Chapter 28

Dahna was wrong in her assumptions on where Dacia had been the past week.

Ever since the night their double date with Elena and Stefan turned to hell, Dacia hadn't seen or heard a peep from Tyler. She knew he didn't mean to kill Sarah and that was it was out of pure instinct since Sarah tried attacking him. Dacia felt responsible for her death because she'd been the one to warn Tyler, which called his elbow to flex back to nail the poor girl in the nose.

For the past week, Dacia attended school and left straight afterwards to go to her favorite park. She'd brought Tyler here a few times and told him stories about her childhood, how her and Dahna would chase each other for hours on end. Their mother would crochet scarfs, sweaters and other things for gifts and the local orphanage. That's why whenever Dahna wanted to talk to Dacia about something important or they needed time away from everyone, this was the place they ventured.

Today was no different as she put the car in park and cut the ignition, pulling her books out to do her homework. Being top of her class was one of Dacia's goals she wanted to hit, so she couldn't let Tyler Lockwood distract her from achieving it. As much as she missed him, Dacia knew he would come to her when he was ready and refused to push him to talk about what happened.

One thing still baffled Dacia, which was Caroline's transformation into a vampire. Dacia always had her doubts about vampires existing, even after her father was murdered, but it was hard to deny something that was right in front of her. If Caroline was a vampire and nobody noticed it, how many other people in her school had taken the road to immortality?

Another thing that troubled Dacia about that night was Caroline's mention of Tyler's family curse. What did Caroline mean? First she tried forcing Tyler to kill Matt, his best friend, and then Sarah came along trying to attack him. Had Caroline orchestrated Sarah to do that so Tyler would kill her accidentally and trigger this so-called family curse?

It made no sense, but at the same time…it did.

Dacia had nightmares about Tyler's eyes glowing that eerie gold and couldn't sleep without them popping up. For the first three days, Dacia tried putting herself in denial and claiming her eyes had gone haywire, making up every excuse in the book for what happened that night. But then the denial walls crashed down when she kept having flashbacks to Caroline and her pale complexion…the veins popping out on her cheeks and her sclera's turning a deep red.

Shaking her head, Dacia pulled her eyes away from the book and closed it, leaning back as fresh tears slid down her cheeks. No matter what Dacia did to try distracting herself, she couldn't help crying because she had no idea if she'd ever see Tyler again. Dacia was brought out of her depression when her cell phone went off, the song linking to her best friend, Elena Gilbert. She hadn't talked to Elena in a week, not even in school, so Dacia figured Elena was tired of being ignored and wanted to talk.

"Hello?" She greeted in a low voice, wiping her tears away and tried to hide her sniffles.

Elena frowned, hearing how cloudy Dacia's voice was and knew she'd been crying. "Dace, what's wrong sweetie?" She asked worriedly, sitting in her bedroom on her bed with the door and window locked securely.

"Nothing, just a long day." Dacia lied, not caring if Elena believed her or not, wiping the rest of her tears away. "What's up?"

Elena didn't buy that for a second, but decided not to press Dacia because she did have her own issues to contend with. "Are you busy tonight? I really need a girl talk and I have a feeling you do too. We can hang out at our houses or just go for a drive to talk, whatever you want to do." Elena had gone an entire week without talking to Stefan and he hadn't been in school, which didn't surprise her. "Where are you right now?"

"My favorite place. You can come hang out and talk if you want." Dacia said, knowing Elena would understand that vague response and took a sip of her bottled water.

"I'm on my way." Elena ended the call, grabbed her keys and purse before rushing out of the house, not concerned with leaving Jenna a note.

Twenty minutes later, Elena pulled up beside Dacia's vehicle and cut the ignition, a rumble of thunder echoing throughout the park. She barely made it inside of Dacia's car before the rain began falling, sending up a silent thank you prayer to the heavens. Elena looked over at Dacia and noticed, for the first time, the rough shape she was in, wondering what could've happened.

"It's pouring out there." She commented, trying to ease the tension a little between them and frowned when Dacia just started crying all over again. "Oh sweetie, what happened? Talk to me, I'm here."

