Next chapter :) This one's a satisfying one
"Ugh…" Elena moaned, her face contorting in a grimace as she came to. Her eyes fluttered open and her vision blurred momentarily before a stone ceiling came into view. She licked her dry lips, her brows drawing together slightly as she pushed herself to a seated position. She clutched her head as the room spun, but her vampire healing almost instantly cleared her foggy head and cured her headache.
She looked around the room, only to groan in exasperation when she realized she was in the dungeon of the boarding house, again.
"Is this really what we're doing?" She pouted to no one in particular. The brothers were around somewhere listening to her, she just didn't care enough to figure out where. "I thought we already established that torture wouldn't work." She pointed out, moving to her feet to check out the door.
Locked, of course.
She rolled her eyes, figuring it was worth the shot, then flopped back down on the cot she had woken up on. She had no interest in whatever they wanted from her now; she'd already had to resort to skipping town just to breathe every now and then. With everyone practically handcuffed to her at all times of the day, it was suffocating to stick around for more than a few days.
That, and the fun in Mystic Falls was limited. One wrong move, and the council was after her ass, if they even existed anymore after the pastor blew them up.
She heard the basement door opening and continued, "Don't bother; you might as well march right back upstairs because there's nothing anyone can do or say that would get me to change my mind about my humanity."
"Not even me?" A sickly sweet voice mimicking her own sounded, and Elena's blood thickened with a brief bout of anger before it dissipated into nothing.
Katherine's heavily made up face appeared in the barred door, smirking happily as she took in her doppelganger's state. Her hair was a mess, probably from when Stefan snapped her neck and haphazardly tossed her in the cell as if she was nothing more than a doll. She had dirty scuff marks covering her exposed legs and arms, the tiny dress she was wearing not covering much. It looked like Stefan had caught her right before she was set to have a night out. Her skin was gray and her eyes seemed sunken in, proving that she hadn't fed in a while. Probably not since yesterday morning.
It was a delicious sight. So she couldn't kill the girl—big deal. She got to torture her all she wanted as long as she came up with a plan to get her humanity back on, and there were few things that could top that.
Elena narrowed her eyes at her ancestor, "Especially not you."
Katherine laughed to herself, swinging open the latch to push the door open. She stood casually in the door frame, her black pumps sitting unevenly on the ragged floor yet she showed no signs of imbalance. She flicked some of her thick curls over her shoulder, grinning, "You're related to me alright. That's the Petrova fire in you, but of course I've known that since we first met. I just didn't expect you to give up so quickly."
"Give up?" Elena scoffed. "Please. I fixed all of my problems in one fell swoop. I didn't give up."
Katherine snorted, "No? You're laying around in a filthy dungeon without so much as lifting a finger towards getting what you want. You're a disgrace to our family's name."
"I'm not your family." Elena snapped, squeezing her eyes shut. She shook her head, reprimanding herself for letting Katherine get to her, then stood up and crossed her arms defiantly.
Katherine looked on with pure amusement, sarcastically saying, "No, not at all." She smirked at the way Elena's jaw tightened imperceptibly. "But seriously, why are you still here?" Elena furrowed her brows, leading Katherine to explain, "Your humanity's off. You don't care. Why. Are. You. Here?"
"Because Stefan snapped my neck—?"
"No, you moron." Katherine rolled her eyes. "Mystic Falls. You could be anywhere in the world right now, yet you're still moping around this sad little town. I've seen your attempts at leaving." Her lips curled into a dangerous smirk when she was Elena swallow thickly. "You think nobody knows about how you go to the next state over, feed until you're up to your ears in blood, and then have a breakdown. Your emotions are too strong to stay subdued, because you're a Petrova."
Elena clenched her jaw, her expression otherwise emotionless. Nothing the older vampire was saying wasn't true. Since the second she flipped her switch it had been a battle with herself to keep it like that. Her humanity had an iron grip around her monster, and the monster was struggling to keep her humanity away from the switch.
