The Salvatore Sister

Chapter Twenty-Eight - The End

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

PLEASE READ: This is the last chapter of The Salvatore excluding the epilogue which should be up in the next week or so. I really hope you enjoy this chapter as it is something I've been planning for a while. I hope it's not too weird, but I really wanted to develop and write my own story arc instead of being one of those boring self-inserts. Thank you for your continued support over the last two years I've spent writing this story! This story was more popular than I could've ever imagined, thank you to everyone who has review/alerted/favourited or even bothered to read it at all. Please review at the end of this chapter? Just tell me what you thought of this chapter, Amelia and the story as a whole.

Enjoy! x

"Oh, it's just, by the end of the night, either Jeremy will be dead, or you will."

"How are you going to work that out?" I found myself asking the voice in my head aloud and Jeremy looked at me as if I was crazy, well, I suppose I am but that's beside the point.

"You'll see very soon."

"Amelia, who are you talking to?" Jeremy asked, a concerned frown on his face.

For someone who was being held somewhat hostage by a somewhat hostile vampire, Jeremy seemed awfully calm. He was looking up at me with nothing but concern and worry on his face. He was sitting on the chair, although he looked rigid and alert, he wasn't tied to the chair so was staying of his own accord - or maybe he thought that if he ran I would be bringing him back in no time.

I just looked at Jeremy, unsure of what to tell him, and then just decided to shake my head in response to his question.

'Okay, so, according to you, I'm going to die tonight,' I thought, hoping the voice would hear me and answer me, 'Then wouldn't it be fair if you just explain to me what is actually going on? Like who you are, and why the hell you are in my head and about to kill me? I mean, that's one hell of an ice breaker.'

"Well, I suppose that sounds fair... Very well. To answer your question, my name is Amandla, we have only met once, about thirty years ago."

'I have never met anyone called Amandla', I answered the voice, 'That's a name I think I would remember.'

"Well, I wasn't named Amandla at that point, that's a name they gave me at the orphanage. My name is Amandla Bennett."

'Bennett? Wait... are you Brianna Bennett's daughter? The one I put in the orphanage?'

"Ding, ding, ding. Did you not find it suspicious how you thought about me earlier for the first time in thirty years? That was me, making you. I thought you might've put two and two together but I've been in your head for a while now, you're not too intelligent..."

'Okay, you've been in my head a while - how did you do that?'

"I'm a Bennett. A powerful one at that," Amandla explained, "When I learned about my heritage and what had happened to my mother I threw myself into magic, and it wasn't long before I started to dabble in dark magic, and then I went mad - but that's a story for another time, one you unfortunately won't get to hear. But it was easy finding a talisman that would project me directly into your mind."

"What talisman?" I asked aloud, my voice coming out shaky.

"The broach Mr. Julien Lockwood gave you as a courting gift way back when, I found it amongst the ruins of your childhood home," she told me, "With my magic - and a few, well, sacrifices - it projected me straight into your mind. I couldn't control you at the start, so I just had to lay in wait for the right moment to make myself known. And then I hit the jackpot, you reunited with your brothers and you became a jumbled mess of emotions - that was the perfect opening. I couldn't speak to you, however, I had to wait until you were shot to talk to you, but you know what happened there. And then earlier tonight, the argument you had with your brothers, Damon telling you to leave, it was the chance I had been waiting for, for me to take full control."

'Okay, okay, you got into my mind by magic - I don't really want to know the details. But why? Why are you doing this? If you wanted to kill me why didn't you just do it? With fire or a stake? Why go to all this trouble?'

"Because I want to ruin you, Amelia Salvatore," she explained, "For what you did to my mother."

'Your mother begged me to turn her, I didn't want to do it.'

"But you still did it!" she screamed in my mind so loudly that I thought Jeremy must have heard her, but he sat, staring at me in fear and confusion, completely oblivious to what was going on inside me, "The death I have planned for you is so much more entertaining. I'm going to use your greatest weakness."

