Okay, so there is really no excuse for not updating for so long. I mean, it has been forever! All I can do is ask for forgiveness. But as I've previously mentioned - I have four new guests in my house, one of which is a 12 year old girl whom I was homeschooling until not to long ago. Then after that I started college for my first semester and I'm in my second semester now. I've been busy busy busy!

Anyway, here is my latest offering. I'll try to have a new chapter every week but I'm not promising anything.

Chapter Four

Rebecca was at the school with Elena and Bonnie. They were setting up for the annual carnival that Mystic Falls held. It wasn't much; mostly games and arts and crafts booths. But there was going to be a Ferris wheel; swing, and bumper cars. They also had a pirate ship, but Rebecca wouldn't go on that.

At the present time, however, Rebecca, Elena, and Bonnie were talking about Katherine and putting some of the stuffed animals up on the game booths.

"I mean Katherine looked just like you. It was freakish."

Bonnie was talking about meeting Katherine at the memorial for Richard Lockwood. Rebecca agreed with the witch, but she didn't say it out loud.

"She is my ancestor," Elena said. "Hey, I moved the student booths into the cafeteria."

"Your vampire ancestor," Bonnie said, ignoring Elena's change of subject. "And she didn't just resemble you . . . like a family member would. She was you."

"I – I don't know. I can't explain it, okay?" Elena said. "It's creepy. That's all I got."

"Well, how do you know she's not still out there pretending to be you?"

"I don't. But . . . I could sit here and be tortured by the not knowing or I could get these prizes to the ring toss."

"She came to the boardinghouse last night." Rebecca said softly. "She tried to seduce Damon."

"Hey, can we not talk about Katherine?" Elena asked. "Or anything else vampire-related."

"Copy that," Bonnie said.

Rebecca's brow furrowed. Did that mean she should leave? She was a vampire, after all.

"So, should I leave or . . ." Rebecca trailed off teasingly.

"Becca . . ."

Rebecca knew that Elena hadn't meant it that way so she smiled when Elena rolled her eyes. Elena hadn't really held a grudge over Rebecca killing John. After Elena had thought about if she'd realized she hadn't wanted someone like John in her life anyway. Or in Jeremy's life.

"I'm human," Elena said. "And I have to do human stuff or I'm gonna go crazy."

"Okay. I'm sorry, I'll focus," Bonnie said. "We have to make Caroline proud or she will kill us. I don't know how she does this all the time."

"Well, because she's not human, obviously," Elena teased.

Rebecca laughed because she sort of agreed with Elena. Sometimes Caroline was so efficient, she couldn't be human.

About an hour later Jeremy and Stefan showed up and Stefan went to find his lady love. Rebecca decided to help Jeremy set up the bottle ring toss. She noticed that Jeremy didn't have his vervain wristband.

"Where's your wristband, Jer? You should never take it off. It has vervain in it. It protects you from compulsion and it's toxic to vampires."

"You mean like poison?"

"Yes. If you were to give me vervain it would make me very weak, and it keeps me out of your head."

"Have you ever tried to get into my head?"

"Nope. I respect you too much to do that to you."

Jeremy smiled shyly. "Why vervain?"

"I have no idea," she admitted. "I don't make the rules. I just know to stay away from it."

A couple minutes later Elena came over to relieve them of bottle ring-toss duty. They were on the gold fish ring-toss instead.

While Rebecca was helping with the carnival Damon had his own business to tend to. Carol Lockwood had invited him over and, pretending to be an upstanding citizen, he had come when she'd called.

"So I understand John Gilbert had left town," Carol said, pouring herself a cup of tea.

"Yes. Yes, he has," Damon said. "We may not see him for a while."

"Oh." Carol smiled softly. "That brings me to my next subject." Carol put her tea on the table. "With Richard gone, I'll be acting as interim mayor until the elections. And I'm gonna need someone to spearhead the council."

"Oh," Damon said, nodding, not thinking anything of it.

"I'd like that person to be you."

Damon smiled softly and said. "Whatever you need, Carol. As a founding family member, it's something that's close to me, so I would be honored to help keep this town safe from vampires."

A few seconds later Damon heard two men laughing in the front room. Damon and Carol were in the sitting room, so Damon guessed the two men had just come in the front door.

"Oh, Geez." Damon recognized the voice as Tyler Lockwood.

