Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)
Masquerade
"Here." Damon extended a glass full of chilled blood to the nervous blonde vampire sitting on the couch impatiently waiting for Stefan to arrive. Immediately, Caroline took the glass of human blood and sighed.
"I'm still shaking." She brought the glass up to her lips and drank slowly just as Stefan rushed into the room.
"What happened?"
"Go ahead, tell him," Damon urged the young vampire. He looked up at Stefan. "You're gonna love this."
"I saw Katherine today," Caroline confessed. Stefan didn't seem shocked, but rather intrigued.
"Where?"
"At the Grill. I-I just stopped by to gawk and quasi-stalk Matt—"
"Houston, we have a problem!" Damon, Caroline, and Stefan all looked towards the threshold of the Salvatore study as Amelia came barging in, a distressed look on her face. She walked over to the three of them and opened her mouth to start speaking, then closed it, confused. "Where's my sister?"
"You don't have one," Damon teased with a smile. Amelia frowned at him.
"Ha, ha. Funny." She shook her head. "Should've known you'd make that joke sometime. But seriously, where's Claire?"
"She stopped by Elena's house to help with Jenna," Stefan answered. "What's wrong?"
Amelia inhaled carefully. "Katherine's onto me. Actually…I think she's pretty much figured it all out."
"Can I finish my story first?" Caroline bit at the older vampires from her position on the couch, still wrecked with the nerves from her meeting with Katherine. Damon rolled his eyes.
"Then skip the teen drama and get to it," he demanded. Caroline let out a frustrated sigh.
"She wanted me to deliver a message to you two."
Stefan arched an eyebrow. "What was the message?"
The blonde vampire sucked in a breath. "She wants the moonstone. If she doesn't get it, she's threatening to kill people."
"Tell him the rest of it," Damon urged.
"Tonight. At the masquerade ball."
"She wants to do it in public," Stefan deduced. "Killing Mason threw her off guard."
"No kidding!" Amelia scoffed. "It threw her so off guard she started going through my messages on my phone and ransacked my room. She definitely knows I'm working against her."
"Yeah, yeah, we all knew the truth was gonna come out sometime." Damon waved his hand at her and shook his head. "She's running scared. What she did to Jenna was desperate; telling Christopher about me and Claire was downright pathetic. She's out of tricks."
"We can't underestimate her. We have to play smarter than her," Stefan strategized.
Caroline looked up at Stefan and suggested, "Can't we just give her the moonstone so she'll leave?"
"No," Damon rejected. "Katherine's not getting dick. I've had it. I'm gonna go to the masquerade ball and I'm gonna kill her. Tonight."
"You're not gonna kill her," Stefan protested. Damon looked up at his brother with anger.
"Don't give me that goody-goody crap!"
"You're not gonna kill her."
"Oh, really?"
Stefan smiled and nodded. "Because I am."
The two brothers gave each other approving looks, but Amelia interrupted their masculine moment.
"Um…shouldn't Claire be the one to kill her? You know, poetic justice and all?" Stefan and Damon looked at the youngest King and said nothing with words but everything with expression. Amelia sighed. "Well, fine. I guess I'll just shut up now, then."
As Matt and Jeremy helped Jenna get through the threshold and back into the Gilbert home, Claire helped Elena with the "Get Well Soon" flowers and bears Jenna had gotten from her friends and had taken home from the hospital.
"Easy. Grab the door, Jer," Matt called out.
Jenna groaned. "Hey, stop fussing, I'm fine."
"The doctors said that you have to take it easy," Elena told her aunt softly.
"Yeah, you don't want to rip your stitches, hemorrhage, and die, all right?" Jeremy added from behind her. Claire and Matt helped Jenna move down the stairs from the foyer into the living room.
"Yeah, the only thing I'm gonna die from is embarrassment."
"No…" Matt trailed off.
"I walked into a knife!" Jenna exclaimed. "How does somebody do that?"
"It…was a freak accident," Elena said slowly, knowing that it wasn't the truth. Claire and Elena exchanged a glance, knowing that it was her compulsion that made Aunt Jenna think that way. However, the second Claire made Jenna think that the knife wound was a mere accident, Elena chocked her aunt full of the herb that would protect Jenna from being manipulated ever again.
"Yeah, it happens," Jeremy added. Matt scoffed.
"Yeah, I mean, I've done it like twenty times at the Grill." Jenna started to laugh, causing pain in her side. Matt chuckled, too. "Okay, I'm being nice."
Matt and Claire managed to get Jenna onto the couch so that she was comfortable. Claire waved the bottle of wine she had brought as a gift for Jenna up high with a smile.
"I bet this could cheer you up…"
Jenna groaned. "The doctor said I couldn't have alcohol for a week! That just depresses me."
Claire shook her head. "Alcohol is never depressing. We'll just save it until you get better. I'll go put it away."
As Elena walked into the kitchen with Jeremy on her heels, Claire followed them both so that she could put the wine away and save it for another time when Jenna was allowed back on the good stuff.
"So what are we gonna do?" Jeremy asked Elena as she set her things down on the center island and sighed.
"Make lunch."
"About Katherine," Jeremy clarified. Elena looked up at him and shook her head.
"We're not gonna do anything, Jeremy."
"Come on. She tried to kill Jenna. We can't let her get away with that." Jeremy looked over at the blonde vampire in their kitchen. "Claire, you have to have some sort of a plan, right?"
Claire looked back at him and scoffed. "Why do you assume I have a plan?"
"Because this was all because of you!" Jeremy exclaimed. "Because she's doing everything in her power to get revenge on you for some sick, twisted reason. What if she tries something else?"
Claire exhaled and moved to grab water from the Gilbert fridge. "Stop wasting your time, Jeremy. Whatever Katherine wants, Katherine gets. She made that clear when she told Christopher what I did and he left. Apparently, ruining my life wasn't enough so she decided to go after your family and...frankly, yeah, it's my fault. So before someone else gets hurt, I'm doing what she wants. I've isolated myself from Damon and Stefan to get her to back the hell off and now all that matters is getting Jenna recovered."
"You can't be serious." Jeremy scoffed. He stared at her with an incredulous look, causing her to slam her water bottle down and stare back coldly at him.
"Look, let me tell you a little story, okay? Once upon a time, there was an evil bitch named Katherine Pierce who didn't give two shits about anyone else. Today, she revels in her triumph and I'm not going to do anything about it. The end."
Jeremy ground his teeth together in anger and frustratedly turned on his heel to walk out the back door. As he did, Elena called out, "Where are you going?"
"Out," he told her, then looked at Matt and Jenna in the living room. "I'll be back!"
When Jeremy was gone, Elena sighed, but still kept unpacking the food in the bag that Matt had given her. Claire grabbed another bottle of water for Elena, who was surveying the vampire slowly.
