"What happened?" Cassie dropped her coat tiredly on the banister as Dani froze three steps from the foyer. Her mouth dropped as her eyes damn near bulged out of her head.

"Where's my grandma?" Cassie inquired.

Dani blinked in surprise as she stared at Cassie's ruined dress. "Her friend Martha called, they went to Bingo. She thought she would be home before you, but…" Dani's eyes darted to the grandfather clock in the living room. "You're far earlier than expected."

"Party kinda got crashed," Chris mumbled.

"I can see that," Dani said.

"Glad she's not home." The last thing Cassie wanted was for her grandma to see her like this. The retelling was going to be bad enough, but to actually see it would have made matters much worse.

"What the hell happened?"

"You got it, hell happened." Chris shut and locked the door behind him.

Cassie rolled her eyes at Chris and shook her head disapprovingly. There was no reason to frighten Dani more. Chris tried a sheepish, apologetic smile, but it failed miserably as his face didn't cooperate with his objective.

"Where's Melissa?" Dani demanded.

"Dropped her off already," Cassie answered. Dani's shoulders slumped in relief. "I need some ice cream, but first I have to get out of this dress. Chris, why don't you make us some sundaes?"

"Are you ok?" Dani demanded as her focus locked on Cassie's blood stained side.

"I'll be fine," she assured her.

Cassie padded up the stairs, she was acutely aware of every ache and bruise as each step intensified the pain. Though she wasn't looking forward to retelling the horrifying events of the night, she was grateful for the distraction Dani offered. Otherwise, she would be consumed with her concern for Devon, and everything that had been revealed tonight.

How many women were in his past? How many of them had he loved? And who was Annabelle?

Cassie's hands trembled as she pulled the zipper of her dress down. She tried not to think about those questions, they would only rattle her already shaken confidence more. Tossing her ruined dress on top of her bed, she took a shower to wash the blood from her body. She tried to scrub herself clean of the memories threatening to choke her. No matter how rigorously she scrubbed though, she couldn't clean away the events of the night.

Tears burned the back of her throat once more, but she refused to cry anymore. She hated the weakness she'd allowed to slip through earlier with Devon. She was a big girl; she'd been in life threatening situations before. She should be able to handle her reaction to them far better than she had today.

Although, she'd never had an experience as bad as the one she'd had tonight. She really had thought her life was over, and she'd never been confronted with a beautiful, psychotic girlfriend from centuries past before either. Cassie shuddered as she scrubbed at her skin with renewed vigor.

Though she tried not to think of Isla, it was all she could think about. How many years had they been together? She didn't want to contemplate the things they'd done together, but she couldn't stop the images flashing through her mind and the jealousy consuming her. She was nothing like Isla. That woman had experience; she knew what a man liked, and how to please them. She knew what Devon liked. She'd satisfied him with her body, and Cassie was certain, with her blood. She'd satisfied him in ways Cassie hadn't, and maybe never could. Revulsion nearly threatened to drown her in its thick waves.

Her certainty that she would join Devon had been shaken, if not destroyed. His was a world she didn't understand, a world of cruelty, sex, and blood. One she wasn't certain she could belong to and one that may destroy her.

Despite the hot water, Cassie was shivering and numb when she stepped out of the shower. She dressed carefully, feeling hollow and devastated. The night had started out with so much promise, it was all gone now. Like a burnt out log, all of her hope had turned into a pile of ash that was choking her from the inside out. No matter how much she hoped things would be ok, that Devon would explain everything, she wasn't sure it would ever be right again. She wasn't sure they could ever be the same again.

Ever so carefully, she cleaned and bandaged her injuries with the ample medical supplies she kept under the sink. She wasn't at all surprised to find the blood had stopped, and the healing process was well under way. She'd always healed fast, ever since she was a little girl, and she'd never been sick.

She used to wonder about it until Luther walked into her life, now she just chocked it up to her Hunter capabilities. Chris and Melissa didn't heal quite as fast as her, but they'd never had a cold either. Once her wounds were bandaged, she fingered her cracked rib and winced as a sharp pain tore through her. Though she couldn't use disinfectant and bandages on it, it would heal just as quickly as the gashes on her side.

Slipping her favorite baggy sweatshirt on, Cassie wrapped her arms around herself as she made her way to the kitchen. Chris and Dani were already sitting at the counter. Chris pushed a strawberry sundae with no whip cream and extra cherries toward her. Though she'd told him she would like a sundae, she shook her head at it. Her body was already a block of ice, she couldn't stand to add more coldness to it.

