Elena woke the next morning with her chin gently rested on a brown head of curly hair. Her arms were still wrapped around Katherine's sleeping form and she let a smile cross her lips.
The muscles in Katherine's shoulders stiffened and the older vampire groaned in her sleep. Elena raised her eyebrow, wondering what was going on. She pulled Katherine closer to her, letting the brown head rest in the crook of her shoulder.
Katherine woke, but didn't open her eyes. It took a few moments to remember exactly what happened the day before. Elena had saved her. Elena had brought her back and kept her safe.
She sighed and opened her eyes, looking up at Elena whose expression still showed concern. She smiled at Elena.
"Thank you," she whispered into her ear.
"You're welcome," Elena said, running her fingers through Katherine's hair.
Katherine couldn't deny she was enjoying being in Elena's company, but what was she doing? She was Katherine Pierce. She didn't need to be protected or coddled by anyone.
It was Elena. So many of her emotions came out around her. It felt natural, as if she were human again. She cursed herself mentally. She wasn't human. She was what everyone else thought she was: a monster.
She killed and she enjoyed it. She lied and she manipulated because it was the only way she knew how to survive. She wasn't going to give that up for some girl. Elena may have saved her life, but it didn't mean Katherine could change.
When Elena was around she tried to have her humanity, oh how she tried. It was too much. The pain and guilt from killing was too much. Katherine was not a coward but she was not a fool either. She knew turning on her humanity was a bad idea, and decided it would be best if she left it off and stayed away from Elena.
In the current situation, staying away from Elena was impossible. She squirmed her way out of Elena's arms, though somewhere deep in Katherine's heart she missed the feel of her doppelganger's touch.
She was cold as she sat up, concealing the cry of pain that threatened to escape her throat. Her cold shields covered her heart and she put a hand to her chest. The other stake wounds had healed but the hole in her chest was still slightly opened.
Katherine refused to show weakness. She refused to show Elena she was in pain. She couldn't have anyone knowing how she truly felt. She took a few seconds, breathing in and out, concentrating on making the pain bearable and keeping her shield from humanity up.
That changed when she felt Elena's hand on top of her own. Her shield nearly crumpled until it was no longer existent. Her humanity nearly burst out of control. She put her walls up again, ignorant to Elena's confession the previous day.
"Are you okay?" Elena asked, her voice full of affection and anxiety.
Katherine refused to look at her. She refused to look into Elena's warm brown eyes. It was too much. There was too much innocence in her twin's beautiful eyes, too much that she could have been but chose not to be.
For so long Katherine had kept her humanity away, telling herself she was a monster. She knew it was the truth. She'd killed. She'd tortured. She'd done so many things a vampire with humanity wouldn't have been proud of, but she was.
"I'm fine," Katherine easily lied. She stood from the bed and stretched, feeling Elena's eyes on her.
She cocked her hip and let her hand rest on it, giving Elena a raise of her eyebrow and a signature smirk. Elena stood directly in front of her. It took all Katherine's willpower not to voluntarily let her walls shatter for the girl.
"You're not fine," it was a statement, not a question.
"Why would you say that?" Katherine asked.
Elena pressed her hand on Katherine's chest, directly over where the hole was. Katherine couldn't help when her breath hitched in her throat. She knew Elena heard it. Her doppelganger removed her hand from the hole.
"It'll be fine," Katherine said nonchalantly, "I'll go get some blood and it will heal."
"I can give you blood if you need it," Elena said, doing everything in her power to help Katherine.
"No thanks," Katherine said, "but I prefer my blood fresh."
"Katherine," Elena sighed, "don't hurt-"
Katherine sped away from Elena's house before her twin had time to say more. She couldn't take Elena's disapproval. She ran to the house Isobel had previously owned.
She kicked the door open and slammed it shut after she walked inside. Her heels clicked against the wooden floor as she paced the foyer. Her breathing was heavy from frustration.
What was she doing? Her humanity threatened to come out every time she was with Elena. Her fingers gripped her scalp, and her fingernails dug into the skin. Still pacing, she let out a primal growl.
I'm a monster, she thought to herself, I'm a cold blooded, heartless, remorseless, monster.
She needed something. She needed something to confirm her thoughts. She was a monster; she knew it all too well. Finally after a half hour of pacing and telling herself she was a monster she figured out what she needed: blood.
Her supernatural speed came in handy as she ran to the many bottles of 'wine' Isobel had in her pantry. They were all filled with blood, and Katherine took the first one she could find.
The bottle was empty in less than thirty seconds, and her chin and clothes were stained with blood. She put her first bottle on the counter and grabbed a second, draining it within the same amount of time.
When she finished the fifth bottle she threw it against the wall. It shattered and the crimson stained glass fell all over the floor. In her rage Katherine threw every empty bottle on the counter against the wall.
"What is wrong with me?" she yelled into the emptiness of the house.
The vampire was panting, trying to release her anger. Her humanity was crawling over the walls she had built to keep it under control.
This blood wasn't enough for her. It wasn't warm; she couldn't feel the pulse fading as she took a sip. She needed fresh blood. She didn't need to drink; she needed to feed.
Her logic told her it would be foolish to kill someone around noon. Against her primal instincts she forced herself to stay inside until nightfall, seething and waiting for the moments when she'd feel a human's neck snap underneath her hands.
Just before nightfall she changed into tight black jeans, a slightly revealing black shirt and a leather jacket. She chose one of the least revealing in her closet because that night wasn't about lust, it was about hunger, plus she didn't want blood all over her chest.
She walked through the streets of Mystic Falls, careful to avoid anyone Elena might know, but that night she saw none of Elena's friends, the game was already turning in her favor.
Several blocks away from the Grill she saw twelve druggies in an alleyway. Katherine knew they wouldn't have the finest blood she'd ever taste, but it didn't matter. She needed something, anything, to satisfy the hunger.
She walked into the alley. She could hear the pumping of every human's blood. The pounding of their hearts was too much. It was like a drum, vexing her until it pushed her to commit the act.
She shut the gate to the alleyway behind her as she walked in. The druggies looked at her but only one made a move towards her.
"You got anything?" he asked, his tone different from the drugs.
Katherine felt the blood rush to her eyes and her fangs brush against her tongue.
"What the-" he cut himself off with a cry as Katherine's fangs entered his neck.
She drained him in such quick time that she snapped his neck before any of the other druggies had turned to look at the scene. She moved onto the next man, his blood tasting delicious as it streamed down her throat.
She enjoyed the feel of his neck cracking underneath her hand as she twisted it in an impossible direction. Another druggie walked up to her with a baseball bat.
"Stay back," he said, waving it at her.
Katherine tossed the baseball bat aside and drove her fangs as far into the man's neck as they would go. The blood streamed onto her face and into her mouth. She didn't need mortal drugs; blood was her drug and in that moment no intervention could stop her.
As she moved to the fourth, which was a woman, she sunk her fangs into the human's neck and chuckled at how weak they were. The crack of the woman's neck was audible to everyone in the alley. Her lip twitched into a smirk as she saw the other druggies running for their lives.
Her eyes turned pitch black from hunger. She watched her prey scatter towards the back of the alley, avoiding any public streets. That only made the game more enjoyable. She was the monster again and she was on the hunt.