Chapter Eight
As night fell, Rebecca, Caroline, and Stefan were getting ready to leave because Tyler had asked everyone to just go back to his house and continue to party there. The three vampires weren't going to Tyler's house; they were going back to the boardinghouse.
Matt was packing up to leave and Rebecca saw Caroline looking at him longingly.
"He's mad at me," Caroline said.
"Go talk to him," Stefan said to her. "We'll wait."
Actually, they had to wait because both Rebecca's and Stefan's cell phones rang at the same time. Rebecca figured that Elena was calling Stefan because Damon was calling her.
"Hello?" she answered, motioning to Caroline that she should go talk to Matt because Rebecca might be on the phone for a while.
"Hey, look, where are you right now?" Damon asked.
"Uh, at the swim hole on the Lockwood property."
"Are you alone?"
"No. Stefan and Caroline are with me."
She heard Damon sigh. "Okay. Get Stefan and get Blondie and get yourselves out of there."
"Uh . . ."
"Just do it," Damon snapped. "It's a full moon and Mason Lockwood might be a werewolf. One bite can kill you."
Damon hung up and she blinked in surprised as she heard the click on the other end.
Okay, then, the thought. She needed to find Stefan and Caroline and, like Damon had said, get them out. Stefan was easy enough to find, but Caroline was a little more difficult. She was no longer near Matt's truck, and neither was Matt.
Damon hadn't meant to snap at Rebecca, but he was a little furious. He wasn't mad at Rebecca; he was mad because there may be a lethal threat to Rebecca and Stefan in Mystic Falls and he was in North Carolina, helpless to do anything about it.
"Hey, have you done any research on doppelgangers?" Elena asked Vanessa.
"Well, the word means a lot of different things to different cultures. But typically, a doppelganger is a living, breathing double of oneself."
"Did Isobel have anything that would explain the link between me and Katherine?"
"That's all she had on Katherine, unfortunately," Vanessa said, pointing to the box she'd laid out earlier. "But I can tell you that doppelgangers usually torment the people they look like, trying to undo their lives. It's not exactly uplifting."
"And more things we already know." Elena sighed. "Just . . . I wanna know why we look alike."
"Head-scratcher, isn't it?" Damon asked nonchalantly.
"Do you know something or are you just being yourself?"
"Well, if I know anything, I'm not gonna tell you. Not with that attitude."
"That's good. And this is coming from someone who wants to be my friend. But you know what? Friends don't manipulate friends. They help each other."
"So is this little bedtime story gonna help us determine whether or not the Lockwoods suffer from the curse?" Damon asked, referring to the Aztec curse they'd found out about.
"I'm afraid not," Vanessa said. "But Isobel had other research on the subject."
Vanessa handed Damon a big manila folder. "Here's a theory that might help. The curse travels down the male line, staying dormant until it's activated. Before that, it can show through certain symptoms."
"Let me guess: Anger management issues, aggressive tendencies."
"So, what activates it?" Ric asked.
"Unfortunately, Isobel never figured that part out."
"Genius," Damon quipped.
"Are you starting to believe this too?"
"Well, it's not something I wanna do. Not like I have a choice."
Damon just wished they could hurry it up. He would feel a lot better if he were back in Mystic Falls backing Stefan and Rebecca up. If this werewolf thing was true then Rebecca and Stefan were in danger.
"Wait," Stefan said, grabbing onto Rebecca's shirt sleeve. "Do you hear that?"
They had come into the woods, or deeper into the woods, and now both vampires were standing still, listening. There was a faint but threatening growl coming from nearby.
"Is that a regular animal, do you think?"
"None that I've ever heard," Stefan answered. He began to move forward. "Stay behind me."
"Uh . . . Elena told you what would happen if you were bitten, yes?"
Stefan and Rebecca came upon a Bronco – Mason's Bronco. There were shackles on the ground near the vehicle.
"Uh . . ." Rebecca watched Stefan pick the metal chains off the ground. "Stef . . . maybe we should just find Care and get out of here. Now, Stefan!"
Stefan nodded and grabbed Rebecca's arm so they could run, but before they even moved something with yellow eyes jumped through the back window of the vehicle.
That something was black and huge and a wolf.
"Oh, my God!"
That wolf had to be Mason. Had to be. It had been in Mason's vehicle. It knocked Stefan down and, seeing as to how Rebecca was behind him, Rebecca was knocked down too.
Surprisingly, the wolf didn't go after either of them; it just ran off into the night.
"I trust you to, uh, not tell anyone about this?" Ric said, walking down the steps of the Anthropology Department of the university.
"Or Damon will kill me in my sleep? He gave me the 411. But if you need anything, you'll call?" Vanessa asked.
