In the morning, I woke up next to Rachel. I knew that today was going to be different, but I wasn't quite sure how. I quickly got dressed in a navy floral camisole with a maroon sport jacket with black pants and sneakers.
"So I still can't believe that Damon just killed Lexi." Rachel declared as she began to dress herself.
"Well, his plan was to make it so Lexi took the blame for all of the murders." I explained. "I'm not saying that it's right by any means, but it does accomplish something in keeping the Founder's Council at bay."
"We can't just sacrifice our friends to accomplish a goal." She pointed out as she put on brown sweater over her black dress and then added black heels. "What if Damon wanted to kill one of us?"
"I don't know." I explained. "Look, I'm trying with Damon. I know he's not exactly a model citizen, but I am seeing some improvement. I mean he's not just killing people for no reason anymore. He's better than he used to be."
"I still don't trust him and I really think that you shouldn't either." She instructed. "I really think that he's bad news."
"I want to believe that he can change because he's my family." I explained. "You don't have to believe it or trust him, but trust me."
"You have to stop always seeing the good in people." Rachel declared.
"I can't help it." I replied. "Now we should probably get going to school."
The two of us headed downstairs and I noticed that Stefan wasn't down there.
"Stefan, we're leaving." I called up. He didn't respond or come down and I realized that we didn't have any more time to wait. We headed out the door before we headed to school.
Once we got to school, we met up with Elena and Caroline in the parking lot.
"So why are you and Bonnie fighting again?" Elena asked.
"It's simple. She's a thief. I gave her my necklace and she refuses to give it back." The taller blonde explained. "It's a matter of principle."
"You could be the bigger person." Elena suggested.
"Ugh, that's impossible with her." Caroline declared.
"That's it, I'm out of it." Elena stated.
"So how are things going with Stefan?" Caroline asked her.
"I'm not entirely sure." Elena admitted. "I need to talk to him about it."
Caroline then went to class and we stayed with Elena.
"So is Damon still alive?" She asked me.
"Yes." I answered. "Now we need to get to class."
We walked into the classroom and not long after, a man in his early 30s with brown hair walked into the room.
"Good morning, everyone." He greeted before he started to write his name on the board. "Alaric Saltzman. It's a mouthful, I know. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Saltzman is of German origins, but I'm from Boston. Now the name Alaric belongs to a very dead great-grandfather I will never be able to thank enough. So you can call me Ric. I'm your new History teacher."
I just hoped that Damon wouldn't kill him too, but it seemed a lot less likely. He also seemed like he was a cool guy. I hoped that he would be a good teacher as well.
I decided to go home during lunch because I needed a special kind of lunch. I also wanted to check on Stefan. He was in his room and so was Damon. He seemed like he was just waking up. I couldn't help but wonder why he had slept so late.
"You need some coffee." Damon told him. "Come on. Drink up. It does dead flesh good. Okay I'm sorry. I got the council off our backs."
"Because obviously I realize killing your best friend was not only a vile thing, but also worthy of humor." Stefan replied.
"Are mimicking me?" Damon asked.
"Yes, Stefan." He replied. "Now that the Secret Society of Vampire Haters is off our backs, I can go back to my plan of finding new ways to ruin my brother's life."
"And I can go back to Elena-pining and be broody." Damon remarked before going into an aside. "This is fun. I like this."
"And I will finally reveal my diabolical plan and its ulterior motive." Stefan retorted.
"Yeah, I'm done playing." Damon declared. "That's just like you, Damon, you always have to have the last word."
"Okay, you seriously need to come to school." I remarked. "You're the one who wanted us to go and you can't just not show up."
"I'll probably show up later." He stated. I sighed because I knew that I had to get back,
I rushed into the school, needing to get to class quickly. I should have expected that I would run into someone.
"I'm so sorry." I said as I looked the girl over. She was Asian, a little taller than me. She was wearing a black low-cut sweater with a black tank top underneath with a navy fringe skirt that I could see black knee socks under with black platform boots. I then noticed two rings on her fingers. One was a normal ring with A Scrabble tile attached and the other was lapis lazuli.
"Who are you?" I asked her.
"Look, I'm not here to cause any trouble. I just want to go to school." She told me. "I'm Anna."
"Brandy." I replied as I shook her hand. I couldn't help but think that I had seen her before, but I had no idea where.
"Oh and by the way, I could totally kick your ass if I wanted to." She added. "But I have class."
"Just try not to kill anyone, and we won't have any problems." I told her.
I then headed to back to class. Surprisingly, I wasn't late.
After school, Elena and I were heading outside when we noticed that Stefan was sitting on a table. He looked serious. Of course, it wasn't much different from how he usually looked.
"You weren't in class. I was worried." Elena stated. "You didn't call either."
"I wanted to say what I'm about to tell you in person." He replied.
"A simple 'I didn't kill my brother' text would have sufficed." She quipped.
"I didn't kill my brother. He has Brandy to thank for that." Stefan declared.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Elena asked.
