Hey, everyone. Here's 1x06 for you all to...enjoy, I guess. Madeline's pretty pissed off in this chapter and there's a Shiver reference (Vincent Miller...just an FYI) so yeah. But anyways, have fun reading! Review at the end if you can!

Disclaimer: Refer to the Pilot.

Lost Girls

I woke up to the taste of rusty blood sliding down my throat without my knowledge and—quite possibly—my consent. I could hear a voice cooing at me in my ear, but I couldn't exactly pinpoint the words or who was saying them. All I knew was that there was a bad taste in my mouth, an annoying voice in my ear, and I felt like I had been run over by a car.

Except…I wasn't, was I? I was…

My eyes snapped open and I shoved whatever it was that was forcing liquid down my throat off of me. There was a hard inhale.

"Jesus, Madeline. A little warning would've been nice." My vision focused to see Damon hovering over me with a displeased expression as he watched his wrist and then rolled down his sleeve. I looked up, down, left, and right to find some kind of familiarity to where I was and, I soon realized…I had no idea where the hell I was.

But I did know something. I was attacked.

By Damon.

"Holy shit!" I screamed and forced myself up a lying position. Damon watched me with cautious eyes as I managed to get myself situated so that my back was straight. I swallowed hard. "You attacked me."

Damon frowned. "You kicked me. In a place I would really prefer you never to get near again unless you're going to be nice to it." The innuendo was something I probably would've responded to with an ice-cold snap, but instead, I just shook my head and ignored it.

"What the hell are you?" I asked, my voice shaking. All I remembered was that he…he lunged at me. And then I felt like I was being bitten and drained. But bitten and drained? I had to have been slipped something…somewhere.

Damon's impatient eyes grew a little less displeased and a little more understanding. "Trust me when I say this…I really didn't want to bite you. But I was hungry."

I laughed nervously. "Tell me there are hidden cameras in the room, that whatever liquid you just gave me did not taste like blood, and that I did not just hear you say you were hungry so you bit me!" I shouted, losing my laugh at the end of the accusation. What the hell was this? He was hungry so he bit me?

Damon leaned closer, his blue orbs capturing mine. I stayed completely still and didn't dare to break eye contact. "I bit you because I'm a vampire and I live off of blood. Human blood. Your blood. But you're not afraid, are you?"

All my fear lifted as if on cue, and I shook my head. "N-No. I'm not afraid."

"Good." Damon smiled bitterly at me and then his eyes cut away, releasing me. I gave myself a look of confusion, trying to figure out why the hell I wasn't afraid of a…vampire? Is that what he said? Oh, my God. A vampire.

"I thought you said we were going to party until the sun goes down," I heard behind me, and when I looked over the couch, I saw Vicki Donovan in nothing but a camisole and a pair of boy shorts strutting around like she was high on drugs. Without paying much attention to her, I moved my neck and felt it roll tensely. My hand subconsciously moved up to examine the bite wound I knew I had from Damon, but instead of finding bite marks, I just pulled away to see dry blood stain my porcelain fingers.

Damon looked up at her. "Well, I had to get Madeline up first."

I looked over at them because of the mention of my name. "And why was I so important to wake?"

Damon shrugged. "I like you better," he whispered to me with a wink. I thought Vicki would've said something, but instead, she started twirling.

"Come on! She's up now! Put on some music!" Vicki called out, spinning around the parlor. When she was gone, Damon just sighed and pulled closer the bottle of bourbon he had lying in wait on the coffee table. I looked over at him cautiously.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked him without fear. Damon peered up at me, but I thought it wasn't a far stretch. After all, he was…a vampire. And if vampire movies and books taught me anything, it was that vampires kill people. Humans. Me.

Damon sighed and put down the bottle of bourbon he was going to drink from. "No, Madeline. If I kill you, I lose my leverage."

I looked at him with confused eyes. "I'm…leverage?" I asked. Damon nodded. "Leverage for what?" What could I possibly be leverage for?

"Something that I need back." Damon shrugged and grabbed his bottle of bourbon, this time drinking with no hesitation.

I frowned. "That's probably the vaguest answer I've ever heard from anyone in my entire life."

Damon's face fell blank. "You're so dramatic. Don't you ever just relax? Kick back? Have some fun? Here." He extended his bourbon bottle to me but I stayed silent. "Ah. That's right. You don't drink."

"Good girls don't drink, Damon. It's not just me." I swung my legs off of the couch and tried to stand up. Instead, my body wanted to crap out, so it decided to make me almost fall headfirst into the coffee table. Instead, Damon jumped up and grabbed me, holding me upright.