The other man must've been Mason. Not that Damon could tell, because Carol closed the door to the sitting room.

"Is it safe to talk?" Damon asked quietly.

"It's my brother-in-law, Mason. He's still visiting. I just don't want him to hear us. He didn't want any part of the council when he lived here and I see no reason to bring him into it now."

Damon could still hear the conversation that Tyler and Mason were having.

"What was that, like, seven?" Tyler was asking.

"Six," Mason said. "I don't count the last one. You crawled it."

Damon assumed Mason was talking about running. He guessed the two Lockwoods had been exercising or something.

"What?"

"I think Grandma Lockwood actually passed you in her walker," Mason teased, laughing.

"Yeah, okay," Tyler said. "Shoe's off. Mud. My mom. Not a good combination."

"Yeah, sure." There was a pause and then Mason continued. "So all this anger and aggression you were talking about . . . You notice the difference when you exercise?"

Tyler scoffed. "Dude, I played varsity sports. I work out four times a week and I run three. I'm gonna say no."

"You have episodes? I mean, what happens exactly?"

"Starts out normal. I mean, I get angry, typically over nothing. I'm an angry guy. You know, it amplifies and then I just go off."

"You black out?"

"Yeah. It's like I go blind with rage."

"Is there a pattern? Like, once a month? Only at night?"

"All I know is I lose myself. You know? For that time, I become something else. And I hate it."

"More tea?"

Damon snapped out of it and accepted the offer of more tea.

Damon had listened to the whole conversation between Mason and Tyler. It had sounded like Mason knew from experience what Tyler had been talking about. Maybe Mason had been experiencing the same symptoms.

All Damon could think of when he'd heard about the anger issues and becoming someone else was that the Lockwoods must've been related to the Incredible Hulk in some way.

When Damon got home Rebecca and Stefan were already there. Rebecca was pouring herself a glass of blood and when she saw him she grabbed another glass.

"Hey," she said. "Carnival's all set up for tonight."

"Good," Damon grinned. "Guess who's the new leader of the Council."

Rebecca smiled. She knew automatically, but she wanted to play with him. "I don't know. Is it . . . Liz?"

"Nope. Guess again."

"Carol herself?"

"Nope."

"Give me a hint." She gave him pleading eyes.

"Okay. He's got dark hair and blue eyes. He's very good-looking. Dashing. Gorgeous. Irresistable."

"I'm sorry, Damon, but I don't know anybody like that."

"Oh, really?" Damon smiled because of their little game. "Well, maybe I should introduce you to him. I know he'd love to meet you."

"Oh, but I'm already taken, Damon," she said with mock-innocence.

Rebecca handed Damon the glass of blood she'd poured for him and then looked at Stefan, who was looking amused and disgusted at the same time.

"Would you like some?" she asked seriously. "We can help you with your self-control."

"No. Thank you. Not hungry. Just ate."

"Aren't you worried that one day all the forest animals are gonna band together and fight back?" Damon asked. "I mean, surely they talk."

"I'm just happy that that's a blood bag and not a, uh, sorority girl supplying your dinner."

Damon smirked. "I like this. You . . . walking on eggshells around me because you think I'm gonna explode. It's very suspenseful."

"Have you heard from Katherine?" Stefan asked them.

Damon didn't answer Stefan. He just changed the subject.

"I think the Lockwoods have a family secret. Because the Gilbert device affected them but vervain didn't. So they're not vampires. They're something else."

"Is this your new obsession?" Stefan asked.

"Oh, you'd rather some unknown supernatural element running rampant in our town. Fine. I'll drop it."

"Uh, no," Rebecca said. "We won't. I can't allow that. Whatever they are, they could be a threat to us, to everyone. We keep on this until we find out what they are."

Damon smiled smugly at Stefan. "The lady has spoken."

"We haven't seen the last of Katherine. You do know that, right?" Stefan asked. "We have no idea what she's up to."

"Sure we do." Damon scoffed. "She came back to confess her undying eternal love for you. So I'm gonna let you deal with her. Because I have more important things to do like explode."

"Right, well . . . before you do that . . . I need to talk to you," Rebecca said. "About Chelsea."

Damon immediately grew serious. He forgot about teasing Stefan because Chelsea was more important than making fun of Stefan.

Rebecca went upstairs and Damon followed her. When they reached their room he closed the door and gave his complete attention to her.

"What about Chelsea?" he asked.