Damon and Elena had already gone to the car with the few boxes of information they'd collected, leaving Ric to say the good-byes.
"Hopefully I won't have to," Ric replied to Vanessa's offer.
"But if you do . . ."
"Listen, you don't wanna get caught up in this. Really. It'll take over, and it'll keep you from being able to live your life."
Ric knew of a lot of things he'd wanted to do before he'd found out about vampires. He'd wanted to start a family, have kids, be normal. And now . . . now he couldn't even be honest with Jenna about why he was the way he was and why he did the things he did. He hadn't even been able to tell her about why they'd come to Duke; they hadn't told her the real reason.
"Isobel's disappearance . . . was it related to her research?"
"Isobel became her research. She wanted to become a vampire and she got her wish."
"I guess that would put a strain on a marriage."
"Yeah. Anyway, I was wondering what it would be like to come back here and it's okay. It's really okay. It feels good to have her in my past, you know? It's time to move on."
At Ric's car Elena was trying and failing to open the car door. The door was locked and Damon had the key. He thought about just watching her struggle but then decided not to.
"Here," he said, taking the key out of his pocket and pressing the unlock button. "Allow me."
Damon opened the door for her. Just as she moved to get in Damon stepped in front of her.
"You're not gonna be able to hate me forever," he said.
"Can we just go?" Elena asked, sounding resentful.
Damon sighed and said, "You didn't dig deep enough."
He then began digging through the box of information they had on Katherine. He pulled out a book that had Petrova on the spine.
"I saw this on the shelf," Elena said. "What's it have to do with Katherine?"
"Katherine originally came from Europe. Petrova was her real name. Katerina Petrova, to be exact."
"How did you know that? I thought she introduced herself as Katherine Pierce."
"Back when, I saw it engraved on an old heirloom. Men snoop too, ya know." Damon smirked at her almost to the point where he was grinning. "Let me know what you find. I'm very curious myself."
Elena nodded and tried to walk past him to get to the car, but Damon grabbed her elbow firmly so she couldn't move.
"Wait. You have every right to hate me. I didn't get that before, but I do now. I understand why Rebecca got in front of Caroline last night. I did it for you today. So . . . I understand now. But you hated me before and we became friends. It would suck if that was gone forever. So is it?"
Damon didn't know why, but this was actually important to him. Rebecca wasn't happy with him and he needed some support from someone and the only other person he was even semi-friends with was Ric, but Ric wasn't mad at him.
"Have I lost your friendship forever?" Damon asked, looking down at her. He knew his expression was sincere, his voice was sincere. He meant what he was saying.
"Thank you for the book, Damon," she said. She slid past him and got on the seat.
Realizing that Elena wasn't going to answer him, or at least not yet, he closed the door for her. He would give her the car ride home to think about it and then he would ask again.
Rebecca and Stefan had been searching the swimming hole area for the better part of ten minutes and still hadn't found Caroline. They had, however, found the blonde's phone on the bed of Matt's truck. She had to be nearby.
So they searched. In the woods, they smelled blood. Not a copious amount; it was actually very faint. But they found Caroline that way. She was attacking Matt.
"Stop!" Stefan yelled, running forward. "Hey, stop, stop, stop!"
Stefan grabbed Caroline and shoved her away from Matt. Rebecca saw Matt begin to fall to the ground. So she caught him before he could hurt himself.
"Oh, no," she heard Caroline say.
Matt was unconscious, but Rebecca was relieved to find his pulse was steady.
"Listen to me. We have to get out of these woods. Now," Stefan said. "We need to leave."
Growling seemed to come from all around them and Rebecca glanced from left to right. Nothing was there.
"What was that?" Caroline asked.
Matt groaned and Rebecca grabbed his hand. That was when she noticed the blood on his hand. It looked like he'd cut himself. It was deep. Rebecca assumed Matt had accidentally caused himself to bleed and it had made Caroline lose control. That explained the bite on the neck.
"Matt, it's okay. Don't move," she soothed.
"Hey," Stefan said. "We're gonna run, okay?"
Rebecca saw him looking from her to Caroline. They had to run? They were going to leave Matt defenseless?
"It will follow us. We'll lead it away from Matt. So you need to run as fast as you can, do you understand me?"
Caroline nodded and began running.
"Matt . . ." Rebecca muttered.
"It will follow us, Becca. We're its prey of choice."
"Oh." Rebecca got up quickly and she and Stefan began running. Within seconds they'd caught up with Caroline. They were near a cellar on the Lockwood property.
"Wait," Caroline stopped at the entrance to the cellar. "What is it?"
"It's a werewolf. It will try to kill us, and it can."
"Hey!" they suddenly heard. "What're you three doin'?"