"I tell you I bit you and drained you of your blood and you want to stand up? You're delusional," Damon noted. I looked down at his cold hand on my arm and I used my body to jerk away from him.

"Get off of me. I said, get off!" I snapped, and Damon eventually held his hands up in surrender at my cold, harsh words. But he seemed to more enjoy it then be threatened by it. "You may have forced me not to be afraid of you, but I can still be pissed."

"Oh, relax." Damon rolled his eyes. "I just fed from you. And if it's any constellation, you were probably the best I've ever had." He smiled at his own innuendo, and I scoffed at him. Damon just sighed. "I intentionally didn't kill you."

"Yeah, because you wanted to use me as leverage for 'something you need back'," I mocked him, putting quotes around his own words.

"Well, actually," Damon corrected me, holding up a finger. "I didn't even think about using you as leverage until I realized that I could…which was about twenty minutes after I spared your life."

"How generous of you. Do you want a thank-you note in the mail or hand-delivered?" I spat. I could tell Damon tried not to smile, but it was impossible. Somehow, this constituted as amusing for him.

"I feel like I'm on fire!" Vicki shouted from across the room as she parted the thick red curtains and basked in the sunlight. Damon and I both looked over at her and her intensity, and I looked back at Damon with crossed arms.

"What the hell did you give her? A pound of cocaine?"

"I'm surprised you even know what cocaine is, Little Miss Madeline," Damon teased, taking a swig out of the bourbon bottle he held in his hand. "Seems too out of your caliber."

"I may be unadventurous, but I'm not an idiot," I told him pointedly as the vampire walked away from me, toying with the buttons on his shirt. "Seriously, though. Is that what you gave her?"

"No." Damon sighed exasperatedly as he walked over to the stereo in the corner of the room and pressed a few buttons with his back turned to me. "I gave her the same thing I gave you. My blood."

I swallowed. "You mean I'm going to be…" I looked over at Vicki on her insane little fieldtrip that consisted in her mind.

"Scared of this little thing called fun?" Damon filled in for me as he turned around, his shirt now rendered completely useless after he'd unbuttoned all of the earlier fastened buttons and let the frame of his shirt hang on his arms. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help my stares. "Yeah. You've got that down pat."

"Scared of a little thing called fun," I mumbled to myself as I walked around the couch to the table behind it. The music was so loud; I doubted that Damon could hear me. "You know what, Damon, you're just a jerk. You've got that down pat." I said, raising my voice.

Damon narrowed his eyes at me but just drank out of his bottle of bourbon. I didn't say anything and neither did he, and frankly, I didn't want to speak over the loud music. He'd blasted it so loud that I would think he was trying to drown me out. But over the music, Vicki's voice was loud and clear.

"I am so over Tyler! So over him!" she exclaimed angrily—and quickly. "I knew from the beginning that I was only a piece of ass to him, but I thought maybe if he got to know me better, he might see something more. But no! Now, Jeremy on the other hand…that's all he's ever seen in me is something more." Now Vicki was just rolling around on the floor. "And I like that."

I widened my eyes. I really didn't need to hear this. I didn't want to hear this. I think Damon knew the same thing, because when I looked back at him, he was staring at me with his lips curled up into a smile.

"Jeremy, huh? Madeline's brother?"

Vicki jumped off the floor and didn't even pretend to notice me. "Yeah! Yeah. So Elena used to date my brother and they were always together, so Jeremy would be hanging around and crushing on me and—" Vicki stopped in her rant over the adorableness of my brother and stared up at Damon. "Hey, why don't you have a girlfriend? You're like, totally cool and so hot!"

Damon tried to look humble, but he just ended up coming out the opposite. "I know." I don't think he really tried, if you were asking me. I just rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, finding this whole situation to be a waste of my time.

"Don't you want to be in love?" Vicki asked him as Damon moved into the parlor and sauntered right towards me. I straightened and watched as he set his bourbon bottle down on the table behind me and grabbed my hand without my knowledge. Vicki was still spinning in the morning sun as if it were her energy source.

"I've been in love." I gasped when Damon spun me out and around without any consent from my body or my mind and pulled me back to him. "It's painful and pointless and overrated." Even though he wasn't talking to me about the subject, Damon flipped me around so that I was facing him, and I wasn't ready for it. I didn't dance—especially not with murderers.