"What're we gonna do?" she asked him. "Since Katherine's here? I mean . . . I can't tell my dad that there's an Elena look-alike running around, let alone that she's a vampire. I . . . I'm not home a lot because I live here now and he could invite her in without knowing."

Rebecca had been thinking about that lately. She couldn't tell Robert without fear of him telling the council, and no one needed the council searching for an Elena look-alike vampire. Elena would end up getting killed.

"Well, then . . . we should keep her with us." Damon said. "We never wanted to give her up anyway."

"Yeah, I know, but . . . Katherine can get in here, too, Damon. I should've killed her last night when I had the chance."

"Well, we'll figure something out," Damon said. "We always do, don't we?"

"Yes," she said after a brief pause. "We do."

"The ring toss is out of Bart and Homer dolls and Team Jacob T's," Bonnie said.

"Okay," Elena said.

It was around eight o'clock and the carnival was in full swing. People seemed to be having a good time. Rebecca had come with Damon, and he was around there somewhere, but she had found Elena and Bonnie pretty fast. They three were in charge of telling people what to do. Rebecca could only help for so long, though, because her set of music was coming up.

"I'll grab some from the science club," Elena said, adding to her earlier comment. "We lost a speaker for the stage performance, too."

"Hey," Bonnie said gently. "It's all good, Elena. Take a beat, look around, this is a huge success."

"You mean I can do more that wreak vampire havoc?" Elena asked, pretending to be shocked.

"Go figure," Bonnie said.

Rebecca smiled as Bonnie and Elena began laughing. She loved when she and her friends could just laugh and be together without drama interrupting their lives.

When they walked past the ticket booth they noticed a black guy with a tool belt around his waist.

"Hey, uh, Carter, right?" Elena asked, and the guy nodded. "You're with the carnival?"

"That'd be me."

"Okay, great."

"Wow." Carter looked at Bonnie. "What d'you need, beautiful?"

"Ah . . .um . . ." Bonnie smiled bashfully. It was like she'd never seen a guy before. "What d'you know about speakers?"

Carter chuckled. "Why don't you show me the problem?"

"Yeah, Bonnie. Show him the problem," Elena teased.

Bonnie rolled her eyes but she nodded at the guy anyway, and he followed her.

Elena and Rebecca grinned at each other because of Bonnie's antics.

"I thought I was shy," Rebecca said, amused.

Damon had been walking through the carnival – all in all, it had been done artfully – when he came upon Jeremy Gilbert.

"Aren't you little too old for a high school carnival?" Jeremy asked, paying for the bag of popcorn he was getting from the snack stand.

"About a hundred-and-fifty years too old," Damon answered, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bag even though it wasn't his.

"Oh, you're pretty funny cracking jokes when I could, I don't know, blow the whole lid off this whole thing by telling someone what you really are."

Damon swallowed the popcorn and then grabbed Jeremy by the back of his neck.

"Okay, please tell me that that is not a threat."

"Maybe it is," Jeremy said, holding up his hand for Damon to see. There was a ring on it; John's old ring.

"Becca," Damon muttered. "You know about John."

"She killed someone because of you."

"Oh." Damon suddenly had Jeremy in a headlock. "Here's what we're not gonna do. We're not gonna walk around like we're invincible when it's this easy for me to end you."

Jeremy coughed and Damon let him go. The teen turned to glare at him.

"If you wanna tell people what I really am, go ahead and try." Damon held up the ring that Jeremy had had on and that Damon had yanked off his finger without the boy noticing. "I will shove this ring so far up your butt you'll really have something to choke on."

Damon flung the ring at Jeremy's face and watched as the piece of metal hit Jeremy in the face. Then he walked away. Rebecca would be performing soon and he didn't want to miss a minute of her show.

Rebecca was at the activity center where the concert was going to be held. Elena was there too because Stefan was helping with the football throwing booth.

"Nice little shindig, huh?" Damon said from behind her.

Rebecca turned around and smiled. "Hey, you're just in time. I was getting ready to go change."

"Mm. Did you know Jeremy blames me for John's death?"

"What? He knows you didn't do it."

"Yeah, well, he blames me anyway. I'm the reason you killed him."

A ding interrupted their conversation because the football throwing thing was over. Now it was time for arm wrestling. Tyler was competing against one of his teammates and was winning.

Rebecca noticed that Damon was staring at Tyler with curiosity.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm observing," Damon corrected.

