Notes

*The evil which has arrived in fell's church has invaded Damon's mind

Save My Soul

3

"You need to go," Bonnie almost spat out, her throat closing around all the things she wanted to scream at him, "You need to go away..." She turned and took one step towards the door and then another; even with this terror, even with his hands covered in crimson gore, it was difficult to fight the gravitational pull that had kept her in orbit around him, Whether it was just because he had sired her, or the attraction she had to him, she would fight to get as far away as she could.

Damon moved forwards in the way that a stream would travel down a hill, as fluidly as water. He touched her shoulder to stop her from moving any further away, and Mary's blood seeped into the fabric of Bonnie's borrowed leather jacket. Even knowing that his hold on her was too tight, he was willing to do anything to keep her here with him; she belonged with him, she belonged to him, she was his. He took her wrist, "I can't let myself leave you here."

She tugged against his grip, her hand slipped away from his and the bracelet fell to the floor with a haunting tinkle. She barely had time to wonder if she should try to get it back before his hand landed hard on her shoulder.

"I can't leave you," Damon told her, "however much I might want to—to protect you—I know that I will never be able to leave you behind."

She knew that the splatter of blood had only gotten on the leather of the jacket and, though it had been gorgeous, she was glad that she could slip it off so easily. The leather was heavy enough that it took only seconds for the sleeves to come off, but of course Damon could do so much more in one second. He was gone before she had the first sleeve off, and she didn't get a chance at the second because the next thing she knew she was flying.

It seemed to take forever for her to land, but when she did she wished it could have taken a little longer. She crashed into the mahogany cabinet, which held pictures of her and her family, and the glass smashed into tiny shards beneath the hands she had thrown backwards automatically. She could feel the cuts burning as if they were on fire and she held them up before her to inspect the wounds for flame. There were none of course, but even as she watched the pieces of glass were being expelled from her skin and onto her legs where they lay motionless beneath her. Part of her knew that this should be impossible, but the other part was like, You're a vampire now, stupid, this is kinda what you do. The voice was so much like Meredith's that it was creepy.

"This isn't right," she said through numb lips, her eyes unable to focus and her mind working so slowly her thoughts were incoherent. "This can't be right."

Stefan was surprised to find that Damon hadn't been seen since early that day, and that was by one person only. He had thought to ask around when his brother did not try to bother him as he usually did, he thought it strange, and it had taken a while for him to find anyone in the town who had. It didn't occur to him to actively ask around until later in the day, and by then he had almost searched everywhere. All day, Everyone he asked had denied seeing a handsome young man matching Damon's description, and he had almost lost hope of ever getting decent information from anyone. He had used his powers as he always did – only a little. Maybe if he had tried to use them on the humans he might have been able to find out what he needed, but he knew he could not manage them and he would undoubtedly lose control.

A shadow passed over Damon's face, darkening his features, and Bonnie knew she was in danger. She could hear the cracked, ancient, voices of the witches in her ears as she stood there, motionless, while knowing she should run. They all told her to get away now, that her life was in the hands of the vampire stalking towards her, but she couldn't ignore the silky, demanding, male voice which insisted that she waited for him to come to her. It didn't matter if she knew, on some level, that it was his power he was using to send her this message and that he was the predator and she was the prey.

"Bonnie, I'm sorry..." Damon said through clenched teeth the moment his body had her caged between his arms, "It's not me doing this, it's..." and suddenly, like a puppet on a string, his whole body arched backwards at an angle that shouldn't have been possible for anything that had a humanoid shape. He was now bent backwards at an obscene angle, his mouth open wide, revealing his extended fangs – which dripped thickly with his vampire venom.

Meredith saw Stefan exiting a gift shop and called out his name. She had been working behind the scenes, as it were, since Bonnie disappeared that morning. She'd told Elena she was just going to the shops to buy some things her family needed, in that conspiratorial voice she used sometimes, but really she just didn't want Elena with her for this. It wasn't that Elena couldn't be trusted with important things, Meredith would never admit that, it was because she had a good hunch that Damon was somehow caught up in all of this and if there was anything she couldn't handle it was him.

She didn't know what he would have said, but it gave her enough strength to know that it wasn't him baring his teeth at her now. She envisioned her power as a whip, drawing it back and lashing it forwards, but the Damon-thing only smiled, his pointed teeth glinting even in the dark, and shook it off like a dried leaf, "Try that again and it will be the last thing you do, Witch."