TREADING WATER


The next thing Clare knew she was panting heavily, hands braced on her knees as her body doubled over under the force of the heavy breaths leaving her body. She was standing on the roof and had no idea how she got there.

The roof was completely flat – above her head was a spider's web of a few cables and wires for the electricity and power of the building and to her right was a metal cylinder which she supposed was some kind of water cooling tower. Apart from that, the space around her was empty.

"Okay," she said aloud to herself. "Think."

But all she could register was the abrupt feeling of relief to be away from the claustrophobia of the stair well and in open air. A light breeze played with her hair and swept strands of it over her face. When she reached up to brush it out of her eyes she felt the slip of her own blood on her forehead.

"Christ," Clare whispered, examining the red substance on her fingers in horror. She felt a panic bubbling up inside of her and attempted to force it down. Panic later, she thought, just figure out what the hell you're going to do now.

Collecting herself, she checked the green-leather strapped watch on her wrist. The watch-face reflected the glare of the sun over-head for a moment, blinding her, before she could see the actual time. 4:06. She could barely have 'blacked out' between the vampire on the stairs and here for more than five minutes – the chances were she was still at the hotel, and this was the hotel roof. She remembered Elijah and his plan and instinctively cast around for people once again but, just the same as before, she found herself to be alone.

Clare chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before walking up to the edge to verify the hotel was definitely where she was. With both hands clutched warily on the lip of the roof she leant over the edge and glanced down. She had to be barely more than five stories up. There were a few cars driving along the road below her and a couple of charming, picture-esque small-town shops on the other side of the street. Beyond those shops was a wood and then houses and directly below her was a sign that said Welcome to Mystic Falls, and below that an indication that this building was, indeed, the town's only hotel.

Clare was pleased to find that she wasn't afraid of heights – something new to add to the few things she could now remember about herself - and was about to withdraw from the ledge when a voice rang out.

"You really do make it too easy."

She whipped round.

The woman standing before her had to be one of the most beautiful in the world with long shining hair, spring-green eyes that put Clare's dull, dark ones to shame and golden-tanned skin. She was also, of course, the cliché vampire – dressed all in black from head to toe.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clare frowned before blushing. Right. Standing on a ledge. Large drop.

The woman ignored her. "Do you know how simple it was to find you?" she sneered. "You really don't cover your tracks very well: using the same credit card, dropping your real name every town you're in – if it weren't for your impressive number of victims I'd say you really were quite the amateur vampire hunter, Clare Kennedy."

"I'm not a vampire hunter," Clare snapped, mostly irritated at this knee-jerk assumption everyone seemed to make about her, but also hoping to keep the woman talking and oblivious as she edged forwards and away from the ledge. "Why do you all keep assuming that?"

"It doesn't matter. What matter's is that Klaus has put a pretty price out for the one who finds and kills the woman whose left a steady trail of vampire bodies across Virginia these past two days," another voice – male this time - spoke.

The owner of the voice appeared from behind the water cooling tower to stand by the woman, he too dressed all in black. He had to be around the same age as Clare – a little over thirty – with a shock of brown hair, scruff across his jaw line and flat grey eyes that lacked the emotional expression found in his voice. "Of course, it's all in his self defense – the bodies lead directly to Mystic Falls and no one wants someone like you that close to home." He paused and looked at her thoughtfully, his head cocking to the side. "I must admit I'm intrigued to know what this is all for, what you're doing here...it's a shame that price on your head is for dead, not alive." A tracery of black veins bloomed around his eyes and he bared his fangs in preparation for the kill.

"No," Clare begged, attempting to stall the pair. "You've got the wrong person. I haven't got anything planned – I swear – I don't even know what you're talking about."

"You're a terrible liar," the woman cackled.

"I'm not lying – please – I don't –" Clare tried to quell the growing hysteria that was settling in the pit of her stomach. She was going to die.

How could they possibly believe she was the person that had killed countless vampires when she could barely defend herself against the two of them?

"You can't seriously believe I'm a killer," she asked, incredulously. "Why would a human like me want to kill so many vampires?"

Doubt flickered across the woman's features and for the first time she glanced at the man, taking her queues from him.

"I don't pretend to understand how the mind's of Hunter's work, Miss Kennedy," dismissed the male vampire, unfazed by Clare's challenge. "Occasionally I think some of you don't even have a purpose or a motive behind your life-style choice: some human's just want to watch other's burn."

And like that, with a chilling certainty, Clare realized that both vampires thought that what they were doing was right, was justified. That by killing her, they would be saving themselves and their kind.

