Don't you know that cash ain't the only price?
It's coming back around
And I keep my side of the street clean
'Cause karma is my boyfriend
Karma is a god
Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend
Karma's a relaxing thought
Aren't you envious that for you it's not?
Sweet like honey
Karma is a cat
Purring in my lap 'cause it loves me
Flexing like a goddamn acrobat
Me and karma vibe like that
— "Karma", Taylor Swift
.:.
𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔫
He would be the first to admit that what he's doing was wrong on so many levels, highly inappropriate in the eyes of the very girl that he was currently following. Damon could already imagine the verbal back lash to be received when she found out he decided to lurk at a reasonable distance as she walked back to the Gilbert house from the gym after she declined his offer to drive her home. She made it perfectly clear how she felt, more or less setting her boundaries with a mere threat to punch him in the face—he wasn't stupid, he could read between the lines that it was more than just letting his fangs graze her bare skin in that small, secluded corner of the gym. It was the entirety of his close proximity that made her uncomfortable and while he had fun riling up Elena, something told him that Bella was not the type to be trifled with in his flirty little games. That night in the kitchen Damon hadn't let on that he knew more than what he said, Elena had actually filled him in on the whole situation between Bella and her ex-boyfriend. He couldn't believe somebody was that stupid, not with getting caught having sex with another woman (that was a whole other level of idiocy that Damon refused to get into—the dark-haired vampire definitely was no saint but come on, man) but the fact that he wouldn't leave her alone. And don't even get him started on the guy's insane behavior! Hearing that really got under his skin and was willing to believe that Bella isn't even the first girl he's acted that way towards. Elena had also mentioned that Matt Donovan had briefly seen Bella talking with somebody at Homecoming (whom she basically ran away from) and Damon was willing to be that it had been none other than Edward Cullen, because, really, who else would it be? Hence why he deliberately went against her feelings about him to make sure she got home without incident. There was something seriously off about him and Damon was glad she broke up with his pathetic ass, which should've probably been done long before he got caught banging Jasper Hale's twin sister in his opinion.
He was good at this stalking thing, not that he was the type to make a habit out of it, unlike somebody. He lingered back a reasonable distance, going on foot because his car made too much noise and would give him away in an instant, while never letting Bella out of his sight—luckily the woods were heavy enough coverage that there was absolutely no risk for him getting spotted.
Bzzzz. Bzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
He groaned quietly, his phone vibrating against his thigh in the pocket of his jeans. He shimmied it free, answering the incoming call without looking at the screen and pressed it to his ear. "What do you want?" His tone was razor sharp, though it implied he had no real care for why they were calling.
"Ouch, such hostility, Damon." Katherine Pierce purred into the receiver.
"I'm surprised you're calling," he answered. After the botched plan at Homecoming for getting rid of Klaus he hadn't anticipated ever hearing from Katherine again. It also reminded him that he hasn't seen his little brother since that then, when he inadvertently stopped Damon from killing Klaus, thus earning Stefan his freedom from the ever-annoying hybrid cockroach. "Let me guess, you're lounging on the beaches of Spain getting your tan on?"
"Oh, come on, you know me better than that," she chuckled low, sultry. Katherine continued on but he wasn't focusing on her, rather it was a girl shouting. It was her choice of words that grabbed his full attention. The ability to speak was lost on him, the phone slipping out of his hands and landing with a muted thud in a pile of leaves—Damon moved with lightning-fast reflexes to follow the sound of her voice. He didn't know where exactly she had gone, Katherine's phone call had temporarily distracted him, and he cursed for losing track of Bella so easily, so quickly.
It didn't take long for him to find her—one moment he was standing at the end of the block, frantically searching for her, and the next his nostrils were being filled with the scent of freshly spilled blood as he came up behind them—to anyone on the outside, it would have looked like a teenage girl was impromptu slow-dancing with her boyfriend on the side of the road or locked in a heated make-out session, but that's because they wouldn't know what to look for, they couldn't hear her cries for help being garbled by the blood she was now choking on and simultaneously losing. His hands were swift, the constructing bones of Edward's neck snapping like a pencil as he made one sharp twist to render him unconscious. He caught Bella's limp, weak body before it hit the ground. He swallowed hard, fighting against the temptation to finish off what Edward had started when he ripped her throat open. Damon cradled Bella, lifting her into his arms and carrying her to where he'd left his car parked, entirely forgetting about his phone in the woods, the phone call he'd been distracted by. He laid her across the backseat, and was folding behind the steering wheel, starting up his car and pealing out of the parking lot in record timing.
Speeding to the hospital. Dropping her off in the care of Meredith Fell, telling her what happened in so many vague details about Bella being attacked without name-dropping the idiot Cullen boy, and insisting that Meredith not let her know that he was involved when she inevitably woke up—he would be dealing with Edward on his own terms.
