"Caroline?" Elena called into the empty room as she returned to her bed after her talk with Damon.
She hadn't seen her friend since the blonde had gone looking for Liv and had expected her to just have gone back to their room afterwards, even though not cleaning up after their failed friendsgiving dinner didn't seem like her. What was even more weird was that Tyler had texted her that he had found Liv, but Elena had heard nothing from Caroline for at least two hours.
With a bad feeling in her stomach, she called Tyler to make sure Caroline hadn't stopped by.
"Hey Tyler." Elena greeted as the former hybrid picked up his phone. "You haven't seen Caroline within the last couple of hours, have you? I don't know where she is."
"No." Tyler replied with a hint of confusion in his voice. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't know. I don't think so, but with everything going on and the hunters knowing her name, I'm just worried. Maybe it's nothing, but…"
"I get it. I'll go out and look for her."
"Thanks. Text me if you find her."
"You too." Tyler said before hanging up. Elena took a minute to think about where Caroline could possibly be, but her concern was starting to cloud her thoughts. She then found another name in her contacts and waited for his reply.
"Elena, hey." Stefan said as he picked up his phone and Elena took a calming breath.
"Is Caroline with you?"
"No. I think she'd rather stab herself with the turkey carving knife than be around me." Stefan responded with a bitter laugh, but then seemed to realise something was off about Elena's voice. "Why?"
"It's just that I don't know where she is. She went out to find Liv a few hours ago, but no one has heard from her since. She didn't even come back to clean up the table from our dinner." Elena quickly explained and she hadn't noticed that she was now pacing the floor nervously.
"That doesn't sound like her. Have you tried calling her?" Stefan said with worry clear in his voice.
"I did an hour ago, but she didn't answer."
"Okay, try again and then get Damon. I'll come over so we can look for her." Stefan told her and Elena nodded absentmindedly. She wasn't exactly thrilled about spending time with Stefan's older brother (and her ex-boyfriend, apparently), but the possibility of Caroline being in danger by far outweighed her own discomfort.
"Okay, I'll see you."
"Bye."
After hanging up, Elena quickly found Caroline's name under her favourites and pressed the green icon on her touch screen. She tapped her foot impatiently as it connected to Caroline's phone.
"This is Caroline Forbes and I can't answer your call at the moment. But leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or call me back some other time! Okay… Bye!" Caroline's voice rang on the other end, but there was no one there to answer Elena.
With a small sigh Elena sped out of their room and found Damon at the bar where she had left him.
"Caroline's missing." she told as Damon's head perked up to look at her.
"I'm so not in the mood for this." Damon groaned as he emptied the rest of his drink and slowly got up from his chair.
"Damon." Elena chastised the vampire, who then spun Elena around and walked them out of there with his hands on her shoulders.
"Come on, let's go find Blondie." Damon said with a sudden serious expression and Elena looked at him with surprise. Since when did Damon Salvatore care about the safety of Caroline Forbes?
Half an hour later there was still no sight of her and Stefan hadn't found her either. They had called both the sheriff, Matt and even Enzo, but Caroline had disappeared from the face of the earth.
"Could she be in Mystic Falls?" Stefan asked worriedly as they walked down another empty hall.
"Matt would have heard something if they had taken her." Elena tried to reassure him, but it didn't seem to work for either of them. "I'll call her again."
The three of them stopped as Elena found her phone and called up Caroline.
"Wait. Did you hear that?" Damon suddenly asked as Elena still waited for Caroline's voice message. Both Stefan and Elena then widened their senses and they soon heard the unmistakably sound of a phone ringing. Elena recognised with dread Caroline's ring tone.
The three of them quickly flashed towards the sound and found the ringing phone on the floor in a hall close by just as Elena reached the voice message. Quickly, Stefan picked up the phone and saw the missed calls and text messages they had all sent her.
"What the hell?" Damon then spoke as he noticed something the others hadn't. Elena and Stefan turned to see Damon taking down an envelope that was taped to the wall and Elena's breath hitched when she saw the addressee.
"To Elena Gilbert" the letters read in an oddly familiar font and Elena reached for it with almost shaking hands.
"Dear Elena," she started reading out loud and looked up to see the brothers stare at her intently.
