A/N - I feel like I owe you all an apology for the late chapter, so I am so sorry. I didn't know it would take this long to write, but as I have said before, I have been pretty busy recently. However, last night I finally managed to sit down and finish the chapter, so I apologize if the writing is not that great. I was writing it at 12:30 at night, trying to finish.
Also, the position of a beta reader is still open, so if you're interested, just let me know. All you gotta do is read it over and make sure all my spelling and grammar make sense and that there are no blaring plot holes.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this new chapter.
"So how exactly did we get landed with babysitting duty?" Caroline asked Stefan for what seemed like the hundredth time.
He sighed and explained it to her again. "No one else can do it. Elena and Katherine still freak her out with the whole identical thing, so if either of them tried I think it would just make it worse. And anyway, I think Elena is tired of trying to explain everything to her. Damon and Alaric are both humans, so both teaching her how to be a vampire and being able to take her down if she decided to eat someone are kinda not in their ability. Lexi hasn't put down a book in days. She's trying to figure out why Max looks exactly the same as Elena and Katherine. Even Bonnie's been MIA. No one can get a hold of her to see if she could make Max a daylight ring. So that leaves us."
Max thumped down the stairs in the Salvatore house towards Stefan and Caroline, having cleaned up and borrowed some of Elena's clothes. Maybe being a body double had some perks after all.
"Come on." She said, nodding at the window where it was almost dark. "I haven't been out in days and I'm can't stand it anymore. I hate this whole, 'can't walk in the sun' thing."
Caroline turned to Stefan and gave him a look before putting on a fake smile and standing up. "Well hopefully we will be able to find Bonnie so she can make you a daylight ring, but until that time, you're stuck with us." She turned to Stefan. "If we are going to do this, we are going to do this right." She turned back to Max. "First rule. No eating people."
Max nodded. "Got it. Anything else?" Caroline was almost caught off guard with Max's sincerity. The newbie really did want to get this right. For someone who had never dreamed anything supernatural existed before she was kidnapped and killed by Klaus, she was pretty cool with the whole 'being dead' thing. Elena, Stefan, and Damon had done their best to explain everything they could to her after Katherine dropped the bombshell. Katherine, on the other hand, had zipped off somewhere before she could say anything else.
They told her as much as they could about all the perks and pitfalls of being a vampire, but in the end, they all knew that only experience would tell if Max was cut out for the life. Being told about the craving for blood and trying to fight through it were very different things.
Max had seemed especially excited about her new supernatural abilities, super hearing and speed as well as compulsion. She had wanted to try them out as soon as she learned about them, but Elena finally got her agree to at least wait till they could get her a daylight bracelet.
However, after a few days with no word from Bonnie, everyone was starting to get uncomfortable. Elena had finally given in to Max's begging and had somehow convinced Caroline and Stefan to take her out as soon as it got dark.
Caroline turned to Stefan before answering Max's question. "The only other rule is have fun."
Max bounced on her toes. "Okay then. Let's get going." She headed to the door and finally stepped outside. Caroline and Stefan followed behind her. The three of them jumped in the car, Caroline told Stefan to drive to the only place she knew there would be people, the Mystic Grill. Her thought process was that it was only going to hurt Max to be isolated from the world. If she got out in the world and interacted with people in a public space with Caroline and Stefan watching over her, there was little risk of her going ballistic and killing someone, but also the opportunity to teach a little 'snatch, eat, erase'.
After a few minutes, they pulled up to the Grill and filed into the town hang out place. As Caroline had predicted, the place was pretty busy. The group of three stood at the entrance for a moment before Matt, who was working the bar, motioned them over.
"Hey Stefan, Caroline, Elena." He greeted them as old friends, but Caroline noticed that he gave 'Elena' a funny look. He may not have known Elena very well, but even he could tell something was off.
Stefan ordered a drink and Matt walked off to fill the order.
Max turned to Caroline as soon as he was out of hearing distance. "Boyfriend?"
"How did you know that?" Caroline said, as threatening as she could be without actually showing any fangs.
Max shrugged. "It's not hard to tell. But you didn't say hi back. Why was that?"
