BELLA SALVATORE was many things. She was a murderer, a cold-blooded and sadistic one. A selfish, vindictive, deceitful, and manipulative person. For over a century she had done many horrible things to survive, betraying those who believed in her, torturing many poor souls for reasons that she saw fit in the moment. There weren't many morals or ethical lines left that she hadn't crossed for her own sake. Even worse, she did all of it with full awareness and conscience. And not a day she spent regretting her actions.

However, when it came to people she cared about, the rules were somehow different. There were a lot of lines she always tried not to cross, and cheating was one of that.

Her relationship with Jeremy started right before he left to Denver. It was very unexpected, to say the least. Because aside from Jeremy had been compelled to leave, Bella also gave up again. She started avoiding him again. She didn't even intend to say goodbye to him on his last day in town. But she didn't do that because she was mad at him. She did that because she thought it was the best for them.

And just like before, Jeremy showed his reluctance to give up. Damon had compelled him to leave Mystic Falls behind and never think twice about it, but that day, instead of just doing so, he came all the way to her house and postponed his departure. He said he didn't want to leave before seeing her one more time, and he also asked why she had been avoiding him. And like usual, she tried to push him away by acting like a cold-hearted bitch.

But apparently, their kiss had made him see right through her. He didn't just buy her act. Instead he asked her to give him a chance, to give them a chance. He even tried to convince her that they could make it work. But she wasn't the who should be convinced. Because it wasn't her who would be at a loss if things didn't work out.

She was a vampire, time was nothing to her. Unlike him whose life time was much less. She tried to tell him that he shouldn't waste his time with her and instead should try to find another girl who really deserved his time. But he disagreed with that. For him, she was worth it, she was more than worthy of his time. And with that, she found the stonewall she had built to protect her heart slowly began to crumble. And in the end, his persistence won her over.

For what it seemed to be a really busyㅡmore for Bella, with all the plotting against Klausㅡweek, they really tried to make things work between them. Communication and trust were the keys to make their relationship work, so they tried their best to keep those two things between them. It was not easy, but everything worked out just fine between them because they were both trying. And it left Bella no reason to doubt her decision to try things out with Jeremy.

But that was, until, Kol came into the view.

She didn't know how it was possible, that even after 145 years, even after what he did to her, even after what he put her through, Kol still had a strong grip on her heart. It was as if the time they had spent being away from each other had never happened and that he still owned her heart like he used to. Every time she saw him, she felt like she just wanted to melt into him.

If this was the old her, the naive and weak version of her, she would have came running back to him by now. But no, she wasn't that girl anymore. And she had no intention to be that girl anymore.

Everything with Kol was always much more complicated. Jeremy wasn't the only reason why she couldn't be with him even though she knew her heart still belonged to him. He himself was the main reason why.

Some people might think that she was just being dramatic because 145 years had passed and she still hadn't gotten over the fact that he turned her into a vampire. Some other might think that she was being too cruel to the guy she loved by not forgiving him for that one mistake. But it wasn't all the case.

It was one thing to get over the fact that she was a vampire now. It was one thing to forgive him. But it was another thing to trust him again.

She trusted him once. She trusted him with her whole life, with all her heart. She trusted him too much. She knew what kind of monster he was, and yet she still believed he would never hurt her because he said he loved her. She believed in him too much. She loved him too much. And all that too much broke her so much.

Painful.

It was still painful to just remember how it felt. She didn't have any place to go back then. She couldn't go back to her uncle and aunt, nor go to her brothers, because that were exactly where he would look for her as soon as he reliazed she was gone. She was all alone, and she was barely an adult. She was not ready to face the world, not without anyone by her side. But coming back to him wasn't an option, not after what he did.

To say that situation scared the shit out of her was an understatement. She never felt more lost than that. The pain and heartbreak also didn't want to go away. And to make things even worse, she had to deal with her new natures as a vampire; the craving for blood and the hightened emotions.

