a/n: So this fan fiction is getting really close to being finished. I have two more chapters planned after this one. In this chapter I deeply enjoyed being able to write about Katherine. She's such a fun character to play with. I hope you enjoy it! And please review!

Chapter Eight The Deceiver

Don't start, Don't start, shaking again,
She can make the salt taste like sugar on her hands but,
If love is a way out, then please let me in,
Don't start, darling,
Don't you turn my nightmares into dreams again.
-Hills Like White Elephants by Isles and Glaciers

In that moment, Elena's breath was completely taken away. The woman was beautiful with her curly brown hair and deep chocolate eyes. She wore an elegant green ballroom dress that made her look otherworldly in this ghostly place. Yet when the woman smiled, Elena suppressed a shudder.

"Hello Elena," the woman mused.

Elena stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. "Hello Katherine."

A smile crossed the vampire's lips as she moved toward Elena. She walked around her a few times and took in Elena's frame.

"The resemblances are uncanny," Katherine mused. She lifted up a few strands of Elena's hair, but allowed them to drop back to Elena's shoulders. "I am much more cunning though." Her brown eyes danced with mischief.

Despite the fact that Elena wanted to shiver, she suppressed that desire. "Where is Damon?"

"Hm," Katherine smiled. "That's a good question." She looked to Anna then. "Where is Damon, Anna?"

"Where you told me to leave him," Anna nodded. Elena and Anna shared a brief glance and Elena could see regret in her eyes. "I'm sure Stefan is there now."

Elena's face registered her surprise before she could hide it. She hoped Katherine hadn't seen it, but almost instantly knew that she had.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me why Stefan is with Damon?" Katherine sang as she skipped in the moonlight. Although Elena wanted answers, she had no desire to give in to Katherine. But then Katherine pouted and continued, "You should at least be interested in why Anna helped me bring you here."

"Oh well," Katherine grinned when Elena still didn't speak. "If you won't ask me questions on your own, I'll have to intervene." She snapped her fingers and from a darker part of the graveyard, Elena detected movement. When Elena realized who was coming toward her, she stifled a gasp.

"That's what I thought," Katherine smiled triumphantly. "I took the liberty of showing up at Bonnie's house earlier and begged for her forgiveness. I just couldn't let her get out of this, especially after what Emily did to me."

A chill ran down Elena's back as she watched two male vampires carry Bonnie into the clearing. Bonnie's green eyes were fixed on Elena with a look of pure terror. One of the vampires threw her to the ground while the other brandished a knife.

"You start asking me questions or she dies," Katherine shrugged as she walked back over to Elena.

Elena narrowed her eyes, but began. "Were you the one who kidnapped Stefan?"

"Kidnapped?" Katherine was indignant. "He came of his own free will."

"How did you convince him to leave then?"

"I pretended to be you," she hummed. "It was genius actually. While you were distracting Damon, I came and talked to Stefan. He was still out of it so it was easy to convince him to just leave." She took out her own knife and let the metal trail across Elena's skin. "It was so easy to pretend to be as weak as your are."

"What about when he realized your heart wasn't beating?" Elena asked as she made contact with Katherine's brown orbs. "What did you tell him then?"

"When we were far away, I explained to him how Damon had betrayed us all. As soon as Stefan was caged up, Damon took me, fed me with his blood, and killed me. I told him over and over about the monster Damon had become. He wanted to go back immediately and seek revenge, but I told him to wait. Stefan needed to become more powerful before he took on his brother."

Elena could feel her heart breaking, but she kept her expression emotionless. "And did you give Stefan human blood?"

"Of course," she laughed. "It made him the vampire I always knew he could be."

"Why put the brothers against each other?" Elena arched an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted them both for yourself."

"I did." She shrugged. "They were supposed to reconcile after my supposed death. Then I planned on going back and taking what was mine all along. But they've revealed themselves too much to you. They would never get along and be with me, so instead, I'm letting them fight. The winner will have me for eternity. The loser… Well…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes reflected their demonic nature. "You understand what will happen to the loser."

A chill ran down Elena's spine that she couldn't stop. Katherine ran her finger down Elena's cheek and Elena was forced to bear the icy coolness that came with the touch.

"How will you convince the winner to follow you? I don't exactly see either of them following you after the winner learns the truth."