"I won't be coming to school anymore." He stated. Elena looked at me, but I was just as shocked as she was. I couldn't believe that he had said that. "I think that I need to back off and keep my distance."
"From school or from me?" She asked. He didn't even respond. "Well, thank you for telling me."
I had a lot I wanted to say in response, but I didn't want to make a scene by doing it in public.
"You're angry." Stefan noted. "It's better if you hate me."
"I can't hate you." Elena said before he walked away.
"I'll talk to him." I promised as I prepared to leave.
"Wait." She declared as she grabbed me. "Do you and Rachel wanna sleep over at my house tonight by any chance?"
"Sure, probably." I stated. "I just need to talk to Stefan."
I grabbed Rachel and the two of us headed home. Once we were inside the boarding house, I decided to let Stefan have it.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" I shouted. "You are not just going to break up with Elena. You should be telling her that you love her, you idiot."
Before I could continue my tirade at him, my phone rang. It was Elena.
"What's up?" I asked as I tried my best to remain calm.
"Can you guys bring Stefan when you come over?" She replied. "We need to talk about some things that Damon said to Bonnie."
"Sure." I agreed before I hung up and looked at Stefan. "You are coming."
So a little bit later, the three of us headed to the Gilbert house. I noticed that Bonnie and Caroline were inside. Elena came outside to talk to us. It looked serious.
"He threatened her." She explained.
"Why would Damon want anything to do with Bonnie?" I mused.
"She has this necklace." Elena answered. "It was from her ancestor from the Civil War…when you lived here."
"Her name was name was Emily. She was Katherine's handmaiden and a witch." Stefan replied.
"You know about Bonnie?" She asked.
"I actually used to be a witch before I was turned." Rachel explained.
"So the necklace, is it an antique setting with an amber crystal?" Stefan questioned. She nodded. "It belonged to Katherine. Emily must have given it to her. I can see what he wants with it."
"I'll help." I added. "I feel this is more important. Maybe Rachel can stay here."
"Yeah, I guess I can do that." The blonde agreed as she went into the house and Stefan and I headed to find Damon. I suggested that we check the Grill.
He was at the bar with a bottle of bourbon in front of him.
"So, Stefan." Stefan greeted him. "I think we should start over."
"I don't, Damon." The older brother replied. "You kill everyone and you're so mean and you're so mean and…I give up. You're really hard to imitate."
"Can I get two coffees?" Stefan asked the bartender. "So why the bottle?"
I was pretty sure it was because Damon was an alcoholic. I'd seen him drinking either blood or booze a lot.
"I'm on edge from your diet." Damon explained.
"No one said that you had to adopt his diet." I pointed out.
"I don't need you two to babysit me." He declared. '
"We're not here for that. We're here to spend some quality family time together." I explained.
From there, we began to play some darts together. Well I was more doing scorekeeping than anything else. I didn't really understand how to play darts. I never really saw the point of it, but it seemed to be something that the two of them both liked to do.
"You're beating me." Damon noted.
"That's because I'm better than you." Stefan told him.
"What is with this attitude?" Damon asked.
"Would you prefer that he be all broody?" I questioned.
"You two are up to something. I'm onto you." He remarked. "So what are you planning?"
"You know that's the same thing that we've been asking since you got here." Stefan pointed out. "So, it's a beautiful night. We shouldn't waste it stuck in here. Let's go out."
From there we headed to the school. Stefan grabbed a football from the athletic department storage and we headed out to the field.
"So what are we doing out here?" Damon asked.
"We're going to play some football." I explained as I held the ball.
"You know Stefan wouldn't even know how to play this game if not for me." Damon stated. That was necessarily true. He probably would have learned eventually from being alive for the next 150 years.
"Just go long." I declared as I tossed the ball. Stefan was going to be playing defense. Damon caught the ball, but Stefan immediately tackled him hard, causing the ball to come out and both of them to go to the ground. I picked it up and ran it into the endzone, because it was definitely a catch, before I headed back over to them.
"Fuck, that hurt." Damon stated.
"That's the thing about my diet." Stefan explained. "Everything hurts a lot more."
I took a seat next to them. I wasn't going to lay my head back because I didn't want to get grass and dirt in my hair. The view of the night sky was very beautiful.
"So you two have really outdone yourselves with a night of booze, football and the stars." Damon declared before he sat up. "What do you want?"
"Our love for Katherine wasn't real," Stefan remarked. I wasn't sure where he was going with that. We wanted to find out what he wanted with the crystal. "She compelled us."
"We are not going into that tonight, Stefan." He remarked as he began to walk away. I decided to jump to the point.
"What do you want with Katherine's crystal?" I asked. That got him to stop in his tracks.
"How did you know about that?" He questioned.
"Come on, you knew that Bonnie would tell Elena and Elena would tell us." Stefan pointed out.
"I mean how did you know it was Katherine's?" Damon clarified. "Emily gave it to her on her last night. I was with her. You were not."