"More like obsessing," Stefan said, butting into their conversation.

Rebecca watched as Tyler easily beat his first competitor.

"He's got strength," Damon said.

"Well, I could've told you that," Rebecca said, not unkindly.

"He's a triple-letter varsity athlete," Stefan added. "Of course he has strength. You're reaching."

Mason came up to the arm wrestling table and sat down across from Tyler. Mason smiled and placed his arm in the position to wrestle Tyler's.

"Enter the uncle," Damon quipped.

"This is ridiculous," Stefan said.

Even though Tyler was strong, Mason had no problem beating Tyler. That meant Mason was stronger. So whatever supernatural trait ran in the Lockwood family . . . Mason knew how to access the power from it. Tyler didn't.

"A'right, he's the champ," Tyler said, gesturing to Mason. "Who wants to go next?"

"Hey, Stefan wants a go," Damon volunteered his brother and Rebecca grinned.

Stefan rolled his eyes at Damon. "Yeah, sure, I'll give it a go."

Stefan went to the table and got ready before grabbing Mason's hand.

"My brother over there thinks I can beat you," Stefan told Mason.

Mason grinned boyishly. "Your brother's wrong."

Once the bell rung, Stefan lasted about ten seconds. Then Stefan's arm and hand touched the table and Mason won.

"You didn't put in any effort at all," Damon accused Stefan when he reached them.

"Yeah, actually, I did."

Damon looked from Stefan to Rebecca. Damon's expression was one full of surprise. If Stefan had actually tried to beat Mason, that proved even more that Mason was a supernatural being – along with the rest of the Lockwood males.

"Come with me," Damon said to them. "Is he . . . ?"

"No, it wasn't that kind of strength. But it was more than human, if that makes any sense."

"What is up with that family?" Damon seethed. "If they're not vampires, what the hell are they?"

"Ooh, uh, maybe they're, uh, ninja turtles," Stefan said after pretending to think.

Damon just stared at him. "You're not funny."

"Or no. Zombies. Werewolves."

"No comedic timing at all," Damon criticized.

"Well, whatever they are, they're gonna have to wait," Rebecca said. "I have a show to do. But I'll go to Diana's apartment tomorrow and get the books I need. I'll check out legends and things like that."

She quickly kissed Damon and then left. Damon watched her hurry toward the school. Then he looked around, noticing a handy man over in the corner fixing a speaker.

"What? What're you up to?" Stefan asked.

"Since this is reality and there's no such thing as werewolves or combat turtles –"

"It's a ninja turtle, actually," Stefan corrected.

Damon didn't pay attention. He was too busy formulating a plan.

"Hey, you," he said to the man.

"I have a name," the guy said.

"Yeah, I don't care."

Damon grabbed the guy by the shoulders and forced the man to look in his eyes.

"I need you to pick a fight with someone," Damon said, compelling the guy. "Kid named Tyler Lockwood."

"Damon, don't do this," Stefan said, but Damon waved him off.

"It's just an experiment."

"Oh, yeah? You know you shouldn't be doing this. That's why you waited for Rebecca to leave."

Damon basically ignored his brother so he could focus on compelling the handy man.

"Get him mad. But don't back down no matter what he does. Okay?"

"I won't back down."

"I know you won't."

Damon patted him on the back and let the man go. Stefan watched on in disapproval.

"You realize someone's gonna get hurt, right?" Stefan asked.

"No. Someone's gonna get mad. As in rage."

"Why? What's that gonna accomplish?"

"That Tyler kid is incapable of walking away from a fight. Let's see who intervenes. Maybe it's the ambiguously supernatural mystery uncle."

Stefan scoffed. "Well, we need to keep an eye out for that guy. He's gonna get himself into a lot of trouble."

"Yeah, he is. Can you take care of that for me? I have a show to catch."

"Damon . . ." Stefan said sternly.

"Stefan," Damon mimicked. "Just do it.

For the first time in a long time Rebecca had stage fright. Two of the songs she was going to be singing tonight were so not her and she felt a little uncomfortable doing them in front of people. But she'd been rehearsing for a reason. She wanted to do this. She loved singing and dancing; tonight she was going to do both.

Her first set number was a song called "S and M" by Rhianna. It was a song Caroline had picked for her as a joke. At first Rebecca had refused because Rebecca really wasn't into any freaky stuff, but then she'd seen the dance routine Caroline had come up with and had realized she had to do this.

