Czechoslovakia: April 1939

Having spent the night before and all morning at her friend's house, fourteen year old Elena says goodbye and gives Klara a hug. When she reaches the end of the walk, she pauses, turning around to wave to the girl. With a smile on her face, she skips down the sidewalk till she makes a left turn to head for her home. She's giddily happy after having a fun night of talking about boys and eating good food and trying on dresses for their school concert next week. Elena can hardly wait to tell her mom and sister all about it.

It's early spring and there's still a chill in the air so she buttons up her sweater and wraps her arms around her middle as she walks. She breathes in the delightful scent of the fresh green grass. When she comes across some dandelions along the edge between someone's lawn and the sidewalk, she bends over to pick a few. Elena presses the yellow blooms to her nose to breathe in their fresh scent. They remind her of spring and the coming warmer weather. Leaves are beginning to open up on the Silver Birch and Ash trees. Soon the lilacs will be blooming. She loves to pick the beautiful fragrant purple blossoms. Another one of her favorite things is to surprise her mama with a bouquet of them.

As she gets closer to home, she looks up when she hears tires squealing and two shiny black cars careening down the street, leaving a cloud of dust as they speed past her. Her heart begins to slam hard against her ribcage causing her breath to catch in her throat. Her chest begins to tighten in fear. She knows these cars. Since they arrived a month ago, people have seen their loved ones, neighbors and colleagues at work being forcibly taken away. Because her father is the editor of one the newspapers, she can't help but worry about him sometimes. His hatred of them is quite obvious in the editorials he publishes. His anti Nazi articles always end with him encouraging their citizens to fight for their rights as free Czechs.

Her mother is a music teacher, giving piano and violin lessons from their home. She loves listening to her mama singing along when her fingers dance over the ivory keyboard. When she sees the sleek cars take the turn towards her house, worry for her father and intense terror begin to burn out of control like a wildfire incinerating everything in its path.

With her adrenaline spiking, her breath hitches painfully. She breaks out into a run, hurrying as fast as she can down the street towards her house. When she's about a half a block away, she slows up, her heart racing and her belly roiling when she sees her fears confirmed. The vehicles are parked in front their house. There are five men all dressed in black leather coats and hats. They barge into her house like they own the place. Moments later one of them comes outside, manhandling Izabela. Why would they take her?

She's never done anything wrong. Her sister is screaming hysterically, her eyes are wide and full of stark terror as she struggles to free herself. The man yells at her in German but she continues to fight like a wild animal. Wailing aloud with tears streaming down her cheeks, Izabela bites down hard on the man's arm.

Like a slow motion nightmare playing out right before her eyes, much to Elena's horror, the man smacks her so hard that her neck snaps and her head slams against the house. Elena can almost hear her skull crack and watches in disbelief as her sister slides down the wall like a broken doll, a large bloody smudge marking her descent to the ground.

In shock and barely able to take a breath she watches, she cannot even begin to comprehend such brutality. She starts to back away, intense fear eclipsing every other sensation. She sees her mother's mouth moving but she hears nothing even though she's fighting tooth and nail to break free. One of the men presses his hand against the back of her head and pushes her to the ground. Then they lift her up and throw her into the car. He ducks in after her and then it speeds off. Her eyes drift to her papa who is fighting just as hard. He turns his head and when his eyes meet hers, he relaxes his posture just before his bloodied face is shoved into the other black car.

Somewhere inside of her mind she knows that she should join them, her parents and go to see if her sister is still alive. But she's in shock, her limbs will not move. Suddenly someone puts their hand over her mouth and drags her into a house just before she succumbs to the darkness.

The title of this story comes from the song of the same name by the group "Europe".

"Tomorrow" was written at the request of one of you. Because I love history, Eva and I decided to take on the challenge. This will encompass WW2 and the Holocaust. Eva is really more my co-writer of this story. She's truly brilliant. She went above and beyond to plot out the scenes and help me with the dialogue. She deserves so much credit too.

I also want to thank my dear friend, Florencia7 for the gorgeous cover image. Love you, Kate.

We have tried to be faithful to history with this. But when you're building a fictional story based upon real history, it won't be 100 percent accurate. I really do think we took a lot of care and did a lot of research to honor real life events with this story.

We're nearly at the end of "The Truth Beneath the Rose". As soon as I post the final chapter, this will update regularly. This is another one that was planned to be a short 10 chapter story but it grew and grew because there were many real life events that we wanted to include.

I really, really hope you'll embrace this Damon and Elena. I love them as much as I loved the ICEM version of them. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Have a fabulous day and thank you all. You're the best DE fans on the planet.