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Big thanks goes to throughmysoul44 for editing this chapter. Please check out her story "Blowing In The Wind" and read her other stories!
"Damon, please stop!" Kim cried as Damon drank deeply. His fangs were sharp, cutting through her skin, and she knew that if he didn't stop he was going to kill her. The man was lost in a trance as he kept sucking despite her desperate pleas. It was only when his eyes found hers that he realised the gravity of the situation, and he jerked back as if he had been scalded.
"Oh my God…" He gasped, seeing the two large puncture wounds on Kimberly's skin. He looked at the mess around him, unable to remember what just happened.
"Damon, I'm okay…You passed out," She said quickly, trying to keep herself from crying in pain. She held onto the closest piece of furniture to steady herself. "How are you feeling?"
Damon was unable to speak, but it didn't stop Kimberly from realising that his eyes were watery. There was helplessness in his features, even when he stood up and tried to remain collected.
"It's the blood," He said at last. "It's happening faster than I thought. At this rate…without the guardian blood, I will die pretty quickly. Wes planned it all perfectly. The blood was used as an assurance, to make sure that we would never leave him. Without it, I don't have much more."
"There has to be another way," Kimberly said. "There have to be other guardians."
"Going to a guardian is suicide," Damon told her, attempting to remain standing but failing miserably when he felt sharp pain in his stomach. He took a deep breath and went on. "The only person who can safely give me the blood is Wes or other vampires who work for him. But then again, they consider me a traitor. The only one willing to help would be Klaus, but then he'd want to know about Elena and I can't lead him to her. I was supposed to kill her if she transformed. He'll also ask questions about you, Kim. Right now he's probably working with Wes's team to recapture the girls who were in the brothel that night. I can't let him get to you. They'll take you away." He stopped talking when another wave of pain hit him, and before he could even move an inch to get to the bathroom, he threw up blood again.
Kimberly panicked, coming behind to hold him. "I can't let you die, Damon. Please…I need you."
"And I need to know you're safe," Damon insisted, wiping his mouth. "Please, Kim. If you want to do something for me, stay with me for these upcoming days or months—whatever I have left. Promise me that you'll stay and that you'll take care of Emily. Keep her safe. Never tell anyone that she's Elena's sister and not her daughter. They'll come for her too and vampires will keep coming to hurt her like I did to Elena. Don't let her go through that."
"You're talking to me as if you're saying goodbye," Kim wept.
"It's because I am." Damon held her hands gently in his. "I don't know which day will be my last. If I'm worthy enough, I might join my wife and my daughter…wherever they are."
"Shh. Damon, you need to rest," She hushed him, arranging the pillows behind his back. She looked at herself and realised her semi-naked state. "I'll go change and I'll come right back."
He smiled at her. "Yes…I just want you to stay here with me."
She moved to stand up.
"Kim?"
"Yes, Damon?"
"Thank you. For feeding me your blood, for taking care of me," He said, his voice full of emotion.
"You're very welcome, Damon."
She turned away, walking through the hallway as she wiped the tears away. She had never felt so alone, and the thing was that she had always been alone. But at least in the brothel she had managed to become numb.
Kimberly sighed and entered her room, preparing to shower. She realised that her neck was bare and that the necklace she usually wore around her neck was not there. Then she remembered that she had taken it off the night before. No wonder she felt strange that day without it hanging around her neck. Even if it was always hidden under her shirt, it was a part of her identity. It was the only link she had with her past, with her long lost family.
Kim opened the drawer and caressed the words "Daddy loves you" necklace, and then she let her mind wander far. She always wondered what her past was, where she had came from.
As she was looking at the necklace, she remembered that she had to be quick. She didn't want Damon to be alone for too long. She placed the necklace on the nightstand and quickly walked to the bathroom, locking the door before hopping beneath the warm water, a comfort she really needed.
Damon was tired but restless. He laid there looking at the ceiling before suddenly hearing Emily's voice. Though it was probably no more than a typical nightmare, he couldn't ignore her, and since Kim was not there he made an effort to stand up. Holding the wall for support, he walked to the girl's room, relieved when he saw that she was fast asleep. Emily slept a lot, and for that he was thankful because the less she was around him the better. Sometimes he considered going to a small cabin in the woods to die alone, but he knew that he couldn't do that to Kim. She'd be devastated.
Walking back to his bedroom, he stopped when he saw that Kim's room was quite messy. It was very unusual of her since she was always clean and precise, and it was then that he realised how much the girl was overwhelmed between taking care of him, Emily, and the house itself. He could imagine that now that his condition worsened, things were going to be much worse for her. With the little strength he had, he entered the room and folded some of the clothes which were scattered on the bed. Just as he was about to pick up the other pieces of clothing thrown carelessly in one of Kim's armchairs, his eyes fell on something oddly familiar on the nightstand.
Damon froze. His hands remained hanging in the air and he looked around him to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. His eyes remained fixed on the small item atop the nightstand, and his breath caught in his throat. He was suddenly afraid to move a muscle, for he knew that everything he believed and felt was about to change. On the other hand, he couldn't not move, because if there was the slightest possibility that what he had just seen was simply a hallucination, he was willing to hold on to that 'possibility' for dear life.