"Except, when it isn't…" Vicki began as he moved around us. Words were caught in my throat with Damon's alcohol clouding my judgment, but he was gone in an instant when he switched dance partners with Vicki, leaving me to watch them. He spun her under his arm and took Vicki between the two couches. I crossed my arms and settled upon having fun watching them have fun because I sure as hell wasn't going to be having much fun.

"No more talking! Let's dance!" Damon dragged out the word and picked Vicki up in his arms, twirling her around. My fingers traced the side of the bourbon bottle Damon left on the table I was standing beside, and I thought to myself about all the risks that came with drinking alcohol.

"God damn it," I mumbled under my breath. It was a special occasion. I was going to get killed by my sister's boyfriend's brother. Might as well. The second the bourbon touched the tip of my tongue, though; I remembered the reason I didn't drink alcohol. Especially strong ones like bourbon.

Nevertheless, I kept the bottle in my arms; this, Damon realized. About halfway through his dancing escapade between him and Vicki, he glanced over to me at the table I had been standing at and a smile twitched as his lips when he saw the bourbon in my hand. I didn't even notice it, but he was suddenly standing next to me, grabbing the bottle from my hand.

"I thought good girls don't drink," Damon commented as he took a sip out of the bottle. Then, he inhaled sharply and smiled. "Unless I turned this good girl bad. Ooh."

"It was one sip," I defended myself, but his smug smile never left his smug face. "Besides, I needed it. I'm being held hostage by a vampire."

Damon shrugged. "Then by all means." Again, he took a drink out of his bourbon after he spun around with it dramatically and handed it back to me. I took it hesitantly, but I didn't drink from it. Now that I actually thought about it…drinking bourbon from Damon's bottle basically meant I was drinking blood. My blood. Vicki's blood.

Oh, God. I was going to throw up.

Before I could do or say anything, I realized that Damon was no longer standing next to me. Once Vicki came over to somewhere close to where I was standing, I finally found Damon—up on the banister of the staircase with his lips pursed, his jeans riding low, and his hips swaying in a way that I felt dirty watching. And Vicki was on level ground tossing her hair back and forth and acting sexy. I swallowed hard and, without even giving it a second thought, pulled the bourbon bottle to my lips and drank again, wincing at the strong aftertaste.

Damon and Vicki decided to go upstairs, and I had no choice but to go with them when Damon decided to drag me. Probably to keep an eye on his precious 'leverage'. I still had no idea what it was for, but we somehow ended up in a corner room in the house.

"Trash everything!" Damon sung to Vicki and me as we entered the room together. They were dancing and swaying their hips but I was just walking normally. I had ditched the bourbon bottle at the bottom of the stairs. "It's Stefan's room."

"Okay!" Vicki agreed immediately and decided to mess up the bed by jumping on it. Damon pawed at books on the shelves, but I just walked around the rooms in the midst of their trashing party. I wanted to speak up for Stefan, but instead, Damon just hushed me every time I wanted to speak, so I gave up. He seemed to be getting annoyed, and I realized that if he was getting annoyed, he'd get murderous. So I kept my mouth shut and observed the trashing going on—Vicki threw a bunch of pillows and jumped on the bed, Damon threw shit everywhere, and he even broke a glass candle and a lamp. The two of them all did this while they moved to the beat of the music, and I just sat in the corner and waited for it to be over. Then something caught my eye. Something interesting.

As Damon flinched away from a crack of sunlight in the room, I saw Vicki's phone peaking out of her clothes on the floor that she had stripped, obviously. Without hesitation, I grabbed it without anyone noticing. As I recited Elena's phone number in my head so I didn't lose it, I spoke up to Damon, who had grabbed something on Stefan's desk and stopped cold.

"Damon?" No answer. "Damon?" No answer again. "Damon!"

"What?" Damon snapped as he turned around and looked at me with harsh eyes. I flinched, and after a while, he softened at me and said again, "What is it, Madeline?"

"Bathroom?" I asked him. Damon raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh, Jesus, Damon. I have to pee. Where's the bathroom?"

Damon pointed, and I looked to the side to see—through all the trash and glass—a bathroom entrance was nestled into the corner. I carefully stepped around all the hazards and tried to push Vicki's giggling out of my mind as I walked into the restroom and shut the door, sighing out of relief. The noises outside were muffled, but I wasn't going to take a risk with calling Elena. I had no idea what I was up against.

Elena? It's Mads. I'm texting from Vicki's phone.

I paced in the bathroom as I waited for Elena's text, hoping that she responded quickly. Damon would realize if I peed for twenty minutes, I think. Thankfully, her response came within the minute.