It took her several decades to finally pull herself together again. And now she was in good shape, stronger and smarter than ever, there was no way she would ever want to repeat the same mistake by trusting him again. There was no way she would let her feelings take over her logic and lead her to another heartbreak and dire situation. Not even a donkey fell in the same hole twice.

"Oh, good," Rebekah exclaimed from one of the couch. Her tone was filled with excitement and it knocked Bella out of her reverie. "Someone's finally awake."

They were in the study room at Bella's house at the moment. And right there, in front of the fireplace, the Salvatore brothers were chained to chairs that were placed back to back. After a few while of waiting, as Rebekah had just pointed out, a soft moan escaped the older brother's lips, and his blue eyes slowly began to open.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" It was the first words to come out from Damon's mouth, as he tried to break free, he failed. His eyes widened as he saw his sister picked up a knife that had been prepared on the table and stepped casually in front of him. "Not funny, Bell," he grunted, "not funny."

"That's weird, I don't remember trying to be funny," Bella mocked, her hazel eyes looking down on him. Her hand was flipping the knife blade over the palm of her other hand menacingly. "Just that trying to teach my brothers a very valuable lesson."

Damon groaned, looking despair and defeated. And his voice merged with Stefan's when the younger boy finally woke up.

"Bella, what is this?" asked the middle Salvatore, looking down at the chains restricting the movement of his body with confusion all over his face. Just like his big brother, he tried to break free, but also failed miserably.

With a voice that was made to sound as sweet as possible, the younger girl answered, "Exactly what you think it is, brother."

"See, Stef?" Damon turned his head, trying to look over at where Stefan's voice had just heard, but he couldn't because the back of the chair he was on was too high. "I told you our sister has psycho tendencies."

"Thank you for finally acknowledging it," Bella exclaimed lightly, she looked like a happy predator with upturned lips, waiting for the right moment to deliver the killing strike. "Now, shall we get started?" With that, she took a step closer and stabbed the knife into Damon's chest. She did it slowly, her smile turned into a devilish smirk as she pressed the knife deeper, and his groan of pain rang through the room.

Unable to thrust the knife any deeper, she went to the fireplace. There was a poker below it, and half of the poker was still in flames. She bent down to pick it poker up, then walked over to her other brother who was staring at her in horror, in which she gave him a bright smile.

"Tough love, brother," she muttered to him, before sticking the poker into his chest. Again, she did it slowly, without breaking eye contact with him. It was almost like a habit for her to look into her victims' eyes as her ears savored their screams of pain.

"This is one of the reasons why you are my favorite Salvatore," Rebekah remarked, she was holding her phone in front of her face, recording them.

Bella frowned as she turned to her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Rebekah replied, putting down her phone after clicking some buttons on it. A teasing smile was on her lips as she shifted her attention to the other blonde. "Just thought that someone might want to see this too."

Bella rolled her eyes. She didn't need to be told who that someone Rebekah was talking about.

Between his groan of pain, Stefan spoke up, "Bella, we had to do that."

This made Bella immediately shift her attention back to him. "Because your doppelganger's life was at stake?" she responded, eyes narrowed sharply at him. Bending down, she deliberately pressed the hot poker deeper, causing his groan of pain to grow louder. "Let me let you in on a secret; I don't give a shit about her."

"We didn't do it just for her," Damon suddenly blurted out. "We did it for you too."

Bella stopped, but didn't pull out the hot poker from his chest, just like she didn't pull out the knife from Damon's chest. Her eyebrow furrowed, and she straightened herself up. "For me?"

"You really think we're just gonna let you be around that psychotic original so you can protect us?" Damon spoke up, explaining his previous statement. "You're our little sister, Bella. It's our job to protect you, not the other way around. And we weren't just gonna let your feelings for him get in the way of it, so yeah, we had to do that. Not just to save Elena's life, but also to protect you from him."

