One

Twenty-five-year-old Elena Gilbert couldn't stop smiling from ear to ear. She couldn't believe it. She had done it. She had actually done. Even though everyone thought she was too delicate and doe eyed to become an FBI Agent she had graduated with flying colors. Elena even had a job already line up despite the fact that the rest of the recruits were barely filling out job applications. Elena on the other hand had already been hired by the FBI and had been set up with an actual FBI agent.

She was so excited that she practically peed her pants. She didn't know much about the senior FBI agent she was going to be working with. All she knew was that his name was Damon Salvatore and he was a thirty-two years old man and he had joined the FBI around the same age that Elena was now. Elena couldn't believe that she was actually going to have a mentor.

The graduation ceremony was taking place in a nice museum since the graduating class was so big. In all honesty, the whole ceremony was just a formality. All of the graduates' information and scores were kept in computers, stored away in case it served some kind of purpose later. Still the paper that Elena was holding in her hand still felt pretty sweet.

"Elena," her mother, Miranda Gilbert hugged her tightly. "I am so proud of you baby."

"Thank you, mom." Elena said as she hugged her mother. She had always been a Mommy's girl that was for sure. She knew that Miranda had been worried about Elena joining the FBI, but she had been nothing but supportive and for that Elena was glad.

"Pumpkin," Grayson was next. He hugged her tightly and Elena could practically feel how proud he was of her. Her dad, had probably been the one who had been the most disappointed with the fact that Elena had decided to join the FBI. Grayson was a doctor and he had, had his heart settled on one of his children following his footsteps and becoming a doctor.

Alas, that dream had not come true. Elena had decided to join the FBI and she would be moving to Washington soon starting her dream job and working at one of the most important offices in the country.

Her younger brother Jeremy had not gone to college and was currently serving as DJ in weddings and sweet sixteens in Mystic Falls while still living in their parent's basement. Elena was going to be with her parents for one week before she moved to Washington.

She was going to rent an apartment with her best friend Caroline Forbes. Both girls had gone to Mystic Falls High School. Though they had taken very different paths, Caroline was in her third year of law school at Georgetown Law School and Elena would be joining the FBI.

Miranda squeezed her shoulder. "We should get going, love otherwise we will be late. The drive back to Mystic Falls should take us no more than three hours. Are you ok with having dinner until then? Aunt Jenna and Jeremy are cooking a big celebration dinner."

Grayson rolled his eyes playfully. "If those two are cooking then I better come prepared. How about we stop for a couple of pizzas instead?"

Elena laughed. "You're terrible, daddy!"

Thousands of miles away, cramped in a tiny office FBI Agent Damon Salvatore was listening to CNN that was softly playing in the background. He was sipping coffee that had long since grown cold while at the same time looking over thousands of files in ridiculous tiny handwriting.

Even though Damon was only thirty-two years old, there was one or two gray hairs under his dark mass of hair on top of his head. Even though he had joined the FBI six years ago, he had quickly risen to the top as one of top agents for the FBI.

He had solved two of the most difficult cases since he joined. One had been the mysterious death of a man in 1958 and the other one had been the hacking of a world-famous bank. Both had made him the crème of la crème of the FBI, but fuck this job was damn stressful. If it hadn't been his passion and if he hadn't been committed Damon would have quit a damn time ago.

Damon was a smart guy and he was cocky about it. But he had a right to be cocky. After all, he had had more successes than failures. But for the life of him, he had no idea what to think when it came to this particular case.

When it first had come out it had been a regular homicidal case, nothing out of the ordinary. Surely something that the local police could take care off. A seventeen-year-old girl named Vicki Donovan had been found in a well her throat severed. Her killer couldn't be found, but they were looking into it. Then, exactly a week later another dead body had been found in the same town, this time buried underneath a haystack. When the third body had been found this time of a fourteen-year-old the FBI had been called.

Damon had been offered the lead in the case, but even this case left Damon stumped. The town of Mayfield with a population of 5,800 was small. Before this the biggest case was when someone ran over a deer. Now in the course of less than three weeks three murders had happened.

The problem was that there was very little information other than all three girls had died gruesome deaths and that the killer seemed to prefer brunettes. Other than, that they had zero information and just a lousy thumbprint that possibly belong to the killer themselves.

Damon had run the thumbprint over a server to double check that it didn't belong to someone who had already been in trouble with the law, but it hadn't served any good. Damon was still no closer to catching this psychopath.

There was a knock on the door and Agent Matt Donovan came in. "Damon it is three in the morning. You should go home. Your new intern will be here soon and they will be able to help you get to the bottom of the case."

Damon was at the height of his career that didn't require him to mentor any newbie interns, but he had taken the chance. He had been hoping that one of the intern could possibly help him pin point the location of the killer. He doubted it, but it was better than nothing. "Donovan, when does Agent Gilbert get here?" He had chosen someone under the name of E. Gilbert. He didn't bother finding out the person's first name, the comments under the name had describe the agent as "plucky" and "smart."

"Monday," Matt replied.

Damon nodded. "Good."

-End of Chapter One-

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