A pair of light, hazel brown eyes snapped open at the sound of knocking on her door, and they shifted to the oak structure blocking her personal space from the rest of the bed and breakfast she was staying in.
"Yes?" she asked in her slightly high pitched, soft voice, sitting up in her bed and running a hand through her light brown curls.
The door opened and an elderly woman by the name of Mrs. Andrews, with her fine, short curly white hair and blue eyes poked her head in, smiling at the girl who, upon first uneducated glance, appeared to be no more than seventeen.
"Oh, good, Miss Katie; you're up! I wanted to tell you that your breakfast is ready."
"Good," she said, stretching and giving a small, polite smile. "Send it up, please."
"Of course, dear," Mrs. Andrews replied, closing the door and heading down the stairs.
Clad in her mid-thigh length silky white night gown, the girl got out from between the floral blue and white bed sheets, grinning as the door opened again and a young man, blonde, wearing a blue and black plaid shirt and light blue jeans walked in and smiled shyly.
"Miss Katie," he said with a Virginia twang, "Mrs. Andrews said you wanted to see me about breakfast?"
"Mrs. Andrews is correct," the girl nodded with a smile, beckoning him over. He walked closer and gave her a tiny smile.
"You sure are pretty…"
"Why, thank you…?"
"Hank," he informed her, nodding. "I'm Hank Thomas."
"Well, Hank Thomas, I'd like to thank you for your contribution."
"My contribution…?" he asked, clearly confused as he gazed at her with those big blue eyes of his.
"Oh, of course!" the girl said with a smile, "You're contribution to the Katie Petrova Foundation; your B+ is highly appreciated."
"My what…?" he asked, but never got the chance to finish. Seconds later, the girl's dainty white teeth grew into sharp pointed fangs, her eyes shifting from their innocent gleam to a terrifying red, and she lunged at his throat.
.~Katie Petrova~.
"How was breakfast, dear?"
Katie smiled at the very much compelled Mrs. Andrews as she sat down at the table across from the kind woman's old husband, Mr. Andrews, who smiled fondly at the girl who had been boarding with them for several weeks now.
"Fine, thank you," Katie said, smiling sweetly as she poured herself a cup of tea, adding cream and sugar.
"Any leads on finding your birth mother, sweetheart?" Mr. Andrews asked in his gruff tone, and Katie smiled at the man with the wispy comb-over and soft brown eyes.
"Actually, yes. I learned recently that she has… well, acquaintances in a town a few miles away; Mystic Falls?"
"Oh, my! A dreadful place, that town; disasters everywhere you turn. It's a miracle there are any students left in that high school at all, what with the death toll lately. Animal attacks, drowning, car wrecks; you name it, someone has died in it in that town," Mrs. Andrews said with a disapproving shake of her head, and Katie grinned. Whereas that would turn most people away from the place, it only attracted her more.
"Oh, I know; it's awful. I'll be sure not to get myself killed, Mrs. Andrews," she said with a smile, and the old woman sighed.
"I certainly hope so, dear; I'd hate to see your pretty face on the news for the wrong reasons."
Katie smiled. "Speaking of leads on my mother… I'm leaving today. You've been very hospitable, and I can't thank you enough, but I have a place to stay in Mystic Falls, actually, and your services will no longer be needed."
"Oh? Who are you staying with, dear?"
"Have you ever heard the names Stefan and Damon Salvatore before, ma'am?"
.~Katie Petrova~.
"Damon, it's fine; I can do it,"
"Elena, you need to be sure to drink it in moderation, alright? Let me help you,"
"Damon!"
"Alright, alright; do it yourself, then," Damon Salvatore said with a sigh as Elena Gilbert sat on his bed across from him, blood bag in hand. Evidently, hunting bunnies with Steffy just hadn't been enough for her so, when she'd nearly killed Jeremy one night out of hunger for human blood, Damon had brought her back from the edge, teaching her how to drink human blood in moderation with blood bags. Stefan seethed with jealousy at the fact that Damon seemed to be so successful in helping Elena adjust, but he couldn't say anything about it. He cared too much for her well-being to say anything about it.