"Thanks for…helping out around here," Elena told her. Claire looked up at the human.
"You shouldn't be thanking me," Claire said slowly. "This was all because of me, like Jeremy said. Katherine was after me, your family never should have been involved and now…now I feel terrible about it."
"Good." Elena shrugged, earning Claire to look up at the human with confused eyes. Sure, she knew that it was her fault and everything, but she didn't expect Elena to be so blunt about it. Elena's chocolate eyes locked with Claire's as she continued compassionately. "Claire, the minute you stop feeling bad about something is the moment that Katherine really wins. She can ruin all the relationships she wants, but there's one thing you'll have that she never will: the capacity to care."
Claire exhaled. "I guess you're right."
"So you've been avoiding Damon and Stefan?" Elena asked quietly. Her guest nodded.
"Yep. As much as I can, anyway. Stefan keeps trying to talk to me but I…I don't really feel like it right now." Claire let out a deep sigh and drank some water out of the bottle she took out of the fridge. "Right now, I just need to make Katherine happy and stay away. After all, that's what she wanted."
"You're just gonna give in? So easily?" Some part of Elena was shocked—it was hardly like Claire to just roll over and take it. Claire shrugged, defeated.
"I've run out of moves, Elena," she confessed seriously. "I have nothing left in me. I'm done fighting her. It's not worth it anymore."
Elena wasn't given the chance to respond and give another pep talk before Claire walked over to Jenna with the two glasses of water with a small smile on her face, pretending like everything was okay.
"Hey," Caroline greeted Bonnie as she opened the door to reveal the Bennett witch carrying the Grimoire on her arm. "Come on in."
"I got Stefan's message," Bonnie rushed out hurriedly as she walked towards the parlor, where Stefan was standing by the couch. He let out a sigh of relief upon seeing the witch.
"Hey! You brought the Grimoire. Thank you." Bonnie's eyes drifted into the parlor where she saw Damon, Amelia, and Alaric standing over a table full of weapons—stakes and vervain darts and other things of that nature. Seeing them, she immediately got concerned.
"What's going on?" she asked. Stefan braced to answer, but Jeremy did instead, walking out from the hallway to stand next to Bonnie.
"We're gonna kill Katherine," said the young Gilbert before he went to see Alaric, Caroline, Amelia, and Damon at the table full of weapons. An alarmed Bonnie looked over at Stefan, who tried to amend the quickness of the teenager's statement.
"I can explain," Stefan promised.
"Please," Bonnie urged.
He took a moment. "…We're gonna kill Katherine."
There was nothing more to say. Bonnie watched as Stefan went over to Alaric, who was showing all of the participants his assortment of weapons that would kill a vampire, whereupon one could pick and choose their poison to take Katherine down. Bonnie, though reluctant, followed Stefan to the table and joined in as Alaric lectured them all.
"Now for you, I recommend this," he said to the Salvatore brothers as he slipped on a sleeve fit with a few wooden stakes ready to be fired. "It fits nicely under the jacket sleeve. Here's the trigger. When you're ready…"
He pressed a button on the sleeve and a wooden stake came flying out straight into his hand where he grasped it in his fist and thrust upward, pretending to stake a vampire in the chest. All vampires watched with some ounce of concern seeing the serious vampire-killing look on Ric's face.
"You wanted me to show you how to kill vampires," Alaric defended himself against the group of vampires on defense against him.
"Yeah, that doesn't make me feel like you're going to run into my room with a stake tonight, Van Helsing," Amelia protested as Alaric slipped the sleeve off his wrist. She grabbed it from him. "Give me that."
As everyone ran around like chickens with their heads cut off to try and devise a plan that was good enough to trick the great Katherine Pierce, Bonnie struggled to keep up at Stefan's side.
"I know you're trying to end this for Claire and everything, but it's risky! Too many people could get hurt."
"Look, Katherine started a fight with Claire that has gotten way too out of control," Stefan began rationally. "She drove Christopher out of the town and what she did to Jenna…it crossed the line. She has to be stopped before it happens again."
But Bonnie was unsure. "I don't know, Stefan..."
"Look, Katherine knows me, all right?" He tried to convince her. "She knows that I'm not going to try something in a crowd full of innocent people. So that gives me an edge. I can catch her by surprise."
Bonnie's gaze drifted to the other team players surrounding the weaponry, where she finally sighed and suggested, "I could do a spell to trap her. Like the tomb spell."
"Right," agreed the younger Salvatore. "We can isolate her away from the others." Bonnie didn't say anything in agreement or rejection, causing Stefan to beg, "Please, Bonnie?"
She took a moment before finally agreeing, though obviously with reservations.
After the plan was all laid out before them, the team assembled in the Salvatore parlor around the coffee table in front of the fire place for the final agreement so that their plan did not fall through due to emotions or reneging on promises. Alaric sighed, frustrated about his job.
"Are you sure you guys don't want me there tonight?" he asked the vampires.
Stefan answered immediately. "No, you need to make sure Elena doesn't know and that Claire doesn't try to follow us."
"Okay." Alaric nodded curtly. "Well, I'll make sure Claire never leaves my sight, then."
Stefan nodded and turned to the rest of the team. "All right. If anybody wants to back out, I'll understand."
"Yeah," Damon seconded. "Cold feet speak now. I don't want this going wrong if someone chickens out. Caroline?"
"I won't," the blonde said abruptly. "She killed me. Fair's fair. As long as there are no werewolves running around."
Damon smirked. "Oh, I took care of Mason."
"And as long as Tyler doesn't kill anyone, he won't turn," Jeremy assured them.
"Amelia?" Damon almost sung, turning his head to the other blonde vampire right at his side. She looked over at him and, for a moment, stared, and then gasped.
"Oh. Right. Cold feet? Hell no. Katherine's been after my sister for years, it's time for it to end." She looked around the group. "But…I mean…we should really bring Claire in on this…"
"No, we shouldn't." Damon groaned. "The last thing we need is our beloved Clarissa getting all 'Claire King' on us and annihilating Katherine before I even get one go around."
A smile pricked at Amelia's thin lips. "You're just saying that because you care," she whispered. He looked up at her with a sour smile.
"I'm saying it because I want the pleasure of killing the bitch that ruined my life, thank you."
"Bonnie?" Stefan ignored the two bickering vampires behind him to look at the one person in the group that was most likely to cave—the witch. "Are you with us?"
There was a long pause that resembled a deafening hesitation, but at last, Bonnie stepped forward clutching the Grimoire in her arms and nodded. "But no one gets hurt."
"Except Katherine," Damon chimed. "Tonight Katherine gets a stake through her heart."
The Lockwood mansion was crowded with residents of Mystic Falls all decked out in masquerade costumes in the spirit of helping the homeless in the name of charity. Flame throwers and entertainment performers were scattered everywhere to distract and amuse the guests to their enjoyment. Out on the lawn, Damon smoothly danced up to his tense brother's side.