Mads? Thank God. Why are you texting from Vicki's phone?

I sighed as I typed my own response with quick thumbs that kept making mistakes. "Damn phones," I whisper-hissed under my breath.

Damon has me. And Vicki. He says he's waiting for something that he needs.

Her response came fast. And that's when I realized that my sister was absolutely no help at all.

I know. Stefan and I are trying to fix it. Don't let him hurt anyone!

"Son of a bitch! Elena!" I nearly shouted, but I kept my voice at a whisper as I heard things die down outside the bathroom door. Great. So she and Stefan were "trying" to fix it. I was still locked up with a murderous vampire who is using a human being as leverage. What the hell could be so important that he needed to use me as leverage against Stefan and Elena?

Knowing that I had nothing else to do now, I just flushed the toilet and ran the water, pretending like I actually went to the bathroom. But when I opened the door, I expected to find Damon still trashing Stefan's room, but he was just standing at the threshold with a sigh. I jumped at his surprise presence.

"Oh, sweet Madeline…" Damon said dramatically and then held out his hand. I looked down at it and watched him wait, but then I groaned and pulled out the phone in my pocket and set it in his hand. "Good girl," he praised.

"Not like I got anything out of it anyway," I muttered to myself. Damn Elena. As Damon went back over to Vicki, I just settled upon laying on the uncomfortable bed of Stefan's that was cluttered with clothes and trash that Damon and Vicki had kicked around the room. While I did that, though, Damon and Vicki were slow dancing by the desk.

"My mom spends most of her time in Virginia Beach with Pete," Vicki vented, sniffling. "He drives trucks. I don't remember my dad, but from what I gather, he's not worth remembering."

"Your life is so pathetic," Damon commented as he stroked her hair.

"Yeah," Vicki agreed. "I mean, I'm the screwed-up one. Matt's got it so easy. He's the golden boy. I mean, he's gonna get a football scholarship and marry Elena and…have a lawn mower and some babies and…when I think of my future, I just come up blank."

Damon pulled away from her and looked down her tear-stained face. By this time, I had straightened on the bed and listened to her, actually feeling sorry for Vicki for once. I never really knew how bad she had it. Sure, my parents were dead, but in a way, it was a blessing in disguise. They were perfect role models. Vicki didn't have that.

"You are so damaged," Damon realized.

"Yep," Vicki whispered.

"I mean, you don't have one hint of self-esteem."

"Nope. None."

Wow, I thought, confused. Feminism. Great. Damon leaned his forehead against Vicki's and sighed. "I think I know what can help you."

"What's that?" Vicki sniffled as Damon cupper her face and leaned in close. At first, I thought he was going to say something sweet and encouraging, but…well, who the hell was I kidding?

"Death."

Damon twisted his hands and Vicki's neck snapped loudly, causing her to fall to the floor. I gasped once her neck snapped and immediately got off the bed when I saw her body on the floor, completely dead. I widened my eyes and dropped to my knees.

"What the…" I trailed off as I tried to find a pulse on her. Damon sighed and fixed his collar as if he didn't just kill Vicki Donovan. I looked up at him. "Are you serious right now? You killed her!"

"Relax." Damon shrugged it off as he stepped over Vicki's body. "She'll come back."

I scoffed. "Come back? Yeah, maybe. As a ghost to haunt your vampire ass! Damon, she's dead!"

"She had vampire blood in her system, okay?" Damon reasoned like I was supposed to know what it meant. Everything was pin-drop silent except for Damon walking around the room in his heeled shoes.

"What does that mean?" I growled up at him. Damon looked down at me with a frown.

"I thought you were smarter than that."

"I can't be smart about things I've never learned!" I snapped at him, sitting back right beside Vicki. I didn't like her, but that didn't mean I wanted her dead. Damon waited for me to come to the conclusion that I already came to, I was just confused. "Will she turn into…what you are now?"

"A vampire?" Damon corrected me. I nodded. "Yes. And no. She'll be in transition, but then she'll have to feed on a human to complete it."

"Feed on a human?" I repeated and then I realized and glanced up at him. "You mean…feed on me?"

Damon shook his head and laughed. "Yeah…no. I'm not letting that happen."

"What's to stop you from letting her kill me, huh?" I snapped. Damon looked over at me with cold eyes and then he flashed so he was right beside me, right in my face. I wasn't afraid, but I felt like I wanted to be.