"You've got it all wrong!" She yelled as the wind on the roof top picked up. "I'm not the person you're looking for!"

"You've tried saying that before," the woman sneered. "And like before, we don't believe you." And with that, she lunged forwards.

Reflex reaction, Clare dived to the side, landing on the hard concrete floor. The woman barreled passed her, caught herself, and turned – a murderous frustration on her face that made Clare scoot backwards and away from her in a pointless attempt to put distance between them.

The female vampire grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her heavily against the cooling tower.

What is it with vampires and throwing people? Clare thought deliriously as the shock of contact exploded through her body and she dropped to the floor, and then, a little more coherently: why me?

She struggled to her feet, blood running out of her right ear and a strange high pitch eeeeee'ing noise ringing through her head. The sound reminded her of some useless fact – that that noise was the sound of her ear cells dying. That once it faded she would never hear at the frequency again.

One more thing she'd lose.

Why was it she remembered stuff like this and not the last thirty two years of her life?

"Impossible," snapped the male vampire, and Clare was suddenly aware of the shocked look on both his and the woman's face as they stood meters away. "No human has that kind of resilience."

Clare was inclined to disagree – the force at which her head had hit the cooling tower meant that she felt strangely light, like she'd just swallowed the solar system. "I guess I just don't want to die," she smirked, echoing the other vampire's words from when he had attacked her on the stair well.

The man stared at her with minute intensity, his eyes wracking across the skin of her face, as his features suddenly pulled into a snarl. "Survive this," he growled, and his form blurred momentarily as he ran towards her.

Clare had just enough time to glance about for an escape route, see that there wasn't one and slowly let the comprehension dawn on her that – most probably – this was the moment in which she was going to die, before the murder attempt was (once again) made against her life.

In a sudden rush of her senses and clarity in protestation against her death, Clare heard the hum of the air conditioners around her, fanning out the heat and the smells of shops and cafes and offices across the town. She could hear the rush of traffic, road-menders and their drills and the clacking of loose drains and manhole covers as cars drove over them. She hoped, in vain, for some moment of fulfillment – to remember who she was, and what her previous life had been like – but recalled nothing.

In essence, she felt as if she'd been alive for two days. Too shorter time to live, in some ways. In others too long.

The male vampire did not act as she would have expected when he reached her. Strong arms looped round her waist as she was pulled effortlessly into a kind of fireman's lift. Dazed, her mind could only race, thinking of everything and nothing as the man slowly climbed the rickety metal ladder up the side of the cooling tower.

What was he doing?

Clare's heart thundered against his back and she kept forgetting to breath. What was he doing? She thought again. What was going on?

She began cursing. She thought of the worst swear words she knew and hurled them at him. She kicked his stomach.

His grip did not relent.

The ladder stopped at the lip of the cooling tower.

They paused.

The insistent eeeeeee'ing in Clare's ears was beginning to fade, like the Swan Song and with its loss she could hear fully again. Hear her own pulse crashing in her ears.

She opened her mouth to demand what he was going to do when suddenly she felt herself falling backwards, the air driven from her chest.

The water sucked at Clare all at once as she dropped into the cooling tower. Claustrophobia gripped her along with an over-whelming sense of fear as she thrashed about in the water as if it were fire. It was deep enough that her feet could not touch the bottom and shallow enough that she could see the sun, runny and sickly-looking, shining above her head. The color filtered out by the water around her. She tried to swim, but found she couldn't – she didn't know how, and despite everything, this shocked her.

How did she not know how to swim?

The water filled her nose and mouth and Clare felt a scream burn its way up her throat. Her head broke the surface of the water and her terrified cry was released into open air before her head dipped back under the surface. God, she was so scared. She needed to get out of the water.

She needed to get out now.

She was so scared.

Her head broached the surface once again, and this time she was able to fully comprehend something besides the fear. She watched as the vampire pulled up the other ladder that went from the top of the cooling tower into the water a few feet away from her and Clare realized in horror that the smooth, cylindrical wall around her offered no purchase for her to climb onto. She wouldn't be able to get out, and not being able to swim, she wouldn't be able to last very long anyway. She was going to drown to death.

"No!" she screamed. "Help me – get me – me out of here – please – get me out!"