Caroline thought back. "It's just a little hard sometimes. He doesn't know what I am. I don't want to hurt him." Caroline watched as Max pulled back, thinking through her answer. "Anyway," Caroline said, trying to lighten the mood. "I think it's time to teach you to feed without ripping someone's head off."
The two girls stood up. "Well, when you put it that way, it sounds like a blast." Max remarked sarcastically.
Caroline turned back to Stefan who was still sitting. "You coming?" She asked. Caroline could tell Stefan was hiding something. He didn't know that she had noticed his change in mood and general distance from her ever since Klaus's spell, but Caroline was determine to figure him out eventually.
He shook his head. "No, I think I just need a drink. The normal kind."
She nodded before turning back to Max. "Okay, so first step. Scan the crowd. Look for someone you think you can get alone."
The girls scanned the room. Max pointed to man who looked to be about 25, sitting alone. "Him." she said.
Caroline nodded. "Good choice. Okay, now you are going to get him alone. Lead him to the hallway in the back."
Max nodded again and walked over to the booth. Caroline watched from the counter as the man stood up and followed her around the back. Caroline followed after them a second later.
Max and the man were talking as Caroline walked up. Max turned to her, obviously nervous and her eyes pleading to be told what to do next. Caroline addressed Max as her conversation fell off with Caroline's approach. "Now. Look him in eyes. Tell him not to be afraid or scream." Max did as she was told and the man nodded.
Caroline was about to tell her this was when she was supposed to feed, but she didn't need to. Max's instincts kicked in. She was biting down on the man's neck in a flash. Caroline waited a moment to let Max get a decent amount, and then tapped the girl's shoulder. Max pulled back, running her arm across her face to get rid of the excess blood. "Now what?"
Caroline nodded to the man again. "Tell him to forget this ever happened." Max compelled him to forget and then the two girls let him in the hallway, a bit confused about how he had gotten there.
When they got back to the bar, Stefan was gone.
Jeremy slowly drifted back into consciousness. The first thing he noticed was the fact that he seemed to be sitting in a chair somewhere with his hands tied behind him.
The next thing he noticed was the pain. His neck where the crazy man had bitten him throbbed.
He opened his eyes to a sight that he never could have imagined. Bonnie Bennett, whom he know from around school, was sitting on the floor a few feet away from his chair encircled by candles and chanting. As if that sight wasn't enough, spotting the crazy man standing over her, watching intently, made Jeremy's stomach twist into a knot.
Jeremy remembered what the man had said about needing a witch for some type of seance. He had just decided that Bonnie must have just been playing along with their captor and his fantasies, when the flames jumped into the air, all in sync. He did his best attempt to jump back as far as he could into his chair and away from the flames.
Bonnie's chanting grew louder. Her eyes were closed and she had her arms outstretched. The candle flames seemed to listen to her commands, and soon burned down to almost nothing.
She opened her eyes. "It worked. What do you want me to ask her?"
The man replied without hesitation. "I want you to ask her why I can't make any more hybrids. I did everything right. Why didn't it work?"
Bonnie nodded and took a second to throw a quick glance in Jeremy's direction before she closed her eyes again in concentration. There was another silence as Bonnie tried to converse with the woman the man so desperately wanted answers from.
Finally she turned back to their captor, hatred in her eyes. She obviously wasn't happy about telling this guy whatever she was about to tell him. "She says the doppelganger is still alive. You failed to kill her for good and that's why you can't make any successful hybrids."
There was a moment as the man took in this information. He seemed to shake with rage. Then he snapped. He picked up the thing closest to him, which happened to be a lamp, and threw it against the wall with a yell of anger. The light shattered on impact, the glass shards of a broken lightbulb scattering across the floor.
"No!" The man wailed. His face changed from rage and pain to hatred and determination in an instant. "She will not thwart me even from her death. I will find a way around this." He headed towards the door.
"Wait, please." Bonnie said. She gestured to Jeremy. "If you're not going to let me go, you could at least set him free. He doesn't know anything about any of this stuff."
