Lots going on in this chapter. Probably the most plot in a single chapter in this entire story.
Bonnie stood in a pentagram drawn in the dirt with symbols at every point that would be used to channel the power to cast the spell. Jeremy stood with her in the design, shirtless and ready for his tattoo to be gone. Shane was nearby to coach Bonnie through it, and everyone else was off to the side to watch.
The professor said, "Once Bonnie begins the spell, I will start my blood sacrifice with the unlocked power for my wife. Silas will bring her back, and after that, you all can go kill him and I'll make sure Bonnie's safe."
Elena laced her fingers with Damon's as the spell began. She was nervous; something was going to go wrong. She just knew it. Nothing ever goes according to plan for them, and she had to be prepared for whatever was coming. Damon squeezed her hand back, and she hadn't even realized that she had been keeping him in a death grip.
Bonnie swallowed thickly before raising her hand to Jeremy's suddenly muscular chest, and pretty much everyone could sense the sexual tension between the two. She closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath that not even a vampire could hear, and the ink slowly began disappearing. As if her hand was absorbing it, in a few seconds his body was once again tattoo free and he stumbled back out of the pentagram. Bonnie's hands were held out in front of her as Shane instructed her on what to do and how to keep her power under control. Jeremy hurriedly put his shirt back on and moved to stand next to his sister.
Stefan pulled out the headstone and handed it over to Shane, and he gave it to Bonnie. She placed her hand on top of it, chanting the words to the spell, and blood starting oozing out of it, dripping onto the ground.
The sound of rocks scraping together and rumbling as they fell drew their attention to the far wall, and a few large rocks crumbled to the ground and a stone door was revealed. On it was inscribed some sort of symbol that not even Rebekah could decipher, if her curious look said anything.
It slowly slid open and all of the torches around them flickered from light to dark until the door stilled, then they returned to the gentle flames they had been. The smell of blood struck the vampires' senses and they all whipped around to look at Shane, who was now bleeding from his hand.
Elena was the first to speak up, "Jeremy, go. Damon, Stefan, you go with him. I'll stay here with Bonnie to keep an eye on them, and Rebekah you should go too. It couldn't hurt to have an Original around just in case."
She raised a brow, "Not afraid I'm going to betray you?"
Elena shrugged, "With two other vampires and a vampire Hunter around, I figured they could thwart any of your attempts."
"Charming." She deadpanned, then turned to Jeremy. "Let's get a move then, shall we?"
The four of them headed into the passage, Jeremy leading the way with Stefan following last. Elena listened to their footsteps in the back of her mind as she moved to face Shane and watch how that disaster was going to unfold. Bonnie stood still as a statue with her eyes closed and hands out, the headstone now nothing more than a puddle of blood at her feet.
Shane moved to the side of the cavern, dripping blood from his hand onto the ground. Elena could smell it, and it called to her, but she refrained knowing that the herbal undertone to it was vervain. He looked up to the ceiling and mumbled, "Caitlin? I'm here. For you, and for Sam!"
Elena frowned, wondering who Sam was. Not that it really mattered; he wasn't going to be getting anybody back.
"Silas, you have my blood like you asked! Please, give me my wife and son back like you promised!"
So Sam must have been his son. As sad as it was that he lost them both, Elena's sympathy was limited.
"Silas!?" He yelled louder, and Elena glanced at Bonnie to make sure her concentration hadn't been disturbed.
It hadn't. She supposed it was one of those things were it was like she was in a trance and only moving her could rouse her.
"Do it!" Shane yelled. "I did everything you asked!" Elena's attention was drawn back to him, and his gaze shifted from the ceiling to right in front of him. "Caty? I came for you just like you said." He stepped closer and held his arms out as if embracing someone, but there was nobody there.
Maybe he really was talking to her…like Jeremy when he saw ghosts. But if he was, then wouldn't Elena be seeing her lost loved ones? She quickly looked around, but didn't see anything strange.
