I just want to make sure I point out to everyone, thank you SO much for your reviews! I was not expecting this kind of response at all!

On another note, I believe I should change this story to rated M due to future chapters. Elena is going through quite an adventure in her head right now so it's not going to be pretty.

Also no worries! I know this is labled as an EE fic...time will come trust me ;) Be patient and as always let me know what you think with the reviews! I love/appreciate every single one of them!

Chapter Three

Chasing Ghosts

The Salvatores followed the unknown vampire's trail of bodies, unable to catch up.

When they made it to the first motel, they had to compel their way to the room, both surprised to see it was entirety covered in blood.

"Brother…have you spoken to Bonnie about all of this?" Damon asked, eyeing the room carefully. Stefan nodded, circling the window, where the shades were still drawn.

"I did, she is making some phone calls to other witches." He stated clearly, "Damon, I don't think this vampire has a daylight ring." The younger brother pointed to the drawn curtains, and then to the only clean spit in the room, right behind the bed.

"So what? You think we are dealing with a new vampire then?"

Stefan shook his head,

"Most of the time they don't just leave those they turn. At least they try and get their blood lust under control first.."

Damon nodded in agreement. It was unlikely a vampire would just turn someone and run. Without keeping the new vampire in some control, they risked exposing themselves and the entire vampire community. As far as the two brothers could tell, they were dealing with a ripper, not a fledgling. Knowing this now, after seeing the disaster before them, they knew it was unlikely they would be able to help whoever it was causing the damage.

The brothers left the motel and quickly moved on to the next town where they may stop. It was morning now, so they knew that the hunted was hiding from the sun.

They searched for the ripper for weeks now, trying their hardest to catch up but they were always one step behind. For someone who didn't know they were being followed (so they assumed since they were still adding to the body count) they were doing a really good job at evading them. They only drove at night, knowing that those were the only times the ripper would be staying in one place.

"So, Bonnie told me that Elena was in town." Said Stefan during a moment of silence while Damon drove, he said it more as a question for his brother, rather than a statement. Nobody had told him that his old flame had returned to Mystic Falls, not that it mattered much. The two hadn't seen each other in the six years since Elena decided to graduate high school early and leave town rather than deal with the Salvatores.

"Yeah, her birthday was a couple of weeks ago, remember?" Damon responded, the brother pulled into a hotel right on the border of North Carolina and Georgia. They had been following this vampire southward it seemed, but their path was erratic, so it was hard to predict which was next. They spent most of their time paying visits to any motel or hotel they could since that seemed to be the only common factor.

"Of course I remember. Did you see her?" the younger brother asked.

Damon shook his head.

"You know how she feels about us now Stefan." His response was sharp, "Bonnie threatened to turn me into a toad if I stepped anywhere near the Grill that night."

The younger brother laughed, knowing that with Bonnie saying that, it wasn't a joke.

The brothers remained in the parking lot of their next stop, scanning the area for any signs of death rolling around, and talking. They hadn't spoken much in the past few years once again allowing Elena to come in between them, but now, locked in the car together, they were able to sit and talk like brothers.

There was always something about tragedy that could reunite people.

Elena could hardly breathe.

As soon as the sun set, the vampire fled the dingy motel, leaving behind her, her own wake of destruction. She was fighting her own race against time, knowing that even though she had compelled everyone she could it would never be enough.

The newborn vampire ran for weeks after she dumped her old car, yet one more way to dispel the humanity that used to be a part of her, and compelled a man at the nearest rental shop to give her a new one. She acted as if she was losing someone, she just didn't know who.

Come on now, let's have fun!

Elena's instincts were getting stronger each day now. Each time they would take over, forcing her to feed making it that much more difficult to push away the want, the need for human blood.

There were times when she would look through her eyes, as if watching a movie in the first person point of view, as she fed on the helpless bodies of men and women from the surrounding counties. She watched as, with her own bare hands, tore out their throats in her own angst for more.

In the beginning, she was able to find it disgusting; she would be able to feel their pain as their blood flowed through her body, giving her the life she did not deserve.

She was even able to apologize before she went in for the kill, but that was the only control she had.

As little time passed, Elena was no longer able to cry out, begging herself to stop the disaster before her as she tore into yet another body.

Another innocent human being.

Please. You don't need to do this! She would cry out, but she could only hear it in her mind.

It was through her own eyes that Elena witnessed the true horrors she had never imagined, even after all she had been through years before, play out before her. She knew she would never be able to forget the faces of those she murdered, their blood covering her hands, soaking into the pores of her skin.

They were becoming a part of her. She was the truest of monsters now, and for that she had wanted to die.

As it would go, however, the second she made her decision to kiss the sun, her primal needs took over, overpowering her morality.

