2 Weeks Ago

It had been too long since I had last seen Lexi. About five years to be exact.

My name is Nadine Branson and Lexi is my big sister. I know what you're thinking, five years is a long time to not see your sister and not wonder where she is. Lexi and I had a bit of a falling out the last time we had been together. While we weren't quite normal sisters by any means, we still bickered like siblings do.

You see, I had told her I wanted to become a Police Officer. I wanted to use special gifts that I had to try and catch the bad guys. The ones who did really terrible things to people. But Lexi didn't think it was a good idea and she didn't support it. We were both pretty stubborn and I had stopped speaking to her, which when I thought about it now was quite petty. Although I think in her own way she was just trying to protect me.

A lot of the crimes committed here were by our own kind and Lexi didn't want to risk exposing us.

That's the other thing I probably should mention. I'm a vampire. And so is Lexi.

I was born over three hundred years ago. And yes, like all vampires I do drink blood.

But I don't consider myself a bad person. I don't feed on humans, and my sister and I got our blood from blood bags at the local hospital. I didn't steal from there, Lexi was a nurse and always took a bit more from a patient than was actually required, but not enough that they would notice or that would do them any long term damage. She'd gathered up a pretty big supply over the years, and after she had left, when I had finished our stock I had been on somewhat of a vegetarian diet since then, getting my blood from wild animals. Which actually bothered me more than the humans. I hated hunting.

We had to move around a lot too as we didn't age, so no one ever got suspicious. I had been living in San Francisco for the past three years, in one of the properties we had purchased years ago and came back to every fifty years or so. Enough time that most people had moved on or were old enough to think we were the grandchildren of those who had once lived here. We had a schedule of when we'd move, so I was sure Lexi would have known where to find me if she had wanted to.

This wasn't the first time Lexi had been away from home for a while. Lexi tended to go off and do her own thing, she loved to travel and always seemed to be off on some crazy adventure. Me, I preferred settling into somewhere for however long we had there, trying to build a life with a job and friends and occassionally a boyfriend, though knowing eventually that I would have to move on and start fresh somewhere new and would likely never see them again.

Anyway, another Christmas had just past, my 357th on this Earth, and I decided in the spirit of Christmas cheer that I was going to try and find my sister. 5 years doesn't seem like a very long time to a vampire anyway, considering we're immortal. I figured it would give her enough time to forget our argument and we'd just fall back into being best friends again.

I had no information on where Lexi had actually gone when she left that day five years ago. She hadn't taken much stuff with her, but Lexi seemed to have a great skill of being able to acquire things wherever she went. She had a few friends around the world that she had stayed with before, going everywhere from Europe to Asia to Australia, but I'd hoped that she might have been somewhere closer to home to prevent me having to travel too far. Though, I probably wouldn't have said no to a nice sunshine holiday in Australia.

Us vampires are supposed to hate the sun, but Lexi told me that when she turned she had met a woman who was a witch. This witch had made her a ring that allowed her to walk in daylight and the sunshine without bursting into flames. I got one too, when I turned.

One of my best friends these days was a witch. Her name was Scarlett, and we had met in college. On my ninth time of going through college. Well, to tell the truth I had kind of sought her out. See, Scarlett was a descendent of the witch who had made our daylight rings, and Lexi had once told me it was always beneficial to have a witch on your side. She was right. Their magic really did come in handy when I needed a little supernatural help with something. I trusted her, and Scarlett knew I was a vampire. So I had asked Scarlett to help me find my sister. I knew she would be able to do a locator spell to show me where she was. I took along a picture of Lexi and asked her to see if she could find anything. Scarlett had taken some of my blood and placed it onto a map, and worked her magic, literally. I watched as the blood danced along the map, before it pooled in the area of Mystic Falls, Virginia.

As soon as I saw it was Mystic Falls, I was almost certain I knew who Lexi was with.

Stefan Salvatore.

I knew Lexi considered Stefan to be her best friend, and she had helped him through many of his 'Ripper' situations. Stefan was another vampire, except when he went out of control he really went out of control, and it ended up with heads rolling. Many of them. Lexi had been away to Mystic Falls for a few days here and there before to celebrate birthdays with him and go to concerts or whatever, but she tended to be there longer when he needed help. When he had let his Ripper side get the better of him, or when he had turned his humanity off. To be honest, I don't know why she did it, spent so much time helping him. She had told me how his brother had once left her locked on a rooftop without her daylight ring, to die. They didn't seem like good people. Well, good vampires. I had only met Stefan twice before, once in 1965 when Lexi had him drying out in our basement, to try and get him to turn his humanity back on, and another time briefly when they had returned from a trip to Europe in 1993. I wasn't sure if Stefan would even be able to recognise me.