"Tell me what I have to do." Shane said, then paused as if listening to her response. "What? No, no, no! But Silas said…no! NO! He promised!" Shane whirled around to look at Elena then his wild eyes darted to the entrance. He ran over to it and Elena was prepared to stop him and keep him out until he stopped on his own. He yelled into the tomb, "You can't kill Silas, he lied! He's not bringing my wife back and I need more time to renegotiate!"
He really was pitiful for believing for even a second that an ancient immortal would ever help him for no reason. Elena cut in, "Shane, no, we can't stop now! Silas is never going to bring her back! No matter what you do, she's gone, and so is your son, and you can't change that!" She sped over to him and grabbed his shoulder, keeping him from sprinting off into the tomb. He needed to be out here for Bonnie anyways.
"No, no!" He shouted, then began frantically looking around. He ran over to his backpack mumbling, "I can't let Silas die, he's the only one that can do this!"
He suddenly pulled out a crossbow and aimed it at Bonnie. Elena's eyes went wide and she was in front of him in an instant, yanking the weapon from his arms and throwing it to the ground a few feet away from them.
She didn't have to time to yell at him for trying to kill Bonnie, because he was already pulling out a stake from his sleeve and jamming it into Elena's chest. She doubled over in pain, realizing that it had gone all the way through but luckily missed her heart. She tried to pull it out, but it was too painful and too close to her heart to risk pulling it out just any way. She looked to Shane and saw that he pulled out a knife from his pocket and was moving towards Bonnie. Elena crawled across the ground towards him, using all of her strength to grab his ankle and pull him to the ground.
"You can't do this, please!" She begged, choking out a gasp when the stake scraped some organ she was sure was important.
"They can't kill Silas yet and there's no other way to stop the spell until he's dead! Silas will keep Bonnie here, holding open the door until he's out, and I can't break his hold until she's snapped out of the trance!"
"So you're going to kill her!?" Elena growled, clawing at his shirt to keep him from inching closer to her best friend who was now only a foot away. "Sorry, but Silas is going to die today!" She ground out, still trying to get high enough to reach his neck. She could pull him away from her best friend then by choking him and forcing him away.
Shane's hand darted out and grappled for the crossbow that was now within reach. Elena watched in horror as he reloaded it with a wooden stake and aimed it at Bonnie. "I can't let him die yet!" He screamed, and Elena knew that it was now or never. Either she could stop him, or he was going to kill Bonnie.
"No!" She cried out, forcing her body to move through the pain. She shot across the ground and took Shane's head in her hands. There was no room for hesitation, because all it would take was one second for it to be too late.
So she twisted.
And she heard a loud, resonating snap.
Then everything fell silent.
Damon heard Elena struggling with Shane, and it took everything in him not to go to her. He was just a human; Elena could easily handle him. He needed to be inside of that tomb with Jeremy to make sure his brother and the Original bitch didn't do something to screw everything up. He was the only one Jeremy could trust, and they both knew it.
When they heard everything go silent, Damon breathed a sigh of relief. He could hear Elena's soft pants if he strained hard enough, so he assumed she got Shane under control.
He returned his focus to Jeremy in front of him. The tunnels they were going through could only fit two people standing next to each other, so they went single file, Jeremy carrying a torch and leading the way. They hadn't walked that long before reaching another opened door, and inside sat a large stone slab with a horribly dried out corpse sitting atop of it.
"That Silas?" Damon asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Certainly looks old enough to be him." Rebekah commented. "He's practically a pile of dust! How could someone this old and decrepit be able to make people hallucinate? He's in no shape to move a single finger let alone control someone's mind."
"Unless that's what he wants you to think." Damon pointed out.
Jeremy spoke up, "No, that's him. I can feel it, if that makes any sense. He can't get in my head like he can with everyone else; I know it's him. It is kind of my destiny to kill him, not to sound like a smartass."
"So then kill him already, Van Helsing." Damon quipped, motioning towards the practical skeleton.
Rebekah raised her brows, "How are you even supposed to find his heart let alone kill him?"
"Don't need his heart." Jeremy said, taking off his backpack. He unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a long dagger, unsheathing it to reveal a sharp and shiny blade with the Hunter's mark carved into it.
Damon's eyes went wide, "Didn't realize you took my nicknames so seriously, Jere."
