Ch.9 – You Found Me

You found me, you found me
Lyin' on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me
You Found Me – The Fray

The sun shines brightly from its mid point in the sky as I drive to the Grill. I don't know why Damon was so adamant that I meet with him this afternoon but I have a feeling that it must be important. If not, he would have just told me over the phone instead. But I'm happy that we are meeting because now I can tell him what little I found in the books.

Damon is inside the Grill already waiting for me with a large plate of fries in front of him. His black hair has fallen into his eyes and I can't help but think that he really does look gorgeous now. His leather jacket fits just right and isn't so baggy that he looks like he is trying so hard for the bad boy act. Instead he just seems to fit the image of a bad boy especially with his 'who cares?' attitude. Chuckling I quickly make my way over to him and grab the fry that he is bring to his lips and eat it for myself.

"Hey," I say with a chuckle at seeing Damon's mock outraged expression and the butterflies in my stomach take off.

"You can't eat my fries."

"Who says? It's a free world after all." I point out with a smug smile.

"I say and of course, I could always take away your free will." He points out with his own smug smile as mine drops.

"But you wouldn't do that because you are the one that gave me the vervain in the first place."

"True, true." He says and pops a fry in his mouth. When he finishes chewing he sighs, "My plan to dagger Elijah didn't work out a hundred percent."

Now I'm worried. Even though Damon's plans are usually the shot first ask questions later type, they mostly work out pretty well. I didn't expect this plan to work out a hundred percent if I' being truthful but I have faith that they did manage to dagger him eventually. "Why, what went wrong?"

He rolls his eyes and asks tiredly, "What didn't go wrong?" At my confused look he continues, "First it seems that if a vampire tries to dagger an Original, the vampire will die so we had to get Alaric to dagger Elijah. Something that John conveniently forgot to mention to us."

I can't help but glare at the table when I hear what John did, "That jerk."

Damon nods, "But then Alaric took the dagger out like we usually do with all of our stakes. But it appears that for an Original to stay dead the dagger must stay in their body."

My eyes widen, "What happened when he woke up?"

"Well of course he was pissed off and considered the deal he had made with Elena void so he went to take her from the lake house but couldn't enter. Luckily I got there just before he did and gave Elena the dagger. She threatened to kill herself unless he remade the deal with her but of course, he thought she was bluffing and she actually had to stab herself."

"What? Damon how could you let her hurt herself like that?" I ask, completely furious with him. I'm sure my eyes are blazing in my fury.

He grabs my hand just before I slam it down to the table and squeezes. I'm still mad but the feeling of Damon's hand on mine is comforting. Softly he says, "She's fine, Bella. Completely fine, Elijah fell for it and Elena stabbed him and then Stefan fed her his blood to heal her."

I nod and relax against the seat, "When did this all get so damn complicated?" I ask rhetorically.

He appears to think about it for a few seconds before saying jokingly, "Probably a few weeks after you left."

It is silent between us before I voice a thought that has been swimming around in my head for the last few minutes, "Why didn't you or Elena call me after Elijah was successfully daggered."

He shrugs, "Elena told me about your day with Vanessa and we agreed that you had enough to deal with for one day and decided to tell you today. If we had told you last night, you would have drove up to the lake house and tried to help even though there wasn't much left to do besides take Elijah back to my house which I did on my own."

I nod slowly in acceptance. They are right, if they had told me last night I would have tried to help which may have been counterproductive. I smile, "At least now I can tell you what I learned from the books I read last night."

Damon nods, "Go ahead, the floor's yours."

I raise an eyebrow but bite my tongue to stop the pun I was going to let lose. "I didn't really learn anything new. It was like everything we already know has been repeated again and again and there is no more information on the curse even though there should be. The curse can't have so little known about it if it was so important, could it?" I vent my frustrations.

Damon nods, "I've thought of something similar to that but decided to let it go because I couldn't get any information out of Elijah."

"Anyway, one books was just more specifics on how the sacrifice needs to be performed but we knew that. The second book is just a thin book on the creation of the curse and the reasons behind it and the third book is on the moonstone." I take another fry and continue, "As we already know the moonstone is where the spell is bound and Bonnie tried to destroy it already but Luka tricked her."