"She's in good hands, Damon," Meredith assured him as the doctor, then, instructed for transport to get a stretcher and wheel Bella into the emergency room.
.:.
"Damon! What the hell is going on?!" Elena exclaimed the second she stepped into the Salvatore boarding house.
She followed the sound of a man's howling screams to the grand parlor, her eyes widening at the sight before her: Edward Cullen strapped to one of the dining chairs, wrists bound to the arms of the chair by ropes soaked with vervain. He also had chains twined around his torso, something he must have gotten from the Lockwood cellar where Tyler used to go during the full moons for his werewolf transformations. Her soft footfalls were drowned out by the agonizing strains of his voice, the vehement threats he was currently snarling at Damon, who smugly stood opposite him, his arms folded firmly across his chest.
"Our friend here almost killed Bella." Damon said, his ice blue eyes locked on Edward's writhing, thrashing form.
"What? Why?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out." the elder vampire answered.
"By torturing him." It came out as a statement rather than a question.
"Do you know any other way of getting information?" Damon finally turned toward her; an eyebrow raised in a way that meant he really wasn't looking for an answer to that. Elena scowled, but Damon gave Edward his full attention again, grabbing something off a nearby table as he strode to closing the distance between the two vampires. "I'm gonna ask you again, pretty boy. Why did you try to kill Bella?"
Edward's smile was feral, "Because I was bored."
Damon made a sound similar to the buzzer on a game show, "Wrong answer."
"Damon—"
"Don't say I didn't warn you," the dark-haired male continued on as if Elena had spoken, lifting his hand and smashing it against Edward's face, forcing the toxic plant between his lips, in hopes that with enough prodding he'd be able to make the guy choke on it. Edward gagged on the vervain, screaming as it burned the skin surrounding his mouth, feeling as though his throat was going to burst into flames as it slowly made its way further toward his esophagus. Edward was twitching in the chair, kicking his legs and straining against the ropes so hard that Elena could see the veins popping out across his body, muscles tense and thick.
"Damon! This isn't—"
"Get out of here, Elena." Damon demanded, refusing to look towards her as he used his free hand to swipe another object off the nearby table without moving too far away from Edward. He was purposely blocking it from her view, positioning his body just so that she wasn't able to see what he was holding, to know what his next power play would be to extract information out of Edward. Whatever it was, he didn't want her there to bear witness. "NOW."
.:.
The jagged point of the stake is pressed against Edward's chest, slowly piercing through the bare skin, with blood pooling around the tip and soaking into the wood—Edward flinched but did not make a sound. The muscles in his jaw were clenched so tight that Damon thought he might break his own teeth. "Have you had enough yet?"
"You're a dick."
Damon pushed the stake a little further into his chest, nowhere near the cavity of his heart, but he definitely tensed under the pressure. "You know, I didn't think you had it in you, Eddie boy. Trying to kill Bella like that... and for what? Because she won't give your sorry ass the time of day? Seems a little melodramatic to me." Of course, Damon knew in his gut that this wasn't the real reason Edward had attacked her, but it definitely seemed like a good way to get him to start talking after all they'd gone through in the last several hours; the last resort. "But then again, I've killed for less."
Edward laughed humorlessly. "You really think I give a shit about that?"
"Enlighten me."
There was a moment, this tiny little flicker in Edward's eyes that told Damon he so badly wanted to say something, to let it all come out like word vomit. But there was something holding him back. Damon found himself thinking about Elena, what she must have been thinking when she stumbled upon Damon holding Edward captive. And then it was gone, hardening over into a shell. He smirked at Damon and cocked his head to the side ever so slightly with an eyebrow raised. "What's Elena going to think when she finds out you plan on killing me?"
He's a mind reader, Damon had to remind himself, and inwardly cursed that he could have forgotten such a detail. He was going to attack his weakest points, which meant Damon had to fight fire with fire.
"What's your sister going to think when she finds out you almost killed Bella?" Damon challenged.
"She's never going to find out." Edward said, as if a promise, and Damon shook his head slowly.
"You're right, she won't . . . if you tell me what I want to know," he grinned.
"You're just going to kill me anyway," Edward said matter-of-factly, once again picking through the layers in Damon's mind. Damon let out a vicious, animalistic sound and gripped the stake harder in his hand, sliding it deeper until he felt it brush against something (Edward's heart). He was right, of course. But Damon wasn't about to admit it aloud. Edward's breathing became labored, and up close, Damon could see the sweat clinging to Edward's hairline.
"You don't strike me as the type to kill nonsensically," Damon observed. "So why try to mutilate your ex?"
"Why do you care?" Edward ragged out unevenly. One wrong move and the stake would pierce his heart. Game over.
