Chapter 21 ~ The Lockwood's Family Secret
As Damon had promised, Vella had nothing to worry about what had happened during Founder's Day. He had taken care of how her phone had shown up by the podium that night and the questions from the Sheriff stopped.
Weeks went by, mid summer turned into late summer and everything around the boarding house had stayed quiet during those weeks.
Stefan and Elena spent a lot of time together at the house, as well as getting to know Vella better. Vella enjoyed getting to know her new 'family' since she didn't have one of her own, they would be the closest thing she would ever have. She decided that wasn't such a bad thing, she really liked them all. The hardest part for Vella, was getting Damon to be a part of this makeshift 'family' she was trying to create. Though Vella tried hard not to push, she found herself doing it without realizing.
The day Vella tricked Damon into going out to dinner with Elena, Jeremy, Jenna and Alaric was a step too far. Instead of trying to be part of the friendly conversation, Damon had gotten totally drunk and made a huge nuisance of himself. Thankfully, everyone knew how Damon could be so Vella didn't have to be too embarrassed by his actions. Vella did manage to tell off Damon later though and they didn't speak to each other for two days afterwards.
It wasn't long before school was back in, which gave Vella and Damon some much needed alone time.
It was about a month into the new school year, when Stefan had to go out of town for a football game. The only problem was they needed another chaperone to go with them. Vella had to use every dirty little trick in the book to convince Damon to do this favor for his brother, but she knew she would owe him now and he would collect, she would pretend to be upset about this but she really wasn't. With Stefan and Damon out of the house for a couple of days, she could finally have some time to herself, which she had been craving, but she also knew she would be responsible for looking after things while they were gone.
The day Stefan and Damon left, Vella decided to sleep late. She got up about midafternoon and sat outside in a chair reading a book she had been meaning to read for awhile. She got so engrossed in the book she didn't even notice when it got dark. As she got up out of her chair to head in to the house, she could hear a car driving at a high rate of speed up the very long driveway.
Vella dropped her book onto the chair she had been sitting in and waited to see who was coming. As the car came into view, she recognized it as Elena's car, which worried her for some reason.
Elena's car came to a quick stop just inches from Vella. Elena jumped out and was yelling at Vella hysterically to help her. Vella ran over to Elena who was now standing at the open door of the backseat. As she looked in, Vella saw a horrible sight, Elena's brother, Jeremy was in the back seat and it looked like he had been attacked, he had blood everywhere.
Vella scooped Jeremy up as carefully as she could and ran vampire speed into the livingroom and gently laid Jeremy on the couch. She then ran around turning all the lights on while waiting for Elena to make it to the livingroom.
"What happened to him, Elena?"
Elena looked at Vella, fear marking her face. "I don't know. We were at the grill, he went outside and then I heard this horrible sound so I ran outside to see what was going on and I found Jeremy like this."
In the light, Vella could see how bad Jeremy was. He had numerous large gashes to his legs, arms and one long one on the side of his face and they were bleeding profusely. She was glad the blood didn't seem to bother her.
"Why didn't you take him to the hospital, Elena?" Vella asked confused.
Elena tried to answer her, but she could only stammer.
Vella put a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her. "Elena, it's okay, breathe," she said softly.
Elena tried to relax but she couldn't while looking at her brother. "Just help him please!"
Vella was aching to use her compulsion on Elena so she could find out what was wrong, but she knew she couldn't since Elena was wearing vervain. She just had to hope she could get a straight answer soon.
Vella made Elena fetch some towels and a basin of water, while she looked at the wounds. They seemed to be scratches and bite marks from some sort of animal, but what animal could have done this right outside the grill, she wondered. They weren't extremely deep but they seemed to be infected already.
When Elena came back with the towels and water, Vella dampened one of the towels with the water and began trying to clean his wounds, starting with the one on his face. Jeremy began to moan in pain.
"Jeremy," Vella said quietly.
Jeremy began to moan a little more at the sound of her voice but he didn't wake up.
Vella cleaned out all of the wounds which were now festering. She could only think of one way to help him right now. Vella bit the inside of her wrist and offered up her bleeding wrist to Jeremy's mouth.
"What the hell are you doing!" Elena yelled as she went to grab Vella's arm away from her brother. However, Vella was too quick and caught a hold of Elena's arm gripping it tightly enough so she wouldn't fight.
"Elena, I have to do this or he might die."
"But, but..."
"No, buts. I need to find out what happened, I need him awake and now!" she then said calmly. "I swear he will be okay."