It was either her who was not used to having other people protecting her or that their concern to her was actually unnecessary. Either way, she found their attempt even more annoying than before.

She looked over at Rebekah to check her reaction, since it wasn't just her brother that he was talking about, but also the murder attempt to her family, and she found Rebekah staring flatly at Damon with jaw and fist clenched.

Sighing, she pulled the knife and the hot poker out of her brothers' chest and rotated their two chairs to face the same direction so that she could see them both at the same time.

"Well, here's the thing, dear brothers; I've been protecting myself for a long time and I'm doing that just fine," she began, standing right in front of them with her arms folded across her chest. "And you want to know why I haven't really tried to kill Elena even thought I've been dying to do that?" Her eyes narrowed as she stared alternately at them. "Because you both love her, and I love you. I know what it feels like to lose someone you love, and I don't want to make you go through that."

Damon and Stefan seemed unable to bring themselves to say anything at that moment. There was a sense of guilt on their faces, and while Stefan also couldn't bring himself to look at his sister, Damon looked at her as if he was studying her.

"But if you keep doing something like that, if you keep pushing my buttons, I'm gonna forget that you two are my brothers and just do what I've always wanted to do," she went on, her voice turned a little bit darker as well as her gaze. "I'm gonna tear Elena limb from limb, then heal her just so I can do it over and over again." A sinister smile appeared on her face. "And I'll make sure you two watch every single pain I give her, until her last breath."

Then, she took a step closer to them and pushed the back of their chairs, causing them falling onto the floor backwards. Ignoring their calls to her, Bella started walking away, followed by Rebekah, and as they walked side by side, a matching smirk appeared on their faces.

"I don't know you have it in you," the Mikaelson girl commented as the two of them stepped their feet out of the house. The sun shone bright and fair, and the morning was without a cloud. "Don't take it the wrong way, because I'm not judging you or anything, but you don't strike me as someone who would do such a thing to your own brothers."

"They may be my brothers, but I'm not just gonna give them a free pass," the other blonde responded, shoving her hands into her pocket. The breath escaped her lungs in a little deep sigh. "Otherwise they wouldn't even think twice to do something like that again."

"I like your thinking." Rebekah smiled graciously at her. But the smile slowly replaced with a sense of nervousness as she spoke again, "And, uh, it kinda makes me wonder about your other relatives. Were they more like you or your brothers? I've heard a few things about them, like how they tore down half the woods to build this town."

Bella immediately stopped walking, causing Rebekah to stop as well. That was the second time Rebekah asking about her relatives, the first time was last night but she asked it to Damon. Her hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously as she turned to face her. "You know what? I'm just gonna be blunt about this. I found your sudden interest in my family really weird."

Rebekah let out a dry chuckle. "I'm just curious. I mean, you knew a lot about my family, was that wrong if I want to know about yours too?" Not finding any change of expression on Bella's face, she rolled her eyes. "Just forget about it. I understand if you don't really want to talk about them." Pretending to check her wristwatch, she quickly added, "I'll see you later." After waving her a goodbye, Rebekah started walking away.

However, suspicion still did not leave Bella's face as she stared at Rebekah's back who was moving further away. Bella knew a liar when she saw one. And Rebekah wasn't even a good liar.

It looked like no one could be trusted. Everyone was hiding something from her. And there was nothing worse for Bella than being kept in the dark.

But of course, Bella wouldn't just sit back and watch people screw things up. There was no better time for her other grand scheme than right there at that moment.

ALMOST A WEEK HAD PASSED since Kol set foot at Denver. Not only had he done what his brother asked him to; keeping a close eye on Elena's brother, but he had also done something else, something that he felt necessary, not only for the sake of leverage, but also for his personal business. After all it was a great chance to kill two birds with one stone.

He had been pretending to be Jeremy's friend.

Good thing Jeremy had never met him before. It got the Gilbert boy unaware of who he really was, leading to a fake friendship between them that was all a ploy by Kol to find out more about him and his relationship with Bella.