"Y-You won't believe me…" Dacia stammered out, gripping the steering wheel so tight, her knuckles were ghostly white, pressing her forehead against it.

After what Elena found out, whatever came out of Dacia's mouth was believable at this point since vampires really did exist. "Try me." She challenged, trying not to sound condescending, but at the same time Elena had spent a whole week attempting to wrap her mind around Stefan being a vampire. "What happened?"

Dacia took a deep shaky breath and spilled everything to Elena about what happened after they parted ways on their double date. Caroline being a vampire, her taunting Tyler about his family curse, Matt trying to kill Tyler and Caroline ordering Tyler to kill him, Sarah becoming involved and trying to attack Tyler, only to end up dead because of a lethal elbow to the nose, Tyler's glowing yellow eyes…everything. She didn't leave a single thing out that happened that night, crying through most of it and finally shut up when Elena just stared back at her dubiously.

"Told you." She muttered, lowering her eyes to her lap and jumped when Elena suddenly grabbed her hands, forcing Dacia to look into her friend's eyes again. "Elena…" Her friend had grown considerably pale and she was shaking so badly that her teeth began chattering. "Elena, are you okay?"

Caroline Forbes was a vampire? The same creature as Stefan? And Tyler had glowing yellow eyes with superhuman strength that ended up killing Sarah? Elena couldn't stop shaking no matter how hard she tried, tears swelled in her eyes and wondered just what other monsters really existed.

"This is insane…" Elena finally whispered, squeezing Dacia's hands a little and tried to calm down, but it was incredibly hard to do. "I can't believe this…"

"Tell me about it." Dacia mumbled, assuming Elena didn't believe her and tried pulling away, but Elena refused to release her hands. "Just forget I said anything…"

"Stefan is a vampire, Dacia." Elena blurted out, brown eyes widening as soon as the words left her mouth and released her friend's hands instantly. "I didn't mean to say it that way…"

Dacia blinked several times, wondering if she'd heard Elena correctly and knew she did just by the tears shining in her friend's eyes. "Christ…" She gasped, feeling her heart pick up speed once again and turned to stare out the blurry windshield, thanks to the heavy rainfall. "What the hell is going on around Mystic Falls lately?"

Elena wasn't sure if Dacia was questioning her or just asking in general. "I don't know." She answered anyway, lowering her eyes to her lap and clasped her hands tightly. "What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do about Stefan? And what the hell is Tyler supposed to be since he's got glowing yellow eyes now? You said Caroline mentioned something about his family's curse, right?"

Dacia nodded solemnly. "Yeah and I have no idea what kind of curse would cause Tyler's eyes to erupt from dark brown to glowing yellow. It was freaky, Lena. I've never seen anything like that in my life. The worst part is I tried asking Matt about it and he doesn't remember a thing…"

Elena stayed quiet for a couple minutes, trying to go over their options on what to do about both Stefan and Tyler. "I say we go straight to the sources." She finally said, looking over at a perplexed Dacia and cracked a small smile. "If we want answers, we need to direct our questions to them. I knew there was a reason I held back from sleeping with Stefan and this has to be it."

"Because he's a vampire." Dacia supplied softly and watched Elena nod, suddenly agreeing with her. "You're right, we do have to question them and I miss Tyler. You can deny it all you want, but I can tell you miss Stefan too. It doesn't matter if they're vampires or not, though something tells me Tyler is something…different."

"Same here, vampires don't have glowing yellow eyes." At least, that's what she assumed, but at this point anything was possible. "Why don't you go visit Tyler and I'll go to Stefan? Then we can convene back at my place tonight if things don't go well with them and veg out on ice cream."

"What if Tyler doesn't want to talk to me though?" Dacia didn't know how Tyler would react to her visit and could only hope he still wanted her. "I don't want to pressure him to talk about this, especially since he did kill an innocent girl from school." Sarah's picture was splayed all over the lockers and walls at Mystic Falls High School today and every time Dacia passed one, her heart broke for the family's loss.