I sigh and rub my hands over my face. I haven't felt this hopeless since taking Calculus these past two years. It's like everything is against us and there is no way to fight against it at all. More than I'd like to admit that during these last two days I wanted to just move back to Forks and live my somewhat ignorant life. But then I think of how the gang has been constantly fighting against one thing or another during these last two years and I would seem weak if I gave up so early in the game.

I sigh and speak with my hands still on my face but I know that Damon can hear me with his stupid sensitive hearing, "The only thing I can think of to keep Elena safe is to either give her vampire blood, have me take her place or-"

"What?" Damon asks loudly and I quickly shush him before he draws even more unnecessary attention to us.

"You didn't just say that you would take her place because if you did then that would be completely stupid of you." When I don't respond Damon's blue eyes flash like cold fire, "You did! Why would you do that Bella? It's almost a guaranteed death…" Damon trails off. His eyes soften at some thought and he continues slowly. "You want to give up if you can't be with Edward. I get it but Bella-"

This time I cut him off, eyes wide and shocked that he would even suggest such a thing. "What? I wouldn't do that! I'm not a weak girl that would rather kill herself than be with a boy Damon; I thought you knew me better."

I reach over to punch his shoulder but he catches my hand in his and gently puts it on the table. He puts his hands up in surrender, "I'm sorry but what else would I think, you only broke up barely a week ago."

I shake my head, "That doesn't mean that I'd want to kill myself over losing him. The real reason why I wanted to take Elena's place was to let Elena live her human life without being forced to choose whether or not to be a vampire. Elijah said that I could be dressed up as Elena and Klaus wouldn't notice the difference so when Klaus was at his weakest, Elijah would kill him."

Damon glares at me, "You already talked to Elijah about this? When did you have the time to do that?"

I shrug, "The same night that John gave you the dagger."

"You're not going to take Elena's place, end of discussion." Damon says firmly and I roll my eyes.

"Alright but the only other way that could keep her safe was an ancient elixir but I have no clue where it is."

"Then that isn't even a choice because we shouldn't spend our limited time looking for some silly elixir that may or may not work." Damon says logically and I can't help but agree. It would be stupid to look for the elixir if we don't know for sure that it will work.

"What else have I missed?" I ask and mentally prepare myself for anything. Nothing seems impossible in this town and I've learned in just the last few days to expect the unexpected.

"It seems that when we daggered Elijah, his compulsive on Katherine wore out and she left the tomb. She pretended to be Elena this morning and is trying to convince us that she wants to help us, which I really don't believe." Damon says with a snarl.

Over the last two years when Damon has called me we have been talking about his toxic relationship with Katherine. At first when I would broach the subject Damon would snap at me and hang up the phone but would still answer his phone the very next day when I called him. There were some pretty huge fights during that time but we got over them.

Now he is at the point where he understands that he may have loved her while he was human but it was toxic and corrosive to both his mind and his relationship with his brother. Just knowing that Katherine was spending the nights with Stefan and dating both him and his brother made Damon feel like he wasn't good enough and that he would never be loved. That is why he stayed with Katherine because he thought that he would have a chance with her because he wouldn't love anyone else.

His relationship with Katherine also almost completely destroyed his relationship with his brother. They still fight and argue more often than not but they still would save the other, even if the odds were bad. But I can see the relationship is growing again, even if Damon doesn't want to admit to it.

The next hour is spent just teasing each other and talking about nothing really, all the while eating fries. But I have to admit that a good portion of the fries were throw at each other and ended up scattered around the booth on the ground.

But our fun had to end because I got a call from Mark, the furniture guy that called this morning, telling me that he and his helper would be in by mid-afternoon. I had to leave the Grill to go and let them in the house and direct them to put which boxes where. Then when Mark and his helper left, I turned on my music quite loud and danced around the house while opening boxes and putting certain furniture away.

I collapse onto my bed just as I finish putting the final pillow on it. I didn't quite realize how much energy was drained while dancing and unpacking. I still feel really wired from being excited about decorating my new house and I seriously need to get rid of the excess energy.

