Darlings! How I've missed you! You have been stalwart and true and I have been running around, rudely gallivanting while there were words to be written. But now I am back and pleased to offer you another chapter in the adventures of Matt and Rebekah on their strange, exciting summer abroad. Thanks as ever to Creeping Muse, who sets aside her own pressing concerns for a friend in need, delivering support and criticism with equal kindness. I would be such a shitty writer if it weren't for her.

Chapter 5

"Ah, he wakes." Silvery smooth voice. Low, female. Light flickers beyond Matt's vision. He consults his neck muscles: can he lift his head to look? Nope.

The ache in his neck throbs alongside a strain in his shoulder – both, he realizes. They are forced back tight. His arms are bent and bound at the wrists.

"Show us zose dreamy blues, darling." The woman again, her accent thick, garish.

The memory returns: he was walking with Rebekah. On the street, in Paris, on this ridiculous, wonderful trip. And then surprising, blinding pain in his head. He wills his eyes to stay open; a dark wood table comes into focus. He tries his neck again, grimacing against the insecure wobble of muscles unaccustomed to working properly. How long has he been here?

"You are a pretty boy."

Where is Rebekah? Where is he? What is going on?

It is night; curtains are open wide over screenless windows, so that the large room fills with a calm, warm breeze. The woman faces him, seated at the other end of a long table. In front of her, a glass half full of dark, red wine. Candlesticks in the middle, silver like her voice. She is crisply, edgily beautiful, with deep, almond eyes and a severe beak of a nose. Yes, that's it: she reminds Matt of a large, powerful bird, like a giant condor, or no, a pterodactyl. Not feathers but skin. She drapes in her chair, appraising him, a heavy sheet of dark brown hair falling over one shoulder. "Who are you?" Matt finally asks her.

"Veronique, but zat is ze least interesting sing, n'est-ce pas? Don't be dull, mon petit," she teases, her eyes languidly trained on Matt, her body leaning far to the side. Toward a heap beside her, a tangle of blond hair hiding a face. Rebekah? Jesus.

The woman's name rings a distant bell, but Matt is in no condition to latch on and figure it out. "Anyone ever tell you you're a shitty host?" he gripes at Veronique instead, twisting against his ropes.

Veronique laughs loudly, indulgently. "Nice arms. Excellent definition."

"You're wrong about him," Rebekah sneers from under her veil of hair. She sounds exhausted, her tone tight, no depth. Is that why she's letting this happen? Why she isn't fighting back?

"I am not wrong! Look, he has ze biceps like pomegranates! Un specimen merveilleux." Veronique kisses the air at him, two quick, lippy pecks. It's feels meant to make him angrier and it works like a fucking charm. He clenches his jaw and a new ache blooms at his temple.

He's tied to a chair, he has a good reason to sit idly by, but Rebekah? She could take this Eurotrash bitch in a heartbeat. "What do you want?" he grumbles across the table.

Veronique laughs again, sharp as knives. "Now, zis is a more interesting question. I don't want your girlfriend, if zat is your concern."

"He's not my… he's nothing," Rebekah says, clearer now. Neither of them is making sense. Why isn't Rebekah breaking Veronique's neck? He has to get them both out of here, him and Rebekah. If only he could rip his wrists out of these knots.

Veronique stands, scraping her rust-red lacquered nails along the table until she perches behind Matt's chair. "You have hurt his feelings, cherie," Veronique coos over his head at Rebekah, patronizingly sweet. "Bien sur, look in ze eyes. You fascinate ze boy – ze beauty, so like a young girl, but une femme ancienne also. He sees l'eternité in you – yours, oui, but also his own. You are ze goddess who will make him a god."

He should be coming up with a plan to get out. Loosening the ropes isn't working but he can't think of anything else. And even though nothing Veronique said is even remotely true, rage still flares in his gut, making it hard to think at all. "Shut up," he counters lamely.

"And so intelligent."

"It wasn't my idea to kill Pia," Rebekah announces, awkwardly loud. "It was Klaus's."

Veronique freezes behind Matt, statue still. Even Matt knows that hiding behind Klaus is a weak tactic, although against what, he still has no idea. And who is Pia? Finally, across the breathless abyss, Veronique shifts to stalk toward Rebekah. Slowly, like a predator.

"You killed her," Veronique growls, the sound bubbling up from somewhere much deeper than her throat. "Klaus is shit."

On that last point at least, she and Matt agree.

At the far end of the table, Matt watches Veronique settle into her chair again, abruptly languid, eyes back on Matt. "We know ze trusse. She is a beast, n'est-ce pas? An utter demon. Nossing sacred."

