The sudden, booming sound of the pistol butt striking the heavy library door cut through the agonizing silence like a physical shockwave. Inside the room, I slid further down the stone pillar, gripping the cold, rough surface with white-knuckled desperation. The contraction that seized me was a terrible, twisting, constant fire, but for a moment, the external noise was louder than the internal agony.

Damon Salvatore, seated calmly on the antique chair in the center of the vast, empty room, ...