"Do you see her?"
"Nope. You sure you can do this?" Stefan replied. Damon scoffed.
"Who are you talking to?"
"I've had plenty of chances to kill her and I hesitated."
"Well, that is the fork in the road between you and me, my friend! I don't hesitate," Damon insisted with a small smile. Stefan, however, wasn't buying any of what Damon was selling.
"You spent 145 years loving her. It could happen."
"I won't hesitate," Damon promised, looking over at Stefan. The younger brother nodded his head once, trying to believe Damon but only time would tell.
"Okay," Stefan agreed, knowing that the two of them would have to wait and see. He sighed. "How angry do you think Claire will be with us when she finds out we did this without her?"
Damon exhaled. "It's nothing I can't handle. I've been handling it for my entire eternal existence." He glanced over at Stefan. "But you…oh, this will be something new for you, won't it, Stefan?"
"You think she'll be that angry?" Stefan asked, slightly concerned. Damon smiled and patted his brother on the shoulder.
"Everything you're imagining…amplify it by ten." With that vote of encouragement, Damon walked back up the stairs away from his brother, leaving Stefan to think about what he was imagining and amplify it by ten, like Damon had said. When he came up with the result, Stefan let out a heavy sigh.
"Oh, dear God, that can't be good," he mumbled to himself before going off to disappear in the crowd.
"We have to drink this stuff in secret," Claire whispered to Ric as they were in the kitchen, screwing off the cork on the wine bottle Claire had told Jenna she would stash earlier. "The doctor said Jenna can't have any until she gets better so I told her I would save it."
Alaric stilled his hand on the corkscrew. "Then maybe we should…"
"Give me that!" Claire snapped and pulled the bottle from Alaric into her arms, where she started to unscrew the cork again. "I can get more, Ric. I'm a freaking vampire; if you want, I can have a vintage Bordeaux shipped to your door by tomorrow. Get the glasses."
Alaric walked over to the cabinet in the kitchen and grabbed two wine glasses for them as Claire popped open the bottle quietly so that Jenna wouldn't hear. Elena and Jenna were both on the couch in the living room watching television eating pizza, oblivious to the two of them in the kitchen. While Alaric walked over to her with the glasses in hand, Claire reached over and checked her phone for any messages, disappointed to find that there were none. Alaric reached her at the table and eyed her curiosity.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
Claire looked up at him. "No, actually. I haven't gotten a single text message all day—not from Stefan, from Damon, from Amelia…not even from Caroline. Something's wrong."
Alaric grabbed the wine bottle from her and started to pour. "I'm sure it's nothing," he lied.
The blonde vampire pursed her lips. "Or…it could be everything," she began, causing Alaric to glance up at her. She narrowed her eyes. "What are they planning?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to play dumb. She frowned at him.
"Damon and Stefan are up to something. I know when they're up to something." She leaned forward. "You're up to something. Spill it, Helsing."
Alaric groaned. "What, is that some sort of inside joke or something? Amelia said—"
"Ha!" Claire pointed a finger at him accusingly. "You've been talking to my sister. Come on, Ric, give it up. What's going on?"
He was silent for a long time, realizing he had been caught. Eventually, he shrugged. "I don't know what to say, Claire."
The two adults stared at each other for a while before Claire finally gave him a small smile and started to rise from her seat. "All right, well, then, I think I'll just be heading back to the boarding house. I had a nice time and everything—"
"Wait!" Alaric stopped her, grabbing her arm to pull her back down. "Wait. Wait."
"Beans. Spill. Now," Claire demanded as she sat back down and crossed her legs patiently. The vampire hunter's mind spun around trying to come up with a lie, and eventually, he settled upon the partial truth.
"Stefan sent me over to keep an eye on you while he, Amelia, and Damon are at the Lockwood party tonight. Just so that you'd have some extra help in case Katherine showed up and decided to make a move."
"The Lockwood party?" Claire repeated. "You mean the masquerade ball? Why would Damon and Stefan go to that? That doesn't even sound like them at all. Plus, Stefan always makes me go with him—"
"Claire," Alaric interrupted her, shaking his head softly. "Just…let this one go, okay? Let Stefan and Damon do what they need to."
Claire fell silent while Alaric poured himself a little of the expensive wine and got up from the kitchen table, leaving her to ponder over her current confliction on whether to stay on the sidelines or join the crowd.
The soft music played over the stereo speakers on the dance floor under the gazebo as Stefan walked around, alone. He wasn't exactly searching for Katherine, but he was looking for her, anxious to when she would show herself to him. He kept himself available, however, waiting for the right moment she would choose to present herself and make her demands. Finally, Stefan spotted her as she started to walk down the stairs to the gazebo, and he kept himself focused. She disappeared after a moment, his eyes temporarily too slow to realize until her voice ended up right behind him.
"Dance with me," Katherine suggested as he turned around. She titled her head and peered up at him with seductive eyes. Now was the fun part.
"No," Stefan said simply.
A passing tray of strawberries went around and Katherine grabbed onto one with a sigh. "Fine. Then tell me who I should kill. Him? She looks delicious."
As her eyes wandered, Katherine bit down on the strawberry and pulled it away from her mouth. Finally giving into her games, Stefan held out his arm, Katherine put the strawberry leaves on another passing tray and then fit her arm into Stefan's as he led her out to the dance floor.
Once he pulled her close, Katherine chuckled. "It's a beautiful night."
He copied her chuckle, more fed up than anything. "Why the charade?"
"How's Jenna? I certainly didn't expect her to survive that. Lucky girl. Clumsy. How does one stab oneself?"
"Katherine," Stefan began.
"Hmm?" she replied.
"I don't want anyone to get hurt tonight."
"Okay," the brunette agreed. "Then give me the moonstone and nobody will."
"Hm. Well, see, I don't have the moonstone on me. So you and I will have to go get it together."
"Hm." Back and forth, like cat and mouse. It was amusing, to the both of them. "I have a better plan. You go fetch it and I will try not to kill anyone in the meantime."
Stefan chuckled under his breath and pushed her further. "My way…or you don't get it."
But just as everything was going as planned and no one innocent was getting injured or killed, a human had to intervene and distract Katherine from the main goal. Aimee, another teenager at Mystic Falls High, walked up to Stefan and interrupted.
"Hey, Stefan, I can't find Matt…" she began, then saw Elena dancing with him and stopped. "Oh, my god, Elena, you look so pretty! I love that dress. You look gorge."
Katherine smiled. "Thank you. I love your necklace."
"Oh, thanks!"
"Oh, it's twisted," said Katherine as she pulled away to Stefan to walk behind the teenager. "Here, let me. Here we go."