Elena looked at Vella with fear in her eyes, but whether it was fear of her or fear for her brother, Vella didn't know.
After Vella made sure Jeremy had drank enough of her blood, she let go of Elena's arm. "I'm sorry Elena, but these injuries do not look normal. I've seen enough as a nurse to know this."
Elena rubbed her wrist absentmindedly while keeping her eyes fixed on Vella. She didn't think Vella would hurt her brother purposely, but she was too terrified to think rationally at the moment.
It took a few minutes, but Jeremy finally opened his eyes and was able to speak.
"Jeremy. Do you know what happened to you?" Vella asked
Jeremy looked at Vella like he was dazed and didn't understand her. When he noticed his sister, he seemed to be able to gather his thoughts and began speaking to Vella. "I was at the Grill. I went outside because I saw Tyler walk by and I thought he had gone with the football team," he paused to take a deep breath, which brought on waves of pain. "He was in a really bad mood, mumbling something about his mother and making someone pay.", with this, Vella felt a deep pang of guilt wash through her. "All of a sudden there was a large wolf like thing staring at me with huge teeth and claws. It attacked me and it's the last thing I remember."
Vella turned around to look at Elena. "Call Bonnie right now! And make sure she brings any spell books she has."
Elena looked stunned, she wanted to ask questions but she did as she was told.
"Jeremy," Vella whispered. "Can you take off that bracelet for now?"
Jeremy looked at Vella with apprehension. "Why?"
Vella thought quickly. "Because you are injured there and I want to keep it clean."
Jeremy did what she asked. He took the bracelet off and placed it on the table next to the couch he was laying on.
Vella looked into Jeremy's eyes and compelled him to sleep for a few hours.
"Vella!" yelled Elena.
Vella turned around to look at her. "What?"
"What the hell did you just do to my brother?" she yelled.
Vella narrowed her eyes at Elena. "You know exactly what I just did, Elena. I'm trying to help him, but if you're going to keep fighting me with everything I do than I might not be able to."
Elena seemed to think before she spoke again. "I'm sorry, Vella. I'm just not comfortable with you using your compulsion on Jer."
Vella could understand her position, but she also thought it was foolish. She couldn't possibly understand what was going on.
"You don't have to agree with me Elena, but I'm going to do it any way. He needs to be asleep right now."
"Why?"
"Look, when Bonnie gets here we will talk about everything, I promise."
Elena opened her mouth to speak, but found nothing would come out. She really wished Stefan was here with her right now, in fact, she would even settle for Damon. She walked over to the end of the couch where Jeremy's feet were and sat down to wait quietly.
It was more than twenty minutes later before Bonnie showed up. As the car was coming down the driveway, Vella came downstairs carrying her mother's old spell book. She had been upstairs reading so Elena could be alone with her brother.
After Elena and Vella exchanged pleasantries with Bonnie, Vella began to explain what it was she thought had attacked Elena's brother.
"I think it was a werewolf," Vella said point blank.
Elena and Bonnie were completely shocked.
"Is this why you wanted me to bring my spell book?" Bonnie asked.
"Yes. I was hoping your grandmother or Emily would have something about werewolves in there." Vella replied.
Bonnie shook her head. "I'm afraid I have never seen anything about werewolves. I didn't even know they existed."
Vella chuckled a little to herself. "I'm sure there was a time you didn't know there were such things as vampires and witches either," she said snidely.
Bonnie ignored her sarcasm and gave her a dirty look. "And what makes you so sure?"
Vella told the two girls about the memory she had had a few weeks back.
"You think that proves that Tyler is a werewolf?" Bonnie inquired.
"I'm not positive, that's why I need to go out and get my mom's journals. I still have some of them in storage." Vella handed her mother's spell book to Bonnie. "Could you please look through this while I'm gone? I know she cast a spell on Tyler, it has to be here somewhere."
Bonnie took her mother's spell book, sat down on one of the livingroom chairs and began reading.
"So you're leaving now?" Elena asked. "What about Jeremy?"
Vella looked at Elena with a thoughtful expression. "I compelled him to sleep for a few hours, he should be okay for now. If he starts to stir, call me on my cell immediately."
Elena nodded in agreement and turned her attention back to the sleeping form on the couch who was her brother.
Vella quickly ran and got her keys, then out the door into her car and drove towards town. While she was driving, the only thing she could do was replay that memory over and over in her head. As the cloudy evening sky had a break in the clouds, she saw it, a full moon. It seemed to confirm what she believed as truth, Tyler was a werewolf. Vella knew nothing about werewolves and if it wasn't for that one old memory she wouldn't have even thought it was a possibility.