Anyway, I had Googled (I mean, it was as good an idea as any these days) 'Salvatore Mystic Falls' and I had found articles relating to an old Salvatore Boarding House that was situated there. It seemed as good a place to start as any. So after a plane journey and a long bus trip from the airport, that's where I had come.

I now stood outside the front door, hesitating on knocking. It was a large house, rather imposing. I had no idea if any of the Salvatore's actually lived here now or not. I wondered if this town even knew of vampires and all the other supernatural beings that existed along with humans. I had come straight here, so hadn't really had much time to explore the area.

I eventually knocked on the door, three times, hoping someone in this giant house would hear me.

It was only around ten seconds before someone did indeed answer. A girl, with long dark hair opened the door and smiled at me. "Can I help you?"

I could tell she was a vampire. I didn't have the urge to bite into her that I had to resist with humans, when I could smell their delicious blood running through their body. Every time someone got too close to me I'd have to will myself to calm down. The only time that didn't happen was around other vampires. They didn't have the same appealing scent. I cleared my throat and returned her smile. "Maybe. I'm looking for someone named Stefan Salvatore."

The girl defensively closed the door a little, as if trying to keep me from seeing inside. I assume she had sensed by now that I wasn't human either and she probably thought I was here for trouble. "He's not here at the moment. Can I take a message?"

"So he does live here?" I asked. Google really was a modern wonder. I thought I would have had to do a bit more digging to find him than pop a couple of names onto the internet.

"Well uh..." I knew the girl was trying to be wary before answering.

"Look, I'm not here to cause any trouble," I clarified, just looking to get an answer. "I'm just hoping that he can help me find my sister. Maybe she's here with him?" I tried peeking into the house, but she was doing a pretty good job of blocking the doorway. "Lexi? Lexi Branson?"

"Lexi?" the girl repeated. I could have sworn I seen her expression change to panic then she tried to compose herself again. She knew something. "Look... uh, I think you should talk to Stefan. If you leave me a phone number then I can get him to call you."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Look, if you know something, can you just tell me so I can find my sister?" I had a bad feeling Lexi had gotten herself into some sort of trouble.

I heard another female voice shouting from within the house at that moment. "Elena? Come on, we have to get to Whitmore before Kai pulls another one of his tricks. There's a doctor there who I want to speak to about helping my mo- oh, hello." I watched as a blonde girl appeared behind the girl I assumed to be Elena. Another vampire. Wow, not only did this town know about vampires, but it seemed they were certainly not rare here. "Who is this?" she asked Elena.

Elena looked between me and the blonde girl and opened the door a little further, maybe feeling less threatened now she wasn't alone. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"I'm Nadine."

"Nadine. I'm Elena, and this is Caroline," Elena gestured to the blonde girl next to her. "Maybe you should come in."

Caroline looked at Elena and frowned. She seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. And away from Kai, whoever that was. "Elena, we really have to get going soon. I called Stefan and he's going to meet us at Whitmore."

"Stefan?" I asked. He obviously wasn't in the house. "Look, I can see you're both busy, so if you could just tell me if you know where I can find my sister then I'll be on my way."

"Your sister?" Caroline asked.

"Her sister is Lexi," Elena said quietly.

Caroline stared at me, her mouth frozen open like she was going to say something but stopped. I realised then that they both knew Lexi and waited impatiently.

"So?"

"I shouldn't be the one to talk to you about your sister," Elena looked at Caroline for help. Caroline gave me a sad looking smile.

"I really think you should come inside."

I'd walked around this stupid town for hours. Crying.

Lexi was dead. Really dead this time. Elena and Caroline had told me how she had came to Mystic Falls around five years ago, probably just after I last seen her, to celebrate Stefan's birthday. Stefan's brother Damon had just come back to town and was causing mayhem, killing all of its residents. The people of the town were starting to get suspicious and he had murdered Lexi, fooling them into thinking she was the one causing trouble.

My innocent sister. He had staked her in the heart.

Elena had gone to call Stefan and asked him to come home to talk with me, but when she was out of the room I noticed pictures of her and Damon on the walls. I recognised him from pictures Lexi had shown to me. They were friends with him, the monster that he was. So when she was distracted, I had ran out of the house and away from them. I didn't want to speak to them, or Stefan.

