Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to The Vampire Diaries. However, I do own whatever story lines and characters that are added and I also own the writing of the story.

Chapter 1

Because You're Evil

xxx

THE END

The book didn't actually end that way; though it would certainly be nice for something to be so straightforward for a change. She'd read thousands of books—and that was no figurative number. With the book Cassandra Parker closed in her hand, it all added up to 5,435 books crammed in the depths of her brain, plot lines undoubtedly muddled and characters undeniably forgotten. Cassandra took the book in front of her and set it aside in the stack of finished books she had next to her at the desk in the cluttered bookstore. She always tried to make an attempt to clean up after herself when she had binge-read so many books at one time, but she rarely ever got around to it. Every book had been picked from the shelf, words copied from crisp and untouched pages, and carefully set down in random places, covering the entire floor of the quaint, archaic-styled shop in the smallest part of New Jersey.

There was a certain system to her madness. The books on her left were unread, the books on her right had been ravished already, and the books behind her were novels she'd already completed, possibly more than once. By now, it was impossible to ask her what her favorite book was. Her knowledge ranged from books on cultural customs to action-packed murder mysteries. Turning to her left, she looked around her space to find another book to read, but there were none queued up for her next fictional adventure.

Realizing that she'd exhausted all of the resources in the bookstore, Cassandra let out a deep breath and leaned back in her chair, tilting her head up to the ceiling where a skylight was placed right above her head. Across her eyes, the solar eclipse appeared in view of her pupils as it did every single day.

Cassandra relaxed for a moment. It was strange to think that, in a situation like hers, she would never get time to relax, but the truth of the matter was that relaxing was useless. Relaxing was good enough for her first year in the hellhole she'd been trapped in. But after twenty years stuck in the same, deserted world, staring at the same damn solar eclipse, relaxing was about as pointless as sleeping. There was nothing to strive for, nowhere to go to. Her entire life was utterly empty. Reading was the only thing that could pass the time.

Reading and drinking, Cassandra thought to herself as she lowered her head back to a leveled position and reached forward while kicking her legs up onto the desk. She grabbed a bottle of Merlot she had nursed since she had taken it from the convenience store across the street and brought it to her lips. In the real world, she'd be arrested for drinking alcohol at age 18. In the world she lived in, the quiet world, there was no one to stop her.

The eclipse almost seemed like it was haunting her; taunting her, even. Reminding Cassandra that the day she repeated over and over again for the last twenty years was the worst day of her entire existence. It taunted her about the life that she could've had and would never get a chance to live. In theory, she could attempt to occupy herself by pretending she was in one of the novels she read, but she'd tried that before and it didn't work out so well. It was just so sad, listening to the sound of nothing as she talked to herself. She rarely talked when she was alone, hating the sound of her own voice. She was tired of it, and it was a part of her being. How sad was that?

Unable to stare at the devastating eclipse any longer, Cassandra swung her legs off the desk and, with the bottle of Merlot gripped tightly in her hand, she stood from the desk to leave the retired bookstore and find another one to raid. Before she could even contemplate her first step out of the shop, the front door she was heading for opened with an annoying ringing sound. For just a split moment, Cassandra was surprised, but she knew there was only one human being that could possibly walk through the door.

She set down the bottle of wine exasperatedly as Kai Parker came sauntering through the blind-covered door with an amused expression on his face.

"Bells," he noted with a smile. "This whole town is so charming. You really know how to pick 'em, Cassie."

"Don't call me that," she chided. Kai ignored her.

"Drinking, little sister?" Kai looked at the bottle of Merlot on the desk beside her fingertips. He turned back to her with a disapproving sound made from his tongue and a shake of his head as if he were her interim father. "That's illegal!"

"You're one to talk about illegal acts, Kai." With a frown, she grabbed the bottle in her hand and moved towards the door. "Get out of my way. I was just about to leave."

His smile never faltered. "Leaving so soon? How long did it take you to finish this store, huh? Hey, wouldn't your efforts be wasted better in…I don't know, the Library of Congress or something? They've got a whole lot of books for you to stick your nose in. I wonder how long it'd take you to get through all of that."

"It took me three years," she mumbled under her breath. Kai gave an impressed look towards her, but she rolled her eyes and ignored him, brushing past his shoulder and, with a sip of her wine, stepped out into the darkened light that was starting to lift from the eclipse as it passed. As she walked down the sidewalk of the deserted Garden State's streets, she could hear Kai's footsteps behind her as he struggled to catch up.