As Vella drove up to the lot where her storage unit was, she began to feel heavyhearted. She hadn't been here in a really long time and wasn't looking forward to going through her mother's things.
The street the storage unit was on was quiet at this time of night. On one side of the street were various commercial buildings and the other side of the street was forest that marks the edge of the south part of town. It was dark, except for the flood lights outside of the storage units and what appeared to be a warehouse next to it.
Vella parked her car on the side of the road near the forest, the other side had a no parking sign, and walked across the street and through the gate into the storage area. She walked past the first three small units and made a right and it was the first one as she turned the corner. She stood staring sorrowfully at the lock for a minute, then using the small key that was on its own ring on her keychain, she opened the lock. She pulled the heavy metal door open, groaning as it moved, and flipped the light switch on.
Vella looked around at the boxes that were piled up, trying to remember which side of the room had her mother's stuff and which had her father and sister's. Tears began welling up, but she quickly shut her sadness off. This wasn't the time or the place, she could reflect on it later. She walked over to the boxes on the left side of the unit and began slightly opening them to see what was inside. When she found the one with books and journals in it, she knew she had found what she had came for. She hastily dug through the box, tossing aside anything she knew wasn't going to be useful, grabbed up all the journals and placed them in a pile. She sat beside the pile and began reading through them as quickly as she could.
After about an hour of searching without finding anything, Vella decided to but the journals in the bag she had brought and head back to the boarding house, she was worried that Jeremy might wake up at any time. She put the discarded items back in the box they had come from, locked the unit and walked out the way she came. As she was walking across the street approaching her car, she stopped for just a second, she had thought she had heard something, but thought it might be her paranoia getting the best of her, she knew she didn't really have much to worry about. She got to her car, placed the bag with the journals on the hood and began fishing around on her keychain for the right key.
Suddenly, Vella was airborne. Something had hit her and hit her hard. She fell on to her left side, quickly recovering, she stood up to look around but saw nothing. "What the hell..." she began to utter.
Out of nowhere, a massive lumbering creature with long shaggy brown fur, long pointy fangs and sharp claws was right on top of Vella as she was pinned to the ground. She tried her best to fight the vicious attacks from it's large, powerful fanged jaw, but the teeth managed to pierce through her skin on her upper left arm, tearing the flesh halfway to the bone. Vella screamed out in agony. As the large dog-like creature tried once again to bite at her, she managed to get her legs up and kicked it as hard as she could in the ribcage, it flew through the air and landed almost 30 feet away with a heavy thud.
Vella stood up immediately, gripping her injured upper arm with her right hand. She watched as the giant werewolf shook it's head and began standing up. She tried to run in the opposite direction, but it was too quick even for her, it pounced with all it's weight on to her back, knocking her forward, pinning her to the ground while it was on her back trying to bite at her head. As she tried to unpin herself from the claws of the beast, she saw a long stick, which she picked up with her free arm, and stabbed it into the side of the werewolf. The werewolf howled in pain, backing off Vella trying to dislodge the stick that was protruding from its side. This gave Vella a chance to ponder her next move. She wanted to run, but she knew the beast was too fast for her. She figured her best defence would be to run into the forest, hoping the trees would slow it down. As she twisted around to run towards the trees, the werewolf caught her movement and made a dash towards her. She just barely dove out of the way as it ran well past her. Vella lifted herself up off the ground in time to see it swing around and run at her again. She managed to move slightly out of the way of it's charge and grabbed it around the waist, wrestling it to the ground. Dodging the angry, snarling attacks from it's terribly powerful jaws, she managed to get a hold of it around the neck. Squeezing as hard as she could, she twisted it's neck until she heard a snap. The beast suddenly fell limp to the ground.
Vella laid on the ground for a second to collect her thoughts. Her upper left arm was still bleeding, even though it had healed a little already, it was still open and throbbing painfully. She tried to stand up, but winced in pain as she put weight on her right leg. She looked down and noticed she had a large gash on the front of her leg that ran from her knee to her ankle.
Vella gathered up all the strength she had and forced herself to stand up, although wobbly, on both of her legs. She limped to her car and searched around on the ground for her keys, which she had dropped when she was attacked. She soon saw her keys about ten feet away from her car in the middle of the road. As she stooped over to pick them up, she noticed movement behind her. Turning around, she was flabbergasted by the sight of a half naked Tyler standing where the presumably 'dead' werewolf had just been. She hurriedly closed the gap between her and the car, unlocked the door, grabbed the bag of journals off of the hood of her car and threw them on to the passenger side seat. She turned to look at Tyler, who was now on the other side of her car.