Making her way to the window, Cassie stared out at the dark night. She recalled when she had first met Devon, when she had sensed his presence out there, watching over her. That was before he'd started coming to her room. That was when things had been simple and easy, when she'd thought him human and had intended to keep him protected. How foolish she'd been. She could no more protect him than she could stop a charging elephant. Her protection was unnecessary, her strength nothing compared to his.

Now as she searched the night, she sensed nothing out there, good or evil. It was simply an empty void that did nothing to ease the void inside her heart. Chris's house was silent; his mother apparently having passed out already, or retreated to bed with whatever man she'd brought home tonight.

Cassie turned and focused on Chris and Dani. "Did you tell her anything yet?"

"No." Chris pushed his bowl aside, but instead of grabbing for hers as he normally would have, he leaned back in his chair. "I thought you should be here."

Cassie leaned against the sink as she began to fill Dani in on the details of the night. When she couldn't continue on, Chris picked it up for her. Dani sat silently; her eyes became as large as saucer's as her half eaten sundae was forgotten. When Chris finished, Cassie turned back to the window and once again searched the empty night.

"So, now there are two?" Dani's voice was hoarse.

"Yes," Chris confirmed.

"Is this Isla also an Elder? What can she do?"

"We don't know," Chris answered. "We didn't ask Devon that."

"Piss me off," Cassie mumbled. She struggled to ignore the twinge pulling at her heart as jealousy reared its ugly head once more.

"How are you feeling?" Chris inquired.

Cassie shrugged absently. "I'll be fine." She turned away from the window, unable to stand the quiet of the night anymore. "I'm going to go to sleep," she lied, knowing there would be no sleep until Devon arrived. Knowing she wouldn't sleep until he answered some of the many questions rapidly swirling through her mind.

"Cassie." Chris's stool slid out from under him as he abruptly rose. She felt like a wooden marionette as she turned back to him. "I'm going to stay on the couch tonight." She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a silencing hand. "My mom will be fine for one night, she's already home."

Cassie nodded and fled the room before the tears burning her eyes started to fall. Racing up the stairs, she closed the door, and leaned heavily against it as she tried to breathe evenly. Before she'd met Devon she'd never cried, and she'd never been emotional. Ever since he'd walked into her life, she'd been a basket case. Devon had shaken her to the very core of her foundation. He'd shattered her walls, torn into her heart, and ripped into her soul to bring her back to life.

She’d allowed herself to trust again, and she was terrified that trust had been misplaced. Terrified this astonishing reprieve she was experiencing with life, and hopes, and dreams, was all a lie. She was petrified she would become the lost, walking dead person she'd been before his arrival. She didn't think she could survive the loss of everything again.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the door. There was no point in losing it now when she didn't know the whole truth. It wouldn't do either of them any good if she turned into a raving loon. Cassie flipped the TV on in the hope it would drown out her thoughts as she restlessly paced the length of her room.

She watched each minute tick by with excruciating slowness, but still he didn't come. At eleven she slumped onto the bed. Her nervous energy wasn't enough to keep her exhausted body moving anymore. Drawing her legs up to her chest, she rested her chin on her knees as her thoughts became more troublesome.

What if he didn't come to her tonight? What if seeing Isla reminded him of what he was missing? Of what she could never be?

Cassie bit down on her trembling bottom lip. She would not cry. He would come, she told herself. Though she tried to reassure herself of this, doubt kept rearing its ugly head. Isla had managed to plant a field of uncertainty in her.

A subtle shifting of the shadows snapped her head around. A cry of delight rose up in her throat; it strangled and died before she could release it. Devon sat outside her window, his emerald eyes eerily vivid in the glow of the half moon. Cassie was unable to move as she was captured by the mesmerizing beauty of him. She wasn't sure she was ready to hear the answers to her questions, and she certainly wasn't ready for their relationship to end tonight.

Gathering the last dregs of her remaining strength, she forced herself up from the bed. The window was unlocked, but she knew he wouldn't come in unless she let him in. Her hands shook as she slid the window up and stepped back to allow him access.

He hesitated for a moment before slipping as silently as a wraith inside. Her breath hitched, her fingers tingled, and it took all she had not to fling herself into his arms. He was the one she took solace in, in order to shut out the rest of the world. Now he was the one she was trying to shut out or at least shut out his past. But she couldn't continue to be an ostrich with her head stuck in the sand when it came to him.

She had been avoiding his past for too long, and tonight it had nearly cost them all their lives. No, no matter how much it upset her, and no matter how much she didn't like hearing it, she was finally going to hear it. She was going to be strong again, not the weakling she'd become and she was going to learn everything she could about him.

She opened her mouth and asked the first question that came to mind. "Who is Annabelle?"