"Elena, I think it's time we told your sister." Alaric said. He had been let out of jail since he had an alibi at the time of somebody's death. I couldn't understand how a doctor could have even come to the conclusion that Ric was a psychotic killer. He was a high school teacher. A teacher. It didn't make any sense.

My head whipped around to stare at her, demanding an answer. They had all kept the secret from me for too long, and I think they were all slowly beginning to realise it. Despite this, Elena shook her head.

"Ric," she paused. "We can't. I don't want Ivy being dragged into all of this."

"I think she was dragged into this ever since you became her sister." Alaric backfired. I was confused at his sentence. It was me that became her sister since she was older, not the other way around. I didn't speak up though, I was paying close attention to what they were saying, listening in for hints.

Jeremy jumped down from the kitchen counter which he had been perched on and stood in the space between Alaric and Elena, acting as an advocate for my feelings. "She won't forgive any of us if we tell her now. But she may hate us more if we don't tell her."

I spoke up from the kitchen bar stool, sick of them pretending I wasn't in the room. "Whatever you have been hiding from me, I can take it. You guys are my family. I just don't want there to be any more secrets."

Everybody was silent, it seemed everybody was tired of the secrets. They both turned to Elena, wanting her to make the final decision. She stood contemplating it for some time before finally shaking her head. "I don't want Ivy to get hurt."

"I am already hurt!" I laughed at the irony of her statement, tears filling up my eyes. "You guys are leaving me out on something important, it is as if you don't trust me."

"No-no! It's not that way at all!" Elena approached me, trying to give me a hug but I pushed her away angrily. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve trying to get rid of the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes. I silently refused to get upset in front of them again. They had all hurt me too much, whether it was unintentional or not.

Alaric sighed, his words were once again directed at Elena. "I don't think she is safe here, at the moment."

"The Mikaelson's all find her amusing though. And I don't think Rebekah would let her brothers get away with harming her new friend." Jeremy said, again speaking on my behalf. Damon had revealed who I had been with as soon as Alaric was let out, so I had to explain to everyone that Bekah and I were friends and refuse to stop seeing her numerous times.

I frowned, I didn't know what the Mikaelson's had to do with my safety. I was friends with Bekah. And I knew Kol had done something to Matt's hand but it didn't seem like he was evil. None of them seemed evil, in truth, just a little.. different. I thought, from what Caroline had said, that they had wanted me to stay away because Stefan had had a falling out with them. The conversation was giving me random pieces of the puzzle. None of it made full sense yet.

"Speaking about that," Elena turned to me, with a serious expression. "Your association with them needs to end. Now."

I was just about to protest when Alaric spoke. "Maybe if we told her, she wouldn't want to hang around with them anymore."

It was weird seeing Elena without the protection of her two guard dogs. We had wanted this talk for family members only so she had sent them away. But without them she had no backup to her reasoning, she was finally outvoted. Sadly, I knew Jeremy and Alaric wouldn't act without her consent, so they were desperately trying to convince her to change her mind.

"I wasn't speaking about the Mikaelson's when I said that Ivy wasn't safe." Alaric stated after more silence. Jeremy's and Elena's head both whipped to face him in confusion.

"There aren't any other dangers," Elena said. "That killer isn't targeting the innocent as far as we are aware. If we get Ivy to stop running around with Rebekah, she will be fully safe."

I frowned, their conversation was all over the place to me. I didn't understand what they were speaking about.

"I don't think she is safe around me."

I thought that Alaric was speaking about him being our guardian now that Jenna was dead. We all knew that, at times, he didn't think he was capable, which was completely untrue, he was doing great. I was scared he was going to leave us and run away from his responsibility's, thinking somebody else better could take his place. Jenna had the same feelings after she took us in when our parent's had died. Thankfully, she had stayed with us and eventually gotten used to it.

"Ric," I butted into the talk. "You are being too hard on yourself. We all think you are doing great as our guardian. Really, we couldn't ask for anybody better... well nobody better that is still alive." I added, thinking about Jenna.

He smiled sadly, "I don't think I can stay here anymore."

"This is about what Meredith said. Isn't it?" Elena was shouting angrily. I looked at her, shocked. I hadn't seen her properly shout at anybody in ages.

"She's trying to trick you. We all know it is her. We just need the proof." Jeremy added. The only things I knew about her, was that she was the doctor who had got Alaric arrested. I gasped, they thought she was the actual killer.

"I think she is right. That's why we should tell Ivy, she needs to be safe. From me." Alaric continued, ignoring me.

I frowned again, thinking I might have misunderstood the part about Meredith being a murderer. There was no way Alaric was a killer. There was also no way that Alaric would ever try to hurt me. I still would never forgive her for calling the cops on Ric. She would be on my blacklist for life.