"Look, I know you don't like me." Cassandra let out a snort, to which Kai shrugged. "Okay…it's no secret that you despise me. You and I have been stuck here together for twenty years and you use the entire world to avoid me so…I get it. But I came here because I wanted to know that I'm not crazy."

Her hazel eyes snapped up at him, amused. "Well if that's what you came here for, you might as well go back. You are crazy, Kai. Psychopathic, in fact. But we knew this already."

He sighed dramatically. "Ugh, Cassie, you always make things so difficult!"

"Don't call me that," she repeated with an edge in her voice. Kai stepped in front of her, stopping her brisk pace short. He held up his hands defensively, seeing the concerned and frightened look on her face.

"A few days ago, I was just…you know, doing what I do…sitting in a store eating some pork rinds when I felt something." Kai's blue eyes widened hopefully. "Did you feel it, too?"

Cassandra stared blankly. "Did I feel what?"

"Did you feel it, Cassie?! It!"

"How many times do I have to tell you to quit calling me that?" Angrily, Cassandra brushed past him again as the darkness went away in the sky and the sun reigned brightly above them. "And I have no idea what this 'it' feeling you're talking about is. I feel bored. I feel defeated. But that's every day. It's nothing new."

Kai groaned. "Come on. You can't seriously tell me that you didn't feel something two days ago! It was at night, I got this strange…sensation. Cassie!" He reached out and grabbed her arm as she tried to cross the street to get away from him. Annoyed, Cassandra turned around at her brother's eccentric eyes. His voice dropped to a hopeful whisper. "I think…I think there's someone else here!"

Cassandra stopped in the middle of the street, inches away from a ring of orange cones identifying a hazardous situation. A nervous feeling overcame her chest as she realizes that she knew exactly what Kai was talking about. Two days before, she had been sitting in one of the coffee shops on the street reading one of the books she'd taken from the bookstore and she felt a massive wave of power, almost as if it was a surge passing through her and continuing along their desolate world. But if others were with them, that meant that, whoever they were, they were in danger. She was in danger. If Kai managed to escape the world they lived in, their family's lives would be turned upside down. Twenty years wasn't enough time to pass for Kai to be able to escape the world without major consequences.

There was a part of Cassandra that wanted nothing more than to get out of her repeating hell. But there was another part, the selfless part, that knew if she was given a choice to leave with Kai or stay with Kai, she would choose the latter.

When Cassandra turned around, she tried to discourage her brother. "That's impossible. We're the only two people here, Kai! We're the only who people who've been here for the last twenty years and we're the only two people who will ever be here!"

Kai shook his head and stepped forward with a sadistic smile on his lips. "No. That's where you're wrong, Cassie. I think there is someone here…I just…I can't seem to pinpoint where." The black-haired psychopath sighed. "See, the problem is, I could spend forever trying to track it down. But that would just take so long. Who knows? By then, they might even be gone—so that's why I came to you."

Cassandra opened her mouth to ask what he wanted from her, but she knew exactly what it was. Just as her mouth opened, she shut it tightly and squared her jaw.

"Forget it."

"You want out of here just as much as I do!"

"No!" Cassandra shouted at him. "I don't, Malachai! Wanna know why? Because you're evil and you deserve to be in here."

"We both know you don't." He practically sang the words, expecting them to cut her like a sharp knife would. Instead, she retained the blow and licked her lips out of spite, trying to hold back her anger at him. Twenty years of Kai up her ass, threatening her left and right—killing her, even—so that he could get his hands on her magic. Unfortunately for him, she'd stashed it away in a place where he was sure to never look for it. "Don't you want out of here, Cassie? Don't you want to live your life? You're so young. You had a whole life ahead of you before I ruined it."

She tensed, gritting her teeth to refrain from lashing out at him. The good news was that she was always gifted at holding back her anger. So, in a softer voice, she calmly spoke.

"I'm not giving you my magic." She shook her head tightly. "I don't care how much I want to get out of here. You deserve to rot in hell for everything you've done—which is exactly what you're doing. Now if you'll excuse me."

Cassandra turned on her heel, ready to step onto the sidewalk and return to her daily activities, praying that Kai would let her go. Instead, Kai took a strong hold of her wrist and forced her back, stepping forward with a murderous look in his eyes that she knew too well. Being alone in a quiet world was bound to drive a person absolutely insane—even more insane than he had been before. She no longer saw a brother when she looked at him; she hadn't for a long time. But he had no excuse. They both had been outcasts before imprisonment, but it was Kai's fault that he let the pressure build up so high that he snapped. She didn't have one ounce of pity in her bones toward him.