Katherine took a few more steps towards her, saying, "I was never able to leave my switch off for long, you know. The longest I lasted was six months. Eventually I decided that if I didn't want to feel, I had to remake myself. I put my own well being first, because that was the only way of life I knew. It was life over death, and I will still stand by it." She paused, taking in the girl's disinterested expression. She then changed the topic, "We're more alike than you think Elena, and I'm not talking about the Salvatore's."
That grabbed Elena's attention, and her gaze flicked up to Katherine's curiously.
"There's a darkness inside of us." Katherine continued seriously. "I choose to wear mine on my sleeve. I know who I am, and I won't change for anybody but myself. My darkness has followed me my entire life, just like yours has. My child was ripped from my arms as soon as I gave birth. My family was murdered in cold blood by a killer that wanted to sacrifice me. I turned myself to save my own hide, and I'd do it again in a second if I had to. Your darkness started when you were born though, hadn't it? Adoptive parents who raised you, lying to you about it your entire life, and then it was your fault they died just like it was mine that my parents died. "
"It was not my fault." Elena interrupted her.
She bit out a laugh, "Believe what you want. Just like it wasn't my fault that Klaus killed my family." Elena tersely crossed her arms, and Katherine continued, "Anyways, your parents died, your aunt died, your biological parents died, blah-blah-blah, who cares. Then we move onto you becoming a vampire. That darkness wasn't something the monster could—or even wanted—to control." She took a breath, deciding to share one small personal detail of her past even if the girl had probably heard it before. "I fell in love with Stefan because he invoked the girl I was before the darkness took over. But you…Stefan was never meant to be yours, just like Damon could never be mine, even if he wanted it more than anything."
Elena's nails pierced the skin on her palm at the mere mention of Katherine and Damon's history, and the scent of her blood perfumed the air. Katherine smirked, but didn't comment on it.
"You fell in love with Damon because you saw a man that wasn't afraid to embrace the darkest parts of himself. You lived a simple life, Elena, that you should be grateful for. By the time I met him, I was too much like him to ever fall for him. He was good for a quick fuck when I needed it, but that was about it."
"Did you really come here to give me some kind of life talk about who you think I am? Can we get to the point?" Elena ground out.
Katherine smirked evilly, flashing over in front of the baby vampire and grabbing her chin with one hand to force her to look at her. She softly said, "By the time I'm through with you, you'll be begging for me to get to the point."
With her other hand, she took a vial of vervain from her pocket and forced it into Elena's mouth, using her strength to keep her still as it singed her skin and she screamed in pain.
Katherine tossed her forcefully to the ground, crouching next to her and grabbing a fistful of her hair, "Our boys would never seriously hurt you, little girl, but we both know that I have no reservations adding one more dead body to my list."
In that moment, a spark of true fear lit up inside of Elena, sending the adrenaline pumping when she realized that Katherine would kill her and not think twice about it. She shook her head against the evil vampire's painful grasp, "They'll never let you kill me. They'll stop you before you get the chance."
Katherine chuckled, "Oh, honey…how? They're both three states away looking for me."
Damon couldn't take listening to her screams for another second. He quickly snatched his keys from his pocket and silently stormed outside to his car. He had to get out of there before he broke and ruined everything.
He thought he could handle it; Katherine promised she wouldn't kill Elena so long as she got the talisman, and Damon believed her for once. Elena was her leverage. If she didn't get the talisman, Elena really would be dead.
But that didn't mean he had to subject himself to listening to Elena's whimpers and screams every time Katherine tortured her a little more.
It hadn't started off that bad. He wanted to be there just in case, so he had hunkered down in his room with a bottle of bourbon, intent on making sure he could still hear Elena's barely-there heartbeat.
When Katherine wasn't getting anywhere after the first few minutes, she upped the ante. He had no idea what she was doing to his girl down there, and frankly, he didn't want to know. She was bound to have come up with thousands of torture methods over the years. Elena's cries of pain and starvation were proof enough that they weren't anything you'd want to see.
He listened to all of the hurtful things Katherine told her, goading her, making fun of her…if he thought Rebekah was cruel to Elena, he had never heard the contempt with which Katherine talked to her. Countless remarks about her family, friends, and love life were rained down upon his girl's heart, and when not even that stirred any emotions that Katherine could work with, Damon had no interest in sticking around to see what would happen next.