However, the hardest part of his ploy wasn't befriending him since Jeremy was basically lonely and desprate for a friend, so needless to say, it was easy to manipulate him. The hard part was to resist the urge to kill the youngest Gilbert with the knowledge of him as Bella's new boyfriend hanging around in his head. But Kol had no choice but to control himself. Jeremy's life was worth a lot right now. If he killed him, he would only screw things up.

They were playing video games in the sitting room of the house of the family the Gilbert boy was staying with when suddenly, Jeremy's phone buzzed. And after glancing over his phone screen, Jeremy was starting to lose his focus from the game.

It didn't go unnoticed by Kol as their team started losing, and as his brown eyes accidentally caught Bella's name on the phone screen, he murmured, "Let me guess, your girlfriend?"

Jeremy quickly paused the game, and his face cringed up when he turned to him. "Yeah, sorry, man." Grabbing the phone, he went to the next room.

But it really didn't matter where he recieved the call. Because Kol could easily hear their conversation from where he was now sitting.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Kol's heart suddenly beat faster as his ears caught her voice from the other line. God, he really missed her. And it hadn't even a week since the last time he saw her.

"I'm sorry for not picking up the phone earlier. I've been busy."

"It's okay. I just, uh, miss your voice."

His brown eyes narrowed sharply at Jeremy's words, and he looked over at the room where Jeremy went.

"Yeah, well, what can I say? My voice is awesome."

A slow smile worked its way across Kol's face and into his eyes. Well, she wasn't wrong. Her voice was indeed amazing, and it was the only voice he always wanted to hear since he knew her.

"Oh, you." Jeremy's laugh was heard. "Is there any chance I could make you say 'I miss you too'?"

"Maybe if you got me drunk enough."

His smile broadened. Bella's smart mouth never ceased to amaze him.

"But if I remembered correctly, the drunk you wereㅡ"

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there."

Now he was curious about the drunk Bella they were talking about. When he and Bella were together back then, she didn't dare to drink because she was still underage. And clearly, it was changed now. He hadn't had time to see her drunk, or see the other new side of her, but he was really looking forward to it.

Jeremy and Bella talked some more, and Kol was wondering why he kept listening. He knew Bella well enough to know when she lied and when she was being sincere. And as much as he didn't want to admit, Bella was being sincere to Jeremy. She did care about Jeremy. And it might not in the same way she used to care about him, but still, the fact bothered him so much.

"I really can't wait to see you again."

"I can't wait to see you too."

Without realizing it, his grip at the game controller tightened as their conversation continued.

"You have no idea how much I wish I could just ditch all my classes and go back to Mystic Falls to see you. But I don't know why I feel like I couldn't."

Jeremy sounded really confused as he said the last sentence and Kol quietly laughed mockingly at him.

"I knew you couldn't. But that's okay. We'll find another way to meet again."

"I love you."

And the game controller in his hand was crushed due to his strong grip.

"Take care of yourself, Jer."

Even though she didn't say the three words back, Kol still felt like he was about to burst from rage. Anger rolled through him. Fury roared through his mind. And the next second, he flashed himself to the room where the Gilbert boy was.

Jeremy was about to come back to the sitting room when Kol suddenly appeared in front of him and blocked his way. Confusion enveloped his face, and he opened his mouth to ask, but before any words left his mouth, Kol had looked into his eyes with dilated pupils and murmured, "You will not remember any of this." Then, Kol grabbed the back of his head and brutally slammed it against the wall, causing him to fall unconscious.

The original vampire knelt down next to Jeremy's unconscious body. "I used to hate the fact that you have a magic ring that could bring you back to life, but hey, at least that means I can kill you over and over again." He smiled broadly at him, a shallow smile with deep piercing eyes and evil mind.

"This is going to be fun."

A/n: Who agrees with me that Bella and Kol deserve to win Psychotic Couple of The Year? xD