"I'm done asking nicely, Cassie," Kai growled. "I've been looking for your magic for twenty years. Hand it over."

"You think I carry it on me?" She struggled against him with a bitter laugh. "I'm not that stupid!"

"Cassie, you—!"

She could hear the threat build in Kai's throat, but before he could get the whole sentence out, she thrusted her arm forwards and upwards so hard that Kai was pushed back. He had been teetering on the edge of the street and the construction pit behind them, blocked by the earlier mentioned hazard cones. With one simple change of balance, he fell backwards into air. A few seconds after he'd fallen into the pit, she could hear the toe-curling sound of bones cracking in an echoed space and she knew Kai was dead.

Her cold eyes flickered over the opening of the pit and she mumbled quietly, "I told you to stop calling me that."

xxx

She didn't have a lot of time. Cassandra was aware of the fact that her brother would come back to life, eventually. He would have to climb out of the pit, which would certainly delay his chase after her, but she still had to hurry. Her main goal was to get to wherever the magic that had pulsed through both her and her brother before Kai could ever reach it. If he did, she was afraid of what would happen. She needed to see it for herself before Kai did; otherwise, there would be no getting out of it.

Cassandra never did like to drive, but for what she needed to do, it was necessary. She'd taught herself how to hot-wire a car the first year she'd been trapped in their prison/hell so that she would be able to get around easily. She had it down to a science by the time she tapped into the nearest car she saw, made sure the gas was full, and stepped on it. She went nearly 100 MPH down the highway as she raced state lines all the way to Washington, D.C., where she drove to Independence Avenue and appeared at the front of the institution. She wasted not a step and sprinted inside of the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world. Kai was so stupid that it nearly pained her; he claimed to be so much smarter than everyone else when she had magic right under his nose. Of course, it wasn't her full magic—that, she had stored away somewhere she hadn't been back to in years.

There was a time when Cassandra realized that Kai would do anything to get out of their prison. That was the time when she realized that she needed something to protect herself, something that would give her leverage if Kai ever threatened to do worse than he'd already had.

Cassandra went all the way to the back of the library, in the darkest corner that was far out of the way. Hurriedly, she knelt down to the bottom shelf and grabbed the very last book and flipped it open. The book was hollow, as she had carved it out the first year that they had been trapped. She had always been an inventive girl, quick on her feet. She supposed she had to be with Kai threatening to kill her, hurt her, etc.

She reached inside of the hollowed-out hardcover and retrieved the small faded Post-It note folded in fourths. Setting the book aside, Cassandra unfolded the piece of paper and observed her slurred handwriting in black sharpie, reading somewhat legibly only two words.

Emergency Magic

Cassandra couldn't help but chuckle softly. The idea might've been inventive, but she could've sworn she'd put something more creative than 'Emergency Magic' on those Post-It notes that she'd hidden across the country and around the world in case she was ever cornered. She didn't have a lot of magic in each Post-It note, nor did she have many Post-It notes to begin with. There were a total of 8 around the globe, and she just hoped that she would be near one if Kai ever decided to blow up at her. Luckily, she figured that the perfect place to hide one of the notes was in one of the largest libraries full of paper—it was nearly like finding a needle in a haystack. She could admit that she needed a more creative punchline.

When she absorbed the magic, she knew from the start that it wouldn't last long. It was the tiniest drop of magic; equivalent to a single droplet of water. It would eventually leave her system, but the moment she pressed her fingers down on the Post-It note with the intent to absorb the magic she had touched it with, she could feel something inside of her start to form. It was like a pulse, only, it was leading her to where the other magic had come from. The magic seemed to draw her like a magnet, and after putting the book back in its place, Cassandra started out of the library as fast as she could, hoping the magic would keep long enough for her to get to where the pulse was leading her. Her actions were on impulse as she jumped into her car and, yet again, stepped on the gas pedal and just drove.

xxx

He couldn't take it anymore. Three whole days and he already felt mentally drained, the sadness and pity eating him up alive inside. Damon Salvatore didn't like to think of himself as a pessimist, but what else could he be? He was stuck on a repeating loop—with Bonnie Bennett, no less—and there seemed to be no way out. Each day, a solar eclipse came across the sky and he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to take it. Damon and Bonnie fought like dogs, he made the worst pancakes in history, and there was no one to tell them where the hell they were. There were times when he'd wished that he was in a world that was solely his own, but having experienced it, he could live without it. The quiet, it seemed to eat away at him.