And in the blink of an eye, Katherine punched her hand into the teenager's spine and the wounded girl gave a dying gasp. Stefan's eyes widened.
"Paralyzed from the waist down," the vampire announced. Another punch came and Aimee slumped over. "And dead."
She tossed the body to Stefan, who caught it red-handed in the midst of a moving crowd. Katherine, however, didn't seem to care at all about their exposure. Stefan was panicking. Katherine turned to walk away, but not without one last threat.
"The moonstone, Stefan. Tick, tock."
With two more pizza-greased dishes in hand, Claire walked over to Elena at the dishwasher and bent down to help her with the dishes she was putting away. Elena shook her head.
"Oh, I've—"
"I need a favor," Claire whispered quietly, low enough so that only Elena could hear and so that Alaric and Jenna could not suspect anything from in the living room as they were focused on the movie that was playing on the television. Elena silenced and waited for Claire's instructions. "I'm gonna slip out the back door in about thirty seconds. Something's going on at the masquerade party. I'm gonna figure out what it is."
"What?" Elena gasped, concerned. "Well, let me come with you."
Claire shook her head. "Alaric's watching my every move and in order to slip away, I need you to distract him. Can you do that for me? As long as possible? Just stall."
The vampire could see that Elena was desperate to be a part of the action but realized what she needed to be doing. Finally, Elena nodded and shut the dishwasher silently. From that point forward, neither Claire nor Elena said anything as Elena turned to the living room to join Alaric and Jenna while Claire moved towards the back door and stealthily slipped out.
"What are we watching next?" Elena proposed.
"There's a Seinfeld marathon on," Jenna answered her. Alaric looked over into the dim kitchen, searching for the pale blonde vampire he was meant to keep an eye out on. Seeing her nowhere, he immediately got concerned.
"Where's Claire?"
"Oh, she spilled something on her shirt so she went to wash it off. She'll be right out," the teenager lied, and though Alaric was somewhat suspicious, he turned back to the television and didn't say another word.
"I put the body in the trunk for now," Stefan told his brother and Amelia as he walked into the room they were waiting in until Katherine and Caroline showed up. Damon sighed, realizing that the body did put a damper on things.
"We'll…dump her when we get back."
Stefan let out a large, disappointed exhale. "This is exactly what I didn't want, Damon!"
"Stefan, it's collateral damage," Damon tried to explain to his brother. Amelia, surprisingly, backed Damon up on that one.
"He's right, Stefan. It was unrealistic of us to think that Katherine was going to go down without a fight."
"Right!" Stefan looked between the two of them. "Which is why we need to call it off."
"What?" Damon gasped at his younger sibling. "Who's hesitating now? Hey! Don't do this to me!" Briskly, he walked over to Stefan and clamped a hand down on his shoulder. "This woman ruined our lives. She destroyed us. She took everything from Claire and sure as hell won't stop until she's dead. Tonight it ends. We can do it together. I got your back."
"Me, too. You have to do this, Stefan. For all of us." Amelia stepped forward, standing right behind Damon, looking Stefan right in the eye. Damon moved slightly to eye Amelia behind him, and he gave her an approving nod before looking back at his brother.
"All right?" the dark-haired Salvatore prompted his sibling, waiting for Stefan to get back on board. Finally, Stefan nodded.
"All right."
Damon let out a long breath. "Good." He turned around at Amelia. "Text Jeremy. Tell him we're ready."
"On it." Amelia already had her phone out by the time she got the last syllable of her reply out of her mouth. Once the text message was sent, all the three had to do was wait until Katherine showed up to their trap to finally put an end to her once and for all.
Jeremy's part of the plan had been simple: he received the text from Amelia, went to Katherine, told her that Damon and Stefan wanted to meet her at the edge of the lake, and waited for Katherine to take the bait. Except, the reason their plan was so ingenious was that they had thought of everything—Katherine would never do something that they told her to do. She would know it was a trap. But that next part was on Caroline, hence the reason Jeremy was texting her as he was walking away from the party around to the front. But instead, he was stopped by a certain vampire that had not been a part of the plan.
"Claire?" Jeremy asked aloud. She smiled sourly and put her hands on her hips.
"Where are Stefan and Damon?"
The male teenager didn't want to spill any part of their plan in fear of getting the wrath from Damon and Stefan on the matter. But Claire was growing impatient with every second he spent avoiding the question and, when Bonnie finally joined them, they both realized they had no choice.
"All right!" Claire snapped and held up her hands at the two of them. She looked between the two breakable humans. "You get one chance to tell me what the hell is going on right now or I'm storming that mansion like it's D-Day, are we clear?"
Bonnie let out a sigh and finally caved in. "We're trying to kill Katherine."
Claire hesitated. "Here? Now?"
"We saw an opportunity and knew we had to take it."
She scoffed. "You mean those two idiots saw an opportunity and no one decided to inform me of this god awful decision! You're all insane! She's going to murder every last one of you and then I'm going to end up alone, standing on top of your dead bodies! This is exactly what she wants!"
"We've got this under control, Claire," Bonnie assured her. Her eyes widened alarmingly.
"Under control? Under control? I used to think I was a pretty decent badass but then Katherine Pierce ended up ruining my marriage and managed to hurt someone else in the process!" She looked over at Jeremy. "Your aunt, Jeremy! Elena's aunt. You all don't get it! I've been trying to help you guys and you just throw it back in my face! You have no idea what you signed up for!"
"She has to be stopped," Jeremy told her. "Before she goes after you again or after one of us. It's only a matter of time before she strikes again but if we kill her, that's it. This can all be over."
Claire scoffed and crossed her arms. "It's never over. Not with Katherine."
Katherine had Caroline roughly by the strands of her golden hair, pulling her upstairs with her furiously as she searched endlessly for the moonstone that Bonnie seemed to have. Caroline whimpered.
"Why do you keep dragging me into this? I don't want any part of it!"
"Shut up!" Katherine snapped at her. Finally, they came to a stop at the stairs and Katherine looked around at the various rooms where Caroline had led her. "Which room is it?"
Caroline sniffed and jerked her head to the one in front of them. "That one."
Still pulling Caroline by her hair, Katherine barged into the room at the top of the stairs and Caroline stopped right at the threshold while Katherine sauntered inside, looking around for the witch in question. With Katherine's back turned to Caroline, she asked, "Where is she?"
Then, Katherine started to hear something strange. Instead of Caroline's girlish, pleading, pathetic little cry, she started to laugh. When the dark-haired vampire turned around, she saw Caroline smiling and laughing at her like she had just pulled a trick. This, naturally, had Katherine's suspicions at an all-time high.
"I did it," Caroline whispered, impressed with herself. "I really didn't think that I'd be able to fool…you but I did it."
Angered, Katherine flew at the younger vampire with all of her strength, only to get knocked back by the invisible shield surrounding the room, sealing it off with magic. Caroline stood tall, unmoving, as Katherine stumbled back and hissed.