Matt keeps his mouth shut and pulls surreptitiously against the ropes. If he were smart, he'd accept the futility of it. And was the woman in the navy or something? These knots are rock hard. All he's accomplished is a bright ring of stinging skin. But whatever is coming, whatever Veronique is planning, he doesn't want to be here for it. He has to get free, and Rebekah isn't helping - maybe she can't. Nor will anyone else come for them, he's sure. No one knows where they are. It's got to be him who does the saving. So he twists some more, gritting his teeth against the sting of the rope.

"Remember ze meal at ze convent?" Veronique prods Rebekah with a brutal, ugly chortle, then turns back to Matt. "Zose girls, zey were champion beggars. I sink it was all zer practice praying, oui? Zey offered us everyssing. Everyssing, if only we would spare zer lives. And Rebekah… well, you know Rebekah. She showed not a droplet of mercy."

Rebekah's head lolls forward. What did Veronique do to her? "No one forced you," Rebekah mutters from inside her blond nest.

In a flash, Veronique is on her feet, erupting in a volcano of molten rage. "But I have a heart! You have nossing but a black pit under your tits!"

Now Rebekah lifts her head, defiant. This seems more like the Rebekah Matt knows. "Don't kid yourself, cherie. You're in the big leagues now."

They stare at each other, all chins and squinting, for what seems like an hour. It occurs to him that Rebekah could compel her. Why hasn't she? But then, Veronique must know how to protect herself. She's probably vervained herself six ways from Sunday. And then, out of nowhere, still glaring down at Rebekah, Veronique asks, "did Rebekah reveal to you ze story of our parting?"

It doesn't occur to Matt to respond, as he watches Rebekah double down on her glare. Veronique squares her shoulders like the lead singer taking the stage at a concert. She's got the mic and she knows how to use it.

"Bien sur que non," Veronique purrs, slipping back into her chair, crossing her long, sinewy legs over the arm. She reaches a slim hand toward her glass and sips the thick, viscous wine which Matt realizes is undoubtedly blood. "Rebekah was unlike any ozer vampire here in Rome. She was fearless. Patient. I loved her immédiatement."

Here in Rome? What happened to Paris? Wherever the fuck Matt is, the ropes won't budge. He needs a plan B. He gropes in his mind for an out, anything. Could he grab Rebekah and leap with her from the window? Could he surprise Veronique somehow? Stake her with the leg of his chair? Pull her hair? Every idea is stupid and requires hands.

Rebekah huffs.

"I did, ma chère. I loved you. But zen… Pia intoxicated me. Quelle surprise! She was light, quick, a hummingbird. Vulnerable. And also sensual, like… like a pansser."

Rebekah snorts. "She was a whore."

Veronique explodes with venom. "You are ze whore!"

Rebekah hisses something and Veronique bellows something back, but Matt has stopped listening. Of course! He frantically feels for his get-out-of-death-free ring. For a second he's sure it's gone but then, numb as they are, his fingers find it. Grateful for its weight at the base of his middle finger, right where he needs it to be, he stifles a sigh.

Now, how can he use it to their advantage? How can he use it to score the touchdown they need?

Veronique's shimmering voice cuts through his haze. "I never drank from Pia, mon petit chou. Non, I honored her, even while I pretended to want Rebekah, to protect my beloved. Our stolen moments were all zat we had, but I was prepared to savor zem for her few decades on zis earsse. And zen love her, alone, for all ze countless nights to come. Rebekah stole zis dream from me."

Veronique lifts her glass again, swirling it so that blood coats the glass. A glimmer of an idea sparkles in the corner of Matt's mind.

"One evening, I went to Pia but she was gone. I sought her in every place we had haunted, every room we had rented. I confronted her parents, a terrible risk. After a few days I was mad wiss worry, and zat is when Rebekah came to me."

He's not exactly listening. What if he taunts her? Would she make a mistake? The ring would be the out he needs, the safeguard against actually dying. He could take it so far she loses her shit completely, and neither he nor Rebekah could be killed in the process. If he could get her tilting, maybe he could find an opening to… win. Somehow. The plan needs work but it's a start, and he gets the feeling he doesn't have much time. "Is there an interesting part to this story? Can we fast forward to it?"

Veronique's eyes focus on Matt while the rest of her stays still. It is eerie as hell. "Pardonnez-moi?"

Rebekah stiffens in her seat.

"You heard me." Matt's eye starts to twitch, a flutter on his upper lid, but he doesn't look away.

"How dare you -"

Rebekah takes a quick, loud breath. "I have fortunes you couldn't dream of," she pleads, steely and urgent, "and they're yours if you stop this, Veronique. Just stop."

Veronique's face splits in a wide, hideous grin. "I knew you loved him."

What is Rebekah doing? His plan was going to work, at least the beginning of it. It was already working and she derailed it. "She doesn't," Matt protests on Rebekah's behalf. It's a tactic, at least.

