediately went to their sister when they sensed instability in her sister's magic spreading throughout the house. "Sister?"

Phoebe took off around the table, running up the stairs, waving her hand to will open her grandmother's bedroom door. She stopped at the door, catching her breath as she looked at her grandmother's sleeping form on the bed.

She knew. She already knew that Thanatos had placed his unbiased hand on her grandmother. She already sensed it. The more she focused, the more she sensed the stench of death that lingered in the house. That was one of the many perks, or perhaps disadvantages, of being a witch beholden to a goddess with power over the dead.

The jitters in her body were gone. Her feet took her to her grandmother's bedside. Rather than the quiet moans and rosy cheeks of her granny, she was faced with a silent gray lifeless body. She knew. She knew well that her grandmother's spirit had left her body but she needed to make sure.

She raised her finger under her grandmother's nose to feel her warm breath. Nothing. She moved her fingers to feel the pulse on her neck. Nothing. One more time. She needed to be absolutely certain. She took her grandmother's wrist from under the covers, feeling for the pulse on the artery, but she felt nothing but a cold and lifeless corpse.

Phoebe silently closed her eyes as she placed her granny's hand carefully back under the covers and pulled the sheet over to her neck as though she was only sleeping. She lowered herself to her knees before her grandmother's bed, saying a short prayer.

Kelly and the siblings finally joined Phoebe in granny's room where they found Phoebe on her knees before her grandmother's bed with tears flowing down her cheeks. While Ria and Matt couldn't understand what they were seeing, Kelly jumped into the room to her grandmother's side, shaking the lifeless body of the old woman to wake her up. Phoebe moved back as Kelly's piercing screams filled the room, dropping to her knees as she cried before the spiritless body of the only woman who had ever shown her unconditional love.

Phoebe took the hands of her younger sibling as they too began to cry in response to their mother's reaction.

The rest of the day moved by in a blur. Kelly was inconsolable, remaining by her grandmother's side for over an hour after they had discovered the body. It was Phoebe who took it upon herself to call the sheriff and the morgue.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur as Phoebe continued to go through the motions of a regular Sunday. She made sure her siblings ate, but her mother still had not left her grandmother's room, and turned away all food and comfort her children tried to show to her. She had to make sure that her siblings were well taken care of. She had to take care of her mom. She had to make her granny proud. Even though she could not feel her grandmother's spirit, she imagined her granny watching her take care of the family and smiling proudly like she always did.

Yeah. Granny would be sad if she neglected her family. She had to be responsible and help.

Being in a small town, it didn't take long for the phone to start ringing with neighbors and strangers offering their condolences. It got to the point where they just disconnected the phone completely. Phoebe did not return to her program at Whitmore on Monday morning and simply remained home to take care of her family and continue planning her grandmother's funeral.

Amelia Grace Donovan was laid to rest on the 30th of October.

Phoebe did not have time to rest and mourn as normal families could. She had preparations to make for the March of the Dead ritual. Under the cloak of Nix, Phoebe dragged her feet back to the old cemetery with her siblings as midnight approached. She let Matt and Ria sleep on a blanket on the ground as she put on the finishing touches for the ritual.

Her turbulent emotions caused her magic to swirl just beneath her skin, ready to burst out. Her heart throbbed with a pain she had not felt since her previous life. Her body and mind were physically and emotionally exhausted. She just wanted to sleep and do nothing.

She inhaled deeply, every so often, catching herself before completely breaking down. She was focused on her task but the heavy feeling in her chest had yet to alleviate. Sleep tried to take her, lull her into its embrace but she would not let it.

She was a thirty-three-year-old woman in the body of an almost eight-year-old child and she would not let her emotions control her. She had a job to do. She had a responsibility to her mistress, her goddess. Mourning her grandmother could wait because she would not disappoint the being responsible for giving her a second chance at life.

Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, Dia de Los Muertos were all names for the same event. A time when the veil between the different planes of existence, when the dead who were left wandering through the plane of the living tried to find their way into the plane of the dead.

Two makeshift wooden gateways stood erect in a circle of salt to signify the path from the world of the living to the realm of the dead. She lit candles and placed bowls of water around the circle and along the path leading from one gate to another. Large bronze keys Phoebe carved with her magic dangled from the gates and different food and spirit wine were placed inside the circle to attract the spirits. The soft breeze carried the scent of burning sage all around the cemetery.

