Elena sprints down a dark alley. Without warning her head is slammed against the brick wall. Dark nails break the skin of her face, drawing blood. Her feet are useless as he uses his own legs to trap them. Her attacker's eyes are crimson, glowing red and deadly. He swipes his tongue over her cheek, lapping up her blood. She gags as she watches him licks his lips and moan at her taste.
His teeth are unnaturally sharp, canines pointing and glistening in the moonlight. He breathes against her neck, his wet mouth trailing along the curve of her jaw. Her heart is throbbing in her ears, loud and irregular, but she barely hears it. Fear becomes a tangible, living force that creeps over her like some hungry beast, immobilizing her. That's when he reaches her throat. His fangs tease the surface of her skin, stopping on one particular spot, the place where her shoulder meets her neck. She squirms as his fangs prod at her skin; he's toying with her.
"You're going to be delicious," he taunts and pierces her flesh. He sucks in long gulps of her blood. She releases a high-pitched scream before her head limply droops to one side. And when he lets her go, she crumples to the pavement just as her heart beats its last.
Elena is lying in bed, lit by ambient light from a gape in the curtains. Masculine hands place a cold compress on her forehead. She groans and stirs.
"Dad? Is that you?"
"Ssshhh. Everything's going to be all right."
Elena opens her eyes. All she can see is a silhouette. "God, what a horrible nightmare! I dreamt that a vampire killed me."
She starts to sit up.
"Take it easy, now... you've been asleep for almost 4 hours."
"It was terrible; just petrifying."
"Well, you're safe and sound and in my hotel room," the man answers, turning on the bedside lamp.
"Oh my God. You...you're a..." Elena gasps and starts to skitter away but is forced to stop when her back bumps the headboard. "What are you?" her eyes dart around the hotel suite, looking for any avenue of escape.
"Would you calm down? I'm not going to hurt you."
"This has to be a dream; it's not possible. It can't be true," Elena stammers, unable to take her eyes off of him.
Damon pours some bourbon in a glass and hands it to her. "Drink it."
"No, I don't like bourbon," she refuses, absently taking the glass anyway. She stares at it for several seconds before emptying the pour in one gulp. "I shouldn't have come," Elena mumbles, sighing heavily.
Damon takes a moment to tip a little more bourbon into her glass. "Look, I know this is a shock...And everything you thought about the supernatural world is about to change...You're safe, you have my word."
"How can you be real?" Elena asks, scooting as far away from him as possible when he plops himself down on the bed.
"The world isn't black and white. Surely you know that? There are things that you have to understand."
"I'm going to ask you once more; did you have any part in the killings?" she asks, shifting to face him.
"I'm no saint, and yes, I have killed before..." he replies succinctly, throws back what's in his glass and pours himself another. "But this, these murders, I had nothing to do with."
"Why should I believe you?"
"I'm many things, Elena, but I'm not a liar," he answers firmly, locking eyes with her.
"Then what is your interest in them? Why are you always there?"
"The 1967 murders were-" he starts and rakes his hand through his hair. "My brother killed those people."
"Your brother? You think he's killing again?" Elena asks, and draws her lower lip between her teeth.
"It can't be my brother this time; he died in a horrific fire several years ago. My interest is in who's doing this now."
"And that's all?"
"Yes, my brother did enough to sully his own image. Some fraud doesn't need to make it worse, especially when Stefan is no longer here to defend himself."
"I'm sorry about your brother. Goodbyes hurt the most when the story wasn't finished," Elena says softly, tilting her head and smiling tightly.
"It was a long time ago, but I appreciate the sentiment."
Every muscle in her body screams at her to flee, but she remains still; trying to hide her fear. She fidgets with the glass, rolling it between her palms. When she meets his gaze again, she sucks in a breath and stiffens her posture. "Um, do you think someone is imitating him, trying to make you think it's your brother?" Elena asks, hoping to learn more.
"That's what I think. Stefan made enemies. He had a reputation and although I can't say with absolute certainty; I think most vampires are aware of his demise. Maybe someone's doing this to bring me here? I just don't have any answers."
"This is too much. I need to leave," she remarks, sets her glass down, and slides off the bed.
"Why don't you let me drive? You've been drinking."
"You better not try anything!" she snaps, her temper sparking.
"You were passed out and at my mercy for four hours; do you really think I'm going to try anything now that you're awake?" Damon asks, his eyes blazing with blue fire.
"I guess you have a point."
"Here," Damon offers, handing her bag to her. With his palm on the small of her back, he urges her into the elevator...