"Where do you think you're going?" Tyler asked grinning evilly.
Vella stared at Tyler, not knowing what to say. His eyes were a yellowish color that seemed to glow in the moonlight.
"I'm not letting you get away from me that easily, bitch!"
Vella ignored the pain in her arm and leg and slammed the door of her car to confront him. "What the hell do you want with me?"
Tyler looked at Vella with a sneer on his face. "You mean you don't have any idea? Surely you aren't that stupid?"
"I barely know you, Tyler."
"Yes, but I know all about you, Vella."
Vella felt fear deep down inside. She wasn't sure what he wanted or what he thought he knew, but it frightened her. She had no clue how he had survived the broken neck, but she didn't want to stay and find out. She just knew he would kill her if given the chance. "Enlighten me then."
Tyler gave Vella another evil look, his eyes still glowing in the light of the full moon. "You killed my mother, so I'm going to kill you."
Vella felt a deep pang of guilt as she heard his words.
"But first, I'm going to hurt everyone you care about. I already started with Jeremy."
"NO!" Vella shrieked. "I won't let you hurt anyone else. If you want me, come and get me."
Tyler looked at Vella with a mixture of pleasure and satisfaction. "No, this will be much more fun. I want you to suffer."
Vella summoned every bit of courage and strength left inside her, which was easy when she tapped into her rage, the rage she felt when her loved ones were threatened. Suddenly she didn't feel her pain, any of it, just the rage, which made her face change and her fangs grow. She felt powerful like she never had before, almost uncontrolable, like a major rush of adrenaline.. In one easy leap, Vella jumped over her car at Tyler, who changed into werewolf form simultaneously. Suddenly they were a whirl of fists, fangs and claws, grappling, fighting, neither managing to get an upper hand on the other.
After several minutes, the vampire and the werewolf each lay on the ground, both spent. Neither had the energy to fight only thing that broke the silence was a phone ringing in the distance. The sound seemed to have awakened Vella. As she tried to get up and make it back to her car, the werewolf tried to grab a hold of her, but the effort was too much for him and he missed. She made it to her car, grabbing her phone off the ground in front of her car where it had fallen, flipping it open.
"Hello?"
"Oh my god, Vella. Where the hell have you been?" It was Elena.
"I can't talk right now," Vella said as she kept her eye on the werewolf who seemed to be transforming back to Tyler.
"Jeremy is awake and he's hurting so bad. You need to get back here now!" Elena was almost hysterical.
"I will be there as soon as I can," she said and flipped the phone closed, turning her attention to the half naked Tyler who was now walking towards her.
Tyler looked at Vella evilly once again. "You may have won tonight, but this is not the end. No one is safe now."
Vella returned the evil look. "I wouldn't talk so tough mongrel!"
Tyler stood still, completely unmoving, as if he was waiting for Vella to make the first move. She needed to get back to the boarding house and now, but she wasn't sure what Tyler would do if she tried to leave. She figured she would taunt him some more, she was still feeling invincible.
"You really are very lucky dog!" she said with a look of disdain.
Tyler narrowed his eyes at her. "Somehow I think you were the lucky one you filthy bloodsucker!"
This comment really made Vella angry, so angry she was seething. It was his family's fault she is what she is and she wasn't going to let him get away with it.
"Awww did I get you angry, bloodsucker?" Tyler taunted her.
"Do you really want to find out, filthy mongrel?"
Tyler stayed silent but stood his ground.
"Your family did this to me, Tyler. If you continue with your plan of revenge against me and my friends, I will be forced to make you pay for those sins." she stated in an eerily hushed tone. "And if you think I was tough, just wait until Damon gets back."
Tyler snorted. "I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of anyone"
It was Vella's turn to snort this time. "That might be your downfall, pup."
Tyler sneered at her as he spoke. "I would love to spend the rest of the night trading insults with you, but I have things to do."
Vella watched as he turned around to head into the woods. She only hesitated a second, but by then it was too late to chase after him, he had disappeared into the shadows.
"Shit!"
Vella was worried he was heading to the boarding house, so she jumped in her car and drove as quickly as she could. She was a little slower than she would have liked due to the pain in her right leg, which was now throbbing and burning even more painfully than before.
As Vella pulled her car up to the house, she stood still for a few seconds carefully listening, to see if she could hear anything out of the ordinary. All she could hear were the muffled voices coming from inside the house. She ran in as fast as she could to find Elena acting hysterically, Bonnie trying to calm her down and Jeremy thrashing around on the couch.
