Here I am again, trying to squeeze this last chapter in before I leave for the week. I'm really frazzled with everything going on right now, so I hope it doesn't show through the writing. Off we go!

Chapter 11: Standing on the Edge

Previously:

His eyes snapped open and he froze, the smile falling off his face. He could no longer hear Elena's heartbeat. Cursing, he tossed his glass aside and ran with superhuman speed up to her room. He flung open the door, his eyes flickering from corner to corner in search of movement. He was suddenly stricken by a cold wind, and saw with horror that one of the windows was open, the blue curtains fluttering in the breeze. Before he could move, he felt lightning hot pain searing between his shoulder blades like thousands of needles. His vision dimmed, and he crumpled forward, an image of Elena's sweet brown eyes dancing in his mind the nanosecond before everything faded to black.

…

Elena was suddenly seized from behind, a cold hand clamping over her mouth and another tying her hands roughly behind her back. Without warning, she was flung out the window, landing on a wide ledge some five feet below. She felt a few ribs crunch on impact and groaned, closing her eyes and praying Damon would come. A pair of boots landed lightly near her face from seemingly out of nowhere. The face of the tomb vampire suddenly appeared in front of her, giving her a toothy grin. She thrashed and tried to scream, nearly falling off the ledge in the process of doing so. His icy hands reached out and grabbed her, pulling her upright against him. The pressure on her ribs made hot tears well up in Elena's eyes as the vampire held her and jumped lithely from the roof. Once on the ground, he stepped back and scrutinized her, his eyes black and calculating.

"It appears I've made a mistake. You're not Katherine, she wasn't ever this weak. You're human. You must be a descendant of hers, though I can't figure how that would be…" He trailed off, speaking mostly to himself. "You appear to be injured; that won't do. I only feed on healthy humans. Here." In a flash, he suddenly grasped Elena from behind, biting his wrist and force feeding her from it. She struggled to no avail. She felt her ribs heal, but the sensation didn't even cross her mind. Panicking, she realized that if he killed her, she had enough vampire blood in her system to transition. Giving the man a once over, she realized he was holding an emptied vervain syringe in his hand. Oh God, Damon! She understood now why Damon hadn't jumped in to save her like he had been as of late. He's probably out cold, she deduced miserably.

"If you were wise, you wouldn't raise a fuss right now. It just gives me a reason for me to kill you sooner, and neither of us would enjoy that. You see, I like to play with my food." Elena's eyes widened and he chuckled softly at her expression.

"You won't get away with this. Half of this town knows about vampires," Elena spat.

"You are correct there, but it seems to make no difference, considering all of the killings that have already happened." He replied matter-of-factly. "And the only one who knows I've got you is your boyfriend up there, who I just injected with vervain." Elena opened her mouth to correct him, that Damon was most definitely not her boyfriend, but closed it again, unsure of what to say. Right now, she didn't know what Damon was to her; their relationship was indefinable, in a sort of limbo.

"I'm forgetting myself," the vampire said politely. "I'm Gabriel. And you are?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," Elena said defiantly.

Gabriel's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Oh, but I think you do." Elena was about to protest, her hand drifting up to her neck…her bare neck. Without her necklace, she was subject to all compulsion. Oh hell, she thought incoherently.

"Now let's try that again. Who are you?" he said somewhat impatiently. Elena bit her lip. She knew she had to answer if she didn't want her mind controlled.

"Elena Gilbert."

"Ah, Gilbert. A founding family. Considering your likeness to the lovely Miss Pierce, though, you can't be a Gilbert by blood." Elena said nothing. "Well enough of this chit-chat. We must be going." And with that, he swept her up in one quick motion and darted into the woods.

…

Damon opened his eyes groggily, the dim light in the room stinging them. Disoriented and incapacitated by the vervain, he could hardly move a limb. The smallest twitch sent his muscles into sore, achy spasms. A deep groan escaped his lips. Elena. Her name pounded through his head like a jackhammer. Gotta find Elena. With a low cry of pain, Damon rolled over onto his back. Nearly passing out again from pain with the action, he slowly reached into his pocket and closed his fingers around his cell phone. Dialing Ric's number with great difficulty, he put it on speakerphone and dropped the phone beside his face. It rang three times before he picked up.

"Hello?"

"He's got Elena." There was a beat of silence.

"How did that happen?"