When Katherine saw the tattoo on Elena's shoulder…that was perhaps the hardest to listen to, because her words didn't just hurt Elena like she'd intended. They'd cut deep on him too, even if he'd sooner drink a bunny than admit the bitch still had an effect on him.
Damon's not worth loving, she'd laughed, he's a love sick puppy that will bend to your every desire until you get bored of him. He's not worth a second of anyone's time, let alone a goddamn tattoo.
Maybe she had said those things to bring out Elena's love for him, or maybe she was just voicing her opinion. Either way, he was going to need a stiff drink to even begin to dull the pain.
Almost instinctively, he reached for his phone in his pocket as he drove down the road only to pause and bring his hand back to the wheel when he remembered the only person he wanted to have a drink with was dead. He sadly wondered when he'd stop doing that and he'd really understand that he was never going to have a drink with Ric again.
Deciding to forgo the Grill where everyone knew him, he drove in the opposite direction, further out of town. He pulled up to some trucker bar about a mile outside of the city limits and killed the engine.
To be honest, he didn't even feel like drinking if he didn't have someone there to listen to his drunk rambling, but being drunk and alone was better than being sober and alone.
Begrudgingly, he swung open the car door and went inside, not bothering to even glance around at the looks he received from some of the patrons from slamming open the door so fast. He heavily sat down at the bar, signaling for the middle aged woman working to bring him a drink—he didn't care what anymore, as long as it got him drunk.
She returned with the bottle, and he poured the entire thing down his throat in one go. After compelling her not to stop serving him, she brought another bottle over. The booze was starting to take effect already, and as he reached for the neck of the bottle he missed and it toppled over onto the bar, thankfully the cap stopped it from spilling.
"Drunk already?"
Damon glanced up and saw the person he least expected to find out here.
His brother.
"I think the question would be better phrased as a statement. 'Drunk already.' Why yes, baby bro, I am. Care to join me?" He sloppily pushed the bottle towards Stefan, pasting a grin on his face.
Stefan shrugged and took the seat next to him, unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig. He had bailed from the house as soon as Katherine showed up, without so much as a note saying where he was going. Not that Damon had cared much, but a sign that he wasn't dead would have been nice.
"Elena?" Stefan asked quietly, staring into the bottle.
Damon flicked his brows up, confirming, "Elena. Katherine too, but mostly Elena."
Why would you even want a guy like him? I mean, daddy issues, mommy issues, brother issues, just about any problem you can think of, he's got it. Tack on the bloodlust of a vampire, and you've got a recipe for one fucked up guy.
Bitch.
Stefan chuckled, "Tell me about it."
Had he said that out loud? He frowned slightly, but grabbed the bottle from his brother and downed another shot anyways.
Stefan dragged his finger around the edge of a coaster, "How's it going at the house?"
"'Bout as well as it could, when it involves Katherine." Damon said tiredly. He glanced at his brother, wondering when the brotherly bonding was going to commence. It was inevitable, really. The night would either end with fists flying or drunken confessions—knowing them it would probably be a little bit of both.
Stefan's fidgeting hands stilled, and he blurted out, "Do you remembering that time when we were kids, and I had been playing in Dad's office and broke that vase?"
"I covered for your ass and in return I got my ass beat." Damon confirmed. "Dad was a dick. Old news."
"I never told you why I was really in his office though." Stefan said, almost seeming regretful.
Damon narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "You weren't screwing around with that toy horse Mom got you?"
He shook his head, "No. I was looking for your stuffed teddy bear that Dad confiscated when you accidentally spilled milk on one of the expensive rugs. You had gotten back my toys for me so many times, and I wanted to return the favor."
Without any sarcasm or hidden emotion in his tone, Damon asked, "So you went snooping in his office to try to find it?"
Stefan smiled a little, "Yeah. But the drawer of that end table was sticking, and I yanked it a little too hard and the vase tumbled to the ground. Naturally, I went running to you before Dad found out. You always knew what to do."
