Hey guys :) So I know I haven't updated in a long time, but I had to go to camp, and my internet has been down for the past week :/ don't you just hate technology? But anyways, I hope you liked the last chapter, since I wrote it almost a month ago! But here's the next one; it starts off right after Peter gives her his blood and they start to leave :) Here's chapter 27!

Elena could hear her heart beating in her ears as Peter pulled her through the door—seeming to taunt her, reminding her that it wouldn't be beating much longer. She saw the dark Mercedes in front of her house, and before she knew what was going on Peter practically threw her into the passenger's seat. Tears were running down her face, and she felt empty.

"You will not talk during the ride, do you understand?" Peter asked as he gazed into her eyes—not compelling her, but scaring her into silence for a while. But a few minutes down the road, Elena had calmed down enough to speak to her future murderer.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, knowing that he would hear her.

"I thought I told you not to talk", he growled at her.

"And I thought I told you to go to hell, but obviously that didn't happen", Elena returned, and amazingly he let out a long sigh.

"I told your boyfriend at the house. I owe Klaus my life, and you were the only way to repay him. I'm sorry that you were brought in to this, but there was really no other choice."

Elena didn't know what to say. As angry as she was at him for killing Jenna, she was thankful that he knew that what he was doing was wrong. It would've been worse if he wouldn't have been remorseful.

"How did you do all that stuff to me?" Elena asked, curious about the night at the grill, hoping that he was still in a good enough mood to answer her question.

"What 'stuff'?"

"You suffocated me by looking at me, and then knocked me out in my room. How did you do that?"

Peter stared long and hard at her, trying to figure out whether she was serious. He had compelled her to forget—so how was it that she remembered what he'd done to her? He took another deep breath, and replied, "It's a perk of being an original, and a disadvantage of being the doppelganger."

"I'm pretty sure that just being the doppelganger disadvantages me enough", Elena mumbled, "But that still doesn't explain why you could knock me out by looking at me."

Peter sighed for the umpteenth time as the young human's questions began to annoy him. But he figured that she would be dead soon anyways, so he might as well answer her questions. "Because I was part of the original family of vampires for whom the curse was set, I am able to control you in ways that other vampires are unable to—such as another form of mind control that incapacitates you."

"So basically your family pissed off the wrong witch—so she retaliated by making it as easy as possible to control the doppelganger that has to be used to break the curse? That doesn't seem very poetic to me."

"When you put it that way it sounds rather pathetic, but I guess that's true."

Elena eyed him, and determined that he was, indeed, serious. "Why only the doppelganger, though? Why not any other human?"

"When the curse was placed on my family, it created a bond between our bloodline and the Petrova bloodline—making it easier to control any Petrova doppelganger as they were born throughout the centuries", Peter explained, but he knew that she was not yet done. He could see the glint of curiosity in her eyes, and before he even had time to silence her, Elena was already asking her next question.

"Ok, that's great. But if you can knock me out like that, why did you need to drug me in Tennessee? Couldn't you have just looked at me, or something?"

"I could have, but I was exhausted from being thrown out a window twice and beaten up by your boyfriends", Peter said. Elena rolled her eyes, and Peter regained his serious composure, "When I use the bond between us to cause you to pass out, it weakens me—and having already done it twice in two day s I was already very weak. And it would have only kept you unconscious for at most 3 hours, and I needed you to sleep for quite a while."

Elena was pacified with his answers for the moment. But as soon as silence spread through the car, she heard Jenna's final gasps of air as the life was drained out of her and the final snap of Aria's delicate neck echoing through her head. Tears ran silently down her face again as they had almost constantly for the past 2 days. She willed herself to go to sleep and it finally found her—but her dreams brought her no peace, only more memories of the death that followed her.

Damon awoke to the obnoxious sound of his phone ringing. He pulled himself off the couch—which he had passed out on, drunk, after Stefan and Elena had left. As he stood up, he could already feel a headache coming on. 'I guess drowning my sorrows in alcohol isn't as effective as I thought', he mused to himself. He walked over to the table and reached for his phone, answering the call before it even made its way to his ear.

The first thing he heard was a stream of obscenities (directed towards him, of course) by Saint Stefan: "Why the hell didn't you answer your damn phone? I've been calling for 10 damn minutes! Elena's freaking missing and all you can think about is the slut you're probably draining right now? Don't you ever think about anyone other than your own damn self?"

"Ok, Stefan. First of all, I'm not draining a sorority girl—just the nearest bottle of alcohol. And second of all, why the hell would—wait. Did you say that Elena was missing?" Damon asked frantically, hoping he wasn't going to need more alcohol to go with whatever stunt she'd pulled this time.

"YES! Peter killed Jenna and is taking Elena to Klaus right now! Now where the hell are you?"

Damon was already grabbing his leather jacket and heading out to his car as he replied, "I'm at home. Where are you?"

"At Elena's house. He staked me in the back—how fast can you get here?"

"Ten minutes top. But why didn't Jeremy take it out for you?" Damon asked, puzzled as to where the little human was.

"He never came home. Have you heard from him?" Damon started to feel uneasy, but then realized that he was probably with his new girlfriend—judgy. Who could've seen that one coming? "I'll call Bonnie and see if he's with her."

He heard Stefan groan through the phone—obviously the human stuff hadn't helped much—and sped up the car until he was going 20 miles above the speed limit. "Great, you get on that. How far away are you?" Stefan moaned, the stake in his chest sending a burning sensation throughout his entire body. Suddenly, the front door flew open and Damon was at his brother's side pulling the stake out. Stefan groaned and rolled onto his back, and sat up as the pain subsided.

"I'm here, let's go. We've got a doppelganger to find", Damon said with assurance. He pulled Stefan to his feet, but before they could walk out the door Damon felt a hand pulling his arm back—a hand that belonged to Stefan. "What the hell are you doing? We've got to go save her!"

"Peter gave Elena his blood, Damon."

Damon's eyes widened as he realized what this meant for Elena. "That means if we don't get there in time….", Damon trailed off, knowing that Stefan would finish the sentence for him.

"She'll turn into a vampire."

There it is :) not much of a cliffhanger there, but whatever. I hope you liked it :) I'll try to update faster next time, but there's not much I can do when my internet is being bipolar. The next few chapters are going to be a wild ride, so everyone get ready! As always, feedback is love, people :) so read and review!

-kiki :)

Btw: We have an official premiere date for episode one of season 3, you guys! September 15th! That means 86 days until we get to see what the heck Klaus wants Stefan for, and how Elena's going to react to everything that's happened (especially when she finds out her brother died and sees ghosts! I can't wait for that bombshell to drop!). Or we could look it this way, since 86 is an oftly large number. We have 13 Vampire Diarie-less Thursdays until the premiere! :D but that's still a big # :(