"I can take a cab," Elena suggests as they walk through the casino towards the exit.
"Nonsense, I'll drive you. Since I'll be out and about anyway, I might stop for a bite to eat," Damon remarks, while sweeping his arm over the crowd. "Plenty to choose from; there's Asian fusion, Mexican, and good old American comfort food."
"Seriously?" Elena remarks indignantly.
"Chill, I was kidding...well, maybe not," he jests, and runs his tongue along the tip of his canine tooth for effect.
"I must be losing my fucking mind! What if I don't want you to know where I live?" Elena asks, stopping in her tracks.
"Elena, how many times do I have to tell you? I'm not going to hurt you. Now let's go," Damon says, extending his arm. He's tempted to compel her, but he'll never earn her trust if he takes her agency away. Strangely enough- as frustrating as she can be- he finds himself wanting her to be able to trust him.
So, when she takes his arm with an exaggerated huff, he takes it for the concession it is, and he can't help but smile.
"Thank you for bringing me home," Elena says on a sigh, the full weight of everything she's learned tonight finally hitting her.
"I didn't want you to spend the night behind bars for driving intoxicated," Damon teases, as he walks her to the front door.
"We're not done talking," she replies firmly, twisting open the doorknob.
Starlight draws his eyes heaven-bound; they shine as sugar spilt over black marble, glistening in the sun. "It's a beautiful night," he observes.
"It is," she agrees, looking up before turning to say goodnight, allowing Damon to bend down and graze her cheek with his lips. His whisper-light touch sends shivers through her nerves, shivers that make her whole-body tremble.
What the hell is she doing?
"If you want me to stop, tell me now," he forewarns huskily. When she says nothing, he brushes his mouth against the hollow of her temple.
"Or now." He traces the line of her cheekbone.
"Or now." His lips hover above her mouth.
"Or—"
But she reaches up and pulls him down to her, and the rest of his words are lost against her mouth. He kisses her gently, carefully, but it isn't gentleness she wants, and she knots her fists in his shirt, pulling him harder against her. He groans softly, low in his throat, as his arms encircle her, gathering her against him, and they move over to the wall, tangled together, still kissing.
Several moments pass before Elena realizes what she's doing and removes herself from his embrace. "Um, I should get to sleep," she rattles off, pointing at the open door.
"Goodnight, Elena," Damon says in a low, seductive and velvety voice before hopping in his car and driving away.
In shock, Elena's fingers ghost her lips as she stares at his taillights til they're no longer visible.
The light turns on, and the effect is instantaneous. Elena pulls the comforter to her chin as she presses her back to the headboard. Her eyes sweep the room until they land on a still figure standing in front of her door next to the switch. Her lips tremble as she speaks.
"You shouldn't be here. Get out!" she screams, her voice getting shriller with each word until it's almost a squeak. She reaches for the phone, but he's too quick, snatching it from her and ripping the cord out of the wall. He grabs her arms and pins her wrists near her ears. As hard as she tries, her legs won't move.
"Stop fighting," he growls and begins to trail kisses up and down her neck.
She tries to push him away with as much strength as she can summon.
He wraps one arm around her waist as he pulls her closer. The other hand raises up to the back of her neck, gently grabbing and pulling on her hair until it's bared to his eyes. She watches as he looks at her face again, no doubt finding her terror-filled eyes, tear-stained cheeks and her light pink lips parted as adrenaline, fear, and terror cause her to breathe heavily. After a smug smirk, he lowers his face to her neck.
She continues to squirm and try to get away, but he has a grip of steel. Suddenly he's sucking on her skin, ignoring the pained whimpers that escape her mouth. He bites down hard, hard enough for his fangs to pierce her skin. His other hand covers her mouth, stopping her as he drinks her life force.
She tries to scream but cannot. Her fingernails are piercing his flesh as she tries to free herself. Her pulse begins to slow, the space between each heartbeat beat growing longer and longer until finally they stop.
Elena jolts awake, her palm flies to her chest in a futile attempt to calm her stammering heart. Her bedding is a mess; half the covers are on the floor, the other half are twisted around her legs, effectively trapping her. No wonder it felt like she couldn't move.
As soon as she can suck in a deep breath, Elena hops out of bed and pads into the kitchen. Pulling a large bottle of water out of the fridge, she chugs a mouthful and takes it back to her room.
