Chapter 4: I wasn't planning to die… Again.

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"You're sure you want to do it now?" Caroline said, for the tenth time in less than twenty minutes.

"You know I have to do it tonight, it's probably the only opportunity we will have before a long time," I replied, pulling my car in a spot in front of the hospital.

"I know but… I can call Elena and tell her I can't come because you're sick or something…"

I sighed but I knew she was just worried for me, after all, I was going to sneak into a secret organization's HQ, to free a vampire who had been tortured and starved for a long time. He could totally eat me in half a second.

"Look, Care, don't worry about me, okay? I'll be fine. You know Elena needs you, she is avoiding everyone since her parents' death, and if she asked you to be there it's because she really needs a friend."

"Yeah, I know… You're right," she said, leaning the back of her head against her seat and sighed. Finally, she turned toward me, "you're still planning to steal it from here?"

I decided to ignore her worried tone. "Hell yes, this is going to be fun."

She chuckled, "promise me to be prudent, Claire, please."

"I will be prudent, Care, I promise."


That's funny how, in my first life, the most illegal and dangerous thing I ever did was when Ann provided a fake ID, and we used them to enter some clubs. And now that I was the daughter of a fucking Sheriff, I found myself in some big, dangerous, and illegal business every Monday.

Like opening a grave, in the middle of the night, to kill a thousand years old vampire. Or breaking into a hospital to steal blood bags.

I wasn't reckless to the point of releasing a starving vampire without food elsewhere than in my veins, thank you very much.

It didn't take me very long to find the place where the blood was stocked, I came yesterday to search for it and see where the cameras were located. I was prepared.

Finding a badge that I could discreetly steal and use to open it was something else.

Honestly, I kind of expected it to just be there, on the first desk I came across, like in every movie ever. I sort of lived in a TV show, no? But it wasn't as easy, unfortunately. I had to 'accidentally' bump into four nurses before I could finally grab their freaking card.

A quick research google that morning, and I knew that the most common blood types were O and A positive. Of the two, the A-type was the one with less compatibility with other types and I chose to steal only from that type.

I knew that the blood was still needed, really, but I didn't care that much. It was a dozen blood bags or my life. I was kind of egotistical when it came to that and I wasn't planning to die… Again.

It took me considerably less time to come back to my car, with the blood secured in my bag, than what I had needed to steal the badge.


I parked my car at a five minutes walking distance from the Whitmore House, in a tentative way to hide it a little.

The door of the house was surprisingly unlocked. Was it normal? Was it safe to continue with my plan?

Shaking my head, I opened the door.

Sorry, Care.

That was where the problem came… How did I find those secret labs, now?

Nevermind. That was easy, finally. They were behind the only closed door. Finally, this lockpick kit was being useful!

Walking through the bland laboratory was somewhat scary, but nothing like when I finally made it to the cells. They were exactly how I always pictured the cells in those old castles would be. Dirty, rocky, and scary.

One of the cells was empty.

In the second one was a dark-haired man, half lying against the wall in the back, his head down on his naked chest. His bloody naked chest. From where I was, I could still see thin red lines on it, some slowly disappearing, and stains of dry blood.

"Oh my…" I muttered, stopping at a safe distance from the bars. "Hey? Can you hear me?"

I startled him—I startled a vampire. What, exactly, had they done to him? Even now that he knew I was here, he just looked at me blandly. "I… I have blood for you," I said, pulling out one of the blood bags.

I could see his eyes slightly widening with shock before a frown took place on his face; he was suspicious. "I will be honest, I didn't plan that far. The plan was kinda lame, something like 'gate in there, free the guy' but I don't exactly know what I'm supposed to do, now… So, I will just put that here for you, okay…" I put the bag slowly in the cell, passing my arm between the bars, my heart beating at an awfully fast rhythm in my chest.

I looked at him, but he didn't move, looking at me with a mix of shock, suspicion, and gratitude. I saw his hand twitching slightly, in the bag direction, and realized how stupid I was.

"I'm sorry, I didn't really think about it… Can you move?" I stammered out, nervous and, really, just embarrassed I hadn't thought about it.

"Not really, darling," his voice was hoarse. Was it because he didn't talk for a long time? Or because he… screamed too much recently? I really didn't want to know.

"Oh, God…" I looked at the ceiling, "I'm sorry, Caroline, I'm going to do something stupid." I pulled out my crowbar from my bag and was going to open the door with it when my phone rang.