"What's to stop me from doing the same thing I did to her?" Damon retorted in a growl. "I could easily snap your neck and turn you, Madeline, but I don't. Because I need you. You're my leverage."

"For what?" I hissed at him, pulling myself up by my heels so that we both could stand. I found myself too close to him—but then again, how far enough could you be from a murderer? "What is so important that you needed to take me and use me against Stefan and Elena?"

Damon sighed, realizing that I wasn't going to give up. "Fine. Fine, okay? You want to know, so I'll tell you." But I could tell that he wasn't the "teaching" type. Instead, he walked over to the window and positioned himself right at the crack between the curtains where the sun shone through. With a grunt, he put his hand out into the crack and I watched as it turned red and sizzled, but Damon tried to keep it there long enough for me to see. Eventually, he pulled it back and hissed a curse word under his breath.

"The sun…burns you?" I realized, but I phrased it more as a question than a statement. Damon nodded to me and I crossed my arms. "Wait a second, you've been out in the sun before. So why—"

"That's why I'm keeping you here," Damon explained. "Because my brother took the thing that prevents me from burning in the sun—the thing that lets me walk in the daylight. And in order to get it back, he needed motivation."

I scoffed. "So why didn't you take Elena? She's his girlfriend, after all."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Well, first of all, Elena has a little charm on her that keeps her from being compelled. Second of all, I like you better. You're fresh. Innocent. Raw." He stepped forward to me, but I took a step back. "Feisty," he concluded.

I swallowed and tried to mask my fear with wit. "Right. All of the things that appeal most to vampires, I got it. Thanks. But besides the sun, what else is there? Crosses? Silver? Holy—"

"I'm not doing the twenty questions game with you," Damon warned me, pointing a finger as he sat down on the dark edge of the desk. "Vervain weakens; it doesn't kill. Wooden stake to the heart kills. That's it. That's all that can hurt us or kill us. But don't you think for a second you'll be able to get the upper hand on me. You're weak, even for a human."

"Excuse you!" I said in a high-pitched tone. "I exercise every day!"

"You jog every day. Doesn't change the fact that you've got no muscle on you and you know it." Damon straightened and sidestepped the light to get to where I was. I tried to step back, but I hit the bedpost. Luckily for me, Damon didn't try to come all the way over. "Are you done now?"

"How'd you…" I struggled for the right word, but Damon filled it in for me.

"Die? I'd rather not," he said, turning away from me again. "It's a long, boring story that I'm not really in the mood to divulge into."

"You kidnapped me," I threatened him, clenching my fist. "The least you can do is—"

"Not kill you," Damon finished, turning around with a bitter smirk. "Which I haven't done. Yet. But I did kill her, and she'll be waking up real soon."

I looked down at Vicki's dead body just as Damon turned around again. "Well…what do we do now?" I asked, deciding not to pick another fight with him. He made it pretty clear what he's capable of.

Damon shrugged and, without turning to me, replied, "We wait."

Ten or fifteen minutes later, Vicki finally woke up. Damon was trying to test his ability with the sun, but it was ultimately failing. Time and time again, I watched the sun burn his fingers and Damon wince in pain. I was about to speak up to how he should just give it a rest when Vicki groaned on the floor and stirred to a more relaxed consciousness than before.

"What happened?" she asked as she forced herself up from the floor with a groan. "We were dancing and then—"

"Then I killed you," Damon completed with a smile. Vicki let out a painful exhale.

"What?"

"You're dead."

"I'm dead?" Vicki asked in disbelief. Damon walked around the sun to where I was standing, and he shrugged.

"Yeah. Well, let's not make a big deal out of it." The thought never occurred to me that he didn't mean to turn Vicki, he just meant to kill her. It sounded like something he wouldn't have thought of. "You drank my blood, I killed you, and now you have to feed in order to complete the process. Madeline's off limits so don't go near her."

Damon crossed his arms and sat down as Vicki got up from the floor and sighed. "You're wasted," she told Damon before grabbing her clothes on a chair of Stefan's, preparing to leave.

"You don't wanna be out there all alone," Damon countered to Vicki as she tried to leave. I stayed out of it, not wanting to throw myself in front of a hungry new vampire. Damon flashed, and he was no longer standing beside me but in front of Vicki. She gasped. "You're about to get really freaky."

Vicki's voice sounded like she had been hit with strep throat before she'd died. "Okay. I had a really good time, I just wanna go home."

"You're gonna start craving blood and until you get it, you're gonna feel very out of it. You have to be careful," Damon warned.

