A very special happy birthday to a big fan of the Rachel series, @vampiric_girl I hope you have a great day!! 🎉🎈🎁

I'm trying and trying not to think negatively about Dalton's absence, but my fear and worry grows bigger and stronger with every passing day. As much as I try, Nathaniel too, we just can't locate him. It's like he really did vanish into thin air.

As if he wasn't enough for me to be worried about, the attack on Germany never came. Instead it was a surprise attack on Amsterdam in the middle of the night yesterday.

It was a smaller settlement than Germany, but they had been horribly unprepared and very few had heeded my warnings and left. Hundreds were slaughtered on a live feed that the Doctor was able to overtake.

Even now the media continues to reply the gut wrenching images. They've been eating it up, loving to use this all as a smear campaign against me, the awful red headed reporter and her new favorite guest Eyan are always there, taunting me from the TV.

"Where is your so called queen now?" They say, video of two bodies laying face down on the ground covered in colorful flames in the background.

Pedro stands to go and turn it off, but I shake my head at him. "They aren't wrong you know?" I point out. "I'm here hiding in a bunker while the people are out there suffering. Dying even."

Pedro stalks back to his seat, and sighs. "You're human, Rose. What else can you do?"

I slump back in my seat. "I don't know." I admit. I've spent hours on end and days trying to come up with a way I could be helping. I know no one will turn me early, so that isn't an option, and I don't have the slightest of inklings how we can defeat an enemy we can hardly get close to. It's seeming more and more impossible the more I think of it. "What if there really isn't anything else we can do?"

"What do you mean?" Dad shrugs.

I debate whether or not to speak my mind, but we aren't in a place to hold things back anymore. Not when none of us knows how much longer we may have. "What if this is it? What if we're really at the end and the only miracle we had left was that we get to face it all together?"

The room falls quiet and I realize I'm not the only one who has thought this way.

"I'll admit," Malcom mumbles. "I've been mulling over the same thing in my head."

Dad nods, walking over to me and putting his hand on my shoulder. In front of us the video rolls on, blood and limbs strewn everywhere. "You know I don't like to think that way, and I still have hope, but I guess you have to decide, if these are our last days, how do you want to go out?"

I stop to think about that, a girl's cries echoing in the background as she recounts her tale of barely escaping the attack. I know the fear she carries, I've seen what the Casters can do up close and personal. It's horrifying.

I hate knowing that the people I'm responsible for are suffering. "If this is the end I don't want to go down without a fight. I want to exhaust every option we've got."

"What if we already have?" Fallon chimes in but then ducks her head like she's ashamed of herself for doubting us, but I don't blame her.

"Then I'll be proud to spend my last days fighting beside you all." It's the one thing I can say with certainty and love. If I have to die, there is no other group of people I'd rather be with when that time comes. I try to just remain grateful that I've gotten this extra time with my dad and Pedro.

"There has to be something we haven't tried. Something we haven't thought of." Lance protests, not wanting to give up.

I stand up, running my hands through my hair and pace like my dad in front of the TV. "I don't know." I grumble. "If we knew how Rawul did what he did maybe we'd have a chance."

Everyone turns to look at the teen at the other end of the table. "I promise you, I have no clue what happened. I just wanted to help, I didn't know I was walking into a supernatural showdown."

I feel bad for the kid. From what he's told us, he's been on his own for a while now and now he's caught up with us. "You've never done anything like that before?" I ask gently, not wanting to spook him.

He rubs his eyes as he shakes his head. "I didn't even do anything this time. I just walked out, my stone started glowing, and everyone started freaking out."

"Ok, well had the bracelet ever glowed like that before?" I try again. He shakes his head, clearly tired of getting the same questions over and over. "Right, well, what about others? Have you ever met anyone else who had one of those bracelets?"

"Never." He looks apologetic.

"And you just found it?" He looks down nervously, chewing his bottom lip. "What?" I ask, knowing he's not saying something.

He sighs, rubbing his hands down his face and then folds them on the table in front of him. "Well, I found it but...this is going to sound crazy."

"Trust me," I almost laugh. "We can handle crazy."

His cheeks redden just a bit, but he goes on. "Ok," he pauses again, thinking hard. "Well it's like...maybe not so much that I found it as it found me." He shakes his head and looks away, his cheeks growing pinker. "I know how that sounds but for whatever reason I was drawn to go looking out behind the house and then more to dig around. When I found it, it just felt right...meant to be I guess."

His voice lowers and his eyes seem to hollow towards the end. "And how do you feel now?" I ask gently.