I took it out to see Caroline's name on the screen. How did she know what I was going to do? "Care? How did-"

"Claire, you need to get the fuck out of there, now!"

"What? Why?" I could see Enzo frown deepen as he concentrated to listen in.

"Maxfield! I was looking out for him and I heard someone say something about him going back to the house to meet someone. I don't know what it is, Claire, but you need to get out before he gets there."

"I found him, Care, I can't leave him behind!"

"Claire, please…" She sighed, defeated. "Do it quickly, Claire, I don't know how long you have."

"I will, I call you back when we are out of there," I cut the call and tucked my phone back in my pocket. "So… I'm opening the door but, please, don't kill me, okay?"

He chuckled lightly and, despite the broken voice, the sound was reassuring. It took me five good minutes to break the door with my crowbar. It was old and rusty, the only thing that prevented Enzo from doing it was… Well, his poor physical condition.

I grabbed the blood bag from the floor and slowly made my way to him. "Remember, huh? You don't kill me, okay?"

I helped him drink at first but his arms were good enough after the second one for him to do it by himself. I was handing him the sixth one when we heard the front door opening and males voices.

"You could have chosen another day for that Aaron," began a voice I recognized as Maxfield's. "I can't just stop everything because you want to see in your father's safe."

"You can just give a key, if that's the problem, Wes," another voice replied, way younger than Maxfield.

"You know I can't let you come here alone, some of our researches are dangerous."

I almost chuckled at that. Looking at Enzo, I knew what he was thinking instantly.

"You can't!" I whispered. "Please-"

"I let you here, I'm going to go see how my rats labs are doing while you see what you want to," Wes' voice was closer now.

"Please, don't throw away what I did to free you!" I whispered-shouted, panicking. We could go away, I knew we could with Enzo's vampire speed, but not if he tried to get some sort of revenge at Maxfield. "He is probably carrying vervain and you are not in any shape to beat him right now."

He looked offended and stood, trying to prove me wrong, but almost tripped on his own feet and was only able to stand with the help of the wall. I looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Please…" If he chose to fight, I was screwed.

His stare was determinately focused on the door, from where we could hear Maxfield's steps. I could understand the hate in his eyes, I saw what they did to him, and I knew they did so much more than that.

I couldn't bring myself to be mad at him when Maxfield opened the door. "It's okay, I'm not mad."

As soon as the whisper left my mouth, I felt the world turning and the wind in my face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and I looked up from my position, pressed against his chest, to see him looking away from me.

"Oh my God! Thank you!" I hugged him tightly, "I thought he was going to find us!"

I let go of him and he smiled, "I'll be back in a second." Before I could even think of stopping him, he was gone.

I looked at the place he used to be, my eyes so wide, they were hurting me. "Did he get back there anyway? Everything I did was for nothing?"

"Don't worry, gorgeous, I just needed to grab that," I turned around to see him, holding an ancient-looking ring. "It was kept in their safe and I heard him open it." He shrugged and I just breathed heavily.

"Daylight ring?" He nodded and I looked at it thoughtfully. "I was wondering how I could get you one. Anyway! Do you think you can use your vamp's speed again? My car is in this direction."

He nodded and looked at me strangely. "Your car… you don't seem old enough to have a car…"

"Oh my, I have so much to teach you about this century!" I exclaimed, grabbing his arm. "But first, I need to call my sister and we are going to pick her up too… Oh! My name's Claire, by the way, Claire Forbes!"

He looked a little taken aback by my attitude.

"Enzo," he muttered, but I heard him all good in the silence of the night.

The next second, we were next to my car.


Thirty minutes later, Enzo and I were waiting for my sister, in the car parked in front of the hospital. Enzo changed into my dad's old clothes that Caroline thought of providing for him, his face hidden in the hood of a black sweater, and was drinking the last blood bags I stole for him.

I sent a quick text to Care, telling her that I was here, before looking at Enzo in the rearview. He was looking at me too, and our gaze met.

"I know you probably want to ask a lot of questions right now, and I will answer as much as I can, I promise. I just want to be sure we're in a private place for that, okay?"

He stared at me for a while but didn't respond. Honestly, I was becoming nervous in that silence. I would have begun to ramble if Caroline hadn't opened the door.

"Thank God, you make it out alive, I would have killed you otherwise!" She sat beside me and I started the car instantly. She turned her upper body to face Enzo. "Hi there, my name is Caroline, I'm her twin sister, nice to meet you."

"Enzo," his tone wasn't as cheerful as Caroline's but at least he answered.