She finally stood up, checking and double-checking over her list. Everything was set. Just a few more minutes before she could simply return home and finally rest after the long few days she's had.

Phoebe awoke her siblings several minutes before midnight, washing the sleep out of their eyes as they began to recite the chant. They stood in the salt circle, hand in hand, channeling one another, chanting the incantation repeatedly. Their magic swirled around them, churning the light breeze into a strong wind that whistled in the empty cemetery.

She sensed them. The spirits. Their chant was calling the spirits to the cemetery, to the gates where they would finally pass from wandering on the plane of the living and move on to the underworld. The grey specters manifested one by one appearing in one gate, walking along the path, and disappearing at the other gate.

They chanted for several minutes. The children grew wearier as their magic left them, the vast number of ghosts passing through the gates finally diminishing. As the last few stragglers came through, one of the spirits stopped in the middle of the path. Her heart thudded and her breath almost hitched at the sight of the face of the spirit, but she continued chanting even as tears finally fell from her eyes when she saw the face of her grandmother.

Amelia was among the wandering spirits, coming through the gate of the living before stopping before her chanting great-grandchildren. She smiled at them, her eyes passing lovingly over them. Phoebe's long-held tears finally fell as she moved closer to the path when her hand reached out toward them. She stopped just beyond her grandmother's reach as the specter could not leave the path between the gates nor could the siblings enter the path. The chanting continued as Amelia said, "My little witch, Phoebe. I am so proud of you. Take care of your mother and your siblings for me."

Amelia was the last to pass through the gate of the dead. Just as she finished the chant, Phoebe fell to her knees in an echo of sobs and cries as her overwhelming grief finally struck her. She cried and wailed for Amelia, "Gr- granny… p- please… don- don't leave me." Her sobs gave way to hiccups as Matt and Ria wrapped their arms around their big sister, crying along with her.

Since Amelia's death, Kelly has become a shadow of her former self. She was drunk most of the days and stopped going to work. Her reasoning -her grandma was rich and left an inheritance.

The times she and the children used to spend together died along with Amelia. She no longer braided Phoebe and Ria's hairs and the mother-daughter bonding trips stopped. When she was not drinking in her room, she was out on the town getting intoxicated and having sex with whatever moved.

There was no celebration for Phoebe's eighth birthday as she took on the responsibilities of the adult in the house. She not only had to make sure her siblings were fed, but also ensure that her mother did not kill herself by overdosing on drugs and alcohol.

She put a detoxification potion in Kelly's coffee every morning so that when she went out drinking, the harmful mix of drugs and alcohol did not reach a toxic level that could lead to her death. The potion did not stop her from getting high or drunk, but whenever they reached a certain level, she would forcefully regurgitate the contents of her stomach.

Phoebe worked with the fund managers to negotiate a monthly allowance for the family's necessities, which included grief counseling for Matt and Victoria. She had to skip the year of the Whitmore program as she oversaw the construction of the new house, adding a new greenhouse extension where she could grow all her herbs and practice magic without needing to go to the woods. She taught Matt and Ria to cook so they would never go hungry and helped them with their homework.

Phoebe not only had new responsibilities to manage her household but also had to try to keep her regular routine. As usual, she would wake an hour before dawn to say her prayers to the gods and meditate before going to the yard to do yoga. When the sun finally rose over the horizon, she made breakfast in the kitchen and prepared lunch boxes for Matt and Ria's day at school. She was taking a break from Whitmore to manage the house but she could still do some course work on the desktop in the house. Kelly left the house soon after breakfast without telling Phoebe where she was going while Phoebe was left alone to clean the house for the day. After lunchtime, she made her way to the construction site where the house was almost finished. The windows had gone in and the contractors began working on the inside, installing electricity and plumbing. With the house almost ready, she returned home to continue her classwork before practicing her magic again. She had a few new boundary and illusions spells she had come up with so when she was alone in the house became the perfect time to get in some practice before she needed to make dinner.

The ground beneath her was hard and cold, causing her to shiver as she finally opened her eyes. Her sudden movement to sit up was met with resistance as her body ached. Her heart thudded in her chest, her blood scorching beneath her skin like she had poison running through her veins.

