Title: Turning
Truth
"...has been identified as Vickie Donovan."
Jeremy ears perked up at the mention of Vicki's name. He had just been heading out when he stumbled upon the sheriff speaking quietly to Mayor Lockwood, and caught the end of their conversation.
"Vickie?" he asked curiously. "Did you find Vickie, Sheriff Forbes?"
The all-but androgenous sheriff's lips gapped as she turned to face his inquiring gaze. Her eyes darted to the Mayor, as if seeking permission to reveal any of the details. Jeremy glanced over at Tyler whose face was ashen.
"Mr. Gilbert," coughed Mayor Lockwood. "Yes, they found Miss. Donovan."
"Are you sure it's her?" Tyler blurted out.
"I'm sorry, Tyler," Sheriff Forbes offered, her expression empathetic. She glanced up at Jeremy for a fleeting moment. "The body they found in the gorge by the river is Vickie Donovan."
Jeremy felt his stomach lurch. This was wrong. Vickie had left town. She was living it up on the party scene somewhere. She was not somewhere buried under a mound of dirt...dead.
"In the wash of the storm, the body just turned up."
Jeremy's gaze locked with Tyler's. As much as he hated what Tyler stood for, Jeremy felt for a fleeting moment a connection with his previous competitor. Was this real?
How could this be real?
Anna did not understand the quiet of the house until she stepped out from behind her mother's shadow. There stood Damon Salvatore amidst a scattered room of bodies, along with Mr. Saltzman.
"What did you do?" exclaimed Pearl, in horror. "Who do you think you are? You have overstepped, Damon."
"What did I do?" growled the brooding Salvatore. "Your guys are the ones that kidnapped and tortured my brother, Stefan."
"I..." Pearl paused for a moment, gathering her composure. "Trust me...Be assured whoever is responsible for this will be dealt with."
Anna surveyed the slayed bodies with grim foreboding. She barely knew them; but to see them deposed like that made her ill. Since her mother's return nothing was as she had pictured it. Anna's memories of her mother seemed slightly stilted now. She had always relied on her mother to protect her. Pearl new what to say and do. However, these past few days had made her realize how different things were.
How different things were going to be...
"You know Pearl, this little arrangement of ours doesn't quite work if you can't keep your little minions in line," Damon accused, toying with a bloodied dagger in his hand near her mother's throat.
Anna felt her chest tighten.
"You know if I had a good side, this isn't the way to get on it." Anna held her breath, waiting to see what Damon was planning. However, she found herself breathing a sigh of relief as she watched him move away from her mother. Then as quickly as he appeared before them, he and his companion left the house.
"Annabelle," breathed her mother.
She felt her mother's arms wrap around her tightly. Anna felt her mother's trembling body against hers. This was a disaster. Her mother's plan to re-populate Mystic Falls had just experienced its first hiccup.
"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered.
"YOu have no need to apologize." Pearl pulled back from their embrace. "Fredrick was to blame, and those who would follow heedlessly because of their need for revenge."
"We're losing everything," she whispered, unable to overcome this feeling of dread. Nothing was as it was before. "Everyone's almost dead."
"Oh Annabelle," her mother sighed, looking her in the eyes. "We are already on borrowed time, remember?"
"Since when did you become a fatalist?"
"I had a lot of time to think about things in that tomb, Annabelle. And believe me, I did wonder if I'd ever see you again, my child." Her mother cupped her face. "If I were honest," she said. "I would have told you that what we went through was inevitable."
"Why would you say that?"
They were the undead, but it certainly didn't mean that they deserved to be entombed for eternity.
"Annabelle, we're gifted with immortality - whether by choice or by force. To be gifted with something like that is to also be cursed."
Her mother's attempt at wisdom resounded within her. It had been the same kind of thoughts that had been running through her head when she had been mulling over the decision whether to turn Jeremy or not. How ironic her mother was speaking the very same thoughts.
"When anyone is faced with the prospect of a people who are faster, stronger and immortal there will be misconceptions and fear."
"You know mother I'm surprised you don't hate them all," Anna blurted out. "I would want all of them dead for what they did to you...to us."
"Being entombed is better than being burned alive," Pearl said pointedly. "Unfortunate circumstances led to our desecration, but if you see it from another perspective - fortunate circumstances led to our survival long enough for you to rescue us."
"How could you possibly think I could have left you in there?"
"I know, my daughter." The long elegant fingers trailed down her cheek. "You have become more than I could have ever imagined," she smiled wistfully. "Had I been there to raise you."
"I did have to grow up," Anna agreed. "I'm not a little girl anymore, Mother."
"I know this," she whispered. "But you will have to bear with me while I learn to let you go."
"I won't go far, Mother." Anna slipped her arms around her mother's thin waist and squeezed her tightly. "We've been apart too long for me to say goodbye just yet."
Jeremy stumbled into his room, numb from the shock of Vickie's death. It was still all a jumble in his mind. He threw his stuff onto the floor and pulled open his desk draw. Slips of paper were filed neatly in the draw. Plowing through them he found the papers he was looking for: photocopied news articles about the recent animal attacks he'd found while researching the actual possibility of the existence of vampires.
All of these secrets.
His gaze fell upon the last news clipping he'd photocopied - it was a picture of Vickie, with the caption, 'Local girl survives latest animal attack'. Survive? Had she really survived? Somewhere in the back of his mind, when he'd first even contemplated the idea that there were such things as vampires it was because of Vickie. The more he read the articles, Jeremy believed that was the change he had been witnessing before she had left town.
This sudden rage welled up inside him. He couldn't explain it. The way he felt right now - there were no words to express it. Jeremy just wanted to destroy something. His fingers strangled the papers in his hand until the crumpled and torn scraps fell to the ground.
Vickie was dead. Vickie is dead...
He wanted to scream, anything to exorcise this ache that penetrated every part of him.
"Jeremy." Anna felt an immediate tension in the air as she climbed through his window. "What are you doing?"
Jeremy froze. This wasn't the time. He did not want her here. Not now when all he wanted to do was hurt someone.
"Jeremy?"
"My friend..." He could not seem to form the words. He did not want to say it out loud. "Vickie, she's dead."
"Vickie?" Her mouth went dry. Where had she heard that name before? "The one you thought was a..."
"Yeah, she's dead," he said bitterly. "Turns out she's been dead the whole time."
Anna felt a light dawn on the entire situation. The reason he wanted to turn...The reason he was hanging around me... How could she have been so stupid. She'd been played for a fool.
Her mother had been right about him. Gilberts always betray her kind.
"She's...she's the reason," Anna's voice was barely above a whisper. "She's the reason you wanted me to turn you."
Jeremy realized at that moment what he'd just done. His gaze met hers. In those dark pools he could see the pain he had just inflicted upon her.
"You wanted to be with her..."
Anna felt a dull ache in her chest where her beating heart should have been.
Jeremy turned away, unable to answer her accusation. It was true. He had secretly believed that becoming one of them would lead him to Vickie. Part of him had imagined the possibility that if he became what he had thought Vickie was, he would finally be with her.
However, in the midst of this fantasy world he was living in, Jeremy had forgot about the consequences.
"Anna," he breathed, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry..."
But it was too late. She was already gone.