Damon would love it and it would turn him on so much he'd want to rush them home to have his way with her.

She had black leather pants on – tight leather pants at that – and a black t-shirt that showed her stomach off. To top it off, she had a black half jacket made of leather and black hooker boots. She would've cringed from the heels had she been human.

Elena, who was managing the show in Caroline's absence, gestured for Rebecca to take her place on stage. Rebecca nodded her understanding.

The stage was dark enough that even Rebecca couldn't see properly. But when the lights came on she knew she would have a red glare on her. The stage lights were only going to be red for this number.

The music started. It was a semi-fast beat that would pick up the tempo during the chorus and that was when Rebecca would begin to dance.

On cue, Rebecca began to sing.

In the audience, Damon was watching as the music started and the lights came on. Rebecca was the lead singer, but she had back up singers and dancers. There were poles on the stage. Was Rebecca going to pole dance? Where had she learned to do that? And why hadn't Damon known she could do that?

This was going to be interesting.

Rebecca's voice was seductive and low. Damon wasn't the only one who was noticing. Just about every male there seemed hooked. Instead of feeling jealousy burn through him, Damon felt a sort of pride. Pride because this was his girl up there, his girl demanding attention from the crowd and succeeding in getting it.

During the chorus Rebecca grabbed the pole and spun around it quickly, whipping her body around in a sexy way.

Who knew Rebecca had an inner stripper waiting to break out? Damon thought.

When the song was over Damon watched Rebecca walk off the stage and heard a few whistles and catcalls. He'd noticed that Rebecca had looked flustered while disappearing off stage. He knew it was probably because of all the attention she was getting, but it was also because of her song choice. There was no way she had picked that for herself.

When Rebecca came back to the stage she had changed. She'd exchanged the dominatrix look for blue jeans, a white t-shirt and converses. This was more her.

Except she had an electric guitar strapped to her. It was another thing Damon didn't know she could do. She must've gotten a lot of practice in doing things she wanted to do when she had been stuck in the house those few days after she'd first been turned.

On stage the first few chords of "I Hate Myself for Loving You" played with the assistance of Rebecca and her guitar. Rebecca had been so proud of herself when she'd realized she could play the guitar because of her new vampire skills; it had been easy to learn and remember everything with her vampire memory.

When Rebecca started singing she made her voice rougher because she was singing a rock song.

The next song Rebecca did was a country song called "Rebel Child" by Gretchen Wilson. She had the same outfit on, only she switched the converses to cowboy boots.

Rebecca had a whole list of songs that could appeal to just about anyone. She didn't stick to just one genre because there were many different types of people here – what appealed to one person might not appeal to another, so she did a little of everything.

While Rebecca was performing, Damon was watching and becoming extremely turned on. How could he not when Rebecca had been pole dancing at one point. She was being purposefully sexy – how was he supposed to react?

During a part of the last song, Rebecca actually wrapped one of her legs around the pole and the other one came out straight in front of her. Neither foot was on the stage and Damon suddenly didn't like that all the guys here were looking at Rebecca, especially since she was doing this, dancing like this.

He watched as Rebecca gripped the pole firmly with her legs and bent backwards slowly and seductively. She was showcasing her breasts through the material of her shirt. Damon knew that after the concert was over he was rushing them home because she'd been teasing him since the beginning of her show – she wouldn't dance this way for herself, that was for sure, and she wasn't dancing for the other guys here either.

After the song ended Damon watched Rebecca head toward the school. He knew she would be changing there so he began to follow her. He caught up to her in the hallway near the bathroom and he grabbed her and gently pushed her against the lockers.

He heard her gasp and then he saw her grin mischievously up at him.

"Hi," she said with faux innocence in her voice.

"Hi?" Damon muttered. "You're a tease."

"Am not," she said, still smiling. "If I were a tease, I would get you all riled up and then not follow through. When have I ever not followed through?"

"Mm . . ." Damon began kissing her neck. "Good point, Miss Rebecca. Shall we follow through now?"

"Here?" Rebecca asked, incredulous. "In the school? We could get caught."

"It heightens the excitement, trust me."

Rebecca looked down the hallway and noticed that almost no one was around.

"Keep an ear out for anyone that might come by?" she asked nervously.

"I promise I will protect your honor, Miss Rebecca," Damon said chivalrously.