Currently, the younger of the Salvatore brothers was lounging on the couch downstairs, moodily writing in his journal about the jumble of feelings going through his "oh-so tortured mind." He looked up when there was a knock on the door and frowned. Everyone knew that Damon helped Elena feed from four p.m. through six p.m., and they respected the No Interruptions rule like it was set in stone, like it pretty much was. So who on earth could possibly be breaking that rule?
Getting up off the couch and setting his leather bound journal and pen down, he walked out of the parlor and over to the door, pulling it open and raising an eyebrow when he didn't recognize the girl who stood there.
"Can I… help you?" he asked, and she gave him a small smile.
"Are you one of the Salvatore brothers?" she asked softly, and he nodded slowly.
"Yes… why do you ask?"
All of Stefan's senses went into protective overdrive; chances were, anyone who was asking for the Salvatore brothers knew their secret, and that never ended well.
"I'm Katie," she said, offering him her hand.
"Stefan," he said, cautiously shaking it.
"Umm… can I come in? I have a few things I need to ask you, and your brother. If you don't mind, that is…?"
"Well, that depends," Stefan said with a slight frown as he pulled his hand back and crossed his arms over his chest. "How do you know about us, and what do you want?"
"I… um…" Katie sighed. "You know Katherine Pierce, don't you?"
Stefan's eyes widened a bit at the mention of Katherine, and his frown deepened. "Sadly, yes. How do you know Katherine?"
"That's the thing; I don't. But I want to, and I was hoping you both could help me."
"Now, who in their right mind would want to know Katherine?"
"Maybe… her daughter?" Katie said softly, biting her lip. "I'm Katie… Petrova."
Stefan's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. This was impossible. This girl thought she was Katherine's daughter? Katherine didn't have a daughter!
"Damon!" Stefan yelled, still gaping at the girl before him. "Damon, get your ass down here right now!"
The sound of a door being flung open, followed by irritated snarling filled the air. "What in hell do you want? How many times to I have to tell you not to…?"
Stefan cut Damon off as he rounded the corner and appeared in the doorway beside him. "Damon, this is Katie Petrova; she claims to be our good old friend Katherine's daughter."
Damon froze, and his eyes narrowed. "What? Katherine doesn't have a daughter…!"
"She never told you?" Katie asked, frowning. "She didn't tell you about the daughter she had while she was human?"
Damon grabbed the girl's arm and yanked her into the house, frowning deeply as Stefan shut the door. "Talk. Now."
Katie sighed, sitting on one of the benches in the room, by the front door. "Well, before all the insanity of vampirism and some guy named Niklaus came into play… Katherine was human."
"Obviously," Damon said sarcastically, not the least bit phased by the girl before them.
Katie frowned at him and continued. "She was a reckless human girl, who thought nothing bad could happen to her. She fell in love with a boy whose name I never learned, and ended up getting pregnant; with me. When I was born, the Petrova family name was tarnished and Katherine was sent away to England, and I was given to another family a few villages down.
"My new family, the Borislavs, named me Anelia. They failed to inform me until I was seventeen years old that I was adopted, and that becoming a Borislav had saved me from great shame given to me by my mother. They refused to tell me who my mother was, or what shame I would possess should I know, and I was devastated. It wasn't until a young man found me that I learned the truth about my mother."
"A young man?" Stefan asked, clearly interested.
"Mmm; a man by the name of Elijah. Evidently, he had known my mother well. He told me all about the woman he had met, Katerina Petrova, and also about… her fate. I wanted to meet her more than anything. But there was only one way I would live long enough to truly do it, what with her in hiding and on the run. So… he turned me, which is how I'm here today."
"Let me get this straight," Damon said, taking a step closer. "You're Katherine's daughter, and Elijah just happened to be in Bulgaria, and he just happened to know you were related?"
"Compulsion goes a long way, Mr. Salvatore," Katie snapped, clearly not very fond of the eldest brother, or his attitude.
"Well, why haven't you…?" Stefan began, but was interrupted by footsteps on the stairs.
"Damon? Why did you run out…?"
Damon had been turning to answer Elena, who was now at the foot of the stairs, but he never got a chance to begin nor finish his sentence. Katie jumped up from her seat, eyes wide, and cried, "That's her! Katherine!" and lunged at the stunned girl at the foot of the staircase.