Digging A Grave

Part 2

Damon was used to the graveyard, he would have to be by now, but he felt lost among the tombstones. This was a place for the dead, Bonnie should not be anywhere near this place, and yet she was somewhere near. He didn't know how he could be so sure of it, only that it was his instincts he was following and they had never let him down before. He refrained from calling out her name as he listened for breathing and waited for the smell wolf to grow stronger. He could smell something canine and something not. Both smells were familiar and acrid in the air, leading him forwards towards one of the plots where the ground had been upturned fairly recently. He crept closer and both scents grew stronger, becoming so strong that he knew he was close.

A growl sounded from behind him, a slow building, menacing, sound to remind him that finding his lovely Bonnie would have to wait a little longer. He turned and felt himself becoming something dark enough to match the starless, moonless, night that had fallen. He snarled and bared his own teeth at the beast that stood before him. "Walkies already?" he sneered, playing on the fact that the monster was only a really big dog, "You should really be tied to something, like a lampost."

"Shut up, Salvatore," It snarled, baring it's glistening white teeth, "Have you forgotten who has the upper hand here?"

Damon smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes, trying to listen past the heavy thumping of Tyler's heart as he stood there, trying to act as if he didn't care that he had no chance of winning a fight if there was one. Damon could hear her breathing hard, breathlessly, and yet he knew he needed help to find the exact location of where she was held. He turned to Tyler in one dizzyingly fast move and fixed him with a glare that would have destroyed the mind of a human in a second – there was that much power directed to his eyes.

"Tell me where she is," Damon said quietly, an artificial pleasantness coating his words like liquid sugar, "or I will torture it out of you until pain is the only thing you know, because you will tell me what I want to know" He was absolutely serious about how much pain he would inflict, but he hoped that Tyler was at least smart enough to just tell him what he needed to know; a good torturing took time, and time was the one thing he could not waste.

The knife he had in the waist band of his trousers came free easily and he pressed it against Tyler's wrist in a threatening move. "Tell me." he commanded, his words dripping with venom, drawing the blade along the criss-cross of veins on the inside of the wrist. The only choice Tyler had was whether he wanted to lose his hand, and he only had seconds to choose.

"Stop it, man! Just drop the knife and I'll tell you!" he screamed, "Please!"

Damon was not a stupid man, not like his brother, and he only responded once the tip of the knife met bone, "I'm not stupid Tyler. Tell me where she is now and you might just keep your right hand."

Tyler's face scrunched up for a second, as if he could not believe what he was about to do, and he pointed his left hand out into the night, his beefy finger quivering like the end of a fencing sword. "I buried her oh-oh-over there!"

Werewolves were cowards, Damon noted, disappearing into the darkness, where her breathing was loudest.

X

Bonnie hit the roof of the casket one more time, then her arms dropped to her sides in defeat; her throat had become raw and painful from calling for help and so she had resorted to hitting the lid of the coffin in hopes that someone would hear her. She hadn't allowed herself to dissolve into tears when she had first realised that she was stuck, trying to be strong and something she was not. Now she could cry, because there would be no one to see her do it. No one knew she was here, that she could be certain of. Her kidnappers had left no clues as to her location when they had snatched her away. The only way she knew herself where she was, was the hundreds of voices of the dead that fluttered around her like moths – ugly, grey sounds.

X

Damon stopped suddenly, his spine curving like a cat's, and he felt the anger that had been swallowed up by the grief and worry coming roaring back with a vengeance. If only he could keep on searching for the grave and not look around... if only he was strong enough to ignore her just this once. "Katherine," he said blandly, "I don't have time for you – I'm busy..."

She approached from behind him so quietly, her feet barely disturbing the grass beneath them, and he flinched when her hand touched his shoulder. Her laugh was as delicate as she seemed, but underneath it there was a triumphant glow. "I know where she is, your new play-thing, I know where she is buried..." there was that playfulness in her voice which told him that he would not get a straight answer.

Bonnie was not his play-thing, but this was no time to argue over semantics. It was true that she was his, and that he would retrieve her at any cost.

"Tell me where she is, Katherine," he bit his bottom lip with enough force that his teeth broke the skin, "Please."

She stepped in front of him and kissed him with enough fervour that for a moment or two he let her. When he managed to force her off him, her lips were coated with his blood and she licked them both as if it was ambrosia. She smiled the same smile that had won her into his heart so many centuries ago and pointed towards the old cemetery with one pale finger. "Over there," she said, her voice thick and seductive, "I saw the werewolf bury her over there – have fun finding her." she laughed and disappeared into the night.

"Bonnie!" he called into the night, listening for any sound beneath the earth.

X

So many voices – all calling to her from the dark depths of the earth, all vengeful and bitter. There was no telling what they would do when they rose up to find her, but somehow she did not think they would help her. If she weren't in love with a vampire they would help her, she thought, but if she had not been in love she didn't know where she would be. He was everything to her and she had already gotten too close to losing everything too many times before. It might not be best, but she was going to do what her heart knew was right.

She was going to love Damon Salvatore. "Damon, I love you!" Her voice was dry and raspy/

X

"There," Katherine said, a strange glint in her eyes, "about 6ft down."