He rolled his eyes, "I didn't tell anyone about it because you didn't need to know. My instincts told me that when I killed Silas, this symbol had to either be on the weapon or on the hand that pulls out his heart. Since the tattoo is gone now, I came prepared."
They all stepped back as Jeremy raised the small sword, and in one swift motion he swung it down and Silas's head crumbled away from his body. Within seconds, what used to be his corpse disintegrated into nothing more than a pile of dust. Jeremy could physically feel his curse lifting, his body growing weak and his vision blurring.
He braced his arms on the edge of the stone platform for a moment then said, "It's done. The curse is gone. Silas is dead."
Rebekah raised her chin, "Brilliant. Let's get out of this hell hole then, shall we?"
She turned on her heel and headed back into the tunnel, and Stefan and Damon followed. Damon looked back at Jeremy when he realized he wasn't immediately following and Jeremy said, "I'll follow in a minute. I have to put the sword away."
Damon nodded, and when he was out of sight Jeremy uncovered a small box that had been buried under the dust and held it up to the light to get a better look. He didn't know what it was, but his guess was that it was what Klaus wanted. The less people that knew he had it the better.
"I'm surprised you actually pulled this off."
He whipped around only to see his sister standing in the doorway. He frowned slightly, wondering why she wasn't out with Bonnie and Shane.
"What do you mean?"
She stepped forward with a confidence that struck him as odd, and then when he got a better look at her in the light he realized it wasn't his sister at all.
"Katherine."
She smirked and her hand shot out to wrap around his neck, "Surprise!" She grabbed the box from his hands and restricted his airways so he couldn't breathe. "It was so easy to just sit back and let all of you do the hard work for me. This will be very useful to me, and it was very sweet of you not to tell anyone about it when you saw it. You made my job a hell of a lot easier."
He clawed at her hand, trying to take in just one deep breath of air, but she made sure that he could only get in enough air to stay alive.
She turned her cold stare onto him and smirked, "Now that you're no longer a Hunter, compelling you will be a piece of cake." Her pupils dilating, she said, "I was never here. You put your sword away then left, there was nothing in Silas's remains but ashes."
He blinked, and she was gone. Instantly his hand went to the leather band around his wrist filled with vervain. Scrambling to get his things together, he hurried out of the tunnel.
After Damon left Jeremy, he followed Stefan and Rebekah out of the tomb. It was starting to get a little too quiet in the cave for his liking, and he was getting worried about Elena. As soon as the opening came into sight, he scanned the space for Elena. His heart dropped to his stomach when he saw her lying on the ground with a stake sticking out of her chest, struggling to get it out.
He blurred to her side instantly, "What the hell happened?"
Her hands were shaking, her cheeks were tear stained, and all she could do was cover her mouth and shake her head. Thinking that it was the pain, he grimaced at how badly it was going to hurt her before latching onto the stake and yanking it out in one fast move. She cried out, but as soon as it was gone she was just breathing heavy as her body repaired itself.
Mindful of Stefan and Rebekah watching with disinterest or curiosity or whatever, he pulled her to his chest to calm her cries. He whispered into her hair, "You're okay, everything's going to be okay."
She shook her head in his embrace and sobbed, "I killed him, Damon."
He frowned before automatically shifting his gaze to Shane. The pang of emotion he felt at the sight of his dead body was regret that he hadn't gotten to kill him himself.
"He was going to kill Bonnie, I had to." She cried, and he held her tighter and shushed her sobs.
The only thought going through Damon's head in that moment was how Elena was going to recover from this. Every vampire kills someone at some point in their life, but Elena…she was too loving and caring to ever do that. He could practically feel her pain as if it was his own, deep and cutting. She'd never killed anyone before, and he cursed himself for never thinking to talk to her about it. Maybe he could have better prepared her for when the inevitable came, and then she'd be able to cope a little better.
But Elena made the right call. Professor Shane was the conductor of the crazy train, and his next stop was insanity. Elena did him a favor. Now he could be with his wife. Besides, she did it to save Bonnie, and there was no shame in that.