"I was the last person to see her." Stefan stated. "So what do you want with it?"
"She didn't tell you?" Damon challenged.
"We had other things on our minds." Stefan replied. I had a pretty good idea what that meant.
"I could rip your heart out." Damon said as he sped in front of him.
"I doubt that." Stefan declared. Damon began to walk away before he turned to face both of us.
"I've got a bigger surprise." He remarked. "I'm gonna bring her back."
"How?" I asked. How could he just bring someone back from the dead? Rachel told me that witches couldn't do that without using massive amounts of power.
"Well before Katherine was captured, the town's people were killing vampires left and right." He explained. "I had a feeling it was only a matter of time. So I went to Emily and got her to cast a spell to save her."
"How did she do that?" Stefan inquired.
"She created a tomb underneath the church." He answered. "She was in there while we thought she was burning in the church."
"How did you convince Emily to do that?" Stefan responded. "Why would she help you?"
"Because she knew that they would come for her too." Damon stated. "So I vowed to keep her lineage alive when they did."
"You saved her children, but I could never forget why." Stefan commented.
"It's the only thing keeping me from ripping that Bonnie girl's throat out to get the crystal back." He explained. "Oh well, a deal's a deal."
I was surprised by Damon's sense of honor. I knew there was some good in him.
At that point, both mine and Stefan's phones began to ring. Rachel was calling me.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Emily is possessing Bonnie." She explained. "She said 'I won't let him have it. It must be destroyed.' I think she was talking about the crystal."
"Fell's Church." I heard Elena say. I guess that was where Emily was going.
"Okay, I'll meet you there." I told her. I hung up the phone as Stefan told Elena to stay, which I didn't think she would and hung up himself. It was at that moment that I realized Damon was gone. "I'm guessing that he went there too."
We went to the church to Bonnie/Emily looking ready to prepare some kind of spell while Damon was impaled to a tree. I went and got him loose.'
"Fuck this. I'm going back to human." He told me.
"Stefan." Emily remarked. She still had Bonnie's voice.
"Hello, Emily." He greeted her.
"These people don't deserve to have to know this kind of evil." Emily replied.
"What do you mean evil?" I inquired. Was Katherine bad?
"Emily, I swear to God that I am going to make you regret this." Damon said.
"I won't let you unleash them into this world." Emily added.
"I thought you said that it was just Katherine." I replied.
"It doesn't matter." Damon stated.
"I never should have trusted you." Stefan remarked.
"With one comes all." Emily explained. "In order to save her, I had to save all of them."
"I don't care about them. I just want Katherine." Damon remarked as he got to his feet.
"Damon, is this about love or revenge?" I questioned.
"It's both." He answered as Stefan grabbed onto his shoulders to hold him back. I didn't know any of the vampires in the tomb, so I couldn't make any judgments of them."
"Damon, you can't do this." Stefan warned him.
"Why not?" He challenged as he struggled in his brother's arms. "They killed 27 people and called it a war battle. They deserve whatever they get."
"They were vampires, Damon." Stefan reminded him. "You can't just bring them back."
"This town deserves whatever it gets." Damon said icily.
"You can't blame innocent people for what their ancestors did." I told him.
"They are not innocent." He responded. "Do you think Logan was innocent when he shot you just for being a vampire? They already know too much and they'll burn your little grand-witch right where they killed you."
"Things are different now." Emily replied.
"Don't do this." Damon begged.
"I can't free them." The witch replied. "I won't. Incindia!"
The ground lit up around her and she threw the necklace in the air where it exploded.
"Bonnie!" Elena replied as Rachel held her back.
Once it was over, Bonnie looked dazed. Damon charged at her and bit into her neck. I ran over and tore him off before I looked at her bloody neck.
"She's still alive but barely. I can save her." I declared. I bit into my wrist and fed her my blood. She looked confused as I forced her to swallow.
"It's healing." Elena stated.
A few minutes later, I found Damon sitting on a stump.
"Katherine never compelled me." He declared. "I knew everything, every step of the way. It was real for me. I'll leave now."
I noticed that Elena was trying to console a very confused Bonnie. She and Stefan and Rachel were talking before they told her to wait in Elena's car. Elena said that she was going to tell her everything that she knew.
"You saved her life." Elena remarked. "You know I think I can do this, Stefan. You don't have to push me away. I can do this."
"I can't." Stefan declared. He wasn't supposed to say that. "I need to go. Too many people have died and I just want you to have a normal life. It'll be over when I'm gone and you're better off without me."
"Please don't go." Elena begged. "I know you think that you're protecting me, but I feel safer here with you."
Stefan just gave her a kiss on the forehead before he walked away.
"I know it probably doesn't mean as much, but Rachel and I aren't going anywhere." I promised. "I'm gonna try my best to convince him to stay."
So Anna made her first appearance of the story. It's also up to Brandy to try to get Stefan and Damon to stay, even though you know they are. Please don't forget to review.