He shrugs, trying to act tough and unaffected, but it doesn't work and he knows it. "I guess a little lost, kind of like it used to be for me everyday before."

I look away from him, giving him the space he looks like he needs. I know all about feeling lost, that was me not so long ago. I found my place when I came to Castrum, but now that's gone and I'm in over my head.

I walk to the other side of the room, mulling it all over in my mind, trying to stay focused on the problem at hand.

"Ok," I tap my finger against my chin. "So maybe it is the bracelet itself that had the power and not Rawul."

"That's what I was just thinking." Mom nods in agreement.

I feel like I'm on the right path now.

"Ok, so let's get someone to go back and try to find it!" I suggest.

Rawul frowns as he hangs his head. "Calvin already took me back to look for it and it was gone."

"Gone?" My little bit of hope deflates when he nods. "Well, there went that idea." I shrug.

"Back to the drawing board." Malcom sighs unenthusiastically.

I slump back in into my chair, staring back up at the TV again, Eyan and her smug face planted across the screen.

"Rose, I've been thinking." My dad says after a while. "What if you made a message for the Casters specifically?" I'm more than a little confused at first, but he goes on. "We know just as well as the rest that there is good and bad mixed into both sides of every struggle. I mean, a good majority of vampires are civilized law abiding citizens, but we also have factions of backwards thinking human hating vampires that go against everything that we stand for."

I think it over and nod. "So you think the Casters we've dealt with so far could be the bad side and maybe they don't actually speak for all Casters?"

"Possibly." He folds his hands in front of him.

Malcom and Pedro nod together. "It is the Casters that make it impossible for us to rise up against the Doctor, so maybe if we had Casters on our side too we could at least level the playing field enough to give our army a fighting chance."

"At this point I'd be willing to try anything." I sigh.

"Agreed." Pedro nods.

"So an announcement pleading for sympathetic Casters to come forward?" I ask and they nod. Doubt creeps in as I think about it. "Do you even think I can get anyone to follow my lead? The media is already implying that Dalton must have jumped ship since he hasn't been in anymore of my messages. They all say he's left me."

It hurts more to say out loud than I want to let on. I can't help but think if everyone else is thinking the same thing. I bet they all think I'm just in denial over it, but I know I'm not. I know Dalton wouldn't have abandoned me. He loves me. But the more I think about it, the more I hate the options.

If I'm so sure that he didn't leave me, then what does that mean?

I sat outside two nights in a row waiting for him to come back. I exhausted myself until I practically had to be carried down to my room.

Does holding onto my certainty that he'd never run off mean that he's dead?

Of course I'd rather think he ran away rather than be gone from the world forever.

But still. Both things cause an aching in me that it's hard to even breathe around.

"Your people will still follow you, Rosie. You're their queen and I'll be there to back you up." Pedro tells me, putting his arm around my shoulders.

I start to thank him but then I feel the familiar tingles begin to cover my body. As the light fades out I pray for a vision of Dalton.

Instead I open my eyes up at Castrum.

Seeing myself in front of my army is a little jarring all over again. At my sides are my dad and Pedro, Malcom, Nathaniel, and countless others backing me from behind.

In front of me and my family lies five rows of Casters, Elenora and the Doctor standing in front of them, glaring at me.

I step forward, watching as my future self takes a step forward. I notice my head is held high, but there's something in my eyes. It's defeat.

"Please, you can end this all." I beg.

The doctor shakes his head. "I implore you for gathering more allies for your cause and in another life maybe I'd even admire your courage and strength. But right now, all I want is to finally end it. End it all. Every. Last. Thing."

"Please!" I yell again, but the army on both sides already are moving to attack each other.

The battle clashes together, the noise of shouts and bones snapping filling the air. It's far from even. Even with the help of Casters mixed into our ranks we are still losing.

I step back, not wanting to see this.

Try as I might though, I can't end the vision.

It rages on, gore and death everywhere.

I close my eyes, but open them back when the doctor shouts over the crowd. "Let him go!"

I snap them open in time to see Logan plowing through a whole group before turning his bloody gaze on Elenora. She tries to use her power over him but he's in-effected as he rips her apart, the shadow of realization crossing her eyes before they go vacant and Logan moves on for the next kill.

The last thing I see before the tingles start again is myself being taken by the doctor as he jerks me down, holding me beneath the water of the fountain, a tear rolling down his cheek when the bubbles from my mouth stop.

Tears sting the corners of my eyes when I open them back to the room of my family.

"The Casters will help us." I tell them. "But it's not going to do any good. This really is it. It's the end, but at least we don't go down without a fight."