Vicki just shoved him hard. "Come on, move," she demanded and brushed past him with eyes of a person with a hangover. Damon sighed.

"See, you're already starting to fall apart," he pointed out. Vicki turned around at him.

"And I'm going home now."

"Okay! Fine," Damon caved. "I'm just warning you." He turned around and looked at me, and I could see an idea spark in his head. "Actually, you know what? You should go. In fact, if I were you, I would stop by your boyfriend Jeremy's house."

"Yeah, whatever," Vicki said rudely. "Bye."

"Tell Elena her sister and I said hi. And if you see Stefan, tell him to call me!" Damon called out as Vicki went down the stairs to leave the house. I stepped forward to Damon.

"This isn't a good idea," I told him, watching as Damon turned to me. "Damon, she could attack Jeremy or…or Elena or…or anyone else! Please, just help her!"

Damon shrugged. "Sorry, sweetie. I tried. Not my problem anymore." He turned from me and started to go back to sulking in the shadows of Stefan's room, and I remembered what I thought the night before. I said I wanted a life.

God, how I wished I could take that back.

An hour or so after Vicki left and I'm sure was raising hell across the streets of Mystic Falls while I rotted in the boarding house with Damon, he finally let us go downstairs. I had tried all the windows upstairs, but none of them opened. None of them. So I realized that I was as helpless as he'd said I was. I couldn't overpower him—the only thing I'd done right was kick him in the groin, but then again, he did attack me after that. How does one go about escaping a vampire? That was the ultimate question. One I needed an answer to badly.

So while Damon was drinking and pretending that I didn't exist or had any human needs for food or water, I ended up pacing back and forth trying to figure out a way to help myself. I didn't want to be bait for Stefan and Elena and certainly being in Damon's care made me subject to being turned into a vampire. So I strategized. But I knew that every move I could possibly make, Damon would be ten moves ahead. He would see me coming from a mile away.

But then I realized: there was one thing that he couldn't escape. I didn't have vervain, I didn't have a wooden stake, but I had something that would last just an hour or two more. Something that I could use.

The sun.

The question now was: how did I get to it before Damon could stop me?

"Pacing in the foyer," Damon acknowledged as he cracked open a new bottle of bourbon. "So inventive," he mocked.

What did Damon Salvatore want from me? He wanted whatever it was that protected him from the sun, that's for sure. But why me? What else did he want? My blood? Yeah, there was no way he was getting anywhere near that.

But there was one thing that I didn't want to use. Something that I knew he wanted, because he was a guy—a vampire, a dirty vampire at that. So all there was to it was for me to swallow the bile in my mouth and suck it up.

"Do you really think I'm as…what was it, innocent as you say I am?" I asked Damon, catching him off guard. He looked up at me and set the bourbon bottle down, wondering what I was trying to accomplish.

"Why does it matter to you?"

"Because you're wrong," I said simply. I could see Damon bite the bait I had within me, and he flashed so that he was basically breathing down my neck. I stepped back, and he let me, as if enjoying the game.

"Oh, really?" he questioned, stepping forward. I stepped back.

"Really." Forward. Back. "I'm not raw. I've been with plenty of guys."

Damon wasn't buying this—that I could tell. But he was enjoying it. The same process repeated: he stepped forward, I stepped back. "Name 'em."

"Uh…" I stepped back and thought to myself. What guys had I been with? "Ryan Smith."

"Bullshit. You made that up." Damon laughed.

I shook my head. "No. Really. He was my first kiss. Caroline's birthday party in the seventh grade. It was a dare."

Damon rolled his eyes. "I'm so impressed." By now, we'd moved to a few feet away from the door. "But if that's it then—"

"Vincent Miller!" I exclaimed. Now I was lying. Sure, Ryan Smith had been my first kiss, but what I was about to say Vincent Miller was happened to be a complete lie. "He was my…first."

"Your first." A smile twitched at the vampire's lips in amusement and I felt my back hit the door. Oh, thank God. "Your first what Madeline?"

My hand found the knob. Bingo. "My first rejection, you asshole," I snapped before I flung the door open and let the sun shine through. I watched as Damon crumbled, his skin turning irritably red and sizzling hot. For a moment, I was at a loss for words, but I ended up getting the hell out of there like I needed to.

The sun would go down in two hours and he would come for me. And there was only place I could think of that was possibly safe.

Home.

I practically banged on the door, even though I knew Damon couldn't come out until the sun was completely down. But it was setting, and if Jeremy or Elena didn't let me in before it did, I was toast.