Caroline seemed to take the hint because she stayed silent on the way home. I pulled on the alleyway and noted that, as I suspected, Mom's cruiser wasn't there. She spent all her time working since Dad left.

"So, you need a verbal invitation to enter a house, right?" I asked as we made our way to the door. "How does that work exactly? Did that need to be said by the owner or anyone who lives there is fine? Because it's Mom's name on the deed…"

"No, anyone who lives there is fine," he answered, looking at us curiously as Caroline turned the keys and pushed the door. "You don't know me, why are you letting me come into your house?"

"Because we're stupid?" I asked jokingly and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Don't mind her, she is the stupid one. Come in, Enzo, and we will explain, okay?"

We made our way to my room, making a slight detour by the kitchen to grab some unhealthy food to eat while we talked. Caroline and I sat on the bed but Enzo chose to stay standing. I guess he still didn't trust us completely.

"I don't want to lie to you," I began—because it was my explanation to give. Caroline had let me be the one to choose what I would say to him. "You'll have to accept that I wouldn't be able to tell you everything. Not now anyway."

I waited until he nodded to continue. "I had a best friend, Ann. She passed away in a car crash now but, before that she told me about some things she… Saw."

Technicalites. I was going to base all my explanations on them. Ann was my best friend, and she saw the things I knew thanks to her. If they think that she was some sort of witch… Well, I never mentioned something like that.


After our conversation, and a quick update about the 21st century, we took Enzo to the only motel in town. For a week after that, while Caroline went to cheerleading practice after school, Enzo and I will walk in the park and I will teach him how to live in the 21st century.

Today wasn't an exception, well, apart from the fact that we didn't talk. I didn't really find anything to add to our lesson, we had pretty much talked about all the important things.

"I wasn't always alone there; I don't know if Ann saw that…" He said suddenly, surprising me.

He looked at me sideways and I nodded, to let him know that she did.

"She didn't tell me everything, but I remember that."

"I thought he was my friend, you know? We had a plan to escape and I trusted him," he passed a hand in through his hair, keeping his gaze stubbornly in front of him. "He left me for dead at the first obstacle. Switched his humanity and turned on his heels, leaving me trapped in a flaming room. I know I'm the one to blame, I was stupid enough to—"

"You're not! You're not at fault, and you weren't stupid for wanting a friend after years alone in there," I said, taking his hand in mine. "I'm sorry you had to live that, Enzo. But you're my friend now and, as long as you don't harm my family, I will never betray you."

He stopped his walk and turned to look at me. "I owe you everything, Claire. I would never think about hurting you or your loved ones."

He hugged me and I returned it happily.


I turned around in the kitchen, searching for the serving spoons, while Caroline looked at me with a mocking smirk.

"Aren't you going to help me? Enzo will be here any minute, now!" I looked at the clock, panicked, "and Mom, why isn't she here?"

"Claire…" Caroline sighed at my back when I ran toward my phone to call Mom.

"No, Care, she said she would be here, this time. She is not going to work all night." I pushed on her name in my contact list and took the phone to my ear. She answered after two rings.

"Claire, I was going to call you…" Her voice was apprehensive, and I let myself fall onto one of the chairs, I knew what she was going to say.

"You have to work all night, don't you?" Caroline looked at me with sympathy. "It's the third time you can't make it."

"Claire, I'm sorry-..." She began, but I cut her.

"No, you're not. We want you to meet our friend, really meet him, not just cross him at the doorway. Because you don't approve of our friendship with him. You can't even come and make your own opinion of him, because you chose your job over your daughters. Again." I stood up and made my way to the oven to check on my chicken. "You know what? It's okay, don't come, but I don't want you to judge him, or any of our friends, because you don't have the right anymore."

"Claire…" I heard her sighs, the silence stretched for another minute and, just when I was ready to cut the call, she continued. "Give me an hour, okay? I'll be a little late, but I'll come, I promise."

I didn't answer right away, looking at Caroline's expectant features.

"Okay, but after an hour, we start dinner without you."

"Fair enough," she whispered. "Well, I have to go if I want to be there on time... Bye, Claire."

"Bye, Mom." I cut the call. "She'll be an hour late… But, hey, at least she will come!" I add the last bit with fake cheerfulness, and Caroline wasn't fooled.

Mom briefly met Enzo not long after we freed him, three weeks ago, when he came to our house to see us. Most of the time she wasn't here, and when she was, she was on her way to work, and the only thing she knew about him was his looks.