"What the…?" Caroline smiled and put a hand on her hip, causing Katherine to sigh heavily and realize. "Stefan."
She turned around, where Stefan was indeed waiting for her. "Hello, Katherine."
"Goodbye, Katherine," Caroline chimed with a wave before heading down the hall to get out of the crossfire. Katherine and Stefan were left, facing each other from across the room. He held up a wooden stake in his hand, waving it as a consolation prize, while Katherine sauntered further inside, seeing as there was no other way to go.
"You don't really think that you can kill me with that now, do you?"
"No," Stefan admitted. "But he can."
Damon opened the closet door behind Katherine and used the air compressor to shoot a wooden stake right at her back, aiming at—but barely missing—her heart.
"This has gone on long enough," Claire objected, looking between the witch and the young Gilbert. She looked up at the Lockwood mansion. "Where are they?"
"Inside," Jeremy told her. "Probably dealing with Katherine."
"Fine," Claire barked. "Then take me—"
Before she was able to finish her sentence, there was a sharp shooting pain right in the dead center of her back as if she'd been staked. A cry escaped her mouth without reason, but she could feel the blood start to pool underneath her leather jacket and unfortunately stain her white silk shirt. As she let out her scream, Jeremy and Bonnie rushed forward.
"Claire?"
"What is it?" Bonnie urged. Claire tried to keep herself stable, but the pain in her back was unbearable. Her legs buckled beneath her at the pain and she doubled over on her knees.
"Someone staked me!" she growled through short breaths. Jeremy looked behind her and shook is head.
"Claire, there's no one else here. There's no stake in your back, either."
Damon's shot had missed, but that wasn't the last of it. Amelia came out from the closet right behind Damon with her own weapon in hand, but Stefan got to Katherine first. As she stumbled from the shock of the first attack, he plunged the stake in his hand in her right arm to prolong her pain. Katherine cried aloud as blood started to spill from the injury.
And there it was again—a phantom pain. This time, Claire felt it in her right arm as if a stake had penetrated her skin although there was no one around to do it and no evidence at all of its piercing. Blood started to seep through her jacket and it spilled down her arm, rolling right over her fingertips onto the blades of grass beneath her feet. Bonnie and Jeremy looked at each other out of confusion as Claire whimpered at the pain.
"I don't know what's happening…" Bonnie stuttered, at a loss. Claire groaned.
"I'm not…I'm not healing," she complained, trying not to focus on her pain too much. But without her healing abilities the injuries were becoming much worse. She screamed at the two of them, "What the hell is going on?"
Suddenly, Bonnie realized as she looked up at the Lockwood mansion and remembered what was happening. It all seemed very simple: a spell.
"Jeremy!" Bonnie caught his attention. "She's linked to Katherine. Get them to stop. Now!"
The teenager rose from his knees to go stop Stefan and Damon but Claire stopped him first. "Gilbert! Hey, Gilbert! Don't you dare walk away from me!" She forced herself up on her feet though the pain from her back was practically paralyzing. With slow breaths, she growled, "Get me the hell upstairs! Now!"
Stefan pulled the stake out of Katherine's shoulder and moved forward again to hurt her once more. Instead, Katherine stopped him and shoved him back so that he fell on top of a coffee table, inevitably breaking the wood off into pieces. As he stumbled back, Damon yanked his own stake out of Katherine's back and struck down at her, only making her more furious. She shoved him back against the wall and then Amelia was after her.
The young blonde vampire managed to put a stake in Katherine's chest, but it was too off-center to be near her heart. Katherine pushed Amelia back and the youngest King went flying right into the couch where it was easy enough to recoil. Katherine yanked the stake out of her chest and tossed it to the ground while Stefan pressed the trigger in his sleeve to release another wooden stake to throw at Katherine. She ducked it the first time; but the second time, she grabbed it in mid-air and changed its course so that it went flying at Stefan.
He ducked and the two brothers were up on their feet, standing against Katherine. Amelia, too, recoiled from the couch and faced the dark-haired vampire. It was three against one.
Damon tried first this time, flying at her just to have her push back at him and toss him somewhere else. He grabbed a stake on the floor and swung it at her, but she caught his hand and flipped the stake so that Damon's wrist was bent totally backwards and the point of the stake was at his chest. He struggled with her strength, but Amelia came to his rescue. She shoved Katherine back into Stefan's arms and Stefan put her in a headlock, wrapping his arm around her neck to cut off circulation. They struggled so hard they fell back onto the floor where Katherine gasped greatly for air, but as she did so, Damon was already back on his feet with a stake in his hand.
He went straight to her, the stake high in the air ready to be the weapon that killed Katherine Pierce. But right as he was about to swing the stake down, there was a scream.
"Damon, don't!" Claire choked out.
All three opposing vampires looked up to see Jeremy holding Claire up with one arm around his shoulders as they came to a dead stop in front of the threshold. Stefan, Damon, and Amelia all stared at Claire and eyed the blood that dripped off her fingertips and the injuries that were exposed.
"Everything you're doing to her is hurting Claire. And she's not healing," Jeremy explained to them as he struggled to keep Claire upright, though she was clearly choking from the hold that Stefan had on Katherine at the moment. Stefan released his tight choke, allowing Claire and Katherine to breathe. Damon got off of Katherine and stepped away while Katherine, satisfied with her backup plan, jumped up from the ground.
"You think you two are the only ones with a witch on your side?" she asked. "Wrong. Something tells me that my witch is better than your witch."
Katherine snatched the stake from Damon's hand and started to play with it as she walked away from the vampires that were just trying to kill her. Claire sighed heavily, but she was feeling terribly weak, which she despised. She swallowed thickly.
"Jeremy, just give me a little shove," Claire told him. Damon moved forward.
"No, you can't. If you come inside, you can't go back out. It's a spell," he told her. She glanced up at him with unamused, irritated pupils.
"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it, Damon?" she snapped and looked over at Katherine. "Whatever you do to her in there will happen to me out here so why don't we just make it easy on ourselves?"
With a grunt, she pushed herself forward and stumbled through the threshold of the room. Damon flashed over to her and caught her as she staggered, holding her upright. While Stefan yelled at Jeremy to get out of the vicinity of the room, Damon's hands went up and moved the top of Claire's leather jacket down, where he saw the unhealed wound from Stefan's earlier stab in the arm. She turned her head and winced as he hissed.
"Damn it. Are you okay?"
Katherine snorted. "Let's all make sure poor Clarissa's okay." Her chocolate eyes drifted up to met Claire's as she held the stake over her hand. "Just a little bit more pressure…"
The stake split the skin in her hand, creating a trail of blood along both Claire and Katherine's right hand. Immediately after the wound was created, Amelia snatched the stake out of Katherine's hand so that it was out of her reach for any further damage. Claire groaned at the unimaginable pain and clenched her fist so tight that blood inevitably dripped onto Damon's jacket sleeve. She cried out helplessly and Damon looked over at Katherine with a furious expression.
