Like A Man Possessed

By: Tracy Cook

Disclaimer: I own nothing. These characters belong to the creators of Vampire Diaries.

Couple: Bonnie/Damon

Rating: M

Warning : This fic will have serial killer Damon in it. And lots of murder and violence and smut!

Author's Note : Thank you all so much for the support! I really am loving writing this! Hope y'all like this chapter!

Chapter Ten

Fool In The Photograph

'No More, The Fool In The Photograph,

That Night Chained In Your Embrace, Day Dawned And I Saw Your Face.'

'Knock. Knock. Knock.'

Elena cast her eyes toward the door of her apartment. It was nearly nine o' clock and she hadn't been expecting any company, so she wondered who it could be. 'I hope it's Damon... I hope he realized that Bonnie couldn't give him the things that I can...' She had spent the whole day laying on the couch, watching cartoons, and trying to lift her spirits. After being rejected by Damon she couldn't bring herself to do anything.

Her mother had told her that it was probably for the best that he turned her down. She hadn't sympathized with her at all. If anything, she had got upset with her for even trying to get him back. Telling her "I thought you were over him, Elena. Why are you going back to that toxic relationship?"

She knew her mother was right.

Her relationship with Damon was toxic. They fought constantly and the only thing about their relationship that was good anymore was the sex. But, she just kept remembering the days when their relationship was new and exciting. When they were so helplessly in love with each other and they couldn't go a day apart. She just hadn't expected him to get over her as easily as he had. She had expected him to try and win her back.

'Knock. Knock. Knock.'

'Maybe that's what he's doing now!' Elena's heart started to race and she stood to her feet and quickly looked over her appearance in the mirror hanging over her fireplace. She looked like she had been crying all day.

She approached the front door with a smile on her face. Letting out a breath, she pulled the door open. Her smile fell when she saw that it wasn't Damon.

Standing in the doorway were two police officers.

One of them was an older man who had his hair combed back perfectly. His eyes were dark and he had a charming smile. His uniform fit him well. Standing next to him was a younger woman with blonde hair and a serious look on her face. She was gorgeous.

'Oh god, what did Damon do this time? He probably got shit-faced and hurt someone like the last time we got in a fight.' She knew that the police were there to talk to her about something that her ex boyfriend had done. This had happened many times over the last two years and she was used to it by now. He was always causing trouble. Sometimes she thought he did it just to prove to her that he was a shitty person and she shouldn't love him.

"Elena Gilbert?" Rebekah asked. It was protocol. She had no doubt that the woman standing in front of them was the woman from the photographs.

"Yeah."

"Care if we come in and have a look around?"

Elena was shocked. She didn't understand why they wanted to look around her apartment. Did they think she had done something wrong? Still, she had nothing to hide and she wasn't going to stop them. "Yeah, sure. Of course." She moved out of the way so that they could walk into the apartment. "Come in."

The blonde examined her closely and she could see that she didn't know what they were interrogating her about. That meant that she wasn't the woman who helped Damon escape. Regardless, she might know who had done it or where they would be most likely to find their suspect. Elijah and her headed into the apartment and started to look around for any sign of their murder suspect.

They checked in the closets, under the bed, in every nook and cranny. There was no sign of him.

Elena watched them with perplexed eyes as they looked around her apartment. She wondered what they were looking for. "Can I ask what you guys are doing here?"

Elijah checked in the cabinets beneath her sink. He had seen criminals hide in some of the strangest places and he wasn't going to leave a single spot unchecked. When they had thoroughly examined every last inch of the apartment, he walked toward Elena and smiled at her. "We are looking for a man and we have reason to believe that he was romantically involved with you."

"Damon." She said. She knew it was about him.

"Yes." Rebekah stated, staring deep into her brown eyes. She was trying to read her emotions as they crossed her face. "We have reason to believe that he was involved in a murder case we are working on and we know that a young woman is aiding him in his crimes." Elena looked genuinely baffled when she heard this and she could tell that she didn't know about the murder. "Our search for this girl led us here."

"A murder?" She could hear her mother's words ringing loudly in her ears. Her heart had stopped. She had always known that Damon was reckless and dangerous, but she couldn't believe he was capable of killing someone. 'Those nightmares though... They had to come from somewhere... Maybe he's just suppressing these urges to kill people...'

"Yes." Elijah spoke now.

"I didn't have anything to do with this, I swear." Elena quickly defended herself. There was no way that she was going to prison for his actions.

"I believe you." The British woman said. Elijah seemed shocked by how easily she believed the woman. It seemed like she was the obvious person to have helped him escape, but he trusted his partner's instincts. They were always right. "Is there anyone else that could have helped him escape? Do you know of any other women he was close to?"

"Yeah." Realization hit her. Bonnie was the one who showed up at his apartment after she left. She was the one who helped him escape. "Bonnie."

"Bonnie?" Elijah asked. "Do you happen to know her last name?"

"No. But, I'm sure she was the one who did it! She has dark skin and green eyes I think. I don't know, I only saw her for like a second. But, she showed up at his apartment last night after I left."

"Do you remember what she was wearing?"