Enzo looked like he was in his late 20s, and she wasn't really pleased that we were friends with a guy that much older than us.

Ironically, the only viable excuse we found was that he was from Whitmore. Technicality, I guess.

Today was the third time we tried to organize a dinner for her to meet him officially. Tried was the keyword, she canceled at the last minute two times already. But I wasn't going to try a fourth time.

Caroline and I were setting the table, leaving only the hot things in the oven, when the doorbell rang. Enzo probably knew my Mom wasn't there, but if he didn't, he probably understood when he saw my face.

"She called to cancel?"

"She said she will be there in…" I looked at my watch, "thirty-three minutes, now, but who knows."

He took me in a one-armed hug before entering the house. We've been building a strong friendship since our talk, at the park. I liked that.

I closed the door and followed him in the living room, where Caroline had finished the table.

"How about we put the TV on while we wait for Mom?"

We were in the middle of our second episodes of Friends when the door opened again. I smiled at my Mom when she entered the living room in her Sheriff uniform.

"Mom! You came! I will go grab the chicken and the potatoes; everyone sits at the table!" I ran to the kitchen and Caroline followed me to help.

When everyone was served, we all ate in awkward silence for the first minutes. Then, Enzo told her how 'wonderful' we are and other sweet words. By the end of the dinner, Mom absolutely loved him.

That was a pretty cool dinner.


"So, you chose what you're going to do now?" I asked Enzo, before taking a sip of my tea.

"Not really," he said, adding sugar in his coffee, and I masked a disgusted pout in my cup. "I don't have anything, anywhere, besides you and your sister."

"As much as I want to keep you here, we can't take that risk with Augustine searching for you…" I whispered the last part, knowing that he would hear me anyway. We were at the Grill waiting for Care, and I didn't want anyone to hear what we were talking about.

"You know, I could just come back there and…" He looked at me with a hopeful smile, but I shook my head.

"We can't risk it. They expect you; they would be prepared. We need more help, and I know of someone who will be in town soon enough, and that I can't bring to help us. But in the meantime, you need to be at a safe distance."

"And for that, we thought about a trip around the world," Caroline said, sitting at our table with her own coffee. "Don't seem so disgusted, Claire, it's not like I shoved the cup under your nose." She joked when she saw my grimace.

"I can already smell it too much as it is, I don't need that… thing near my precious nose, thank you very much." I turned towards an amused Enzo. "But yes, we thought about making you travel a little. You would see the world, and we can stay in contact via Skype. We will tell you as soon as we have the help to handle the case Augustine, I promise."

"This is the only way to keep everyone safe?" He asked, but I knew that he already knew the answer.

"It is," I told him and he just nodded.

"I want a picture of every single place you will visit, okay?" Caroline said, only half-joking.


"Bonnie sent me a text," Caroline said, putting the car in a spot in front of our school. "She said Elena seemed fine when she picked her up, but I wouldn't believe her until I've seen her myself. The poor thing lost both of her parents and then locked herself up. I hadn't seen her since that night, at the hospital."

It was the first day of school and, to be honest, I didn't even see the summer pass by. Enzo started his travel around the world, as far as possible from Whitmore and its surrounding for the time being. We stayed in contact, tough, and the vampire was slowly becoming someone I would call my best friend.

Caroline talked with him too, even if they weren't as close, my sister was actually active in Mystic Falls social life and hadn't as much free time as me.

The absence of Elena at all the 'place to be' this summer had been a pretty recurrent subject with Caroline.

"Really?" I said, pulling my hair up in a ponytail. "I think you're just trying to not think about Dad by getting your nose in other people's business," I told her without beating around the bush.

She glared at me and I started to laugh at her offended face, but stopped quickly, choking with a shocked gasp. My face probably turned pale because Caroline's glare dropped and she looked at me with concern. "Claire? Are you ok?"

I shook my head, my eyes not moving from him as he walked through the crowd of students, sunglasses on the nose. The only thing I could do was stutter out a "Care…"

She understood what I was trying to say because she followed my line of sight. "This is a new student? I don't know him…"

"It's him, Care. It's happening," I whispered, feeling dizzy and trying to inhale, but my breath was blocked in my throat. "We're in the first episode."


A/N: Hey, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, we're finally at the beginning of the series! What did you think about Claire's operation? Enzo wasn't too OOC?

Thanks to the wonderful WinchesterGurl1967 who beta'ed this chapter!

Stay safe!

XxxX Miss Dragonish