"Jesus…" I heard through the door. "Who—?" The door swung open and I practically jumped inside, my whole body shaking. Elena turned to me, closing the door shut, and she widened her eyes. "Madeline! Thank God, you're back!"

"We have a problem," I breathed out, trying to catch my breath. Jogging had its perks, but getting rid of the wind knocked out of you? Never. "Vicki…Vicki…"

"Shh," Elena hissed at me and pulled me away from the foyer into the living room. "I know. Calm down. I know. Stefan's out looking for her."

"Did she feed?" I asked Elena, catching my breath finally. Elena shook her head.

"Not that I know of. Stefan's trying to stop that from happening." She paused. "How the hell did you get away from Damon?"

I shrugged. "I used the sex appeal." Elena raised an eyebrow. "What? The guy is a psychopath who is attracted to anything that walks on two legs."

Elena frowned. "So…you slept with Damon to get him to let you go?"

I groaned. "Jesus, Elena, no! I'm not that desperate. I just…I…it's complicated, but the short story is that I used sunlight against him and the second it goes down, he's after us. Is it safe here?"

Elena nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it should be. Come on, Jeremy and I were just eating dinner."

After I agreed, Elena and I went back to the kitchen where Jeremy explained his side of things to me. Of course, I knew the fact that Vicki was acting crazy because she had turned into a vampire, but he didn't. And Elena also explained to me about her little expedition with Stefan during the day—she ended up getting all the answers that I didn't. The Katherine answers. Katherine turned both Damon and Stefan in an attempt to be with them forever. Both of them. And Elena was positive that Damon was an evil, vicious being, and I wasn't disagreeing. But Jeremy's constant nagging about his worries when it came to Vicki was starting to get on my nerves.

"Maybe we should check in with Matt," he suggested as Elena and I cleared the table. Elena shook her head.

"He'll call when he finds her."

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Jeremy asked her.

"We wait. We're supposed to wait," she tried to explain it to him calmly, but my head was pounding like a man with a jackhammer decided to crawl into my brain. Jeremy suddenly stopped and turned serious.

"I don't know what's wrong with her," he confessed. Elena sighed.

"She'll be fine. It'll all be fine." Keep telling yourself that, Elena. We're living in a town infested with vampires.

When the doorbell rang, I jumped to answer it, praying to every God there was that it was Stefan. I even chanted in my head over the constant pounding: please be Stefan, please be Stefan, please be Stefan.

Except…it wasn't.

I opened the door just a crack, but who I saw on the doorstep was definitely not Stefan, but rather his very pissed-off brother. I tried to close the door, but Damon was right. I was weaker than most humans and definitely not strong enough to beat him. I knew that Jeremy and Elena were behind me, and Jeremy was as confused as ever.

"Elena, take Jeremy upstairs." Elena was cowering in her shoes and I could tell that Damon noticed it. Elena didn't budge. "Now."

After this, Elena did what I said and took Jeremy upstairs with her. I stayed by the door, but I was ready to slam it in Damon's face. He leaned against the threshold and straightened with a smile.

"You and your sister are afraid of me. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess. Stefan finally 'fessed up to her?" It was like he was praising himself for it. "You, on the other hand, should know better. I told you not to be afraid."

"You asked me if I wasn't afraid and goddamn it, Damon, I am now." But I wasn't all that afraid. I just was afraid of what he'd do to me after I basically made him meet the sun. "Stay away from me and Elena."

"Hey, hey, hey, there's no need to be rude. You can relax. I won't kill you for what you did earlier." A sadistic smirk came onto his lips and I stiffened. "Your little stunt showed me why I liked you so much in the first place. Besides your adorable rambling. It's a shame that's gone."

"I don't nervously ramble to psychopaths," I shot at him. "Or, at least, I try not to."

Damon just hummed under his breath. "I'm just looking for Stefan," he claimed innocently. "May I come in?"

"Like hell," I snarled, but Damon ignored me.

"Oh, wait! Of course I can. I've been invited." He straightened at the threshold and then moved forward, and I moved as far away as I could from him. Damon closed the door behind him and looked around the house before walking so that he was parallel to me. He acted like he didn't have a care in the world, which I supposed he didn't except for finding the ring that protected him from the sun. Elena filled me in on that, too. "We can cut to the chase if you want. I told you, I'm not going to kill you right now. That wouldn't serve my greater agenda."

I scoffed. "Greater agenda. Uh huh. What are you going to do now, tie me to your bed and never let me leave?"