The man turned around to face Bonnie with an evil smirk. "It looks like I did a good job picking my motivator. If you're so desperate to have me set him free, all the more reason to keep him. Need you to be cooperative." He waved his hands around. "Anyways, he knows about all this stuff now."
Elena walked into the Salvatore's living room carrying a cup of freshly made coffee. Despite having borrowed her own home across town, Elena had been spending more time at the Salvatore's house then her own. With helping out Max, watching out of Stefan and Caroline, who were also still new vampires, and checking in with Lexi every once in a while for progress on the doppelganger mystery, Elena had all but moved in.
As she headed to take a seat in one of the comfy chairs, she noticed Damon was already sitting on one of the couches reading a newspaper, a glass of bourbon in his hand.
"Taking a break from baby sitting?" He asked, looking up from the paper.
She nodded. "I let Stefan and Caroline take her out last night. I think it will be good for her to get out."
"Yeah." He said, slowly nodding, probably without even realizing it. "How's Stefan doing anyway? Ever since he . . . turned, we haven't been as close."
Elena shrugged. "Honestly, I don't really know either." She paused, trying to decided just how honest she should be with her boyfriend's brother about their relationship, but finally decided she needed to get it off her chest. "We're still together, but he seems distant. He's constantly distracted. It's probably just the bloodlust and the fact that he's still new at all this, but . . ." she looked up at Damon. "I don't know, something doesn't feel right."
He didn't say anything for a while. "I wonder if I could talk to him. See if there is something on his mind." he finally suggested.
"No, forget it." Elena said, trying to brush it off. She didn't want to bother Stefan about her worries about them and she definitely didn't need Damon to talk to him about it. "It's probably just nothing."
"Elena." Damon said. She looked up into his eyes. "I don't want my brother to hurt you."
"Damon, you know he can't hurt me, even if he wanted to."
"Not that kind of hurt."
"Elena. We have a big problem." Caroline rushed in the front door behind Max just as the sun reached it. Max looked terrified, probably from almost being burnt alive.
Elena and Damon looked up from where they were sitting. The moment she spotted the two girls, Elena stood up and rushed over. "What is it Caroline? You almost got Max killed?"
"What?" Said Caroline before spotting the Elena comforting Max, whose skin had just healed from the journey there. "Oh, no, not that. A different, bigger problem."
Elena looked up, noticing the third presence that was missing. "Where's Stefan?"
Caroline bit her lip.
"Caroline. Where is Stefan?"
"That's the problem." Caroline said. "I don't know."
"Stefan!" Damon said from the living room. The three girls turned to see a perfectly safe Stefan coming down the stairs.
Caroline zipped over to him. "Where have you been?"
Stefan shrugged. "I just wasn't feeling well. So I came back home."
That didn't satisfy Caroline's anger thought. "Well. You could have told me where you were going. You just disappeared. I've been freaking out, looking for you everywhere!"
Stefan stepped around her to continue down the stairs. "Look. I'm sorry Caroline. I just didn't feel well is all."
Caroline huffed again but didn't say anything else. She wasn't going to get anything else out of Stefan.
"Well that was dramatic." The group turned to face the doorway, now that Elena and Max had made their way into the living room.
"Katherine?" Damon said. "What are you doing here?"
"Ugh. Not another one of me." Max groaned and stood up. "I've had enough of this for today. I'm heading upstairs."
Max made her way out as Katherine strutted her way to the front of the room. "I'm here, Damon, to join you." There was a silence as everyone tried to figure out what Katherine meant by what she had just said. "I'm going to join your little gang, Elena."
Elena stepped forward. "Katherine, what are you talking about?"
Elena's twin motioned to the people around the room. "You have gathered yourself a nice little group of friends, a few vampires, a few humans, even that hunter Alaric." She shrugged. "I want to join."
Elena squinted at her sister, hoping it would expose some type of ulterior motive. "Why?"
"Look, ever since I won my freedom from Klaus,"
"By handing over your own sister," Damon interjected.
"I have been looking for something to do," Katherine continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "and right now, joining your gang is in my best interest. You are both against Klaus, and actively trying to figure out what exactly is going on with that girl Max."
"Okay, fine." Elena said. "You're in."