I didn't want to speak to anyone.

My heart felt heavy in my chest. I was heartbroken, angry, dazed. Lexi was the last family member that I had. She was the only person that I was really close to. We had been together since I was born, not always liking each other but always loving each other.

And now she was just gone.

And she had been murdered for someone else's mistakes.

No one had thought to look for her family to tell them what had happened to her. It felt like they didn't care, and yet Stefan was supposed to be her best friend.

I was sitting on a bench in the park and realised I had nowhere to go. I had actually come to this town without a plan. I just thought I would find Lexi here and everything would be OK. I'd maybe hang around here for a couple of days and then we would go home. Just me and my sister.

It had started to rain about thirty minutes ago, but I had welcomed the water on my face, taking away some of the sting in my eyes, from the tears that just kept coming.

I'd have to stay in a hotel for the night before I could travel back home, it was too late to do anything now. But I decided I wanted to talk to Stefan once I had calmed down, I needed to know more about what happened to her. Where was her body? Had they given her a proper burial? Did they not care enough to try and contact anyone she might have known to let them know? And what about Damon Salvatore? Was he just happily living his life after what he had done? Did he feel bad about it at all? Well, if not then maybe I could stay and make him feel bad about it.

I noticed there were lights on in a building up ahead and read the sign. 'Mystic Grill'. It wasn't by any means ideal but it would do for now, a place to get out of the rain and try and gather my thoughts before making any moves.

I got up and started making my way towards it, my one bag of belongings I had brought with me still over my shoulder.

I opened the doors to Mystic Grill and looked around. The place was fairly empty, and the two bartenders were standing chatting behind the bar rather than serving anyone. There was a smell of food in the air, but I didn't find it appealing. I'd have to drink some animal blood soon to stop any cravings for biting into the necks of one of these people. I could just kill this whole place in an act of revenge and be gone, but that wouldn't really help anything and it wouldn't bring Lexi back.

I looked around for a bathroom and headed straight in there. The mirror showed exactly what I thought it would. My wet hair looking like I'd just fell into a lake, my mascara running down my cheeks and of course, my eyes red from crying. I took a breath and turned on the hot water tap, trying to clean up what I could. I had this really annoying thing I hated about myself that even though I was a vampire and I could go out there and easily tear someone's throat out, I still cared about what people thought of me, and I didn't want to go out there looking stupid.

Once I had cleaned the mascara off my cheeks and tied my hair into a ponytail, I took a piece of tissue and dabbed at my eyes before going back out into the bar area and taking a seat on one of the bar stools.

I picked up a menu, which was a little on the sticky side for my liking and stared at it blankly, just trying to get my mind to be quiet. I could feel the bartenders eyes on me as she kept glancing over. It was another five minutes before she actually decided to approach me.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked, looking between me and the menu in my hands. "Or do you need more time?" I could hear the sarcasm in her voice and I didn't like it. She was clearly thinking that she'd be kicking me out soon if I didn't spend any money here. By the state of me I probably looked like I was just in sheltering from the rain. The poor girl had caught me at a bad time and one wrong comment from her could end up being her death sentence.

I put the menu down. "I'll just have a water."

"We can only give water to paying customers," the girl replied matter of factly. It sounded like she was enjoying herself at least.

I decided she wasn't worth the hassle. "I'll just have some fries." I watched as she hurried off to the kitchen giggling with her coworker. I hated people who got a kick out of making fun of someone. I closed my eyes and fiddled with a napkin on the bar, trying to drown out the sounds of everyone's conversations, that I could hear clearly with my enhanced vampire hearing.

About five minutes later, the bartender appeared from the kitchen and placed down a small bowl of fries in front of me, along with two glasses. One was water and the other was filled with a brown liquid, if I had to guess I would have said some kind of whiskey.

"Enjoy," she smiled, but clearly not meaning it, and turned to leave.

"I didn't order that," I told her, though the smell of the alcohol was enticing.

"I know," the bartender replied, frowning. She gestured to a man who I hadn't realised was standing next to me. "He did."

He sat down on the bar stool next to me. "You look like you could use a proper drink, love."

Thanks for reading the first chapter! Just to clarify also, Damon is NOT the enemy in this story, but obviously Nadine isn't going to be happy with him at first for killing Lexi.