"That's enough, Katherine!" Damon growled. At the moment, Claire couldn't care less who was holding her upright or defending her, even if it happened to be Damon. It'd been a while since she'd felt so much pain and it hadn't gone away in seconds.
Katherine whipped around and grabbed another stake that was lying around before anyone could get to it. She smiled sadistically.
"This is really gonna hurt!" she announced as she braced to plunge the wooden stake right into her abdomen. Claire's eyes went as wide as the moon.
"Wait!" Stefan cried out, stopping Katherine from doing anything else. Katherine didn't let the stake pierce her skin, making Claire give a relieving sigh to release the breath that she didn't know she'd been holding in, anxiously awaiting the pain. A small smile spread across Katherine's red lips.
"Okay." She sat down on the couch. "So, how about that moonstone?"
No one answered her question. Damon moved Claire from his arms to Amelia's, who promptly set the bleeding, angrily weak Claire down on the couch beside Katherine. Katherine only shifted a little to make room from Claire; all while harboring a stink look on her face in disgust for the blonde vampire. Claire shrugged off her jacket in distaste for the leather being soaked with her blood, and she desperately tried to keep pressure on her wounds so that they wouldn't hurt as bad. Damon tested the threshold of the room, determining how hard it would be to make an escape.
"The four of us together, just like old times." Katherine looked at Claire with loathing. "The goodie-two-shoes everyone fawned over." She looked up at Damon. "The brother who loved me too much…" Her gaze drifted towards Stefan, "…and the one that didn't love me enough."
"And the evil slut vampire who only loved herself," Damon added.
Katherine sighed, frustrated. "What happened to you, Damon? You used to be so sweet and polite."
"Oh, that Damon died a long time ago."
"Good. He was a bore."
"Oh, why don't you two stop antagonizing each other?" Stefan crossed his arms and looked down at Katherine. "You're starting to sound like Claire in one of her fights with Damon."
Claire scoffed, slightly offended. "Please. I'm much more inventive with my witty remarks."
"Where's the moonstone?" Katherine interrupted, finished playing games with them for once. Instead of an answer, Stefan replied with a question.
"What do you want with it?"
Katherine bit down on her cheek, staring at both brothers for a while before finally turning her head to look over at the two blonde vampires who were sitting uncomfortably close to her.
"Do the two of you enjoy having these two worship at your altar?" Katherine teased quietly, smirking in the slightest. The two pairs of siblings looked at each other and started to laugh.
Stefan spoke first. "That was really desperate, Katherine."
"Really, really desperate," Amelia added, scoffing. "I mean, wow. I don't know if that was meant to come off as jealous or sad…"
"There's never been any 'worshipping', Katherine," Claire snapped at her, tired of messing around. "We're all friends who share a common disinterest…which is you."
"Sure." Katherine got up from the couch and started towards Damon. "Friends. You know, you are all such bad liars!" She turned around fast so that she faced everyone as they headed off at her.
"Are we really going to sit here and pretend like there's nothing else going on? That Amelia and Stefan aren't falling head over heels in love with each other like they're children again?" Her gaze drifted to Damon and Claire. "Or that Claire and Damon haven't been completely desperate for each other since their parents set their wedding date as children?"
Katherine surveyed them all and chuckled. "You're all lying to yourselves, each and every one of you. And you call me sad." The room went silent as the four of them avoided eye contact with each other, refusing to give into Katherine's mind games. Katherine caught Damon's glance and she gasped. "Here's an idea: kiss me, Damon. We all know how badly you want Claire. Everything I feel, she does. So kiss me."
He narrowed his eyes at her, but Katherine's lips just curled up into a smile. Desperate to change the subject, Stefan moved on.
"You know, this whole Mason thing has me a bit confused. Why a werewolf? The moonstone can break a curse that would help them destroy all vampires so…what's in that for you?" he asked her. Katherine fell silent until Damon spoke up.
"Sorry about your pet wolf," he apologized, not so apologetic about it. "You should've kept him on a tighter leash…"
"I'll have to remember that for next time," Katherine bit at him. "He's not the only wolf in town." No one responded to her ambiguous comment, but Katherine turned around and sat right back down on the couch. She sighed heavily and glanced up at Amelia. "You know, I was quite surprised you were a part of all this."
Amelia laughed. "Nice try, Katherine. But I know you found out that I was helping Claire."
Katherine shrugged. "Sure, I knew about it. But I didn't say I didn't know about it, I just said I was surprised. All those years of loyalty and you just…threw them down the drain. For someone you hardly know."
"I'm her sister, Katherine!" Claire retorted.
Katherine frowned. "Well, from what I've heard, you're actually not." The dark-haired vampire's eyes drifted up to meet Amelia's. "But you don't have to be sisters to share the bond you and I have, Amelia. You and I are closer to being family than you and Claire will ever be. Believe it or not, I'm really disappointed you decided to choose her over me."
"You're never disappointed over anything, Katherine," Amelia protested. "You can find someone else to do your dirty work."
"It wasn't about dirty work!" Katherine shouted. "It was about loyalty. About having a friend."
"And that friend just happened to be my sister." Claire stood up now, finally fed up with sitting around Katherine and listening to her complain about being alone. When she got up on two feet, though, Claire faltered for a moment with her balance but, aided by Stefan, finally got herself under control. She applied more pressure to her shoulder as she spoke. "I'm so sick of you taking everything from me, Katherine. You waltzed into Mystic Falls back in 1864 and took Damon and Stefan away, you tricked my sister into being your little bitch, and you managed to drive my husband out of town after telling him something that was none of your business at all! And on top of all that, you almost killed an innocent bystander. What is your sick, twisted infatuation with destroying me, Katherine?"
Katherine rose from her seat, seething. "You want to know why I loathe you, Clarissa? Because your family, the people that hold themselves in such high regards, they're nothing but filth. Spoiled, rotten little girls and boys that don't deserve to be looked at—not even once. And they call themselves Kings." She scoffed, repulsed.
She had gotten so close that she managed to make Claire stagger back and fall into the chair adjacent to the couch, although Claire didn't show any expression of shame or bother at all. Stefan, Amelia, and Damon watched as the fight unfolded and recoiled, causing Katherine to walk back to her seat on the couch firmly and look up at all of them.
"Get me the moonstone. Now."
They mostly sat in silence for a while after the blowout between Claire and Katherine, but eventually, as Damon tried to test the threshold once again out of impatience, Damon hissed to himself, "Damn it! Where's that witch?"
"We could play charades," Katherine suggested in a lighter tone as she walked around the couch, still holding the wooden stake in her hand.