"Why don't you go home tonight and sleep on it?" Elena said, defeated. She knew she couldn't say anything else in my presence that wouldn't give away the whole secret. "It's been a long day. I come around tomorrow and we'll speak."

Alaric nodded hugging us all individually. I gave him a hug back, holding on tightly, scared that he would back-out of being our guardian and want to keep his distance. I didn't think I could cope with losing somebody else that I loved. He left and we all stood in the kitchen in silence.

The only person I was annoyed with now was Elena in my family. Everybody else appeared to want to tell me the secret now, and she was stopping them from doing it. Secretly, I was scared to find it out. I figured that there had to be a reason behind not telling me but I still needed to know. I had to know how to protect our family if anybody was in danger, and it sounded like they were all in danger.

"Ivy-"

"Are you going to tell me?" I interrupted her, tired of listening to her reasoning behind not saying.

Elena swallowed, building up courage. "I am going to tell you something, I should have told you a long time ago."

Jeremy and I stared at her in shock, waiting for her to speak.

"I am adopted."

I walked past her lunch table, ignoring her when she called out my name. I hadn't spoken to her or Jeremy for a full two days. They had found out over a year ago that Elena wasn't my sister, and then later on found out that she was instead, our cousin. They had no reason behind not telling me. Both of them had made up an excuse about not wanting to upset me, but I was only upset that they didn't think they could have told me about something so important. It didn't matter if we had different parents, we were still all siblings.

I sat down at my table, Jessica and Abigail were already there. There had been a few awkward moments in our past two lunches. I wasn't in the mood to joke around, Jessica apparently thought she was better than both of us and Abigail had no idea what was going on in either of our lives. I had yet to tell her about Elena being adopted or not seeing Alaric in two days either, except for in school.

Yesterday, I had tried hunting him doing at lunch but he wasn't in his classroom. I had done the same after school but again it was empty. He was avoiding me, and I knew if I went to his flat the chances were that he wouldn't open the door and speak to me. I wasn't even sure if he knew that I had found out about Elena being adopted. I needed him a lot, but he wasn't there for me.

They were still all hiding a big secret from me, bigger than this one. I knew that from the conversation they had. Elena being adopted had nothing to do with the my whole family and the Salvatore's hating the Mikaelson's, or me not being safe. Elena had told me that she was adopted to get a rough estimate at how I would react to the bigger secret, I worked that out yesterday when I thought back on the conversation. I knew I was slightly blowing my chances about finding it out by refusing to acknowledge them. But I was so hurt that I didn't care.

"So.. how was your date?" Abigail asked Jessica, breaking the silence. We had both noticed that Jessica was wearing scarves and longer tops to school, probably to hide more hickeys that her boyfriend was giving her. She had also begun wearing lipstick and tighter clothing, no doubt to impress him.

"It was good." she said, taking another bite of her salad.

"You must like him an awful lot."

She shrugged.

"Are you going to tell us who he is yet, then?" Abigail asked. Jessica still didn't want either of us to know.

"Nope." Her phone buzzed and she quickly took it out, eager to answer her message. We both knew immediately that it was the guy she had been dating. In a flash, Abigail grabbed the phone out of her hands and read the screen. She frowned and showed it to me. I, too frowned upon seeing it. It was Kol.

Jessica quickly snatched the phone back, glowering. "You had absolutely no right." She grabbed her things and stormed off. In the past few days she had gotten the hang of storming off from us. It was now deemed normal.

In a way I agreed with her statement, we didn't have a right to know who she was hanging around with. The last thing I wanted to do was to become Elena. Still, Abigail and I had been slightly concerned with her behaviour. Those hickey's seemed more like abuse than romance. We were both scared she was going to get into something she couldn't get out of.

"That ass! I am going to kill him."

"Don't," I said. "Jessica is nearly an adult. She can be with who she wants." If it hadn't been for Elena wanting me to stay away from Rebekah I would have definitely been on 'Team Kill Kol'. Abigail knew this too.

"Well, he doesn't deserve her."

"He makes her happy." Deep down, I knew he wasn't good for Jessica. He made her so happy that she was constantly annoyed and angry when she wasn't with him. I wanted my friend back, but I wanted her back willingly. I didn't want to force her to keep away from him.

"He is using her."

"They haven't seen each other for over a week. I am sure she'll come to her senses soon." I said, hopefully.

Abi scoffed. "I don't know what has happened between you and Elena, but all I know is that if I had some creepy boyfriend I would expect you to step in and break us up. Even if that meant I hated you for months. And I think Jessica would too, even if she is too blind to know that at the moment."

I frowned deeply. It was true. I didn't know what to do. Be as bad as Elena, or to let Jessica carry on with the risk of something seriously bad happening to her? Neither of us trusted Kol. Especially after all the stories that Rebekah told us before we watched the films.