Damon pointed to me. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Madeline, it's unladylike." I shuddered involuntarily, his velvety smooth voice sending chills down my spine. "So…where's Stefan?"

"He's out looking for Vicki." I crossed my arms at him and said this pointedly. "You remember Vicki, right? You turned her because you got bored?"

"Yes, I remember Vicki and yes I turned her because I got bored. But don't look at me with those judge-y little eyes." Damon stepped forward to me, and I tried not to stumble back, but I did—right into the railing of the staircase. "Girl's gonna thank me for what I did to her."

Damon came right up at me, his body just inches from mine, and I knew he was trying to flip the tables this time. I sighed and used something I found out from Elena against Damon. "Are you sure? Did you thank Katherine?"

Damon expression remained untouched, like he wasn't even bothered by the statement. But I knew he was. His eyes roamed the length of my body and he hummed under his breath and turned, giving me space. "So Elena told you, huh? Wonderful, because I was never going to be the one to tell the story."

"Why not?" I asked, straightening. "Afraid to admit that you stole Stefan's girlfriend?"

Damon turned around at me, but he still pretended like it didn't matter. "Oh, Madeline. You think Stefan told Elena the truth but…I doubt he really told her anything." I knotted my eyebrows, but then Damon just brushed past me and went chipper again. "Tell my brother I'm looking for him." He smiled as he opened the door and walked out into the night, and when I thought it was over, he popped right back up. "Oh. Tip for later. Be careful who you invite in the house."

With a Damon-like smirk, he was gone, and my sister trotted down the stairs to face me. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." I looked her over. "Were you listening?" She nodded.

"Do you think he's lying?" Elena asked wearily as I turned to go back into the kitchen, realizing that the Damon drama for the night was done with. But then again…was it? He had been invited in…he could come in any time he wanted at night and…do whatever he wanted. "About Stefan?" my sister clarified.

I turned around at her and shrugged. "It's Damon. We can't trust him. But I don't think we can trust Stefan, either." Elena raised an eyebrow and I sighed. "Elena, vampires are real. And here, nonetheless. Our lives just got ten times more complicated and I'm not just going to start handing out my social security number to whoever asks!"

That's when it started to dawn on me: how this changed things. I think Elena wanted to believe that this didn't have to change anything. That she could just keep living her life like it was normal. But the thing is, I knew this was going to change things. A lot of things. But it didn't mean that I had to be apart of it.

"What should I do?" Elena asked quietly eventually, watching as I realized just how serious we'd gotten ourselves into things. "With Stefan?"

I looked up at her and saw that my sister, my I've-never-had-a-problem-with-love sister, asking me for relationship advice. In the span of a day, things had completely taken a one-eighty turn. I shook my head at her.

"I can't tell you," I said to her honestly, backing away into the kitchen. "But I think you know what to do, Elena."

I turned and walked into the kitchen, leaving Elena to think about it for herself. I couldn't be the one to make a decision for her, but as far as I was aware, Damon and Stefan Salvatore had no association with me.

I came out of the shower later at night, moving a towel across my dark hair so that I shook all the water out. I had finally changed from the clothes I wore for two entire days, and I was feeling human again. Being with Damon made me feel like I was something different. A pawn in a vampire feud between two brothers, maybe? Regardless, I was finished with it. It could change my life, but I didn't have to let it.

I saw Stefan come back to the house through the window, but I didn't check on Elena. Whatever she was going to do, she was going to do for herself. Not for me. Not for Stefan. I had no idea what to expect, but when there was a soft knock on my door and Elena came inside with red eye stained with tears, I understood.

"Vicki fed," Elena told me simply, swallowing hard. "And…I…ended things with Stefan."

Silence filled my rom for a while before I nodded at her. "I'm…sorry, Elena. I know you didn't want to, but we both know it was the right choice."

"Was it?" Elena asked me, and I could see she was doubting herself. Her eyes welled up with tears, and I tried to keep myself from crying because of her crying. "Because Mads, all I can feel is this…this hole and I…"

"Shh," I hushed her and walked over to comfort Elena, who practically crumbled in my arms. "Elena, it was the right thing to do. You're going to be okay, I promise you."

Now I couldn't empathize with her—I had no knowledge of how this felt. I don't think anyone really did unless they found out that their boyfriend was a vampire with a murderous older brother. But the one thing I could do was help her understand that letting Stefan go was good for her. Good for all of us.

I just hoped, with time, she would come to think the same thing.