"There's this thing called the Founder's Council; I'd rather not have them breathing down my neck again because there's another idiot vampire in town." Damon pulled the stake back slightly, the muscles in his arm tensing as he fought the urge to end it all now. Screw this guy, he was no use to him. One sharp plunge, that's all it would take to get this guy out of their (Bella's) lives for good. Damon was reckless, impulsive. Simple as one, two, three. Nobody would bat an eye. Nobody even knew that Edward was here, right? He wagered that if Alice knew her brother trekked all the way across the country to Mystic Falls, let alone being held hostage in the Salvatore Boarding House, then she would have shown her face days ago.
"Right," Edward snorted, his own body relaxing slightly when Damon pulled back. "It has nothing to do with Bella, or Elena, for that matter."
"Answer the god damn question, Cullen." Damon demanded. "Why did you try to kill her?"
Edward mashed his lips together; a show of defiance that he would remain tight-lipped. He stared at him, for the first time it was head-on, and Damon searched for. . . well, something. But there was a vacancy in Edward's eyes, it was cold and dark beneath the surface of those forest green eyes. And really, Bella wasn't kidding that he could pass off as Stefan's twin.
Hold the fuck up.
Stefan.
Damon cursed aloud.
"You are no longer of use to me," Damon stepped back, giving a little distance between him and Edward, forcing the stake to be removed out of Edward's chest entirely. I hope I left some splinters, he thought at him with a smirk. "Not yet at least."
Before Edward had the chance to question him, Damon was speeding back towards him, his hands grabbing at the sides of his head and giving a sharp twist, the satisfying snap of his bones making Damon smile while he watched Edward's head lob forward lifelessly. He undid the restraints on Edward, pulling him from the chair by his wrist to drop him onto the floor. Wordlessly, Damon dragged the other vampire out of the grand parlor, knocking him into every hard surface he passed simply because he could. When they made it into the kitchen, Damon opened the door to the basement and gave Edward a good shove with his foot to watching him tumble down the staircase, slamming into the concrete wall once he hit the bottom. Plan B, Damon thought as he jogged to meeting Edward's limp body, before hauling him over his shoulder to carry him to one of the cells and throwing him carelessly onto the dirt floor. He slammed the industrial door closed and locked it securely. From what he knew, nearly killing Bella aside, Edward was a drinker of animal blood just like Stefan, which meant he wouldn't be nearly as strong as Damon, especially once he recovered from the vervain he was forced to ingest and getting his neck snapped for a second time. Odds are, before that day, Edward had probably never even heard of vervain, and wasn't building a tolerance to it like most vampires in Mystic Falls did. Which left him susceptible to being compelled by a certain pain in the ass hybrid. He knew it was possible, Klaus had forced Stefan to shut off his humanity and then proceeded to compelling him to keep an eye on Elena while he was out of town.
And while Damon didn't have any proof, he just had that feeling Klaus had managed to get his hands on Edward. But for what reason? This meant he was going to have to either get crafty in both extracting information from Edward and getting him freed from Klaus's compulsion or to simply just put Edward out of his misery if it meant saving Bella (and Elena, as a byproduct).
.:.
"You can't let her remember what happened," Meredith Fell said, it was the first thing to come out of her mouth when Damon walked into the room Bella had been assigned to. She'd called him there out of courtesy, three days later, because he'd been the one to save her. He already knew that the doctor had administered a small dose of vampire blood to allow Bella to heal from the worst of her injuries, but he could still barely look over at her peaceful, sleeping form lying on the bed. There were no open wounds on her neck anymore, just some minor bruising on her arms and shoulders from where Edward had been grabbing her. A butterfly needle was inserted into the crook of her elbow, keeping her hooked up to an IV. It was valium in the bag, to keep her sedated. This was something he wasn't too sure that he approved of, but now he understood why: when she first woke up two days ago, Bella had an episode. She did not let anyone near her, she was violently flailing around and kicking anybody who dared to get in her range. She almost bit a nurse that was going to take her vitals, punched an orderly in the nose when he tried to restrain her, and hadn't stopped screaming the entire time. She was hysterically crying (and laughing) when Meredith arrived, demanding they let her out of the hospital as she started throwing furniture around (she tried to break the window with a chair) and threateningto kill him.
While Meredith didn't know who he was, she couldn't take a chance. Not when she was a hazard to herself, to others. The non-addictive sedative would help calm her down and ease the underlying anxiety she seems to project.
"You need to fix her, Damon. I already did my part." Meredith continued on sympathetically.