"Then don't talk about it." Elena stated simply, patting Dacia's shoulder gently. "Just go to him, he needs you right now. Stefan is a vampire and I still love him, so either something is seriously wrong with me or maybe I'm destined to be with him regardless. I won't know until I talk to him though."

Dacia knew Elena was right, no matter how much she tried denying it, and heaved a sigh. "Alright fine, I'll go see him. I just hope he doesn't reject me." She reached over and hugged Elena, both girls embracing briefly. "Thanks for talking some sense into me and believing what happened. You have no idea what a relief it is."

"Yeah well, I'm kinda going through the same thing with my boyfriend, so I have no choice except to believe you, Dace." Elena replied, pulling back and tapped her nose gently with her finger. "Now get moving, your man is waiting on you and I have a feeling this storm isn't going away anytime soon. Drive safe, text me when you get there."

"I will, you too."

Dacia waited until Elena got in her vehicle and pulled away before firing up her own ignition, taking another deep breath. She jumped slightly when a streak of lightning lit up the sky, hating thunderstorms and cranked her radio up to drown it out, pulling out of the park. There was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for the area and Dacia was right smack in the middle of it, hoping she made it to Lockwood mansion unscathed. As long as she drove slow and took her time, Dacia would and had to put her patience to the test since it took a little while to get to the mansion.

Halfway there, Dacia's cell phone went off and she stopped at a stop sign to answer it, flipping it open. "Hello?"

"Dace, where are you?" Dahna demanded, looking over at Meredith worriedly while sipping her tea.

"On my way to Tyler's." Dacia replied, her phone cutting out because of the bad storm. "Why?"

"And you're talking on the phone while driving?!" Dahna exclaimed, wishing her little sister had a more sense than that and shook her head. "I want you home. You can go see Tyler tomorrow, this storm is bad and it's gathering more strength."

Dacia sighed, really not wanting to turn around since she was almost to Tyler's and went through the stop sign, her windshield wipers flying back and forth rapidly. "I'm fine Dahna and I'm almost there anyway. It'd be senseless for me to turn around and be on the road longer in this storm." She reasoned, taking a left and could see the mansion up ahead.

Dahna groaned, knowing she couldn't argue that logic and finally gave in. "Fine, I want you to ask Mrs. Lockwood if you can stay the night there because this storm won't be gone until late tonight. I don't want you traveling at night right now, do you understand?" With vampires running all over Mystic Falls, Dahna refused to let her little sister become a meal. "I trust your judgment with Tyler and, if you have sex…"

"Dahna!"

"If you have sex, make sure you use protection." Dahna finished, acting as if Dacia didn't just cut her off and smirked at Meredith, who was staying the night with her. "You have condoms right?"

"I'm getting off the phone now, bye Dahna!" Dacia's cheeks were flaming red, not believing her big sister asked her such a personal question and tried getting her mind off of it.

Truth be told, Dacia and Tyler never slept together because they figured there was no hurry in doing it. They had heavy make out sessions and Dacia even let him go to second base by feeling her up under her shirt, but never below the belt. At least not yet. Dacia wasn't a whore after all and made Mike wait three months before she finally slept with him, which was the biggest mistake of her life. Once she slept with Tyler, all the mystery would be gone and Dacia never wanted the feeling of exploration to end.

Arriving at the Lockwood mansion, Dacia cut the ignition to her car and looked in the rearview mirror, frowning at her appearance. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her cheeks flushed and she looked like she hadn't slept in a few days. Pulling out her makeup, Dacia quickly dabbed on some clear gloss and black eyeliner, trying to make herself look presentable for Tyler. Once she was happy with her how she looked, Dacia closed her purse up, grabbed her book bag and made a beeline for the front door, knocking on it as the rain poured gallons around her. Milk chocolate brown eyes locked with furious dark orbs as soon as the door opened and Dacia lost her breath at the sight of Tyler, feeling her entire body break out in goose bumps.

"Hello Tyler." She greeted softly, swallowing hard when he just stared hardening at her and waited for him to say something – anything.

Instead, Tyler yanked Dacia by her upper arm against his muscular body and crushed his lips to hers.