I was about to ask her how exactly she planned to kill me and what she thought my greatest weakness was when there were the sounds of people entering the warehouse, the echoing thud of someone pushing a heavy steel door open and the sounds of two people - judging by the number of echoing footfalls - jogging down the aisles of packaged boxes towards us.

"This is it..." I heard Amandla whisper in my mind, her voice fading away to nothing before I felt my body seize up and my vision grow hazier and I knew I was no longer in control of my body. This is it...

And then around the corner came my brothers. Damon and Stefan. Their expressions were a mix of confusion, fear, anxiety and anger when they saw me standing there beside Jeremy. I wanted to call out to them, to ask them, beg them, to help me. But I couldn't make my body do anything, and I knew they wouldn't be able to help me anyway.

"Amelia, what're you doing?" Damon asked, his voice panicked, breaking the excruciating silence.

Something that should've been done a long time ago, the voice I now knew as Amandla whispered in my mind and against my will, my mouth opened and repeated what she had said.

"This is nonsense, Amelia," Stefan piped up, his calm voice a stark contrast to Damon's, "Let's go home."

Stefan took a careful step towards me with his hand extended for me to take it, but in response my body spun around and my hand grasped Jeremy's throat.

Don't take another step, the voice commanded and I repeated.

Stefan froze in his advances and held his hands up in defence to signal he was going to obey me, he wasn't going to take another step.

"She's not herself!" Jeremy called to my brothers, "She's been talking to someone who isn't here, someone in her head. Amelia wouldn't do this."

Not another word, Amandla whispered and I relayed the command, slowly and menacingly, to Jeremy, steadily releasing my hold on his neck.

Jeremy looked up at me, directly into my eyes, and I could take a guess as to what he could see: fear, unadulterated fear. I had never been so scared in my life, not because I knew I was going to die soon, but because I had no control over myself. Amandla could kill me and make me take my brothers down with me for all I knew.

"Why are you doing this, Amelia?" Damon asked me as I turned to look directly at my brothers, my blue eyes meeting green and blue.

Tell them this is the moment they choose. This is the moment they choose you, or they choose Elena.

"This is the moment you choose," I gasped out and hot tears sprung to my eyes, "This is the moment you choose, either me, or Elena."

"Don't do this, Lia," Damon answered, his voice pleading.

It's you or her. Make them choose. Either Jeremy dies. Or you die.

"It's me or her, Damon. If you choose me, I kill him. But if you choose her, you...you have to...kill me."

My brothers eyes both widened in shock and I couldn't help but feel the same emotion myself. Amandla hadn't directly told me to say that, but I guess it's what she had been planning all along. However, her planning was all in vain - Damon wouldn't kill me, the thought of that happening was insane, but, putting me up against Elena... Surely Damon would let Jeremy die to save me, wouldn't he?

Damon seemed to have restored some of his composure for he took a slight step forward and said, "Is it that voice in your head? The one you've been talking to? You wouldn't do this, Lia."

Ask him.

"Me or her?" I whispered, the hot tears that had pooled in my eyes had spilled out and were now sliding down and around the contours of my face.

"We can help you, Amelia!" Stefan called, his calm facade breaking ever so slightly, a desperation slipping through the cracks.

Ask him.

"Me or her?" I yelled, more and more tears cascading down my face.

"Don't make me do this," Damon shakily commanded, taking another step forward.

He's hesitating. He doesn't love you anymore. You're dead to him.

"Your hesitation says it all, Damon," I repeated deadpan, my breaths coming out sharp, "What happened to family first? What happened to me first!? Like I put you first? You drove a stake through my heart the moment you hesitated - I'M ALREADY DEAD TO YOU!"

"Lia, you have to listen to me," Damon began, a look of sheer desperation on his face so similar to my own, "The voice in your head..."

Ignore him. This voice is your own. It's what you feel.

"There is no voice in my head, Damon," I cried, "It's just me realising what I should've realised and accepted before. So do it."

Tell him to kill you. Or the kid dies.

"Kill me. Or Jeremy dies."

