A brooding silence had overtaken the camaro and its three passengers. Sitting in the back seat, Lexie glanced back and forth between the brothers in front wishing there was some way to comfort them for they were each lost in their own downward spiral of worry.
Stefan stared blankly out the passenger window. He kicked himself for not at least seeing Elena to her car the night before if not all the way. But the confrontation with Katherine and the bombshell of Lexie and Damon's liaison had thrown him off his game. And since he and Elena were still broken up, it wasn't his place to hover over her. Then this morning Jeremy and Ana had caught up with him at school and reprimanded him about having to fudge a cover story about Elena not being home all night. Luckily Jenna's pain meds had clouded her sensibilities and she accepted the load of bull she was offered.
Stefan had hurriedly explained that Elena had not been with him as they snagged Bonnie from home room and headed first to the Lockwood Estate. Sure enough, Elena's car was still there.
Damon and Lexie were back at the boarding house discussing Tyler's accident. Caroline had stopped in before school and filled them in on the details. They warned fledgling vampire to be careful around Tyler since he could potentially kill her if the legends were true. The younger blonde agreed but didn't look to happy about it.
When Stefan and the others arrived, Bonnie asked for a map of the state. She could use Jeremy's blood the same way Grams had used her own to locate Bonnie when she and Elena were kidnapped by Ana and Ben. While Ana looked impressed now that she understood how Damon was able to get to the girls though she'd been careful about hiding them, Jeremy gave her a perturbed look. Damon pulled a map from the desk drawer and handed it to Bonnie although he avoided eye contact with her.
During the location spell, Bonnie's nose began to bleed. She wiped it away quickly but not before it was noticed by the four vampires in the room.
Once a general location was determined, Damon asked Ana to remain with Jeremy and Bonnie in case something happened. The youngest Gilbert turned on his laptop and began searching Google for a suitable dwelling within the search area.
Damon gripped the steering wheel tighter. The baby witch was pushing her abilities too far too fast. The spell today on top off the one she and Sheila did last night. He knew that since the older Bennett's trip to the hospital, Bonnie had been taking the lead on spells. Since her own mother had passed on, Sheila had no practice at sharing the magical load so to speak which meant Bonnie wasn't learning that skill either. Thus each of them was giving more than they could spare and the recurring nose bleeds were just the beginning . Did she really think it would go unnoticed? And given the puffiness around her eyes as of late, he guessed that she was sleeping about as much as he was. Magic without rest, was dangerous.
Shaking the morbid thoughts from his head, Damon requested a blood bag from the cooler on the back seat next to Lexie.
"I'll have one too please," Stefan straightened in his seat.
"Since when?" Damon took his eyes off the road to stare at his brother.
Taking the proffered bag from his best friend, "I've been working up to it."
"Does Elena know about this?" Damon took a pull on his own snack.
"Who do you think got me started?" Stefan grinned and turned his head to watch the scenery as he drank.
Damon caught a wink from Lexie as he looked back at her for confirmation. "Well wonders never cease." He was still happy that the older vampire was here. "It's a safe bet that whoever took Elena did it because of her resemblance to Katherine. They're probably older than any of us." He shot another glance at the woman in the back. "This doesn't bode well for our success."
"If there's a chance to get Elena out safe, I can't think of a better reason to die." Stefan looked at his brother. He was saddened that Damon might given his life today and it was for a girl that loved another. He sent a silent prayer to the Universe that they'd all make it out of this and that Bonnie would have a change of heart.
They all jumped when Stefan's phone rang. Jeremy found a likely candidate for where Elena was being held.
Back in Mystic Falls, Jeremy conveyed the directions of the house he found online. "Stefan says they should reach the house within the hour." he told the two ladies waiting with him as he disconnected the call. "I guess that's all we can do for now. But I feel so helpless. She's my sister, I should have gone with them."
"Elena will be fine. She's pretty resilient. " Ana tried to comfort the boy.
"Maybe there is something else we can do." Bonnie looked up from the grimoire she was reading. "One of you go up to Stefan's room. I'm sure Elena left a hair brush in his bathroom."