Tyler was still out here? Near the cellar. Why was he all the way out here?
"What're you doin' here?"
Caroline screamed. From out of nowhere, a monstrous grey wolf had tackled Caroline to the ground, pinning her there. It was drooling on her.
"Stefan!"
"Care!" Rebecca yelled as Stefan did some tackling of his own, getting the wolf off of Caroline. Rebecca grabbed Caroline to help her up.
The grey wolf was faster than Stefan getting up and came at Rebecca while Rebecca's back was turned and snapped at her with its teeth. Caroline pulled her away in time, but it pounced again, this time jumping on its hind legs and hitting Rebecca with its front paws.
Somehow, someway, Rebecca felt pain in her sides. The wolf tried to bite her again, but she was holding it at bay. Its claws, however, had sunk into her sides as it was sliding down her body.
It hurt so bad that her knees gave out. Something warm and sticky was making its liquid way out of her body. She screamed from the pain.
Rebecca could feel the breath hitting her in the face. Its breath stank and it was hot and moist against her skin.
Oh, no, she thought.
"No!" That shout came from Tyler, and she felt the wolf turn to the human.
Funnily enough . . . the wolf listened to Tyler. The wolf had had a staring contest with Tyler and Tyler hadn't backed down. It was almost as if the werewolf had been given an order. The animal sped away. Only when the animal was gone did Tyler seem to go into shock.
Stefan was suddenly by her side and grabbed her shirt to lift it up. She was still bleeding.
"Stefan, it's not healing. Why isn't it healing?"
"You need to feed," he whispered so Tyler wouldn't hear. "Caroline? I need you to take her back to the boardinghouse. Make sure she gets some blood in her. Can you do that?"
"Yes. But Matt and Tyler . . ."
"I'll handle it. You just take care of her."
"No, I'll . . . I'll come back. This was my mistake. I wanna fix it."
"Road trips work well for us," Damon said, walking Elena up to the porch.
"That doesn't mean that things are back to the way they used to be, Damon."
"Oh, come on. You know I chipped a little bit off your wall of hatred."
Yes, she'd been silent on her way back from Duke, mostly because she'd been reading the book she'd been given, but still . . ."
"I need to know the truth," Elena said. "When you stabbed Rebecca . . . did you mean to? And if she hadn't gotten in the way . . . would you have really killed Caroline?"
Damon bit his lip. He could easily lie and get out of this, but she'd asked for the truth.
"I never wanted to stab Rebecca. She got in front of me and I couldn't stop myself in time. I never wanted to hurt her. But, yes, I was going to kill Caroline. I thought she was going to be a problem. I still think that."
Elena nodded. "Thank you for being honest with me. And the answer to your question about our friendship is yes. You have lost me forever."
Damon just looked at her. He'd taken an arrow in the back for her. He'd helped her find out about Katherine. And after all that talk about friends helping friends . . .
"But you know that already, didn't you?" he asked. "You used me today."
"You had information about Katherine that I needed to know."
"I thought friends don't manipulate friends."
Elena couldn't even defend herself because she had said those words to him. She could barely even look him in the eye.
"You and Katherine have a lot more in common than just your looks" Damon heard the disgust in his own voice. He felt like attacking Elena. Biting her, ripping her heart out. Something.
Instead he just walked away. He didn't go to Ric's car; he just began running home.
Rebecca was in pain. That was all she could feel. Rebecca still hadn't healed. Caroline had brought her home. Rebecca had only been able to walk halfway and then Caroline had to carry her the rest of the way. Now Rebecca was lying on Damon's bed, trying not to bleed all over the sheets.
"Care!" she exclaimed. "There's blood in the basement. Go get me some, please."
"I'll be back in a minute, okay? Just please don't die! Or pass out! Okay?"
Caroline walked – well, ran – out of the room and down the stairs to the basement. There was a cooler full of blood bags so Caroline grabbed one and then another, but then Caroline realized she didn't know how much a hurt vampire needed to survive, so she just grabbed a handful and raced back upstairs to the main floor.
She hadn't known anyone else was home, but Damon was in the living room. He was pouring bourbon into a glass. Damon seemed to be surprised that Caroline was there.
"What're you doin' here? Stealing?"
Caroline looked down at the blood bags and grimaced. "I'm not stealing, and it's for your girlfriend. She's upstairs and hurt."
The glass Damon had been preparing was forgotten as Damon concentrated on hearing anything that happened to be in this house. He usually did that anyway, but he'd been preoccupied.
He could hear Rebecca's heartbeat now, slower than normal, along with her labored breathing.
