Chapter 1
The miles were passing so slowly on the dark country road to Georgia. I started to recognize that Stefan was not the right person for me weeks ago, his tendency to lose control and moodiness is exhausting sometimes. Still, I care for him. In my heart, he is my first true love, but I am not sure that I believe true loves are permanent loves. I believe that once you love someone you can never go back to not loving them, whether that translates as hate or love. The depth of the emotion is still one of caring.
Then there's Damon, so dark and haunted by his past. How do I go down this road though? It's so wrong to feel this way. He makes me feel so alive, like every cell in my body is on fire and tingling with life. It's a pure adrenaline rush whenever I see him. I've never had someone in my life that is able to incite such heightened feelings of anger and attraction. It is infuriating. Then I look in his eyes and the whole world melts away. Thankfully I am good at hiding how he makes me feel.
As I pulled into the tiny gas station, my thoughts drifted towards those crystal blue eyes of his. I got lost for a second thinking about how beautiful they are. The sound of my phone ringing jilted me out of my dreamland. I glanced down. Speak of the devil.
"Well hello Elena", he drawled out in his typical dripping with sarcasm tone.
"What do you want Damon?" I blurted out. "I told you that I need space."
"Calm down Elena. Aren't you on fire? You must have been thinking about me..." he laughed at himself. Ugggh he was so annoying. I rolled my eyes. "I just thought you'd want to know, my brother is off on one of his tangents again...something about being unhappy that you are unhappy that you resemble his Katherine."
His Katherine? He really didn't miss an opportunity. "Damon. I don't really care how unhappy Stefan is, but you shouldn't let him hurt anyone."
"Where are you?" he changed the subject suddenly.
For whatever reason, I blurted out, "I'm on my way back to Georgia. I just need a time out."
"Ah so you are going to back to the scene of our first date. How very interesting."
"It was NOT a date Damon and I happen to like Georgia." I stated so matter of factly that I almost believed it.
"Let's meet for a drink. I need to talk to you." His tone was different. He wasn't being sarcastic or funny or even flirty.
"Okay, but nothing funny Damon. I mean it. I'm on Route 74 near Macon, Georgia."
"I'll meet you at Charlie's bar on Main Street." He hung up without saying goodbye. I got back in my car and turned around. As I headed back towards Macon, my thoughts drifted towards Stefan's Katherine. Why 'did' I look so much like her? There's no way that I could be related to her, my parents were from a very documented family in Mystical Falls. So why? I know that Damon loved her first and there was some kind of tension between the brothers over her. It was somewhat chilling to see a picture that so closely resembled me that was so old. It was surreal.
I pulled the car over into a parking space. I did not bother to parallel park as it was the middle of the afternoon and no one seemed to be around for miles. The little bar had a make-shift hand painted sign over it. It looked run down and very deserted, much like the street outside it. I pushed open the rickety door and stepped inside to a fairly dark musty interior. My eyes were drawn to a wooden bar with tacky glass globe lights strung from the ceiling. I approached the bar tentatively, while it didn't exactly look 'unsafe' in the bar, it did have a certain seedy feeling to it. The bar tender, an elderly man with a huge forehead and white tufts of hair on each side, approached me. "Elena?" he questioned.
Okay. It was a little startling that he knew my name. "Yes?" I questioned.
"Damon is on his way. He said to tell you to sit tight. What can I get you?" He said pleasantly.
"I'll just have a diet coke, thank you." The minutes turned into hours as I sat there, shifting around in my seat. Finally the door flew open and I recognized the figure in the doorway immediately as Damon. He flashed a brilliant smile and even in the dark I could see those beautiful blue eyes looking me up and down at the bar.
"Where have you been?" I stammered. "Damon I don't appreciate being left in the middle of a deserted bar for hours while you are off doing whatever it is you do."
"Doing whatever it is that I do? Now Elena, we both know what I do, don't we?" He stared down at me. I was torn between irritation and attraction yet again. He pressed me against the bar. I was trapped between two bar stools and him. "That aside, I need to tell you something." He paused thoughtfully as he stared down at me. He was so painfully close that I could feel myself getting extremely overheated.
Meekly I looked up and forced myself to speak. "Okay, just let me out and we can talk."
He stepped aside. His face was intense with thought. His chiseled square jaw line set sternly on his face. He plopped down on the bar stool, looked at the bartender and ordered a drink. "Elena. I know that you know about Katherine now, but there are other things about this situation that you need to understand. I can't tell you how I know these things, but you are going to have to trust me." He paused again, this time turning to look me in the eye. "Whether you believe it or not, I do not want you to get hurt. Katherine is not dead. I know for a fact she was freed from the church before it was burnt. For years I have been tracking her and trying to find her. She gets close to Stefan and then runs again. She's a virtual master at disappearing. She wants Stefan dead because he ran from her. She will kill anyone that gets close to him and she will do anything to make sure that he only wants her. It is a sick obsession. Sometimes, when Vampires are made, they form an unnatural bond called a Sire bond, and sometimes one or both partners will have an unhealthy attachment to the other. I have spent years following Stefan to make sure he is safe. Given Stefan's diet, he is not able to defend himself against a vampire as old as Katherine. I probably wouldn't have a chance either but I am definitely more prepared than he is. Every person I have killed has been connected in some way to Katherine. I know it doesn't look that way. I know that it looks like I am a heartless killer. Honestly that is easier for Stefan to accept."
My head was spinning. What was he saying to me? Was he saying that underneath all his bravado and sarcasm lay a man that was not only capable of love but had spent decades protecting his brother? Part of me wanted to believe him but I knew him. He has this way of spinning things so that it seems very different from reality.
He continued. "Elena. Katherine is going to come after you. She has already sent people to kill you. She caught up with Stefan in the past year before he met you, while he was 'watching' you. I usually stay in the shadows so that Stefan feels independent, however, this time..." his voice trailed off"...I didn't want you to die."
"Why?!" I almost shouted.
He took a long, slow drink from his glass, put his hands on the bar, pushed himself from his seat, turned to look at me and said, "because what I want, more than anything in this world is to be with you, but it's complicated."
The mere shock of what he said washed over me. My arms fell back on the bar. Wait. What just happened? I had this sinking feeling that that moment was the moment. It was on the table and there was no way out.