"Stabbed me with vervain. Took her out the window." Damon spoke what was only necessary, trying to conserve energy.

"What can I do?"

"Get a stake. Drive around and start looking. Search for a dramatic setting, the guy seemed a bit theatrical. Go. Now."

"I'm on it." There was a faint click as the teacher hung up. Damon pushed the button on his phone, slowly sitting up. The vervain was starting to wear off, but he was still dreadfully sore. Painstakingly, he got up and walked down to the kitchen, his legs bending stiffly. He opened the fridge and got out three bags of blood, then drained them all. He still wouldn't be 100 percent, but the blood would help somewhat. Damon headed out to his car, still too weak to run around town on foot.

…

The vampire wasn't careful as he raced among the foliage, and Elena felt branches catching at her sweater and ripping it. Her hair was falling out of her ponytail, tiny leaves and twigs clinging in it. She knew she should be panicking right now, but she couldn't help pondering a thought from earlier. Damon wasn't her boyfriend, of course not. He never seemed the type for established relationships anyways. But he meant something to her, that was for sure. They understood each other. She looked past his bad behavior and saw that he was hurting. Lashing out was just his way of coping. And he didn't keep things from her, not like Stefan. He often spoke to her as an equal when it came to important matters. She liked that. And after spending so much time with him, she realized that he just needed someone to care about him, for once. Elena found herself doing just that: caring. She realized she did back in Atlanta when she was begging for his life. It wasn't clear to her why she had fought so hard to save him; all she could remember was thinking, not him. He had grown to be the one constant in her life since then, the ever-present sarcastic brother of her now ex-boyfriend who stood off to the side and pretended not to care. She knew it was a carefully constructed façade; why else would he have worked so hard to save his brother, whom he detested, or sit with Elena all night after they locked him up? That night was a haze to her. All she remembered was falling asleep gazing at Damon's striking, melancholy profile, illuminated by the dim light of the stairwell.

A sharp twig shredded a hole across the shoulder of Elena's sweater, snapping her back into reality. She prayed that Damon was alright, and that he woke up soon. She was afraid of what would happen if he didn't. Gabriel suddenly jerked to a halt, dropping Elena unceremoniously. As her knees hit the ground, she took in her surroundings. They were in the old cemetery, under a large oak tree surrounded by undisturbed ground. The plots were empty for 50 feet in every direction, and Elena was grateful; that meant fewer tombstones to trip over if she had the chance to break away. The vampire suddenly yanked her up by the shoulder, untying her hands and pushing her up against the oak tree. Holding her in his iron grip, he stared at her, his pupils dilating.

"You will not leave this spot. You will not scream under any circumstances."

Elena's eyes grew blank and dull as she repeated, "I will not leave."

"There's a good girl." Gabriel's mouth twisted into a smirk more evil than any one she had ever seen on Damon. Elena shivered as Gabriel moved his hands to her waist, his cold fingers grazing against patches of her exposed skin through the holes in her sweater. He lowered his head to the base of her neck, his tongue pressing against a vein, feeling her pulse. Underneath the foggy listlessness of the compulsion, Elena was repulsed. His tongue on her neck made her skin crawl, yet she was ordered not to move. Feeling her heart rate increase rapidly, he smiled wickedly, unable to hold off his thirst anymore, and went in for the kill.

…

Alaric turned away from the tomb, finding no one there, and jogged back to his car, stake in hand. Once in the car, he quickly typed out a message to Damon on his phone: Not at the tomb. Meet me at the cemetery. Snapping his phone shut, he sped away. The old cemetery was the only other "dramatic setting" that he could think of besides the town square, and he assumed the old vampire wouldn't be reckless enough to feed on someone in such plain sight. Feed. Ric pressed down harder on the gas, accelerating as he wove through the curvy old streets. As he neared the old burial grounds, the bottom fell out of the dark clouds above and it began to rain.

Sorry this chapter is so short, but I didn't have much time to write in between packing and getting ready to leave. I also apologize for the lack of Delena in this chapter, but I swear the next chapter will make up for it several times over. I can see it in my head now and it's making me smile like a schoolgirl in love ;-) Unfortunately, I won't be able to type it out until next Monday, so this FanFic is being forced to take a short break. Even so, please take a few seconds and leave me a review! I can't tell you how much that means to me. I'll miss all of this over the next week. A few final words: Delena forever. Feedback is love