"She's in your room," Caroline said meekly. "I didn't know –"
Damon ignored the blond and raced upstairs, where he found Rebecca peeling her shirt off. Damon's heart stopped for a moment. There were twin sets of claw marks on Rebecca's sides. The wounds were still open and bleeding. Why weren't they healing? Had she been bitten?
"Becca . . ." he whispered, and she looked his way.
He moved forward to help her, and he saw at least some of the tension leave her body. He would take care of her and she knew it.
"Damon. It hurts. It doesn't wanna heal."
"You need to clean it," he said, going toward the bathroom. He removed the soap from the soap bowl and filled it with water.
He heard a small gust of wind and then Caroline was talking. "Here. I . . . didn't know how much you needed."
"Thanks, Care."
Damon turned back and saw that Blondie, the girl he'd wanted to kill, was helping Rebecca like only a good friend would.
Damon grabbed a wash cloth and went to the bed. He noticed Rebecca was trying to stay still. She probably didn't want to damage herself further.
"What happened?" he asked. "Was it . . . ?"
"It was," Rebecca answered. "Werewolves exist. It was Mason. He tried to bite me."
Damon tensed. A bite would've killed her. "But . . ."
"I blocked him. That's how he got his claws in me." She glanced at the bowl in Damon's hands. "Will that help?"
"It should." Damon set the bowl on the bedside table. "May I?"
He only asked because of the rough patch they were going through. It was a definite possibility that Rebecca wouldn't want him touching her.
"Please make it stop," she said.
"What do you need me to do?" Caroline asked, in her in-charge voice.
Damon didn't get time to answer before Rebecca said, "Care, you need to take care of Matt, okay? I'll be fine, I just need to heal."
"But –"
"Blondie, she'll be fine," Damon said. "I've got this."
"Call me if she doesn't get better."
Damon nodded and watched Caroline walk toward the bedroom door. Caroline had watched over Rebecca when he hadn't been there. Even though Damon had threatened to kill her – had had every intention of doing so – she'd still helped Rebecca. She hadn't done it for him, he knew that, but he was grateful all the same.
"Hey, Blondie," he called to her before she left the room. "Thank you."
Caroline had turned to him when he'd called to her and now she was just staring at him.
"Rebecca took a stake for me, Damon. I kind of owe her my life."
Then she left. Damon heard her racing down the stairs and out the front door. Then his focus turned to Rebecca.
He began cleaning the wounds and was angered when he found that the wounds – the claw marks – were really jagged cuts that refused to close.
Mason was so dead.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here," he said softly. He put the wash cloth in the water and rung it out.
The twang of blood hit his nose and he felt his body tense. Her blood no longer made him hungry. It made him angry that someone had hurt her enough to make her bleed.
Even after Damon cleaned the blood off of her stomach the wounds didn't want to close like they should've. They still had blood leaking from them.
What if not only a bite would kill a vampire but any wound that came from a werewolf? Vanessa hadn't said anything about being clawed by a werewolf. Had Isobel not done research on that before she'd been turned?
"Damon, am I gonna be okay?" Rebecca whispered.
Rebecca wasn't just in pain now. She was scared. Scared because she hadn't been this wounded in a long time. She'd thought that now that she was a vampire she wouldn't have to worry about wounds that wouldn't heal.
She'd been wrong.
"You're not gonna remember what I did to you," Caroline said, looking into Matt's eyes. She'd made it back to the Lockwood property and was now compelling Matt to forget what she'd done to him. Stefan had already performed first aid on Matt so he wouldn't bleed out anymore. "Or what you saw me become," Caroline continued. "We were just making out in the woods and then an animal attacked you and bit your neck. It's weird, it just came out of nowhere."
Caroline sighed and walked away from a very dazed and confused Matt. She saw Stefan waiting for her and tried to get a handle on her emotions.
"What're we gonna do about Tyler?"
"I took care of it. He remembers that he saw the wolf, but he doesn't remember we were here," Stefan said. "I'll get Matt on vervain. It'll keep you from being able to compel him, but it'll also keep you from being able to drink his blood."
"I can't believe I hurt him. I mean, he's the one person on this entire planet that I never wanted to hurt."
"It's not gonna get any easier," Stefan said honestly. "You're just gonna have to work that much harder."
"I shouldn't be with him, should I?" Caroline asked him. She had been looking at Matt, who had been rubbing his neck where she'd bitten him. She would've killed him had she not been stopped. "Not if there's any danger."
"I'm the last person to make that kind of decision for you," Stefan said. "If I had followed my own advice, I would've walked away from Elena a long time ago."
"Do you ever think you should've?"
"I know I should've. I just can't."
Caroline realized that she was going to be a threat to every human she knew. She wasn't going to be able to be around anyone by herself for a long time.
She was a monster.