I sighed after a minute of inner conflict, "Okay. So we approach Kol. And do what exactly? Tell him to back off?" I remembered what he said about liking annoying his siblings, I had the feeling he liked to annoy others too. "If we do that he will only be with Jess more."

Abigail frowned too, she was working out a plan. "Could we ask Bekah to speak to him?"

I shook my head, "That would be even worse than us doing it."

She thought for a minute and let out a smirk. "Maybe we don't need to speak to him about Jessica. Maybe we need to get him interested in someone other than Jessica."

I smirked back, catching on to her plan, "I think I have just the person in mind."

I showed up in Mystic Grill, looking for Kol. I figured he would be at the bar, my only worry was Damon would be there too. I spotted Kol sitting on a stool, alone. Damon wasn't anywhere in sight, my luck was finally beginning to change.

Abi had gone to Jessica's to try convince her that she was way to good for him. We knew it wouldn't work but it would give me enough time to get him interested in somebody else- Meredith. The plan was pretty diabolical but I knew that Meredith was too smart to ever fall for Kol. I also knew that he would enjoy the chase, and would therefore give up on Jessica. It would hurt her a lot, but we both knew it was true that he was just using her. He was going to break her heart eventually, for fun, so we both thought it was better sooner rather than later. We had already bought a large ice-cream supply for Jess.

I sat in the seat next to him. Matt looked worried from across the counter. His hand was in a store-bought bandage and I could see him wince as he dried glasses. I smiled reassuringly at him, trying to signal that I knew what I was doing. Elena would be told about this by tomorrow, but I would be ignoring her anyway so I didn't care.

"Hey Kol." I smiled, brightly. My heart was pumping fast, I was nervous the plan would fail and that he would tell Jessica about it.

He frowned, "Hi."

"So," I said nudging him with my elbow, I really wasn't as good as acting as I thought I was. "Interested in any females at the moment?" I could hear Matt choke. Elena would definitely be finding out about this.

He smirked, "Why? Are you asking?"

My smile dropped. "No." I put it on again. I really wasn't good at acting. "I just thought there was no better way to settle into town than to get a respected citizen as your girlfriend. So I thought I could help you out on that."

"Who did you have in mind?" He asked, playing along with it. I could tell he knew I was up to something, but I was still hoping he would fall for the bait.

"Well, I am glad you asked Kol." I paused for effect. "There is this one person; really pretty, her name's Meredith. She's part of the council and a doctor, so extra brownie points for you. But the best thing is that she mature, but not too mature. You know what I mean? Fun, but with none of the stupid high school drama"

"Hmm. She sounds interesting." He said, amused.

"She is interesting!" I knew I was over doing it, perhaps Abi should have spoken to Kol instead of me, she could be much more subtle. "So what do you say?" I asked hopefully.

"Well. I am afraid I already have my eyes on somebody." I groaned internally, knowing that he was meaning Jessica. "Would you like me to describe her to you?"

"Go on." I urged, unenthusiastically.

"She is naïve, innocent, fiery.." He continued and I droned him out; disappointed that there was no chance I could get him to leave Jess alone. "And she is sitting right next to me."

WHAT?!

My jaw dropped and I heard Matt drop a glass in the background. It seemed as if the whole bar had slowed down, stopping for a moment in time and then sped up rapidly. Blood rushed to my ears, this was the very opposite of what I was expecting.

"But-but-" I stuttered, "You are with Jessica!"

He smirked, "So that is why you are here."

This time I groaned aloud. He had tricked me.

"Do you like her?" I asked. I wouldn't mind their relationship so much if I knew he wasn't using her, but I had some serious doubts.

"I like her body." He grinned, "She can be amusing. When she isn't constantly telling me about how annoying you guys are."

I frowned. He made it sound like Jessica was using us, "What? Does she not like us?"

He shook his head, "I'd say that she loathed you both. She told me that she can't wait to go finish High school to get away from you both. The only reason she hangs with the both of you is because she hates everybody else even more."

"You're lying." I said, denying it "Like when you said about Bekah and Stefan. They had sex ages ago, you made it seem like they had done it a few weeks back."

His grin increased, "But they still had sex, didn't they? I don't lie. I just twist the truth, slightly."

I glared at him, "Well I don't care if she likes us or not." I lied. "This isn't about our friendship. It is about your relationship. You have no right using her."

"Perhaps," he shrugged. "But until somebody more interesting comes my way I will stay with her."

"You're vile." I spat, leaving my seat to get away from him. The urge to punch him in the face was increasing every millisecond.

He picked up my bad and passed it to me. I tried taking it from him but he kept a firm grip on it, I looked him straight in the eyes, they seemed fascinated by me. "I don't lie, even when I said who I have my eyes on."

I yanked my bag out of his hands and left as quickly as I was able to. I could hear his laughter from outside.