After a quizzical look, Ana sped upstairs and retrieved the item. When she returned, Jeremy was setting up candles and Bonnie scrawled a brief note onto a scrap of paper. Once she lit the candles, Bonnie crumpled the note into a ball and held it over a flame. After chanting quietly, she opened her hand to show that the paper was gone. Still smiling at her audience, the witch passed out. Ana caught the girl as the candles extinguished themselves.
"What the hell?" Jeremy helped Ana carry Bonnie to the couch.
"Too much magic." Ana explained. "She needs to rest."
The house Jeremy described was old. It probably had not been inhabited for at least fifty years. It was decided that as the oldest and therefore fastest, Lexie would do the first pass through and hopefully disorient Elena's captors if not take one or two of them out of the game.
On her pass, Lexie determined the well dressed man was the biggest threat but she was unable to get a clean shot at his chest. Instead the stake she's been carrying was now in the hands of her intended victim.
A second pass along with the Salvatores placed Elena in Stefan's protective arms as Damon and Lexie pinned a struggling red head. Damon watched as Lexie's eyes widened as if she recognized the strange vampire. "You?" she whispered.
The red head obviously recognized the Lexie as well and she stopped struggling.
The vampire still at the base of the grand stairwell was fashioning a wooden spear from a forgotten piece of decor as he demanded the return of the doppelganger.
Elena stepped into sight asking only that her friends be left alone. However, she tossed a homemade vervain grenade at the vampire her captors had called Elijah. As the vampire coughed, Stefan rushed forward shooting the stake launcher Alaric had loaned them last night. Sadly, Elijah easily deflected the stakes before tossing the weaker vampire to the side.
In the struggle, Damon was able to get to the makeshift spear and after getting GQ vampire's attention, he successfully impaled his opponent and pinned him to the door.
Lexie was holding Elena's remaining captor but as Rose was older than the blonde, she was able to shake free and made a run for it. Lexie would have given chase if Elena had not said to let her go.
From the shelter of Stefan's embrace, the human looked over his shoulder and mouthed her thanks to her other rescuers. Damon nodded and then turned to look around the house. He almost stepped on it but there was Elena's vervain necklace. Picking it up gingerly, he was surprised that the clasp was intact. Still dangling it by the chain, he gave a whistle to attract the attention of the snuggling couple.
"Look what I found." He handed it to Stefan so that it could be placed back around the girl's neck.
"He," Elena jerked her head toward the graying vampire corpse "he compelled me to tell him where the moonstone was."
"I doubt that knowledge will do him any good." Damon quipped.
"What about Rose?" Elena looked nervous. "She said I had to die."
"Rose shouldn't be a problem." Lexie concluded.
"You know her? Stefan asked.
"We met at a bar a couple decades ago." Lexie answered. "She was very nervous and bit twitchy like she was afraid of something or someone." She looked at the body stuck to the door.
"That would be him. Rose called him Elijah. Her friend Trevor," Elena pointed out the headless body. "he helped Katherine escape Elijah and so they've been running for nearly five hundred years."
"All very fascinating, but can I recommend that we get the hell out of here?" Damon started to usher the gang back to the car.
After finally getting Elena home and snuck into her room so that she could change out of her bloody clothing, Ana pulled Damon to the side, needing to talk. Lexie advised that she and his brother would go for a run home, so Damon and Ana took a quick drive.
"Your witch is safely sleeping in her own bed." Ana spoke as they drove.
"She's no longer my witch." he replied brusquely.
"Be that as it may, she's far from sound."
"What do you mean?"
Ana explained how Bonnie had collapsed right after sending a covert message to Elena. "You need to warn her of the dangers of what she's doing or get her grandmother to do it."
"I doubt it will do any good, but I'll try." Damon shrugged wryly. "My word no longer holds any clout."
Damon returned home after dropping Ana off at the Gilberts' where she would climb in through Jeremy's window. Someone was in the house with Lexie and Stefan. When the blurring figure finally stopped, the vampire identified as Rose stood before them. She looked at Stefan before addressing Lexie. "You were right, he is one of the good ones."
"They both are," Lexie smiled at Damon though the brightness faded as she detected that he was far from happy.
"Later," he mouthed back to her.
"You haven't stopped him, you know. He's an original." Rose interrupted them.