What if the key to destroying Celeste… just gave Logan the power to destroy Damon too?
Juliette didn’t sleep.Even with Mason curled safely in her arms, even with Damon seated silently in the chair across from the bed like a sentinel guarding their peace - her eyes stayed open.The penthouse was dark except for the low hum of city lights beyond the glass wall. Every so often, Mason stirred against her chest, his small hands curling into her shirt, his breath warm and steady. It anchored her.But it didn’t quiet the noise in her head.The memories hadn’t returned in full. They floated in half-formed fragments like blurry photographs underwater, always slipping just out of reach. What she held now wasn’t memory. It was instinct. Sensation. A mother’s pull that defied logic or proof.She didn’t remember raising Mason.But her arms knew how to hold him.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------By dawn, her body ached from stillness, but she refused to let go. Mason stirred with a soft yawn, blinking again
The penthouse was quiet, — eerily so. Damon stood at the window, watching the city stretch out before him like a maze of choices he no longer knew how to navigate. Juliette was gone again, and this time, not because of war or enemies, but because of memory. Or rather, the lack of it.After her departure from the coastal retreat, Damon had returned to the city, trying to respect her wishes. She’d asked him not to follow. And though every fiber of his being screamed to run after her, to hold her and remind her of the love they’d fought to protect, he didn’t. He’d lost her once in the fire of betrayal. He wouldn’t lose her again by smothering her healing.But someone else was suffering now: Mason.The boy had grown quieter each day since Juliette’s disappearance. At first, Damon thought it was just the adjustment. But then came the nightmares. The silence at dinner. The drawings that showed a house with no mother, only dark clouds hanging above a lone child.And now — now he was missing.
Juliette hadn’t been back to her childhood home in years.The place had once felt like a museum of regret, each hallway echoing with voices of pain and shadows of decisions she had tried to forget. But now, she returned not to run from the past but to find it. Something inside her knew that if she wanted answers — real, unfiltered truth, they would begin here, where it all started.The house stood in stillness as she stepped through the doorway, the air thick with the scent of aged wood, forgotten books, and dried lavender from a vase that hadn’t been touched in years. It was her grandmother’s house now passed down quietly through paperwork Juliette barely remembered signing. Somehow, even through the layers of time, it still felt untouched - Preserved - Waiting.She moved from room to room, not entirely sure what she was looking for. Her hand brushed across the banister, the same one she used to slide her fingers along as a child, pausing at the dip carved by years of her small palms
The storm rolled in just before dawn, casting an eerie haze across the horizon. The once gentle waves now crashed violently against the jagged rocks beneath the bluff, as if echoing the storm brewing inside Juliette.She stood at the window of her cottage, arms wrapped tightly around herself, the wool cardigan barely warding off the chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Damon’s words replayed in her mind, over and over; every confession, every memory he had tried to return to her.“We were married.”“You saved my life.”“We lost everything together… and still chose each other.”But those memories belonged to someone else. Someone braver. Someone stronger. Someone who hadn’t been hollowed out by confusion and grief.And yet… every time she looked at him, every time she heard his voice, something inside her stirred. Not memory, not exactly. But emotion. An ache in her chest that pulsed in rhythm with his presence.That morning, she’d barely slept. After his confession, she'd fl
The coastal town had a rhythm all its own. The waves still curled and broke like whispered secrets along the shore. Sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains of the little seaside café, where Juliette sat sipping her tea, the steam curling around her face like a gentle veil. Her sketchbook lay open in front of her, pages covered with half-finished drawings, some of flowers, others of the sea… and then a face. His face.She didn’t know why she kept drawing him. This man with storm-dark eyes, a scar at the edge of his brow, and the world's weight carved into the lines of his expression. He haunted her pencil strokes. He filled the margins. And when she closed her eyes, his name echoed in the stillness of her mind: Damon.The door jingled as someone entered.Juliette looked up. It was him again, the quiet man who always sat near the back, who never spoke unless spoken to, who always had the same cup of black coffee and read the paper like it was his lifeline.Damon.Only, she didn’t k
The café was quiet that morning, the hum of conversation reduced to a few scattered voices and the soft clinking of spoons against porcelain mugs. The scent of freshly ground coffee and buttered croissants filled the air, blending with the briny ocean breeze that drifted in from the open windows.Juliette sat at her usual table by the window, sketchbook open, pencil in hand. She wasn’t drawing anything specific today, just shapes, shadows, the way the light spilled across the floorboards. Her fingers moved instinctively, a dance she couldn’t quite name.And across the room, Damon sat.He had chosen a table closer than usual. Still far enough to maintain his cover, but close enough that the tension in the air had become unmistakable. He watched her over the rim of his coffee mug, his gaze hidden beneath the brim of a cap.He’d rehearsed a dozen ways to speak to her. None of them had felt right. But this morning, something had shifted. The way she looked around the room, pausing when he