Quickly I change into some warm jogging clothes since the sun is setting and the temperature is slowly but surely dropping. Once I leave the house, I turn and run towards the back yard to check it out. I haven't explored the woods behind it just yet but I have been planning to since I moved here. Now is the perfect time.

There are no low hanging branches until about a hundred feet into the forest and thankfully there are very few fallen logs. My balance has improved somewhat over the last few weeks so I don't trip nearly as much and it makes jogs so much more relaxing.

A loud snap draws my attention away from the path in front of me and I turn towards it. I slow down to a walk and look around, waiting for a lost dog to come jumping out of the trees and scare the pants off me. I don't have to wait long though because in the distance I can see a large black blur making its way towards me. I slip one foot back a couple inches to steady my stance just in case the dog jumps at me and tries to knock me down.

The black blur comes zooming out of the trees heading directly towards me and I notice that the blur is much too big to be any type of dog so I duck and twist out of the way. I had a friend in Phoenix that had three huge Wolfhounds in her house and this black blur is taller than they were which immediately tells me that it isn't a dog.

Slowly I stand back up and my eyes dart all around me to see if I can spot the mystery person who is most likely a vampire because of the speeds they were running at. After a few moments though, I don't see any movement. The vampire must have just been passing through and accidently hit me.

I turn around to go back to my house only to see Elena standing directly in front of me. I stumble in shock, "Elena what are you doing out here? You scared me…" I trail off as I take in her curly hair and evil smile that she is shooting me. Though I haven't met Katherine face to face yet, all the stories everyone has told me fit the description of the person in front of me.

My eyes widen but my mind is already formulating a plan. I fake a step to the left and when Katherine overcompensates I run to the right and then start heading in the general direction of civilization. But something hits me in the back and I fall hard to the ground. My hands break most of my fall but unfortunately there was quite a large dip in the ground where my right hand ended up and my momentum sends me falling farther to the right. I roll with it and a stray branch scratches my lower back quite deeply.

A noise of pain escapes my lips and I grimace at the pain. I can feel the blood saturating the back of my top but I ignore it as Katherine smirks at me as she stands above me.

"It's nothing personal," she says with an innocent smile but her eyes are saying something completely different. "You're just a snack and even if you look like Elena for some reason."

My breathing is heavy but I keep myself from freaking out even more and slowly move my right hand to my front pocket of my pants to get my phone. Luckily I get the phone out of my pocket before Katherine can notice but then my luck runs out. Katherine is a perfect predator as she sees my hand start to dial and raises her booted foot above it and stomps down before I can react. I let out a high pitching scream of agony but it is cut off as Katherine's hand covers my mouth as she kneels down next to me. Tears stream from the corners of my eyes at the pain but I try my best to shut it out.

"You weren't going to call for help, were you?" She asks in a fake hurt voice though her eyes glint with malice and grabs the phone from my useless hand. With barely a twitch of her hand muscles, the plastic groans in protest before it snaps.

My eyes look at my useless hand and I notice that it is bleeding heavily for some reason. I turn my head and look at the boot Katherine used to break my wrist and sure enough, the heel has some of my blood on it. Indicating that she punctured an artery or vein when she stomped on my hand and from the amount of blood, I'm guessing it was one of the more important ones.

Black spots dot my vision as the sight and smell of the blood starts to get to me. I blink rapidly to get rid of them and they disappear momentarily. Katherine slowly smiles at me before darting for my neck and I can feel her teeth graze my neck before she is pulled away.

Weakly I twist my neck to see what happened but the black spots come back with a vengeance. My eyes slip closed and the darkness swallows me whole.

AN: Thanks for all the love from the last chapter! I know that I said I would post this chapter two Thursdays ago and that didn't happen, I had a problem with my laptop that had to be fixed. Then I went on vacation and didn't get back until late last night.

Disclaimer: I do no own Twilight or Vampire Diaries; they both belong to their respective owners and creators.

Tell me what you think in a review! I'll send a preview to the next chapter, which I will post tomorrow.