"Where am I?" She finally pulled herself up, letting her body rest against the wall as she took several deep breaths to calm herself. She took in her surroundings as her vision adjusted to the darkness and her mind grew clearer. She saw the vertical iron bars as her vision settled. On her hands and knees, she crawled painfully -her body still feeling as though someone lit her on fire- to the iron bars. She grasped the bars to hold herself up. "Hello?" Her voice croaked painfully and her throat itched with thirst. "Is anyone there?" She stared at the lock, trying to will the doors to open, but no magic came to her.

She couldn't feel anything. Not the magic inside her body or the magic around her. "Why can't I feel anything?" She held her hand out to the keyhole on the cell again. "Nepo." Nothing. Without magic to activate the spell, the chants were only useless words in her mouth.

"Don't waste your strength, love." An accented voice spoke in a deep baritone from her right.

She looked to see a man wearing a thin white shirt and jeans. When he moved out of the shadows, closer to the bars of her cell, she gasped at the sight of him. His square jaw, dark eyes and hair, she recognized them. "Enzo?" She blinked twice as she thought that her eyes were deceiving her. "Why are you here?"

"This is where I've always been," Enzo replied.

Realization slowly dawned on her as her eyes widened. "No. Why am I here?" Her mind swam with possibilities. This cell, this damp basement. She was at Augustine. But she wasn't a vampire. She looked down at her body, looking at her hands. They were larger. Her legs were longer and the swells of her breasts had developed into an adult's. "I'm not really here." Her voice escaped in a whisper. "This is a dream."

She heard the creaking of the large metal door before light rushed into the dark space, forcing her to avert her eyes. She looked up to see Grayson Gilbert entering the room.

There weren't a lot of people she hated but she hated that man. He was the worst of the worst. A hypocrite. A medical doctor who swore to do no harm while he turns around to cut people open to remove their organs without a care in the world just because they are vampires. He does it all in the name of science while turning around to use vampire blood to heal his patients.

Well, vampires were monsters so it's not like they feel anything, she thought sarcastically. Her rage welled up inside her as she had never felt before. If she had her magic, even in her dream, she would destroy every blood vessel in his body before setting him on fire.

Humans can be the worst monsters than vampires, murdering innocents who do them no wrong while justifying it for the greater good. It was the same "us" and "them" mentality that led to the atrocities of the Holocaust and yet no one ever learns. She wouldn't be surprised if another mass genocide broke out in a few decades.

She gasped out of her thoughts when her cell opened. Grayson stood at the door while two burly men grabbed her under her arms. "No. No. NO!" she cried as they dragged her out of the cell. "No, please. I don't wanna do this." This was just a dream. No, a nightmare. Usually, when she has nightmares, she could still feel herself asleep as she willed herself to wake up but her body was completely unresponsive. She felt an overwhelming power keeping her mind locked in and there was nothing she could do to will herself awake.

"Phobetor, please," she called out, tears streaming down her face as she was strapped to the metal table.

Phobetor, one of the Oneiri, the god of nightmares. It was just a hunch but the oppressing power felt divine, giving her the same feeling she had when her spirit was summoned by Hekate all those years ago. "I don't want to experience this."

"But you must." She heard the deep voice reverberate all around her in the dreamscape. "You refused to watch before so you must now. You must feel everything he has felt every day in the past fifty years. Only then will you know that you must destroy them."

"No, please." She looked down at Grayson as he raised his scalpel before cutting open her shirt and cutting into her skin. She screamed and yelled and writhed in pain as she felt every cut in her skin. She felt violated, keeping her eyes on Enzo, trying to stay strong, they rummaged through her organs like luggage.

When she opened her eyes again, Phoebe found herself lying in a hospital bed as tears continued to stream down her face. She curled up into herself, still feeling the sensation of the hands digging through her insides. Even though it had been just a nightmare, a simulation given by the gods, her whole body still felt as though it had been violated.

"Ah, you're awake. You fell into a coma so your mother brought you here." She heard a voice after the door closed behind her. "I'll call doctor Gilbert." Phoebe's eyes widened at the name before the door closed again behind her. Her breath hitched as she quickly grabbed her pajamas and changed out of the hospital gown. Kelly hadn't come in the room nor did the nurse say anything about her mother coming to see her so Phoebe took the chance to leave before the doctor came.

