---- the floor, my ribs screaming in protest. Blood filled my mouth. I could taste copper and feel something loose in my jaw. "Mommy! Mommy!" Ethan and his sister came running from their room, their faces full of manufactured terror. "It's that evil woman again!" the little girl shrieked, pointing at me with dramatic flair. " First she hurt Ethan, now she hurt you!" "Why won't she just die?" Ethan added with shocking viciousness for a six-year-old. "Why doesn't she just go away and die so we can be happy?" The casual cruelty in their young voices was somehow worse than Damon's violence. These children had been taught to hate me, trained to see me as their enemy. Damon watched the whole scene with cold ---- satisfaction. Only after his "children" had finished their performance did he speak. "Now, now," he said mildly. "She's still your stepmother. You shouldn't talk to family that way. " Family. What a joke. Did a woman who'd lost her own child even deserve that title anymore? "Damon," I said quietly, spitting blood onto his clean floor. "You killed our son. Do you want to kill me too?" His face twisted with annoyance. "Stop with the ridiculous lies. You're fine, aren't you? Standing right here, breathing, talking. And our son is perfectly safe upstairs." He truly believed it. Or maybe he just needed to believe it to live with himself. I said nothing more. There was no point. I picked up my bag and headed for the door. ---- But Serena's children weren't finished with their show. They rushed at me like little animals, clawing and biting at my arms. "Don't let her leave!" Ethan screamed. "She'll come back and hurt us!" In the chaos of their attack, papers scattered from my bag across the floor. One sheet of paper landed face-up right at Damon's feet. Ethan's sister picked it up, her young voice reading the words aloud with perfect clarity. "Peaceful Rest Cemetery... Payment for burial plot... For: Lucas Blackwood..." Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was reading. The room went completely silent. Damon's eyes locked onto me with an intensity ---- that made my blood freeze. "Aria," he said slowly, his voice deadly quiet. " Who died?"