After placing the bag of journals down on the table beside the couch, Vella approached Jeremy, holding his face still with both hands on either side, she compelled him to relax and rest. It seemed that he was trying to fight it, but after about thirty seconds he laid back quietly on the couch looking as if he would fall asleep at any moment. She then went to sit in the armchair beside the couch and almost collapsed.
"Are you okay?" Bonnie asked Vella.
Vella looked up at her, blinking her eyes a few times quickly, "Me? I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," Bonnie said concerned.
Vella's upper left arm was still deeply scratched. It had bled down her arm, staining her light blue shirt a shade of deep scarlet. It had healed slighty, but not like it should have. Her right leg was worse. The werewolf had shredded the jeans she had been wearing from her knee to her ankle. The blood had ran down her leg, into her socks and shoes. It had completely discolored her jeans making them a deep scarlet as well.
"I'm dead already, Bonnie," Vella said matter of factly. "I'm more worried about Jeremy. Did you find anything?"
Bonnie's look of shock at Vella's statement changed to one of worry. "I found something mentioning werewolves in your mother's journal, but nothing in her spell book."
Vella's brow furrowed. She couldn't understand why there was no mention of the spell her mother had cast that night when she was ten. She proceeded to grab the bag of books off of the table, handing one of them to Bonnie and grabbing another for herself. As her and Bonnie looked through the various journals, Elena sat at the end of the couch by her brother, having calmed down considerably.
About fifteen minutes later, Vella had found something.
"Bonnie!" she said excitedly. "Look what I found."
Bonnie bent over the book Vella had offered her. It was a 'recipe' for a poultice to heal werewolf bites.
"Do you think you can do this, Bonnie?" Vella asked her.
"Yes. I will do this while you keep looking for that spell," Bonnie said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
While Bonnie was gathering things, Vella continued to search through her mother's journals. Book after book turned up nothing of use. It was the second last book however, that had exactly what she needed.
"I found it, Bonnie!" she exclaimed loudly.
Bonnie smiled slightly as she brought a large bowl of a thick looking substance. She placed it on the coffee table, arranged a few candles around the bowl and lit the candles. She began chanting in a strange language. The liquid in the bowl seemed to move like waves for a second, and then become still, as Bonnie finished chanting.
"The book says, this poultice won't only help to heal the wounds, it will keep Jeremy from turning into a werewolf," Bonnie said to Elena as she began rubbing the thick liquid on Jeremy's face.
"Turn into a werewolf?" Elena uttered.
Bonnie stopped a second and turned to Elena. "It won't happen Elena, not now." and then she turned back to Jeremy.
Elena seemed to relax a bit.
Vella set the book she had in her hand down on the end table and laid her head back, closing her eyes. The pain in her upper arm and leg were becoming more painful by the moment. She wanted to scream out, but she knew this would scare the girls. On top of the obvious pain, her head and jaw were also aching painfully, she hadn't eaten at all today and she was starving, the smell of Jeremy's blood wasn't helping matters. She laid there quietly, afraid to move, until she felt something brush up against her. Suddenly her eyes flew open, her face changed and her fangs grew.
Bonnie jumped back, startled by the change in Vella's face, which only lasted a few seconds, when Vella got it under control.
"I'm so sorry, Bonnie. I was trying to rest," Vella said apologetically.
Bonnie shook her head, "No, I'm sorry, I should have called your name first."
"What were you doing?"
"I was going to put some of this on your wounds, they don't look like they are healing like they should," Bonnie explained concernedly.
Vella turned her head to look at her upper left arm. It still looked much like it had when she had made it back to the boarding house, when it should have healed almost immediately after it had happened. "It's okay, Bonnie. I will put some on myself," she paused for a second. "Thank you."
Bonnie gave her a smile and a nod and left into the kitchen to clean up.
Vella took the goop from the bowl and generously spread it on her arm and leg. It was cool to the touch of her skin, which felt good. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but the scratches seemed to be healing already and the pain was abating.
It took about an hour, but Vella's injuries healed completely. Jeremy was now resting comfortably, his injuries no longer looked infected. She decided it was best if everyone stayed the night, so Vella dragged blankets downstairs, handing one to each of the girls and one for herself, they each chose an armchair to sleep in and everyone promptly fell asleep. It had been a very long night for all of them.
A/N: It might be a bit longer between chapters now. I haven't been able to write as much as I want to. No worries though, I have some other ideas still so there will still be a couple more chapters.
Please leave a review so I know if there is anything I need to work on.
Thanks for reading!