She didn't want to see Grayson Gilbert. Just the thought of him made her blood boil. If she saw him, she didn't have it in her to rein in her anger. She would kill him. Her thoughts were filled with images of him on his knees before her, choking for breath as blood ran from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. He deserved a painful death. He deserved to know the same pain he had inflicted on Enzo all those years before. She left the hospital room, leaving through the back stairs.

As she sat on the bus home, her mind wandered, thinking about how much preparation she would have to do before New Year's Eve. The gods made it clear to her that she needed to save Enzo. They judged Augustine and she was their executioner. Rather than just save the British vampire, she was going to destroy Augustine. And for that, she needed a lot of power.

December 31, 1997

"Sister, where are you going?" Ria asked.

Phoebe was seated in front of her vanity, applying the last bit of the metallic eyeshadow to contrast with the dark smoky look she was going for. "I'm going to a funeral. I have to be there for a friend," Phoebe replied. "Remember when Granny died? I don't want him to be alone." Yes. She was dressing to go to a funeral; Augustine's funeral.

Over the past month, she had been preparing for this day. She learned and mastered new spells she thought she would need for her plan to destroy Augustine.

The front of her hair was braided in cornrows pulled back to join the rest of her curls. She pulled on her hosiery before stepping into her long-sleeved black dress and black heels. With dark red lipstick painted on her lips and the black veil over her eyes, she became the grim reaper.

Most of the campus was quiet as the fall semester had ended and most of the students had gone home for the holidays. The members of the Augustine Society had the privacy they needed for the yearly show where they got a taste of vampire blood.

When she arrived at Whitmore, Phoebe returned to her room in the dorms, passing the time to midnight. The party was in full swing when she entered Whitmore House through the front door. Neither the guard nor any of the party attendees noticed her as they continued mingling amongst themselves.

She wore a quartz glamour charm with a cloaking spell that lowered her presence and rendered her almost invisible unless a person was really focusing on her. No one could see her unless she willed it. She passed through the foyer, moving along the wall to the back room before going down the stairs to the basement. She came before a large metal door with an electronic keypad. She did not know the password but that was no trouble for her. Phoebe didn't spend the whole month trying to create a lightning manipulation spell for nothing. Electronic locks were just a bunch of electrical pulses sent from the electronic keypad to the physical door that would allow the bolt to move. Lightning and electricity were made of the same thing, electrons traveling from one place to another. She just had to use magic to achieve the same effect. Whoever said magic and technology were incompatible?

A grin spread over her red-painted lips when she heard the bolt on the door click. With a light push, she opened the door slightly and slipped in, before lightly shutting the door behind her. She inhaled deeply before she turned to face the man she had worked so hard to meet.

He was sitting in a cage in the middle of the room, waiting for the time to come when he would be paraded around like a circus animal. Lorenzo St. John never lost his light-hearted nature while he was being tortured and experimented. His jokes were the only things that kept him sane after all these years. Over the past few years, he dreaded this night. It brought back memories of hope which were quickly replaced with feelings of anger when a man he believed to be his best friend betrayed him and left him for dead 45 years ago. He spent almost 50 years in a cage, poked and prodded with barely enough to survive.

His heart was lighter tonight than any other time since Damon betrayed him. A few weeks earlier, a voice began speaking to him. The first time she came, he thought that she was just in his head when he heard the voice of a young child. After all the torture, he probably had a screw loose in his head somewhere. The voice went away then came back again. She sang to him. She told him she was a friend who wanted to help him get out of this hellhole. When she told him stories of the outside world, about the past 50 years, his heart swelled with the hope that maybe she was not just a figment of his imagination. She told him that she had a lot to prepare before she came to save him but would be coming during the New Year's Eve party.

Butterflies filled his stomach, his heart pounded in his chest, and his fingers and toes trembled and curled as he waited with bated breath. Was she really real or was she just a figment of his imagination? He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not hear the metal door opening and closing.

"Hello, love." His head whipped up at the sound of the same voice he had been hearing for so long right in front of him. A child. A beautiful young girl stood before him, dressed in all black with a funeral veil over her eyes. Enzo scurried to his feet, his eyes still on the girl as he towered over her in his full height.

"Medea?" he asked.