"I don't think so." Elena thought about it for a moment and then her brown eyes snapped open and she hastily told them, "Yeah, she had on jeans and a black coat with a hood."

'I Long To Take You To A Secret Place,

Where We Could Lay Aside Our Past.'

There was a weight on her chest.

She felt like she was suffocating. Her entire body was cold and she couldn't move. She was awake, her eyes were open, but she couldn't sit up. She was paralyzed. Something was wrong. Bonnie stared ahead as her body started to move, she was now sitting up on the edge of the bed. She turned to look over her shoulder at the bed and that was when she saw herself sleeping.

'This is Damon... Am I having a vision while I'm sleeping?' Nothing like this had ever happened before.

His head was filled with static. A jumble of thoughts. He was trying to fight off whatever was controlling him. She couldn't follow any of his thoughts because they were all over the place.

Bonnie stared through his eyes and watched as he walked out of her apartment building and down the stairs.

The air was cold against the exposed skin of his arms, but he didn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything. He was unconscious and something else had taken over his body. He walked through the alleyway behind her apartment complex. He hadn't put his shoes on and his toes were frost-bitten from the snow he was treading through. He didn't seem phased though.

This wasn't Damon anymore. This was the darkness inside of him. This was something else. She could feel the evilness inside of him.

He lent against the brick building and he moved his fingers around in the pocket of his jeans, like he was searching for something. Bonnie could feel the metal against her fingertips. 'His pocketknife? Why did he bring that with him? He should have got rid of it...'

He looked down at his arms and she saw him open the knife.

Slowly, he started to unwrap the bandages, exposing his healing cuts to the wind. Then, he lowered the blade to the cuts and he started to dig the knife deep into his skin, reopening the wounds and drawing blood. Damon didn't even flinch as he cut through the skin. He didn't even feel it. But, she did. She felt every cut and she was trying to break out of the vision.

She couldn't though.

She was trapped.

He moved to his other wrist and he repeated the motion. Cutting open all of the scars. Fresh blood was dripping down his fingertips and she examined the marks. She wondered what they meant. She wondered if they had something to do with whoever or whatever was possessing Damon to kill people. The bright red blood contrasted against the fresh white snow on the ground. He had cut deeper this time. Like he was making a point.

Damon cocked his head to the side and he held the knife tightly in his hand as he walked through the alleyway toward a building in the distance. The lights seemed to be drawing him in.

It was a laundromat. Bonnie recognized it immediately. It was the one that she had gone to on occasion when she had a lot of clothes that she needed to wash at once. There were large glass windows that lined the outside of the building and she could see a young woman inside who was smiling and folding her clothes. She had headphones on and she looked like she was singing along to the music.

She could feel his heart racing. She could see the darkness surrounding the woman and she knew what he was going to do.

Bonnie's eyes snapped open and she sat up in bed, taking in a sharp breath.

She blinked a few times and continued to breathe heavily as she looked around the room for any sign of Damon. She was hoping that her dream was just that for once, a dream. She didn't want Damon to kill again. She didn't want him to feel the weight of guilt for actions he had no control over. Plus, if he killed another person then there was a better chance the police would find him and even less a chance he would ever have a normal life again.

Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears as she turned to look at the mattress. Hoping that he was still sleeping beside her and she wasn't too late.

He wasn't.

'Oh god, oh god, oh god! I have to get to him on time! He can't kill again!' Bonnie thought desperately. She quickly jumped out of bed and slipped her shoes on, before running out of her apartment building and hurrying down the stairs. She knew where he was heading and she had to stop him before he did something he could never take back.

'Please don't let me be to late...'

'And I Know That You Can Feel The Pain,

Your Eyes Speak, One Hundred Million Knives.'

Damon snapped up in bed. His head was thrown back and he felt his eyes roll back into their sockets. He was losing control again. He couldn't move his own arms, he couldn't stop himself from climbing out of bed and walking out of the apartment building. He tried to force his legs to stop moving, and he tried to call out to Bonnie, but his lips wouldn't work.

He was being held ransom in his own body. And the captor was asking for him to pay a price to have his body back.

That price was murder.

His muscles were tense and his jaw was tight as he walked down the stairs and headed back behind the apartment complex. He could feel the cold snow against his feet. It burned his skin. The pain was unbearable, but he couldn't put a stop to it. He couldn't do anything but watch in horror as he pulled the pocketknife from his pocket and removed the bandages from his arms.

'Bonnie... Please, save me before I hurt someone again...' He was crying internally.

Bonnie Bennett was his guardian angel. Damon didn't believe in God, but he did believe that. She had been sent to him to protect him from the corruptness of his own soul and she would save him this time. She had to save him.

Damon watched the blood rise along his wrists as he carved into them. The same symbols as before. He had no idea what they meant.

He cut so deep that blood was spurting out all over his clothes. Staining the white snow below. He was actually scared for a moment he would die. And perhaps he was a little relieved by the thought. If he died it would put him out of his misery. He would finally be free of the pain that his life brought him. He would finally be free of the demon imprisoned inside of him.

