Prologue
Prologue — The Moment She Breaks
They didn’t want her.
Not the Slayer. Not the general. Not the girl who had died twice for them. Not the woman who had clawed her way out of her grave, who had carried the weight of every apocalypse, who had bled and burned and sacrificed until she was hollow.
They wanted someone else—someone softer, someone less frightening, someone less… Buffy.
In the ruins of the Summers living room, after the shouting, after the betrayal, after the final blow of being told to leave her own home, Buffy walked alone through the dark streets of Sunnydale. Her chest felt carved out. Her pulse felt wrong. Her breath felt like a lie.
She whispered into the night, voice cracking:
“I wish I’d never changed back. I wish Billy Palmer’s dream had stayed real. I wish I’d stayed a vampire forever—no spell, no cure, no feelings. Then they wouldn’t be able to hurt me.”
The air tightened.
A shimmer of cold, childish laughter rippled through the alley.
Halfrek stepped out of the shadows, eyes glinting.
“Wish granted.”
And Buffy was ripped out of time.