It had gotten to the point where Damon needed fresh air. Three days in the boarding house and he felt like he had been in it for ten entire years. As a vampire, it seemed odd to be so stressed over such a little thing like time, but as a vampire in the real world, you had things to do. People to kill. Here? All he had was the Bennett witch.

And he missed Elena. He missed Elena so much his heart hurt every single time he thought about it. He missed his brother, too. All he wanted was to get back to the two people he loved; he wanted that more than he wanted anything before. He didn't want Katherine that much, he didn't want blood that much. Just Elena and his brother. That's all he needed.

Bourbon, too. Couldn't forget the bourbon. Damon looked down at his hand and, realizing that he was gripping the bourbon bottle by the neck so tightly thinking about the people waiting for him back home, he loosened his grip a bit and brought the opening to his lips, where he took one long chug and stopped int he middle of the town square—the empty town square, that was. The quiet town square. The 1994 town square.

Finding no reason not to indulge, Damon lowered himself to the ground and laid down on his back, looking up at the darkened sky full of stars. He drank more of his bourbon, thought more about the girl he loved unconditionally and the brother he had once hated so much but truly missed, and closed his eyes. Who would blame him if he slept in the middle of the road? No one. Because no one was there.

Or so he thought.

Damon's eyes snapped open when he sensed another presence. He could hear the pulsing of a heart and he immediately realized that Bonnie had gone out looking for him. Damon thought about ignoring her, possibly waiting until she'd gone, but he knew he was pretty obvious. He was lying in front of the City Hall's steps with a bottle of bourbon-whiskey pointed in the air. He wasn't inconspicuous at all.

With a heavy sigh, Damon brought himself up to a sitting position and blinked a few times, rolling his eyes as he could see a figure in the distance.

"You didn't have to come all the way out here, Bon-Bon. I could've found my way back." Damon forced himself up from the ground and stumbled slightly, and then shrugged while bringing the bottle to his mouth again. "Eventually."

But just as he took a sip from the bottle of alcohol, he realized that whoever was approaching him wasn't Bonnie. Far from it, actually. And this frightened him to no end—it scared the hell out of him. There was someone else! Someone else.

Whoever had joined him had stopped and stared, but Damon couldn't really see all that clearly. In a flash, he was in front of the girl, it seemed, and he listened as she quietly gasped and took a step back, her eyes full of confusion as she processed his quick movement. Damon didn't know whether to be excited or terrified. The girl didn't look so harmful; she was about 5'2" with dark, slightly curled hair that matched the color of the night and hazel eyes that stood out like beacons. Damon's eyes narrowed.

"Who are you?"

Cassandra cleared her throat. "Who are you?"

"I asked you first," Damon pointed out skeptically. She stared at him blankly. "How are you here right now? Where are you from? How did you get here?"

"I-I..." She couldn't bring it in herself to tell him. He was the first person she'd spoken to in twenty years excluding Malachai. And he was tall, dark, older, and handsome. Cassandra was at a loss, completely choked up. It was all so confusing.

"You know what?" Damon mumbled to himself before he took the bourbon bottle in his hand and swung it forward so fast that Cassandra didn't even get a chance to process it before glass shattered all over her and blood poured out of her head so fast that she fell forward, her pupils eclipsing with darkness. Damon caught her carelessly and shook off the glass on his hand as he picked her up and sighed. "It's just easier this way."

xxx

When Damon returned to the boarding house with the dark-haired girl in his arms, he saw Bonnie the first second he walked through the door. She was sitting on the couch flipping through a book in her hand when Damon crossed the threshold.

"Hey, Bennett." Bonnie looked up and did a double take, a look of horror and shock overcoming her face as she saw the other body. Damon walked over to the couch she was on and Bonnie immediately jumped up, but didn't move from the front of the couch. Damon frowned at her. "Scoot."

"W-What is this?" Bonnie stammered, almost angrily. Damon set the mysterious girl down on the sofa with a sigh.

"I found her wondering through the town square." He straightened and turned back at her. "She seemed suspicious."

"Damon!" the witch exclaimed. "That's another person!"

"Yeah. I've gathered that."

"Don't you know what this means?" Bonnie shook his arm desperately, but Damon knotted his eyebrows at her.

"Yeah. This means I need you to get me some rope from the basement." Damon looked down at the girl on the couch. "We've got a long day ahead of us."

Thanks for reading! Please review!