"I wish you a happy thanksgiving. I hope that you, like I do, have something to be thankful for this year and that you despite your losses still continue to be the brave girl I once met. Even after so many months the loss of the anchor must still hurt you in great ways. I will say that despite her affiliations with vampires, Ms. Bennett always held my respect.
I know how terribly worried you must now be for your other friend, but trust my words that she will not be harmed. You will have Caroline back soon enough, but there is something I must discuss with her in private. Something she must understand before I give her back to you. Do not worry, child. Your friend will be saved.
With many happy returns,
Esther"
There was a stunned silence as Elena finished reading the letter and the doppelgänger found herself gaping as she stared down at it. Suddenly it was taken from her hands and she looked up to see Damon reading it through before handing it to Stefan.
"Of all the people to make it out before the Other Side was destroyed." Damon growled with irritation and clenched his fist. "It just had to be her."
Despite the fact that they had tried to help her kill of her children (before they knew it would kill them as well), she was still far down their 'people we like' list. Hell, she was even beneath Klaus.
"So we really think that Esther somehow came back to life and took Caroline?" Stefan questioned with a frown, but he clearly had trouble finding another explanation himself.
"Okay, who do we know, who has a crush on Caroline? Hint: they frick-fracked in the woods." Damon said with an annoyed tone, but he still enjoyed how Stefan's lips suddenly became a thin line. "And do we know a witch named Esther, who might be able to somehow come back from the dead? Hint: she has done it before."
"And what does the two have in common? They are family and they freaking hate each other. So what I think is that Blondie has been caught in the middle and someone has to get her out really fast before Esther kills her and Klaus starts tearing down cities." Damon finished as he pointed at the letter and Elena took a shaky breath.
"It says here that Caroline won't be harmed." Stefan tried to argue, but it was more an attempt to reassure himself than anything else.
"Yes, let's trust the witch who wanted to kill us all not that long ago." Damon replied with a snarky voice, but Elena could somehow hear the worry in his voice.
"It says she's going to speak with Caroline. Make her understand something." Elena commented as she took back the letter from Stefan. "Do you think she's torturing her?"
"I don't know, Elena." Damon told her in a soft voice and placed a soothing hand on her arm before removing it again. She sort of wished he would have let it stay. She needed the comfort.
"And what does she mean by 'your friend will be saved'? Is she expecting us to save her or is it Klaus or something else entirely?" Elena continued as she stared down on Esther's words until they swam and became incomprehensible to her eyes. No one answered since no one had an answer and a short silence fell over them.
"Do you think she's gone to New Orleans?" Elena then asked and the brothers shared a long look before shrugging. It seemed like a long way to transport Caroline, but if Esther was trying to get to Klaus then that made most sense.
"Let's find out, shall we?" Damon said as he plucked Elena's phone from her hand and found the right name in the contact list.
"Did you find her?" Tyler asked worriedly, when he took Damon's call.
"Sorry, Lockwood. It seems like your ex-girlfriend has been taking on an unwilling vacation. We need the witch to track her down." Damon replied sturdily and then waited impatiently as Tyler talked to Liv.
"Bring us something of Caroline's and she'll do it."
"Good boy." Damon told with a small smirk before he hung up. Elena was glaring at him, but he ignored her gaze and quickly flashed away to Elena and Caroline's room.
Elena and Stefan were right behind him and the doppelgänger quickly grabbed one of Caroline's favourite necklaces before they all went to find Tyler and Liv.
A few minutes later the necklace hit a spot on the map and they all shared a look as they read the words 'New Orleans' written over it.
"How the hell did she get there so fast?" Damon muttered to himself. There was at least a fifteen hour drive from Whitmore to New Orleans and he somehow doubted Esther had a driver's license.
"Klaus took her?!" Tyler yelled angrily over Damon's comment and Elena noticed how Liv seemed to jump a little. Of course, the witch didn't much about Tyler's history with Klaus, so she didn't expect the outburst like the others had.
"No, Esther did." Elena told him quickly as she handed him the letter. "We think to get to Klaus."
"So what do we do now?" Tyler asked more calmly, but Elena noticed how his fingers curled into the paper, almost destroying it in his grasp.
"We do the only thing we can." Elena said determinedly as she took back her phone from Damon and found a number she had hoped she would never have to use. "We call Klaus."