Penelope glanced at Josie out of the corner of her eye. Her best friend had been sitting in gloomy silence for a while, not saying anything. Penelope finally cracked.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

Josie shook her head almost instantly, like she'd been expecting the question. "You wouldn't want to hear it."

"Try me." There wasn't a thing Penelope wouldn't want to hear from Josie. Even the insults.

Josie chewed on her lip as she stared back at Penelope. "Andrea backed out of Miss Mystic Falls."

Penelope had to take a moment to reel in the bitterness that rose up in the back of her throat. "I thought you two were suddenly close." It was still audible in her voice.

"I guess not."

"Well ..." Penelope slid the notebook off her lap, ready to give Josie her full attention. "Since you need a date, I happen to know someone who still has their escort outfit."

Josie's face broke out in a wide, toothy grin. "Thank you, Penelope. Really. I mean it."

"Anything for you. I ..." Penelope changed her mind at the last moment. "You're my best friend."

Landon sighed. The green numbers on his alarm clock were slowly ticking by, but he didn't feel any more tired than he had when he and Andrea first laid down. In fact, he felt electrified. Like he could run a marathon, if it weren't for the tiny girl fast asleep in his arms.

He held her a little closer as she started to whimper in her sleep. "Hey ..." His thumb made tiny strokes up and down her arm. It quieted her for a moment, but then she started crying again. "Andrea? Hey, you're okay. You're just dreaming. It's okay."

Her cries got louder, her body trembling under the mass of blankets. Landon sat up.

"Andrea, wake up." He shook her gently. "Wake up."

She did, shooting up with a scream that sent Landon sailing through the air. Her eyes widened as she tried to reel the magic back in. It was too late. Landon crashed to the ground, groaning as he went.

"Oh my god! Landon? Are you okay?" Andrea hurried to kneel by his side.

He brushed her off with a laugh. "I'm good. Are you okay?"

"I -" She looked around. "What happened?"

"You were having nightmares."

Andrea took in huge gulps of air. Her head spun.

Landon leaned in slowly. "Did you want to talk about it now?"

Hope's eyes popped open with a gasp. She was staring up at a dark, unfamiliar ceiling.

"Hope?" Lizzie stirred next to her, eyes seeking out Hope's face in the dark. "What's wrong?"

Hope shook her head quickly. "Nothing. I just had a nightmare. That's all."

She curled back into Lizzie's soft blankets, tucking them in around her chin.

"Do you usually have nightmares?" Lizzie asked. Hope thought her voice sounded different when she had just woken up. More ... real.

"Not really." Hope tucked the corner of her mouth into her cheek as she thought. "I used to have a lot right after ... everything. I thought they had stopped, but I guess Andrea brought them back with her."

Lizzie sat up and turned on the lamp. Hope squinted at the bright light, pretending to be annoyed, but they both knew it was a front.

"I've had enough sessions with Emma to know that this is the part where I ask you to tell me what happened between you and Andrea."

"I wouldn't even know where to start ..."

"You can start with why my sister is suddenly all sisters-in-solidarity with Andrea and telling everyone you're a murderer?" Lizzie suggested lightly.

Hope stared down at her hands silently.

"You triggered your werewolf curse," Lizzie said instead. "I know you've killed someone."

"The story actually begins before that."

With Roman. He smiled at her that day on the bench, and she was lovestruck enough to smile back.

"It started, as all good stories do, with a charming guy and a naive little girl." There was a bitterness in Hope's voice. "And of a course the best friend who was in love with the wrong sister."

Henry. Poor, dead Henry. If only it had been Andrea he fell in love with, things could've been so different.

"Henry wanted me to help him make the worst decision of his life."

Hope stared at him for a beat, almost as if questioning whether or not this was the right thing to do. She practically begged herself to make a different choice this time, like she could undo the past if she willed it hard enough.

"Being the guilty friend who couldn't return his feelings that I was, I helped him."

She just handed the two vials of blood over. Like a fool who had no idea of the consequences. She sure got an idea of the consequences when she jumped from the library tower and his insides splattered across the sidewalk.

"I turned him into a hybrid."

But that wasn't the worst part. It never was.

"Little did I know that that charming guy was actually a ninety year old man who was using me to destroy my family and all hybrids."

Henry's dead body and her mother's terrified face flashed across her mind. Anger coursed through her at the sight of it.

"Andrea never forgave me."

Lizzie's sharp mind was already working. "That shouldn't have triggered your curse."

Hope smiled. Lizzie could see right through her. "It didn't. There is, unfortunately, more."