And most importantly, it would stop him from killing anyone else.

His grip tightened around the knife and his head snapped up. All he could see was a bright light in the distance. His legs moved beneath him and he tried to stop himself, but he couldn't. He was moving closer and closer to the light. The closer he got the more clear things became.

It was a building. A laundromat. There was a beautiful young girl inside. She couldn't have been older than twenty. She was blonde with her hair tied back and a smile on her face as she sang and dance along to whatever music was playing from her headphones. She looked so happy to be alive and yet all he could feel was compete and utter hatred and loathing when he looked at her. He saw a darkness surrounding her, escaping from her eyes and mouth as she sang. It made him angry.

'This isn't you, Damon. You gotta stop this.' His mind screamed.

Despite his mind, his legs kept moving. His pace picking up. He was getting closer and closer to the laundromat and closer to her.

She didn't turn to look at him as he opened the door to the establishment. She was too lost in the music and the laundry she was folding. She probably just figured he was another person who needed to use the machines. Damon wished that she would have looked at him. He wished that she would see the darkness inside of him and that she would run.

"I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire. Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar." The girl sang to herself.

Damon's body started to convulse and his grip tightened on the knife as he approached the young woman. He was standing only a few inches behind her and he could smell the scent of her shampoo as he lent forward.

Finally, she noticed him.

The girl turned around and backed up against the machine. Her eyes were wide and she looked disgusted by him. "What the hell? Can't you see I'm using this machine, there are plenty of other machines you creep." Her eyes darted down to the knife in his hand and the cuts along his wrists and he watched as annoyance turned to panic. "Are you okay? You don't look okay." She tried to move away from him. "I'm gonna go and get someone to help you with those cuts."

He reached out and grabbed a hold of her before she could run. She started to scream and move around in his arms and he placed a hand over her mouth, holding the knife to her throat. Telling her to be quiet.

'Bonnie... Bonnie... Please... Stop me...'

Damon was losing control over his mind at this point. Everything was controlled by whatever was inside of him.

Her eyes were wide and she was whimpering as she stared up into his eyes. Pleading with him to stop. He wanted to stop so badly, but he couldn't.

He lowered the knife and he stabbed her directly in the chest. Four times. Just like the first victim. She screamed against his hand until her voice died in her throat and she could no longer scream. Her blood bubbling at her lips and covering the palm of his hand.

"Damon!" Bonnie's voice broke him out of his trance.

His eyes returned to normal and filled with panic and self-loathing as he stared down at the innocent girl, her body lifeless in his arms. He had her blood all over his hands and clothes. And he could feel the sharp pain from where he had stabbed himself and the numbness of his toes. It was him again. He was back in control over his body, but it was too late. This time Bonnie had been too late.

Damon turned to face her. His breathing ragged and his eyes filled with tears. There was blood on his lips, he could taste the familiar metallic tang on his tongue. He hated the way that she was looking at him. With understanding and broken eyes. He knew that he was no good for her. He was no good for anyone. He was a horrible person and Stefan was right. There was something terrible inside of him.

He didn't want her to understand that it wasn't his fault.

Because to him, it was his fault.

Even if he had no control over it. He had control over being alive and by choosing to live he was allowing this evil thing inside of him to live.

"Damon." Bonnie breathed out sadly, tears rolling down her cheeks as she walked toward him. He dropped the girl's body to the ground and he stared into her eyes. He hated the sympathy he heard. He hated that she still cared about him.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered. "I'm so so sorry." She took a few slow steps toward him and she continued to cry. "I tried to make it on time."

She reached out for his hand in an attempt to comfort him, but it only infuriated him. He hated that she still cared about him despite what he had just done. That she still thought she understood him. That she still sympathized with him. He was a horrible person. He was just like the man that had killed his own parents. This girl had a family. She probably had a boyfriend. She might have had a child. He had just taken her life away from her. He had taken away her dreams, her everything.

"Don't touch me." Damon muttered, pulling his hand away from her. "I can't be around you, Bonnie. I can't. I don't know what I'd do if I..." His voice trailed off.

They both knew what he was implying.

He didn't know what he would do if he killed Bonnie.

"You won't, Damon." She insisted. "I still trust you. I know you'd never do this to me."

"Maybe I wouldn't. But, whatever this thing inside of me is, would. And I need to put an end to it." Damon walked past her. "And you need to stay away from me."

'His Heart Pleads, Through The Wounds That He Bleeds,

The Wounds He Never Can Close.'

Author's Note :

I told you that this chapter was going to cause some issues for Bamon! :( But, things should get better soon, I promise! There will be some Stefonnie in the next chapter and Stefan will hopefully see things clearer and help his brother! :) Anyhow, I really hope that y'all like this chapter! Please tell me what y'all thought! Are you mad at Elena for ratting out Bonnie? Do you think that it will help the police track her down? What about the new murder? How do y'all feel about Damon?

Please do tell me your thoughts! I love hearing them! I hope that y'all enjoyed this chapter and thank you so much for all of your wonderful support! Means the world and more to me!

Thank you so much for reading! I love you guys!

-Tracy Cook-