"She is smitten, and so are you. Maintenant, it is all fucking and roses. But Rebekah's love is expensive, and you will pay for it. I know."

Before Rebekah can derail her again, he gathers all of his bravado and takes another stab at Veronique's calm. "So much fucking! No roses, though. Turns out she loves dick. Worships it. Well, worships mine."

Veronique cackles as if he told her a joke. Shit. She drains the last drops of blood from her glass. "I'm parched, Massew. S'il vous plait?" she asks, holding the glass out to him.

"I'm a little tied up -" he quips, but before he knows it she's behind him, his skin torn, her teeth deep in his neck. The blood, his blood, is rushing out of him – his heart pumps it and she sucks it and the sting, the strange sensation of an open wound mingles with memories of Elena at his throat, at his wrist. A few seconds throb like empty hours and then she pulls away, waiting to wipe the blood from her lips until he can see her face.

"Alors, ze interesting part," Veronique snarks, focusing on a distant point out the window. "On ze outskirts of Rome, Rebekah and her brozer had strung my Pia up by her wrists. Ze ropes had rubbed ze skin off. I could see ze tendon, ze white bone. She clung to life in ze middle of ze air like a pig for ze slaughterhouse. Her blood pooled on ze floor."

"Sounds smelly," Matt says, as flip as he can manage. It actually sounds gruesome, horrifying, staggering in its violence. Maybe this is all Veronique wants, to destroy whatever redemption Rebekah may have earned with him. Matt reminds himself that this news is exposing anything he didn't already know about Rebekah. But it's hard, especially with a gaping, throbbing neck wound.

Rebekah grinds her teeth, glaring at the candlestick in front of her. "And then I killed her."

Veronique groans. "You spoil ze story!"

"Of course I killed her," Rebekah says, rolling her eyes. "Which he already knew."

Veronique twists toward the candlelight, her thin lips pursed. Even just thinking, she vibrates with predatory energy. Eventually she waves a long hand at Rebekah dismissively. "Go on, zen. Tell him everyssing. All ze details."

Rebekah's glare darts to Matt for a sliver of a second, just long enough for him to see the fear in her eyes. Doesn't she remember his Gilbert ring? Or does she think it's gone? How can he let her know he's got it so she can fight back? There has to be a way.

"I chained Veronique to a chair," Rebekah says, demonstrating the concept with a shrug against chains he hadn't realized were holding her. Not that they could really keep her there, if she wanted to break out of them. Why doesn't she? "Then I drank from Pia in front of her. Left her to die."

"You ravaged her," Veronique seethes, "like a lioness. Pia had no voice because of zat bite. She could barely breaze. I murmured to her zat I was sorry. And zat I loved her. And zen everyssing stopped, ze beat of her heart and the whistle from her torn breazing, all stopped. Even zen, I could only watch, only keep a vigil over zis body I loved, while I dried into a shell. No, worse zan zat, I craved her blood. Ze aroma, ze perfume of her essence, I yearned for it. Zis is what Rebekah reduced me to."

He doesn't want to hear this or think about it anymore. It's too much, all of it, and anyway the most important thing is to tell Rebekah he's got the ring. "Looks like you came back from the dead," he comments artlessly, eyebrows raised like an idiot. Come on, Rebekah.

Veronique chuckles to herself.

Rebekah doesn't appear to get it. Back to plan B: make Veronique mad enough to fuck up somehow.

"So that's it?" Matt prods. "That's the story? Whatever."

Veronique glares at him, indignant. "She was my true love, my destiny, and Rebekah killed her. Brutally."

"And you're, what, going to do the same to me? Make her watch? Super original." Matt's fake bravado gives way to something more authentic. Quarterback confidence, perhaps. He clings to it and braces himself for Veronique's explosion.

"But I don't love him, never have," Rebekah volunteers again, interrupting. "So there's no point. It's not revenge. It's barely entertainment." Her voice is brittle. It doesn't match her words.

Veronique leans forward, as if to confide in him. "Messinks ze lady protests too much, non? Mais non, it is not original, because simple revenge is ze best. Like Pia and me: you die helpless, in agony, and she persists, holding your dess, ze sight of your silent body, inside her until nossing is left in zis world except her and her brozers and ze guilt."

"So do it already. Or do you want to tell me another story first, maybe sing me a song?" He regrets the words as soon as they're out. What is he doing? He wants to anger her, not rush her. Dumbass.

But Veronique doesn't respond. Instead her head turns, as does Rebekah's, toward a door in the corner. They are listening to sounds Matt can't hear.

"Matt -"Rebekah warns, suddenly frantic, but Veronique is already behind him again. Her hands are cool against the pulsing heat of his neck wound. He feels the beginning of a twist, then nothing.