"The moonstone…" Amelia trailed off to herself, thinking. "The moonstone…the moonstone…you bargained the moonstone!" she exclaimed, jumping up from her seat on the couch.
Damon turned around. "Come again, Blondie?"
Amelia gasped and looked Katherine in the eye. "You told me the story a million times! When you struck a deal with George Lockwood to help fake your death in the church, you said you gave him something that he needed. It was the moonstone!"
Katherine smiled. "Good for you, Amelia. Way to defeat the stereotype. And it would've worked, except that people found out I wasn't in the tomb." She looked back at Damon. "Thanks to you, by the way. Have I mentioned how inconvenient your obsession with me has been?"
"You and me both, honey," Damon deadpanned before pulling his recently acquired glass of bourbon to his lips. Katherine narrowed her eyes at him playfully when Stefan spoke behind her.
"Why do you…why do you need it back?"
She turned around at him slowly, but didn't answer the question. "I love you in a suit. So dashing."
His voice was softer now. "What were you doing with it in the first place?"
"You're wasting your breath, Stefan," Damon warned.
"Unless…it wasn't yours to begin with." Katherine peered up at him, caught, with a small smirk. "In 1864, you faked your death. Who were you running from, Katherine?"
"I'm thinking her street rat vampire pimp," Claire commented aloud as she drank from her own bourbon glass that Damon had graciously provided for her. Her wounds were starting to get better, but they were still sore and hurt like hell. Before drinking, she mumbled, "She's got to make money somehow, right?"
"Street rat? Pimp?" Damon tsked. "Nah. She wouldn't go that cheap. I'm thinking high-end escort business. Some kind of deadbeat, horny corporate stockbroker."
Claire snapped her fingers and pointed at him in agreement. "Right on!"
Katherine looked between the blonde-haired King and the dark-haired Salvatore. "You two are much more cruel united than apart," she noted.
Claire grinned. "Must mean we're desperate for each other, right?"
As Katherine and Claire kept locked eye contact, Damon snickered to himself and walked around to fix himself another glass of bourbon, all while grabbing Claire's glass as well to refill hers. Katherine just gave Claire a sour smile and walked over to the window, where she longingly looked out to all the human guess enjoying themselves. Damon poured Claire's glass and handed it over to Amelia to hand to her sister and then set to work on his own. Katherine sighed.
"We're missing the party," she complained as Damon refilled his cup. Seeing the strong alcohol, she requested, "I'll have one of those."
"Right away, Miss Katherine," Damon taunted as he poured another glass for his ex. She walked around him and grabbed the bourbon from his hand.
"Thank you."
After one sip, everything fell silent. Katherine relished the taste of the strong alcohol and sighed to herself, but then she was taken off guard. Claire had flashed over to her in an instant, disregarding the pain in her body from the earlier wounds that had yet to heal. Katherine's glass dropped to the ground and Claire held a stake right up to Katherine's heart, ready to pierce skin.
"Give me one good reason not to drive this through your heart right now, you vile little bitch," Claire snarled at Katherine.
Katherine spat, "You'd die, too."
"I know." Claire nodded. "But it's so worth it!"
"Claire, stop," Damon argued as he came up behind her and pulled her arm back as she ached to plunge the stake right into Katherine's chest cavity. "It'll kill you. Put it down! The second this spell is lifted, I promise, I will drive it right through her heart."
Things were silent for a very long time as Claire stared at Katherine with ice-cold blue eyes. Katherine wasn't at all afraid that Claire was going to kill her, but there was a single seed of doubt that sprouted from Claire's absolute seriousness about a murder/suicide. Finally, Claire backed away, letting Damon take the stake from her hand.
"You're a coward, Katherine," Claire said quietly, biting the inside of her cheek. "You hide behind your spells and your slaves but one day—and there will be a day—when there won't be anyone to save you. Where you will be all alone because of everything you've done and everyone you've hurt."
Katherine didn't seem fazed. "Oh, how prophetic of you." She shoved past Claire and filed next to Damon, surveying him for a moment before practically moaning, "God, you're hot. When did you get so hot?"
He didn't respond, and she moved past him just as quickly as she said the words. Claire and Damon watched as Katherine moved along and towards the couch, but as she did, there was another voice.
"Katherine." Everyone in the room looked to the door to see a tall, slender, attractive woman in black enter the room with the moonstone in her hand. "The spell in this room has been broken, you're free to leave."
Katherine's witch, obviously, had Katherine overjoyed. The dark-haired vampire let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God."
The witch extended the moonstone to her. "When I hand this over, my debt to you is over."
"Done."
"I owe you nothing."
"I said done. Give it," Katherine demanded.
"I wouldn't do that!" Damon protested behind her, anxiously hoping that the witch would realize how much of a terrible decision it would be to give Katherine the moonstone. But, unfortunately, the witch turned over the moonstone right into Katherine's palm. Katherine enclosed it in her fist, but suddenly, she started to choke. Claire, Amelia, Stefan, and Damon just watched while Katherine gasped for air.
"You should've told me another witch was involved. She's a Bennett witch, Katherine, but I'm sure you knew that," the witch chastised the choking vampire.
Stefan looked back at Claire but still shouted, "Wait…what about Claire?"
"She's fine." The witch looked back at the blonde in the room. "Aren't you?" Claire nodded slowly. "Your wounds will start healing soon now that the spell is broken. The spell I had on you delayed your healing ability but you should be fine within the hour. I apologize for my involvement."
And the witch left Katherine gasping on the floor until the evil slut vampire finally was rendered unconscious with the moonstone by her side.
Stefan found Amelia standing and observing the lake at the back of the Lockwood property. Damon took Katherine away and everyone else was starting to head home. It was when Stefan started to walk to the car when he remembered Amelia and went out to look for her. When he found her, he sighed and walked up to her side.
"I would say it's a beautiful night…" Stefan trailed off. Amelia, seeing his presence, laughed quietly.
"It is, but…it's definitely been a long one." The two stood in silence, overlooking the lake and its peacefulness for just a moment before she spoke again. "So we finally got her."
"We finally got her," Stefan repeated. He snuck a glance at the blonde vampire beside him. "Are you okay?"
"Me?" Amelia caught his gaze and shrugged. "Yeah. I'm fine. I was just thinking about…you know, things."
"The things Katherine said to you in there?" Stefan prompted, being able to read his friend like an open book. "About being a disappointment to her?" Amelia said nothing. "Amelia, it's Katherine. She has no right to be judging everyone else when—"
"Not what she said about me." Amelia shook her head slowly, trying to process what she was thinking as she repeated Katherine's words in her minds. "Though they did kind of hurt, though. Well, that's what you get when you double-cross your sire. Nothing good can come from that."