"Hi, Enzo. It's nice to finally meet you face to face," she said as she smiled at him.

Enzo was still silent, with his mouth open and his brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand."

"I'm a witch. I can see visions of the past, present, and future. I saw you." Her voice hardened as she lowered her gaze. He could hear her speak through gritted teeth when she said, "I saw what they did to you. I needed time to prepare, learn a few new spells before I came to save you." She looked up at him, her brilliant chocolate eyes piercing his lighter brown ones. Even through her veil, he saw a fire in her eyes. Thin eyes that have seen too much. Unless children matured faster now than they did fifty years ago, her eyes were not the eyes of a child.

She opened her large black purse and pulled out three blood bags. "Here. You'll need your full strength if you want to leave here."

Enzo took the blood bags and devoured them furiously one after another. It had been a long time since he got a full meal to quench his thirst. "I'm happy to finally meet you too, love," Enzo said as he finished the last blood bag, color finally returning to his pale skin.

Phoebe smiled when she saw that he looked healthier, stronger, and his brown eyes were brighter, too. "So, what do you want to do, Enzo?" She placed the empty bags in her purse to not leave any evidence of her presence visible. She turned around on her heel to the metal file cabinets. "I didn't come here today to just save you from this dungeon." She flipped through a few files, picking a few she placed in her purse.

Enzo's eyes shot up to the ceiling, his renewed hearing picking up the chatter from the Augustine Society members above. "Well, since the circus is here, why don't we give them the show they've been waiting for," he said with his accented voice as a smirk spread over his lips. "And I'm still hungry." She returned his smirk, made more threatening by the blood-red painted lips.

Phoebe reactivated the cloaking spell before she hid behind the bureau when a few men came down to take Enzo to the upstairs venue. Enzo did not fight and just followed as they grabbed him by his arms, pulling his arms out the door. Phoebe came out of her hiding spot a few moments later, following behind Enzo after she lit the room on fire.

Phoebe arrived to the sight of Enzo feeding on one of the men who brought him to the ballroom with the other one dead at his feet, his heart not too far from his body. He stood on a platform in front of the open cage where he would stay for the party while the members of the Augustine Society partook in his blood.

Enzo looked at her warily, as he dropped the dead body to the floor, expecting her to recoil at the sight of him draining the life from two men. To his surprise, her eyes were vacant as she simply stood against the wall, cooly observing him. She was an enigma. He had difficulty reading her. She was a child, but her eyes were the eyes of an adult who had lived for decades. She never flinched at the sight of his vampire face in his bloodlust as blood dripped from his chin. She was a witch, a group that hated vampires, but she was helping him without judgement or asking for anything in return. The more he fed, the more he regained his senses, and he could smell the adrenaline rushing in her blood. Her eyes were fierce, narrowing into small slits, her lips tight together in a line. He heard her teeth grinding behind her lips. Was she angry? She didn't seem to be angry at him but for him. Why?

Enzo swallowed, feeling exposed under her gaze, as though she knew everything about him. How could she know so much about him? He hadn't been in the outside world for almost 50 years, so there was no way he could know someone as young as her. How much did she see in her visions?

Enzo was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard the party attendees getting ready to move into the ballroom.

As the door opened, everyone came to a stop when they saw Enzo standing in front of the cage, blood dripping from his face and clothes with two dead bodies at his feet. They all stopped in their tracks, eyes wide with fear, as the murmurs picked up.

Black veins spread over Enzo's face as the whites of his eyes turned red and black with fangs protruding from his bloody lips. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like I'll be welcoming the new year with a little massacre." He motioned with his hands for them to approach. "Please, join me."

Several guards walked in front of the attendees with guns, crossbows, and stakes to face Enzo, who simply ripped their hearts out and snapped their necks in less than a second. People were rushing back into the foyer, to the front door, running, pushing, and screaming as they tried to find the closest exit to escape the crazy vampire. But they found that the doors were not moving.

Phoebe had cast a boundary spell the moment she entered the building so that when the doors closed they would never open unless she willed it. As she walked into the foyer to observe the carnage, flames ignited with every step, spreading all over the walls, floors, and doors. She watched the flames and the blood curiously. She was expecting to feel some sort of sadness or guilt, maybe a bit of compassion for the people who were running and screaming for their lives. Her heart did not skip a beat nor did the gore cause her stomach to wretch. She watched indifferently, feeling nothing towards those people. There was no sadness, or anger, or satisfaction in their deaths. She felt nothing.