It can't be true; can it? What Damon is? It means that everything she's ever known about creatures that roam the night is wrong. If vampires are real, does that mean other legendary monsters are, too? Are werewolves real, as well? What about ghosts or poltergeists? Wendigos? Gosh! Bigfoot might not be a big myth after all! And the bigger question is, if they are real, how is it that everyone still believes them to be the stuff of legends and scary movies?
Knowing she won't get back to sleep, Elena takes another healthy chug from the bottle and pads to her home office.
"When med student Mike Farrar married Debora Green, she was a slender divorcee and a physician about to begin her practice. She was, by all accounts, brilliant and witty, with a love of tooling around in her bright red sports car. There were precious few things she was denied growing up; perhaps that is why she behaved so outrageously when anyone crossed her?
"I think it was all those things that attracted me," Farrar admitted later. He was put off, though, by two traits. "She was very volatile, and she felt threatened by my family's closeness," he recalled. She described her own family as "very cold". Despite his hesitancy, he married her in 1979.
Today, Debora Green is in prison. She did the unspeakable: set fire to her home with her three children inside. The burn pattern found by investigators suggested that the children's likeliest escape route was heavily doused with an accelerant. Tim, 13, and Kelly, 7, were killed, and there's reason to believe that Green attempted to thwart the escape of Lissa, 11, who miraculously managed to get out almost unscathed. Debora Green pleaded "no contest" to charges of arson, two counts of murder, and two counts of attempted murder.
One of the murder attempts had nothing to do with the 1995 fire. The ricin-spiked meals that Green fed to her husband and their catastrophic after-effects fall into another category. "This attempt at murder was deliberate, premediated, and prolonged. 'A plan, it was said, designed by a monstrously cruel woman...Debora truly wanted Mike to die in agony', Unquote."
Elena pauses to yawn.
Perhaps this is why Green, from her prison cell, attempted to pin the rap for the poisoning on her dead son, Tim. Just as despicably, in the pretrial hearing, her defense attorney brought in witnesses to show that the boy, and not his mother, had set the fire.
The most damning evidence was a videotape of Green investigators made when initially questioning her. Less than four hours after the fatal blaze, she 'seemed entirely comfortable wearing only a nightgown, talking with two men she had just met, after a fire had destroyed her home and taken the lives of two of her children. Although she had not learned of Tim and Kelly's fate- and, shockingly, had not even asked about them- she referred to them in the past tense; "'As I went around the corner to inform the neighbors to call 911, that's when I heard Tim on the intercom by the pool deck- he used to be my 13-year-old.'"
Debora Green, now 70, attempted to have her sentence reviewed back in 2015. She maintained that contemporary Kansas and U.S. Supreme Court cases have established that factors used to enhance some sentences, such as the Hard 40 term she received, must be determined by a jury and not a judge.
District Court Judge Brenda Cameron reviewed the transcripts from the plea and sentencing hearings and found that the process had been explained repeatedly in court and acknowledged by Green and her attorneys. She still sits in prison at this time."
"I'm doing a murder game giveaway. Go to my website and enter your name. I hope to have more information on the Vegas killer on the next podcast. I'm Elena Gilbert and this is "Someone Knows Something."
Glancing at the clock, she notices it's only 3 am. Stifling a yawn, she twists the lid on her water bottle, and puts it back in the fridge. Raking her fingers through her hair, she stares absently for a few moments before padding to the bathroom. Hoping a hot, bubble bath will her relax her enough to get a few hours of sleep, she turns on the spigots.
Crawling into bed afterward, her mind still won't shut off, not after her encounter with Damon today. His kisses steal the breath right out of her lungs. Begrudgingly, she admits to herself that she likes it... This is the same man who freely divulged that he's killed people. He's a monster, right?
A monster with lips like a God...
That's the last thought on her mind before she succumbs to her fatigue and drifts off to sleep.
Thank you all, you're the best.
Huge thanks to Eva and to Morgan, check out their stories. Morgan has 'Quarantine Olympics' and a Buffy story in progress. Eva has 'Christmas Carol'.
Chapter title: 'Crazy World' by The Scorpions.
Ricin is a highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant. No antidote exists for the poison, which can kill a person within 36 to 72 hours of exposure, according to the CDC. It is unlikely to be absorbed through the skin, but it can be deadly when ingested or inhaled.
Hard 40: Prison term given for capital offenses instead of the death penalty. It is forty years without the possibility of parole.
Are you reading 'Redemption' by Adaud? It's her version of DE's life post series finale and it's very, very good.
Have a wonderful day. Until next time when a familiar figure shows up in Las Vegas...