Damon shrugged, feeling some unnamed emotion akin to loving his brother scratching at his insides, "I was seven years older than you. It was my job to protect you. That's what I promised Mom on the day you were born."
There was a long pause as Stefan absorbed his brother's confession. He couldn't stop himself from thinking how terribly he mistreated Damon over the years. Sure, Damon had lost himself in vampirism along the way, but Stefan wasn't exactly innocent himself. Hell, he was probably worse. The only reason Damon held so much anger towards him was because he failed to be there for him when he needed his brother the most.
"You never told me that." He commented lightly.
Damon frowned easily, "Never had a need to."
Stefan swallowed thickly, "Mom always was your best friend."
Not knowing what to say, Damon stayed silent.
"She would have adored Elena."
The dark haired vampire nodded, "Would have adored her like her own."
"I haven't seen you smile the way you do when you're with Elena since she died." Stefan commented quietly, earning a raised brow from Damon. As much as he was enjoying drunkenly reminiscing about a time long passed with his little brother, he was eager for him to get to the point. Noticing his dwindling patience, Stefan continued, "I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I never realized how much family meant to you until I saw the way you love Elena. She brings out the person you were before Katherine. The way you were so carefree and my best friend. I know I gave you a lot of shit about Elena over the years, but I'd have to a blind idiot not to see the way you two love each other. Hell, she gave up her life for you. I think I'll always be a little pissed that you two are together, but for the first time since that phone call when she was on her way to you, I've finally accepted that your relationship isn't going anywhere."
Damon shot him a sideways glance from where he'd been intently staring at the wall of liquor, "Is this your idea of some kind of apology?"
"Yeah, I guess it is." Stefan confirmed, slightly disappointed with his brother's reaction.
Sighing, Damon shook his head, "Your words mean nothing to me, brother. If you want to show me you're sorry for the complete ass you've been, then do something about it. Help me bring Elena back instead of running off the second things get tough. You ran when she transitioned. You ran when we got together. You ran when she tried apologizing to you, into her worst enemy's arm, might I remind you, and you run every time we get close to having a feasible plan that would bring her humanity back."
Looking as ashamed as he should be, Stefan morosely said, "I know. And I don't have any excuses for that. I let my personal feelings stand in the way of being there for Elena, and I shouldn't have. She needed me, and I couldn't even suck it up long enough to do that. But not anymore. Whatever you need, just let me know and I'll do what I can."
Tired of the heart to heart, Damon wiggled the waning contents of his bottle in Stefan's face and jibed, "Another bottle of bourbon would be great."
Stefan sighed, "So which one was it that inspired the binge this time?" Damon shot him a glare before finishing off the bottle, and Stefan motioned for the bartender to bring another. "I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess that it was Katherine."
"What tipped you off?" Damon sneered, his words slurring slightly as his control slipped further and further away.
"It was your idea to bring her here." He pointed out. "You can only blame yourself."
Damon looked at him incredulously, "You're almost as big of a dick as me."
His brother chuckled, "If it's coming from you, I know it's got to be true."
Rolling his eyes, Damon handed over the new bottle and Stefan took a swig, accepting it gratefully. Damon started, "At least through all our problems, it seems that Katherine stopped being one of them."
Smiling, Stefan agreed, "God, I hate that bitch."
Damon laughed, "You don't know how good it is to hear that."
They passed the bottle between each other countless more times throughout the night, both of them getting progressively more drunk until neither could walk in a straight line. They argued, they bonded, they fought and offered half assed apologies that would mean nothing come morning when neither remembered any of it, but they were still apologies, and that was more than the brothers had shared in decades.
"Now, are you ready to finally have this conversation?" Katherine asked the gasping girl whose heart was currently in her hand, her face contorted in an odd mix of fear and disinterest. As fun as inflicting every method of pain possible on her was, she had to admit that it was growing tedious.