So scared. "Don't leave, get –" but her next plea was lost as she fell back under the water again. She could see pink swirling around her, and it would have been almost pretty in a way had she not realized it was the blood on her skin and clothes coming off in the liquid. There was the steel wall in front of her, and Clare beat her fist against it, bubbles erupting from around her at her sudden movements. She couldn't push through the metal though and a scream of frustration escaped her – utterly soundless as the water swallowed her cry whole.

She couldn't die. Not like this, not with this fear. It was too cruel.

Clare realized she was staring once again at the surface of the water, and through it, up to the sky. She tried to let some semblance of calm in, but the calm before death story was utter bullshit – there was no serenity in death. It was terrifying.

Suddenly, framed by the sky, a silhouette appeared. She squinted, feeling the burning of her lungs, and her chest beginning to convulse in protest against the lack of oxygen.

Was it Elijah? Was it someone who would save her? Or was it just one of the vampires, coming to gloat at her death?

She squinted again, and felt her heart race. That profile, the way they stood…she was sure…it had to be the man she'd met only – minutes? – earlier. The one who'd promised to help. It had to be Elijah.

The hideous watery world of blood and death suddenly did not seem the only reality, only a thin prison – one she could burst forth from at any moment. She felt alive, not ready to take the crap of some vampire who felt her death should come now because he said so. If Elijah would not save her, she'd burst up from the walls of water, kick, thrash and swallow it in her attempt to get towards the light.

And it was exactly what she did.

Choking on water, her head broke the surface for a third and final time.

There was air.

She could breath.

She looked up and saw the legs of her rescuer above her, clothed in dark suited pants – definitely Elijah, she thought, wryly – and craned her neck back until she could look into his face. She realized she was crying – whether in relief or still in fear, she did not know, but through the sobs she managed to swallow another pint of water.

Elijah sighed as he gazed down at her. She almost looked pathetic, with her hair plastered to her face in thick ropes of red, drops of water mingling with the tears on her cheeks; and yet the fear in her eyes suddenly forced him to realize the danger of the situation for her – despite how humorous her human short-comings seemed to him. "You can't swim?"

"No," she choked out, averting her gaze from his. "Please, get me out of here."

He'd dispatched of more than four vampires for this woman – the evidence of which was the blood that coated his hands from the wrist downwards – and yet he found himself reaching down to help her once again, his hand gripping onto the wrist of her outstretched arm as he was forced to lean precariously far over the edge of the cooling tower to pull her out.

She was completely unconscious by the time he settled her onto the cool concrete ground of the roof, and Elijah was certain that it attributed mainly to the profuse bleeding on the left side of her head.

He touched the edge of her dress neckline, and then her collar bone where water droplets had accumulated. She was not the beauty that he had come to expect of the women he encountered in his life – Katerina, Elena, Rebekah – but the deep red of her hair, the red of generations, and the light dusting of freckles across her skin made her look different, and set her apart from others. Someone, a husband, boyfriend – maybe at her age even a child or two – must be desperate to find her.

Eiljah touched his palm to her neck where bruises were already forming and was suddenly surprised when Clare's hand shot up from her side and grabbed his wrist. She has the reflexes of a cougar… he snarled in his head, surprised and shocked. No human has that kind of response speed.

Her eyes opened, and for the first time he noted the unnatural darkness to them – the shade separating the black of her pupil and the black of her iris was barely there, both almost as dark as the other.

He knew this was the girl his brother was demanding the death of – he'd heard the speech the vampire had made earlier and had hung back, unsure of whether she really was the enemy or not – but as Clare glanced around wildly, blatantly terrified now, Elijah was almost certain there was more to the whole situation than he originally thought.

"Oh my God," Clare choked out, bolting upright into a sitting position. She was coughing, shaking hard and Elijah frowned.

"You're not drowning, you're safe now."

She began to cry.

"Clare," he said as he tugged slightly to free his hand of her grasp. She let him go. "You're safe. It was just water."

She ignored him and buried her face in her hands. She mumbled something, but even with Elijah's supernatural hearing, he couldn't make it out.

"What?" he asked, impatiently.

She lifted her head. "Am I ever going to be safe from those bloody vampires?"

He smiled as the slight Irish under-tones of her accent became more pronounced in her irritation. "I can hide you somewhere where they'll never think to look for you….in exchange – you tell me everything you can remember; everything that's happened to you to cause these vampires to search for you," he bargained.

She regarded him warily. "Where will you take me?"

"The lion's den...they will not think to look for you there. Now get up, there could be more coming." He looked away so she couldn't see his face. Once again, he was betraying his brother: Elijah was going to smuggle the very danger his brother had been obsessively worrying over into their house…right under his very nose.