Overpowering her.

"We are going to have so much fun." Elena whispered, looking into a hotel room mirror at herself, examining her body as if in a brand new light.

Her eyes were still black, covering up the slightest of crow's feet that had appeared over the last six years of aging, really the only sign that those years had passed at all. She smiled, her fangs still showing, as she played with her hair giving herself a good once-over in the blood splattered mirror.

Being twenty four years old now had not harmed Elena's beauty, and once she became a vampire, she realized that she could use that to her own advantage.

If Katherine can do it, why can't I?

The vampire left the room in shambles, looking as if a child had gone to town spinning a paintbrush filled with crimson colored pain around the room, getting it across the walls and the furniture.

It is too messy here. She thought, looking back to her own work, a sense of pride surrounding her.

Elena hopped into her new car, a red Chevy impala, pulled out of the parking lot, and off the next exit, off the highway. This was the first time she had done this, but decided she wanted to switch things up a bit now.

"This vampire is going to make some house calls." She sang to herself.

No! You can't do this!

Ignoring her annoying innocence, Elena pushed the thought away, only picking up speed.

The primal part of her was always stronger.

Pulling up to a small farmhouse, Elena hopped out of the car and took in the breath of the crisp, fresh night time air.

"Still a couple of hours. " she whispered to herself stretching her arms over her head.

The vampire, still young at barely three weeks turned, had taught herself the scent of morning in it's approach. She wasn't about to let herself burn, she was going to survive…and she was going to be damn good at it.

Elena smiled when she saw a light on in the kitchen, it was three am and someone was having a late night snack it seemed, and it wasn't her…yet.

Knocking quietly, she could hear the gasp of surprise from the other side of the door. She could also hear the woman's heart racing…pumping blood through her system.

Please don't do this.

Sorry…but I am hungry, again.

Elena knew she needed this, it was this part of it all that she was enjoying the most. For years, she had always been the one being hunted. Now it was her turn to be the hunter.

Elena's eyes lit when she heard the large door open, luckily she had cleaned herself off first, and looked helpless as she wore a baggy sweatshirt and jeans she had stolen from a nearby thrift shop. Something about crappy clothes makes you seem less threatening and of course less memorable.

Not that she ever allowed anyone who saw her to live.

"Ca-Can I help you?" a middle aged woman had opened the door just a crack to see Elena staring back at her. The vampire approached more closely, but was unable to see into her eyes clear enough to compel her.

She took a look at the future victim, who seemed to be wearing a pink bathrobe and slippers, the smell of strong coffee was seeping through the door.

"I'm sorry, my car is on empty and I saw your light on." She responded, being quick on her feet. She had hoped to just be able to compel the woman and have a good evening, but not everything could go her way. "I lost my cell phone a while back and I need to call my boyfriend to bring me some gas."

The woman stepped back, still eyeing her carefully, and opened the door completely, but still leaving the screen door locked in between them.

Elena returned her stares with an embarrassed half-wave.

"I just need to use your phone." She spoke with an innocent tone, " If you would please invite me into your home, that would be wonderful."

The woman stared at her, her eyes widening and pupils dilated as she succumbed to her compulsion as she unlocked the screen door and stepped to the side.

"Please…come in." she spoke with a flat tone.

Please! I beg of you!

Elena shrugged past the woman, as she whispered to herself, "I am beginning to like this town a little bit more already."

The Next Day

It wasn't difficult for Stefan and Damon to follow the ripper's tracks. There were witches in each town, and they all called Bonnie when something like this happened.

The witch herself was relieved that her closest friends were all out of this vicious killer's path of destruction, with Caroline being in New York again, and Elena headed back to California. Even Jeremy, after graduating from high school, joined the police department in Maryland. He wanted to get far away from the vampires as quickly as possible.

That thought eased her worries, but made her feel that much more lonesome. All of her friends had left her in Mystic Falls.

Bonnie, to her own dismay, received another call, this one from a witch she had only met once, Isla.

"Good morning sister." The southern belle's voice drawled on the other line.

"Good morning Isla, I assume this isn't a social call?" Bonnie wasn't in the mood for pleasantries when bad news was right on the horizon.

"No, though I wish it was. Are you sure your vampires are going to do what they need to do here?"

It wasn't a common practice for witches to trust vampires.

"Trust me. They are just struggling to get ahead of this one." Bonnie replied bluntly, "Which motel now?"

There was a brief pause on the other end.

"Not a motel. This time it got into someone else's home."

Bonnie gasped, if the vampire was changing course now, there was no telling what it was going to do next.

"Where?"

The witch quickly wrote down an address in Georgia and hung up, calling Damon right away.