Katherine had spent all of last night wearing her down, bleeding her dry and letting her pass out, only to wake up a few moments later starved for blood and ignoring the offer of a bag dangling in front of her face. When she had gotten bored, she'd decided just to wait until morning. By then, maybe Elena would have broken down just a little bit more.
Elena's heavy eyes slowly opened through a grimace of pain, and she hoarsely asked, "Why haven't you just killed me yet?"
Smirking, the older vampire taunted, "Because it's so much more fun to toy with my prey first. Surely you agree, don't you killer?"
Elena made no sign that she even heard her, let alone felt anything at her accusation. She had gotten out the reason for her flipping the switch yesterday, and she immediately regretted it. Now, it only gave Katherine more ammunition to tease her about how weak she was; how she couldn't even handle killing some people even though she was a vampire and it was in her nature.
She was a joke to the vampire species.
Katherine moved closer to her face and asked, "Now, how about you turn that switch back on so when I kill you, I can see your true feelings."
Elena coughed and wheezed as Katherine gripped her heart more tightly, and her efforts of pulling the woman's hand from her chest did nothing to stop her. She managed to bite out, "Never."
Katherine shrugged, "So you won't turn them on for me—fine. What if I told you that before I kill you, I'll give you one last goodbye to whoever you want?" Elena looked at her skeptically, clearly not believing a single word. Katherine chuckled, "Call it one last parting gift for family."
Even if Elena thought she was telling the truth, there wouldn't be a point. "Everyone hates me." She ground out, clenching her jaw through the pain. "Nobody would even want a goodbye from me anyways. So do it. Kill me. You'll be doing me a favor."
Katherine's smug smirk faltered at that, morphing into narrowed eyes. She sighed and pulled her hand from the girl's chest, letting her slump to the ground, "You really are pathetic." After cleaning off the blood on her hand, Katherine said, "You're smart, Elena. Tell me why I'm really here."
Taking in the resignation Katherine seemed to have accepted, Elena answered, "Because one of our boys brought you here."
Smiling deviously, Katherine added, "To turn your humanity on. But now I can see that you're not going to do it for anyone. There's no point in you being in here. So go. Get out of here. Leave town for all I care. I got to have my fun with you, and I'll be on my way as soon as I get what I was promised."
Moving to her feet, Elena braced herself on the wall, "Torturing me wasn't enough? What, have you come to try to get Stefan back again since Elijah dumped your ass?"
Laughing, Katherine said, "No, torturing you was the cherry on top. I was promised something else, something that would probably send that witchy best friend of yours straight to the grave, but hey, what do you care?"
"Bonnie? You're going to kill Bonnie?" Elena asked, worry seeping into her tone. "Why? What do you get from that?"
Katherine smirked smugly, "Worried about your friend? Well, I'll make sure to make her death quick. I won't draw it out, just for your sake. I wouldn't want to make you feel or anything like that."
Elena raised her chin defiantly, "You're lying. You're not going to kill Bonnie."
"Aren't I?" Katherine challenged. "Or is the not-so-destroyed talisman Damon promised me not going to kill your little friend when I take it?"
"Damon wouldn't do that." She said confidently, choosing to ignore the fact that Katherine knew about the talisman still being intact meaning Damon had been serious.
Using her words against her, Katherine mocked, "But everyone hates you, Elena. Of course Damon would kill Bonnie. He doesn't care about you anymore—he stopped the second you stopped being what he wanted. He called me here to bring your humanity back, but it wasn't so things could just fall back into place like they had been before. It was to ease his own guilty conscience. Could you imagine letting someone you love die for you, then failing them by not doing a damn thing to teach them about vampirism? You weren't the first person Damon turned, but you were his biggest failure, wouldn't you agree? I mean, look at you. Begging for death because of your own childish insecurities… On second thought, I think I'm just going to bail. You're a lost cause, and since I'm not going to get what I want, there's no point in sticking around."
Elena silently glared at her, the words somehow latching on to a piece of her that she didn't know had surfaced. The padlock on that box inside of her was breaking, and there wasn't shit she could do to stop it.
So she ran.
Using the last of her strength, she flashed past Katherine and outside, running until the need for blood was the only thing pounding in her head.