"Just listen to yourself, Amelia," Stefan begged from a few paces behind Damon, "Just stop and think!"

Don't think. It hurts you too much.

"But it hurts, Stef," I sniffed, looking at my baby brother through hazy, tear-filled eyes, "To try and understand what happened between us - it hurts!"

Death will help you.

"By staking me, you'll be helping me."

In Damon's hand was something I hadn't noticed before. A stake. A perfectly ordinary stake that Damon had brought to use against me. It was clear now. He knew I had Jeremy and he was willing to get the kid back at any cost. Maybe Amandla was right. Maybe Damon was going to kill me - for Elena's sake - his own twin sister.

"Lia..." Damon whispered, his grip on the stake loosening as the first of his unshed tears slipped out of the corner of his ice blue eyes and down the length of his face.

Beg him. Beg him for death. Beg until he succumbs.

"Damon," I gasped out, I was fighting so hard to stop myself from obeying the voice in my head but it was proving impossible, "Please do it. I can't live any longer. I want to die. Please, Damon. For me? I'm begging you."

"I can't do this," Damon murmured, shaking his head and turning around to look at Stefan whose face had become expressionless.

"Damon, please," I continued to plead as Damon's head snapped back around to look at me, "I need this. I need you to do this. Please."

And then the unthinkable happened: Damon actually advanced on me and began to poise the stake to strike. I didn't flinch, I didn't run, I just stayed on the spot and stared into Damon's sorrowful eyes, and just as I was about to close my eyes, ready to feel the stake enter my chest, Damon stopped in front of me.

"Damon, don't!" Jeremy cried from beside me.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked him, my voice barely above a whisper.

You want this.

"I want this."

Damon, however, didn't grant my - or Amandla's - request. Instead he shook his head, causing more tears to escape, as he backed away from me, lowering the stake.

Threaten the dopplegänger, the voice in my head sounded almost desperate, and if it had been any other time I would've questioned what she meant by dopplegänger, Threaten Elena's family, threaten everyone she loves. He'll choose her over you. Threaten Elena.

"If you don't do this," I threatened Damon, "Jeremy dies. Jenna dies. Everyone Elena cares about dies. Caroline, Bonnie, Alaric. If you don't do this... Elena dies."

"Amelia..." Damon murmured, almost as if he were trying out the sound of my name, or he were saying my name for the last time. His tears had stopped, instead he looked almost beyond tears. A shell of a man. And that's when I knew what he was going to do, and I wasn't mad at him for it.

I closed my eyes and waited, trying to remember all that I could about my long life. All the memories I wanted to relay in my last moments. The earliest memory I could recall, from when I was five years old, when Damon had climbed a tree but had managed to fall out and break his arm. Making up imaginary worlds in our garden with Damon, exploring them to our heart's content, not a care in the world. When Stefan was born, looking down into the cradle to see a chubby little baby boy look back at me, I didn't realise it was possible to love something so much and so quickly. Helping my mother and the nanny teach Stefan how to walk and Damon being jealous because he thought Stef was my new favourite brother. Spending so much time down at the Falls with Damon through the later years of our childhood. My first kiss with Julien. Falling in love. My friendship with Henry. Reuniting with my brothers. Meeting Tyler. Falling in love again. My new found friendship with Caroline. Earlier today, my last happy moments with Damon.

This wasn't the time to regret anything. Not to regret running away from Damon on the night of the Lockwood Ball. Not to regret running into the hands of Katherine. Or the lives I had destroyed in my years as a vampire. The time I had spent alone. All the times recently when I had wasted time with my brothers by being stubborn and selfish. Not even to regret the unjustified hatred I had held for Elena. None of that mattered now.

I opened my eyes to see Damon advance on me, so many emotions clear in his eyes, easier for me to read than a book: fear, sorrow, dread, regret, despair, to name a few. So I smiled at him, just a small smile. In encouragement. I was content, and I figured Damon should know that.

The last thing I heard was a scream. The last thing I saw was my Damon. Then nothing.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

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