He just had to convince her of it.
Jeremy came barreling out of the tomb and Damon looked to his brother, "Get Bonnie out of her trance so we can get out of here."
Stefan nodded and moved towards Bonnie, placing a hand on her shoulder and lightly shaking. Suddenly the wind picked up even though they were underground and swirled all around them. The torches began flickering again and her mumbling got louder. Stefan tried calling her name and shaking her again, but it only made things worse. Loose rocks began falling and it even got Elena's attention; or at least enough to get her to stop crying.
Stefan tried once again to get Bonnie's attention by shaking both of her shoulders, but he was thrown across the room by some invisible force. Damon knew it was bad, and with Shane dead, there was no telling what could happen. If anything went wrong, Elena would never forgive herself.
Desperately, Damon looked to Jeremy and motioned with his eyes at Bonnie. If there was anyone that Bonnie trusted and that was in their right mind, it was Jeremy.
He nodded and hurried over to her, shouting over the howling wind, "Bonnie! It's me, it's Jeremy! Everything's going to be okay, but you need to stop casting the spell!" He was slowly inching his way closer, and when his shoes broke the pentagon surrounding her, the wind seemed to die down just a little. "You can do this without Shane, Bonnie, you don't need him to control you! You're strong, you have control of yourself!"
"Oh, god…" Elena whimpered, her lower lip trembling as she realized just what the implications of killing Shane were. This was her fault, and she didn't know what she'd do if anything happened to her best friend because of her.
Damon pulled her back into his chest as she started crying once again.
Jeremy continued talking to Bonnie, carefully getting closer and closer until he was finally able to touch her. As soon as his hand landed on her shoulder, her eyes flew open and the wind stopped. The torches returned to normal, and rocks stopped falling. Bonnie collapsed into Jeremy's arms and he held her tight.
The stone door slammed shut so loud that the entire cave shook, and a huge boulder fell from the ceiling at the impact. Then another followed, and another.
Cursing, Damon lifted Elena into his arms and said to Stefan, "You and Ancient Barbie get Jeremy and Bonnie out of here before this whole place collapses."
He nodded and the two of them hurried over to Jeremy and Bonnie while Damon went to the rope hanging down from the entrance. He jumped up the twenty or so feet to the entrance and carried Elena outside. He managed to convince her to stand on her own and set her down on two feet before going back to make sure everyone else made it out alive.
Rebekah was already standing there with Jeremy and Damon motioned for them to go outside. The loud rumbling of rocks falling signaled that the place was still collapsing, and Stefan appeared with Bonnie in his arms a few seconds later. He set her on her feet and she seemed more alert now as they all ran outside.
A few moments later, the floor inside of the mine fell down, caving in on the room.
It was over.
Damon turned to survey the damage. Stefan and Rebekah seemed fine. Bonnie looked slightly shaken up, which was to be expected. Jeremy was alright as well, trying to talk to his sister who had a blank look on her face. At least she stopped crying, Damon thought wryly.
He walked up to her and lifted her chin to meet his gaze, "Good?"
As he dried her teary cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt she nodded, "I'm fine."
Red warning bells went off in his head. Damon had been alive long enough to practically master the female gender. Whenever they said, 'I'm fine,' they were anything but fine. They were just dismissing the conversation because they didn't want to talk, and there was nothing he could do to force Elena to say something.
Instead he nodded then said, "Let's go home, then."
The plane ride back to Mystic Falls was pure torture. With as much money as the Salvatore's had, getting their own private jet was a piece of cake. However, that also meant that nobody had to watch their behavior in front of any humans, which meant they were free to discuss whatever they liked.
Jeremy was passed out with his head phones in, music playing softly. Bonnie was seated next to him, her head lolled against his shoulder once she drifted off. Rebekah had once again decided that she was going to do everything possible to annoy the hell out of Elena by flirting with Damon, but she barely noticed, instead she was too stuck inside of her own head. Damon was really worried about her, unlike everyone else. She finally had fallen asleep in the seat next to him, and Rebekah had almost instantly stopped with the flirting. It was pathetic, really, Damon thought tiredly.