His legs shaking, Damon moved closer to the night stand and reached out his hand which was trembling violently. Everything was too real. The necklace he had carved around a hundred years ago was there on the nightstand. The "Daddy loves you" necklace, the necklace he had given his daughter to hold on to because it had been too big for her to wear. He ran his finger over the delicate carving.
"What are you doing, Damon?"
"Katherine," Damon greeted, grinning from ear to ear. He held the necklace up. "It's for our daughter."
"It's beautiful," Katherine said with a smile on her face.
"I've only carved half. Kim will get the other part. They'll fit together perfectly… as though they were made for us."
"I still can't believe any of this…" She cried, tears of happiness falling on Damon's hand.
A cold tear brought Damon back to reality. It was impossible, and he was starting to think that he had died and gone straight to hell.
"Damon? What are you doing?"
He saw Kim behind him, wrapped in a white towel. Her eyes…blue, his shade of blue, were looking at him in confusion. Tears continued to stream down his cheek and he was unable to speak. It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be.
Kim walked towards him and grabbed the necklace from his hand as if it were a sacred object. She held onto it tightly. "What's wrong?"
"T-The n-necklace…" Damon stammered. He couldn't stop crying. The tears were flowing by at a fast pace, too fast.
"It's the only thing I have," Kimberly sobbed. "In the brothel they gave it to me. They said it was the only thing my father left me. This necklace is the reason I turned back the night the brothel went up in flames. I couldn't leave without it."
"No," Damon gasped pitifully, falling on his knees. "No."
Kimberly couldn't understand. Before she even had the chance to speak, Damon grabbed her hand and vampire-sped them both to his bedroom. He stopped to catch his breath, suddenly forgetting that he was too weak, and he threw himself on the floor in hysteria. His hands trembled before he reached out to open his own drawer.
"Damon, what's going on?" Kim asked, panicked.
His hands still shaking, Damon grabbed the box and placed it on his knees. The tears kept falling as he finally managed to open the box. He held the necklace up by its chain until it rested in front of Kim's face.
She stared at it for a few seconds before realization set in. She gasped pitifully, her hands reaching out to cover her mouth, and she began to shake her head repetitively. "No."
Damon reached out for her necklace, holding them both next to each other. Then, after taking a deep breath, he merged them both until they became one. They fit perfectly like a puzzle. There it was, one big heart, with "Daddy Loves You" written on one part and "Always and Forever" written on the other. The wood was still as perfect as it had been all those years before. He had guarded it with his life.
The reality of the situation weighed heavily on Damon's shoulders. Neither of them had said it out loud but it was screaming in his ears.
"You…You're…" Kim was gasping.
"Don't. Just don't say it," Damon sobbed. All the things he had thought about Kim, all his darkest desires and lust, they were flashing back now, almost as if they were slapping him in the face. Oh, God help him…It was his own daughter.
But he didn't know. He wouldn't have guessed.
Still, everything he had felt for her…All of it was immoral. Sinful.
The girl he had almost slept with…She was his daughter.
His supposedly dead daughter.
His head was spinning.
"I have to leave," He said at last.
"No, Damon please…Don't leave," She begged, but he was already gone.
"Where should I start..." Wes said in wonder. "Oh, let's start with what I did to little Kim."
"You're a monster," Elena spat. "A selfish monster."
"I never said I wasn't," Wes replied. "Yes, Elena. I want my race protected. I had no one on my side. I had to do something to gather helpers."
"By destroying a family?" Elena cried.
"Yes," He said plainly. "I took Kim under my care. She was rare. I had never seen a child whose biological parents were vampires. I understood that there was magic involved, but curiousity got the best of me. I consider myself a scientist, after all. I kept her here, observed her…I noticed that she was aging despite the fact that her parents were vampires, yet she had all of the vampire weaknesses. It was strange…she had all the weaknesses but not the benefits. Maybe it was nature's way of punishing her. But I was nowhere near done with her. I wanted to use her to see how guardians reacted around her. When she grew up I realised that her blood had effects on vampires…similar to how vampires react around guardians. The only difference was that she wasn't dangerous and I could experiment and observe her as much as I wanted. She was my guinea pig, basically," He laughed. "Until one day I performed an experiment that put her life in danger. I made a deal with the witches and they granted her immortality. At one point I was going to return her back to Damon to thank him, but then he started defying me. So I decided to lock her away. I took away her memories and locked her in a brothel…leaving her in a state of confusion all of her life. She paid for her father's disobedience if you ask me."
Elena couldn't speak. The words had escaped her mouth. She had seen so much cruelty, but she couldn't imagine that someone would be so cruel as to convince a loving father that his daughter was dead.
"To be honest, that's the only thing that saved Kim," He said. "The fact that she was different. I got bored of her after a while, of course because there's only so much a scientist can do and observe. I considered killing her but it would've been a waste. So she ended up working in the brothel…We needed someone like her."
"You see, Elena…I've always been attracted to different things…" Wes smiled sickly at her and stroked her cheek. "Especially beautiful things." He ran his hand down, between her breasts. "And you're different, Elena. You managed to pull through your own curse. You've been through hell and back, and you're still hanging."
He reached out and kissed her head. "I'm not even close to being done with you yet."
Poor Damon and Kim-They were both falling for each other and now they've learnt the truth. And Wes...Wes is the reason Damon's life was destroyed and why Kim had no idea who she is.
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