"Both men's feelings for you are a hindrance," Katherine frowned. "But I thankfully have your friend Bonnie here. And Emily owed me a few favors that I never had the chance to collect on." Katherine looked to Bonnie and Elena wanted to stab her. It wasn't fair that Bonnie had been brought into this. "I'll make sure that the winner remembers his true feelings for me and never remembers you."

"What about Anna?" Elena asked as she glanced away from Katherine. "How did you get her involved?"

"That was the beautiful part," Katherine purred. "I told her I was going to kill Jeremy. It was up to her and the decision she made about helping me whether Jeremy had vampire blood in his veins at the time he died or not."

"So he's alive?" Elena let too much of her optimism show.

"I wouldn't exactly call him alive. He still exists though."

"And what did Anna do to Damon?"

"Filled him with vervain and left him at your house." Katherine couldn't hide her grin. "I thought your house would be the perfect battlefield. Both men could get inside of it. I'm sure the battle has moved its location by now though," she shrugged. "Unless Stefan decided to kill Damon while he still had vervain in his system."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "And who do you want to win?"

"There are things I like about both of them. Damon has a strong desire to protect what's his, but Stefan is stronger when he's on human blood. Either way, I win."

"What about my necklace?"

A wicked grin crossed Katherine's face that revealed her fangs. "I had Anna compel someone to take it off of you to show her allegiance to me. I knew you would get another one, but it was fun watching someone take it without you even realizing it."

Letting out a deep breath, Elena spanned the area. No matter where she looked, she didn't see anything that could help her in this fight. "So are you going to kill me now?"

"Oh no," Katherine mused. "I plan to do much worse things to you."

As Damon regained consciousness, he spanned the area around him. He sat in a chair in Elena's kitchen with ropes tied around his ankles and wrists. He tried to move, but the vervain was still too strong in his body for him to break free. The lights in the room were dimmed and it took all Damon's human senses to be able to make out the other figure in the room. Part of him didn't believe what he was seeing, but after the week he'd had, this wasn't too hard to believe.

"Stefan," Damon nodded softly as he looked up at his brother. Stefan stood at the island in the center of the room with a knife in his hand. With the large amount of vervain in his system, Damon knew how much that knife would hurt.

"Hello Damon," Stefan replied meticulously as he fingered the metal of the blade. "You had to know that I would come back for you. And to find you at Elena's house." His green eyes danced with vengeance as he shook his head. "I thought you were smarter than that Brother."

Despite the fact that the vervain was wearing off, Damon was still clueless. "What are you talking about?"

"You turned Elena and had the audacity to come back to her house. That seems fairly reckless."

"Elena's a vampire?"

"Don't play games with me," Stefan frowned. "I know what you did to her. You waited until I was weak and forced your blood into her veins. Then, you killed her." A grin crossed his lips then. "It's funny how your Princess of Darkness still came running back to me."

Then, everything fell into place. "You've been with Katherine Stefan." Damon struggled to get loose. "She tricked you into thinking she was Elena. She put you against me."

"Nice try, but I can tell Katherine from Elena. I've been with Elena ever since I left that prison you threw me in."

Damon pulled too hard against his bonds and crashed to the floor. As his head made contact with the tile, he stifled a groan. He could tell he was losing blood quickly and with all the vervain in his system, he knew he couldn't afford to lose much more. If he didn't think of something soon, Stefan was going to kill him.

"Use your senses," Damon began slowly as he watched Stefan march toward where he lay. "You can still smell Elena here. Her scent is new. You wouldn't be able to smell her scent if she died when she said she did."

"You're just trying to trick me!" Stefan growled. "I've had enough of your games."

Damon screamed as Stefan plunged the knife into his body. The knife had apparently been coated with vervain and every single ounce of skin, muscle, and tissue the blade touched burned with pain.

"How does it feel to see your entire world slip away?" Stefan taunted as he pushed the blade deeper into Damon's chest. "Do you want to die Damon?"

The pain was almost unbearable, but Damon forced himself to deal with it. He had no desire to die, especially since Elena was more than likely being tortured by Katherine. So instead of screaming or falling into the blackness that wanted to consume Damon, he merely smirked. "Stab me again Stefan."

A look of pure rage crossed Stefan's face as he pulled the knife back out of Damon's body. Then, Damon heard the gunshot.

a/n: Please review!