Now she was doing her own thing, reading a book while listening to music and Stefan was fast asleep. Damon could tell because his baby brother wasn't breathing.
Aside from listening to his girl breathe, there wasn't a damn interesting thing to do, but that wasn't why it was torture. It was torture because Elena was hurting, and Jeremy had been acting strange before Bonnie convinced him to fall asleep. Given the bad luck Damon's had in the past, he wasn't entirely sure that the whole ordeal with Silas was really over. Call him a pessimist, but could you blame him?
He just had to figure out what the hell was wrong with Little Gilbert, and deal with it as it came.
Since the kid was asleep, Damon focused his attention on Elena. Her heart was pattering softly in her chest, much slower than it had when she was human, but still the same rhythm. Her head was resting against the window and her seat was tipped back slightly. Her face was filled with peace and calmness, a complete opposite to what he knew was going on inside. He moved his hand to her thigh just for the contact and she didn't move a muscle.
She was strong. Yeah, she just killed someone for the first time, but it was nothing she couldn't come back from. Shane wasn't even that great a guy. He was shady as hell, manipulated Bonnie into practicing dark magic, and tried to kill her. He should have died long ago if they hadn't needed him.
Elena would bounce back from this. She just needed some time.
Damon automatically thought of his first kill as a vampire. He had killed as a human in the Civil War, so when he drained that girl Stefan brought him, he hadn't even blinked. The times back then were different; he had been praised for fighting for his side and killing the Union soldiers rather than frowned upon for killing someone in general.
Now he had to convince Elena that what she did wasn't bad. It was necessary. God, he sounded like his father and he hated it.
Movement from across the aisle a row in front of him caught his eyes, and Jeremy stretched his arms over his head. Bonnie had been carefully moved off of him, and Jeremy stood to presumably go to the bathroom.
But instead he locked his eyes with Damon's and nodded towards the front of the plane. Damon frowned, but stood and followed the kid after making sure Elena was still fast asleep. Damon crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, waiting for Jeremy to spit it out.
"You know how Klaus wanted Silas for some sort of object that would give him more power?"
Damon narrowed his eyes, "What about it?"
He ran a hand through his hair, "Well, after everyone left and I was alone in the tomb, I found it in Silas's ashes. It was in a small box."
Damon shrugged, "Great, so we have it which means Klaus can't get it."
"That's the thing…we don't have it." Jeremy said, dropping his gaze to the floor.
Well if they didn't have it, then who could? They were the only ones on the island, especially the only ones in the tomb…
"Then who has it?" Damon asked skeptically.
Jeremy glanced back at Stefan and Rebekah who both seemed blissfully unaware of their conversation then whispered, "Katherine."
"You're kidding." Damon said through narrowed eyes. "Not a funny joke, Jeremy."
"It's not a joke." He hissed quietly, his eyes widening. "She tried to compel me now that I'm not a Hunter and the curse was broken, but I'm still wearing vervain. She took it from me and left."
"She was on the island?" Damon asked in confusion more to himself than Jeremy. "How the hell did she know about anything?"
Who knows? Katherine always had her ways, Damon thought bitterly. The bitch just didn't know when to quit, and with some magical object that could give someone Silas's powers, she absolutely needed to be found before she sold it to Klaus for her freedom.
Damon pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on. He hadn't fed in a while and once they landed he'd need a bag or two. He exhaled, "Alright, fine. I'll deal with it. Was that all?"
He nodded and returned to his seat, leaving Damon to fume alone. Katherine just couldn't leave it alone. She always made others do her dirty work then swooped in at the last second and ruined everything. Now, not only did they have a seriously pissed off Original hybrid free from a containment spell after them, but they had a psychotic ex-girlfriend out to trade their lives for her own slice of freedom.
Could it get any worse?
And of course because the universe just loved to prove him wrong, that was the moment when his brother woke up and began sending him death glares. When he sat back down next to Elena, he could practically feel his stare burning holes in the back of his head.
He could just never catch a break. If it wasn't Klaus, it was Katherine, and if it wasn't either of them, there was someone else to start trouble.
At least this time around he had Elena.