It was different than the time she had watched Damon kill those people in the boarding house. At that time she felt pity and shame because no one in that house had ever done anything to harm her or Damon. She felt pity for the people who died, shame at herself for letting it happen when she could have prevented it, and anger toward Damon throwing his tantrum by killing innocent people. She had been haunted by those souls. But, Augustine, no. She would not be haunted by genocidal maniacs. No, she would sleep peacefully.

The only thing that could possibly haunt her dreams was the tortured look Enzo sported.

The fire engulfed the entire building except for the foyer as Enzo continued to feed and kill without remorse. Man or woman, they were all guilty. They were judged and executed by him on the spot. They may not have been the individuals who tortured him, but they were still guilty because they just stood by and did nothing. Everything that happened to him happened because they did nothing. How could they stand to hold him captive for fifty years? And for what? So they could get a sip of vampire blood once a year? Because he's the monster in the night that haunts them in their sleep? He never did anything to those people. He was a vampire, but he was not a monster.

Enzo stopped to catch his breath as he looked around at the dead bodies that surrounded him as the flames came to engulf them. He never flipped his switch when he was being tortured, but like any other human in exigent circumstances, his mind sought to protect him. His emotions were suppressed, shoved deep in the dark recesses of his mind. He did not cry. He did not beg. He just accepted his reality.

All his suppressed emotions were suddenly rushing back to the surface, tears falling down his cheeks in relief and fear that everything was a memory and he would wake up to find himself still in his cell in the basement. He took in his surroundings. It looked so similar to when he and Damon planned to escape. His heart was full of hope at that time. Could he hope again that he could walk out those doors and be free?

Enzo's body recoiled and looked down when he felt a small, warm hand slide into his. He looked down to see Phoebe intertwining her fingers into his, not bothered by the blood in them. She reached up with her other hand to touch his face, wiping his tears. She brought his face low as she reached up to kiss his cheek. She pulled back, looking into his eyes as she said, "Let's go home, Enzo."

They walked through the flames, leaving behind the stench of burning corpses. May their souls be forever tortured in Tartarus.

"Evil succeeds when good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

See something say something. Don't be a bystander.

A/N PLEASE READ: I'm using a lot of godly personifications. I know legacies already have Oneiroi but mine are different since I'm closely following the Greko-Roman mythology. Rather than look like demons, they have a humanoid form with wings on the side of their heads, surrounded by shifting darkness, only their eyes illuminating. My Oneiroi are old primordial gods, not demons created by Malivore. We only see Phobetor but we may see his brothers later.

Nyx: titan goddess and personification of the night

Hypnos: titan god and personification of sleep

Oneiri: the three gods of dreams, Morpheous, Phobetor, and Phantasos. Phobetor is the god of nightmares.

I switched from 1st person to 3rd person POV because I wanted an outside observation of Phoebe's actions and emotions. I find it really hard to have Phoebe describe her own feelings because people don't often understand what they're feeling.

Phoebe doesn't understand her own feelings very well. She has moments of sadness and fear, she writes them in her journal, but then she shoves them down and moves on to the next thing. It happened with Damon and Mikael. Even though the granny she loves so much died, a bunch of responsibilities fell on her shoulders that she didn't have time to grieve and went back to practicing magic, focusing on another task to rescue Enzo. Her emotions are all over the place I don't think she'd be able to narrate her feelings coherently

She's also an adult in a child's body with a child's brain chemistry. She may seem mature but her emotional development is stunted. This is a girl who herself said she was obsessed with death due to her constantly being at death's door in her short life. She also experienced several different traumas in just a few weeks from her granny dying to the gods making her experience Enzo's pain.

Those she loves and cares for, she will protect and defend fiercely, but she is vengeful toward those who stand against her and the ones she considers hers. And she already views Enzo as such.

Setting Enzo loose on the Augustine society while trapped in a burning building was her throwing a very destructive tantrum. All her emotions just came out like that. While a regular child may scream and rage and break her toys, she focuses everything outward on Augustine. She definitely needs therapy.

Spells: Nepo (open)

Thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a review.

Thanks for reading, Jamie.