Chapter One: Crash Landing
The Alaskan wilderness stretched endlessly in every direction, a frozen canvas smeared with fog and flurries. Katherine Pierce, half-vampire, half-human, wholly reckless, slouched behind the wheel of a beat-up black muscle car as it tore down the icy road. Her pupils were blown wide—whiskey in one hand, a half-smoked joint dangling from her lips.
"This place is dead, nobody around for miles," she muttered, blowing smoke into the cracked windshield. "Perfect."
She didn't see the elk until it was too late.
The tires squealed as the car veered, skidding across black ice before smashing into a snowbank. Metal crumpled, glass shattered, and everything went white.
When she came to, her body was healing—slowly, like molasses—but the dull ache remained. Something was off. Her head rolled to the side, and standing outside the shattered driver's window was a woman. Blonde, poised, with a fur-lined jacket that looked like it belonged on a Vogue cover. Her eyes gleamed gold.
"Who are you?" Katherine croaked, blinking against the blood trickling down her temple.
Tanya tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Are you…..ok? You should be dead after that crash"
Clearly she sensed something was different about Katherine.
Katherine forced a crooked grin. "Yeah all good, too much whiskey and weed."
Tanya's lips twitched. "I'll say. Driving like that is extremely reckless, especially in this remote area."
Katherine stood up with a limp. "I'm all good, see?", she smiled a dazzling smile.
A second voice called out from the trees. Carmen, serene and curious as ever, stepped into view with Eleazar behind her. "She's injured," Carmen said, eyes sweeping over Katherine's wrecked form. "We can't leave her out here. Come back to the house. Rest."
"No, that's really ok," said Katherine.
"I insist", Carmen said firmly.
Katherine opened her mouth to decline, to tell them she was fine, that she didn't do well with… company. She knew they were vampires and generally her run ins with vampires didn't end well. But the cold bit deeper, and the headache bloomed behind her eyes. Her body needed time to heal and she couldn't just go to a hospital. They would know something was off with how quickly she healed from wounds that should've killed her. "Fine," she grumbled. "But if any of you try to kidnap me, I'm bolting at the first chance I get."
Tanya smirked. "No promises."