Stefan scoffed. "If that's the case, then we all double-crossed our sire. Katherine turned all four of us." Amelia laughed, realizing the truth in that statement. But still seeing her distress, Stefan pushed, "Then what'd she say that bothered you?"
"It was what she said…" The teenager swallowed for a moment, trying to come up with the right words. She turned to Stefan at last and sighed. "It was what she said about…about us. She was right, Stefan. I am kind of…"
The two teenagers stared at each other in silence. Stefan opened his mouth to say something, probably to prompt her to continue, but Amelia just reached forward, grabbed the collar on his suit, and pulled him close enough so that his lips crashed onto hers. Stefan was most definitely surprised by the kiss, his eyes wide open at first. Some part of him felt it was wrong, so soon after breaking up with Elena. But then he remembered why and he realized that he owed it to himself to try. So he kissed Amelia back with his regular tense form until she finally released him from her hold and sighed blissfully.
"Jesus, that was fantastic," Amelia breathed out once she opened her eyes. Stefan couldn't resist a smile as she looked up at him with wild grey eyes. "Was that fantastic for you? It was fantastic for me. I've been wanting to do that for a while now."
Stefan snickered. "Do you always talk so much?"
Amelia nodded. "Uh huh. It's not really a vampire thing, it's more of a—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Stefan leaned forward and kissed her, cutting her right in the middle of the explanation. Amelia, too, was shocked, but like Stefan she came to accept it and kissed back. She melted in it, in fact. After a while of soft, heavenly kissing, they pulled away just far enough so that their foreheads were touching.
"Probably the best way to shut me up," Amelia agreed. Stefan smiled.
She felt covered in filth. The air around her seemed compact and unfiltered, as if she were breathing in particles that were impure. Katherine woke gasping and choking underground. Her fingers dug deep into soil around her, and the cool surface of a moonstone rested beneath her fingertips. She enclosed her fingers around it and finally forced herself up from the dirt floor. Though weak, she managed to pull herself all the way to the exit of the underground hell she was placed in, only to be stopped—once again—by a magic barrier. Katherine fought, desperately trying to get out of the cave she was trapped in all alone.
Then she saw something—or, rather, someone.
Damon emerged in the moonlight that hit the bottom of the tomb and he watched her as she struggled.
"Hello, Katherine."
She paused. "Where am I?"
"Where you should've been all along. I thought you would've learned your lesson by now messing with a Bennett witch," he admitted to her sadly. She shook her head at him.
"You should've killed me."
"Death would've been too kind," he spat. The two went silent as Damon stepped forward towards the tomb door so that he could slide it back in place and seal Katherine's fate for however long she lived. But Katherine's protests were obvious.
"No! Damon, don't!" she begged. "Damon, don't. You need me! The doppelgänger—Elena—is in danger!"
Damon hesitated. "From who?" Silence. Damon realized quickly what her game was, her angle. He shook his head. "You're lying. You're always lying."
"She is!" Katherine yelled. "She is, Damon, she is! She's the doppelgänger, she needs to be protected And Claire…Claire probably is in danger, too. Why do you think I haven't killed her yet?"
"Because you wanted to make her suffer. You've told her that."
"No." Katherine choked on her own fear. "No, I was lying then. I-I mean…I do want to make her suffer, but she can be useful. Besides, she's a King. They're the strongest."
"Strongest?" Damon repeated. Katherine said no more, shaking visibly with the fear of him closing the doors on her. Finally, he shook his head. "Lies. More lies, Katherine. I'm not listening to you this time. You killed her once, you'll do it again. I'll protect Elena and Claire, if I have to—while you rot in hell."
"No!" Katherine shouted. "Damon, don't! I'll do anything! Please, Damon! You need me! Damon! You need me!"
But he shut the door on her, all while hearing her incessant shouts and cries of importance. And while she cried, Damon stood on the other side of the door and listened, but once he knew it was time to go, he knew it was time to leave her to her eternity of misery.
He didn't once hesitate to leave her.
"I'm gonna go take the pizza box out to the garbage," Elena told Alaric and Jenna as she unlocked the front door with the pizza box tucked under her arm. "You guys have anything else you want me to throw out while I'm out there?"
"We're good!" Alaric told her. Hearing him decline her offer, Elena walked out and went down her porch and down the walkway to the garbage bins in the front that were on the curb awaiting the garbage trucks in the morning. She put the pizza box into the correct bin and dusted her hands off just before turning around on her heel to go back into the house. But just as she did, a man in a mask appeared in front of her and placed his hand over her mouth, muffling her protests so no one could hear as he dragged her away, kicking and screaming.
"Bitch ruined a six hundred dollar custom shirt from Madrid," Claire mumbled to herself as she walked to her car in the midst of cars among the driveway circling the Lockwood house. She was grumpy and irritated and desperately needed blood. "Oh, no big deal. I'll just fly to Madrid in the morning and find the daughter of the man who made it because the man who made it is dead! Not like this was a one-of-a-kind shirt or anything! Nooo. Because that would just be cruel."
As she mumbled and complained to herself over her shitty day, Claire clicked the button on her keys to unlock her car and she climbed inside, shaking her head. Blood covered the white shirt, making it virtually impossible for her to get the stains out. She wanted to kick herself for wearing a white shirt, but what was the point of owning one if you couldn't wear it?
With a frustrated sigh, she put her hand on the gearshift to kick the car in drive and get home for some much-needed rest. Instead, just as she moved to put the car in drive, she sensed another presence in the car. Claire froze, but there was nothing that could be done when her uninvited guest used one hand to cover her mouth and the other to plunge a needle into her arm. Claire bit and chomped at the hand, but once the vervain was inside of her system, there was nothing else she could do. Eventually, she felt it when her eyes rolled back into her head and it fell limp.
And behind her, clearly seen in the rearview mirror, was a woman with a triumphant smile.
Thanks for reading! Review, please!
RHatch89: Thanks!
grapejuice101: Nope. Definitely not Claire's day. Actually, not Claire's year...because she's been having a pretty shitty year and I suspect that won't get any better.
SomebodyWhoCares: Yeah, I know. We all feel pretty bad for Claire :(
Bella lugosi: Haha yep Katherine was pretty bitchy in that episode. Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Savage Kill: I would tell you right now if I didn't have plans to reveal that exact information in another 2 episodes. You'll get your answer in 2x09 as to why Katherine really hates Claire...but like I've said before, it's more of a complicated answer than just a straight one. "Emotional" isn't really Claire's thing, kind of like we saw in this episode. It's more...anger than anything. Thanks for reviewing!
ThisIsMeAndYou: Aw thanks! I actually really appreciate that comment. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right for a change. Yep, I'm trying to make Elena's character better than she is in the show so I don't have to write a character I don't agree with. I'm slowly making improvements. Thanks for reviewing!
TVD2014: You may get your wish sooner than you think! Thanks!