PROLOGUE

It had been four months. Four months since my parents had died. They were driving me home from a party, but on the way back, the car swiveled off Wickery Bridge, and we were dumped into the pitch-black water.

I couldn't remember most of it. But I did remember the terror and pain of water filling my lungs, and me, not being able to escape from it.

I woke up hours later in the Mystic Falls hospital. My older twin, Elena, and my younger brother, Jeremy, were both there, crying and explaining to me how my parents had died while I had survived. Me, Ariana Gilbert, had got to survive, while my parents didn't. That couldn't be right. I was the one who called them to pick me up, because Matt was too drunk to drive. It was my fault. So, I cried too. For I did not know why or how I was alive. But my parents weren't.

I thought that my grief and sadness were over, and that I wouldn't have to face that kind of pain ever again. But I was wrong. It was only the beginning…