Damon hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He forced himself to look at Bella now, wondering just exactly how far the damage really went inside of Bella's head. It had to be more than just him trying to kill her—there was no way it would provoke an emotional response like that. Could it? He thought of what Elena had said about Bella's relationship with Edward. The guy was borderline psychotic, sneaking into her room every single night from the moment they met two years prior, way before they ever started talking to each other. That was just certifiably insane, goes way passed creepy in Damon's opinion. To Elena (and Damon) it appeared as though Edward were slowly beginning to isolate Bella from her other friends after Charlie died, making sure that she would only rely on him for emotional support during her period of grieving—not once had Elena heard her mention somebody that wasn't Edward or Alice, except for a small tidbit about a werewolf named Jacob. It was a no brainer when Edward convinced her to move in with him, she had nowhere else to go and couldn't drop out of school to work full-time so she could survive on her own. Who knows what else Edward planted in her head that Bella had left out when talking to Elena, things that didn't seem as important, a little miniscule detail that could easily get overlooked. A domino effect, all it took was one tiny thing to escalate it. Maybe this was the breaking point.
"I'll do it," he decided.
Meredith nodded, keeping her eyes on Bella. "She should be waking up soon, you can do it then."
.:.
A few hours later, Elena arrived at the hospital.
Damon was standing out in the hallway, his arms crossed and an impassive expression on his face. Bella was asleep, they'd just knocked her out again. She tried peering inside the hospital room but Damon simply shook his head. Elena pursed her lips in annoyance, then let her eyes flicker toward him. "Did you do it?" she asked quietly.
"I had to." He answered robotically.
"She's going to hate you, you know." Elena said, though not unkindly. It was just like her to try to get Damon to see the voice of reason, because it was a simple fact nobody would like to get their memories tampered with.
"That's if she ever finds out." He made a point of glaring at Elena, knowing the guilt would probably eat away at her until she finally cracked and told Bella the truth about what happened.
"Damon..." She simpered.
"He almost killed her," he reminded her, solely because Elena knew better than anyone what it was like to have the person you love most try to rip you apart because of an insane bloodlust amplified by compulsion.
"I know but—"
They were cut off by the sound of somebody's shoes squeaking down the hallway as they approached the two, "If you ask me, this was—"
Damon didn't bother letting him finish, his tone so sharp that it caused Elena to involuntarily flinch, "Shut up Stefan, nobody's talking to you."
"What are you doing here, anyway?" Elena turned around to look at her ex-boyfriend for the first time since the botched Homecoming execution. It made Damon's blood boil, laying his eyes on the walking reminder of how epically their plan failed at killing Klaus, and his upper lip curled in disgust.
"I came to pick up a donation," Stefan replied flippantly, breezing right by Damon and Elena to continue on down the hall.
.:.
Edward had been crawling slowly towards the industrial door, when it suddenly flew open, the corner of it slamming pointedly against the vampire's jaw. Before he had the chance to recover, there was a hiking boot making contact with the front of his face, forcing him backward. The sound echoed in Edward's ears, the pain a beautiful reminder. He groaned, his body contorting as he tried to get more comfortable. He could feel the tremors raking through, the itchiness provided by the vervain he'd ingested only days ago, the lingering effects making him shaky in combination with the fact that he hasn't tasted blood since he tried killing Bella. Every fiber of his feeling felt like it had been turned into the rough, dry and scratchy consistency of sandpaper. He knew what Damon's plan was: dry him out, let the vervain quite literally bleed from his system, kill him when he no longer served his purpose.
"Good morning, sunshine," Damon greeted, dragging the bottom of his boot along the ground.
Edward could feel the crookedness of his nose, tasted the blood seeping into his mouth and staining his teeth. He could only laugh, hollow and forced.
"You know, this could all be over," Damon proceeded, kneeling down so he was close to Edward. "I just took a little trip down to the hospital. Turns out, Bella doesn't even remember who you are, let alone what you did to her. What a shame to let all those efforts go to waste."
Edward knew he was telling the truth, plucking that little scene out of his brain, watching silently as he replayed the memory of Damon at Bella's bedside, stroking the hair away from her face. There was a frantic look in her eyes, she almost appeared wild, unhinged, when she pulled out of his reach. Damon spoke gently, keeping his eyes locked with hers, his voice smooth and assuring as he compelled away the memories of Edward attacking her. Stripped her free of that white-hot anger threatening to consume her. A little more probing told him that she'd had an episode that resulted with her getting a good dose of valium to calm her down, make her complacent and made it harder for her to fight anyone. Edward pulled out of Damon's thoughts before he could see anything else.
"She's better off," Edward coughed, his tone flippant.
"You're right about that, friend." Damon got back onto his feet, towering over Edward. "I'm gonna give you two options, because I'm nice. Tell me why you did all this, and I'll let you go back to Forks in one piece." He lifted something out of his back pocket, showing Edward a blood bag swiped from the hospital (a peace offering) and cocked his head to the side, raising an eyebrow. "Or I could always chop you up into tiny bits and mail them back to your sister."
Edward stared longingly at the blood bag, licking his dry, cracked lips.
"I know you were compelled, and by who. What I want to know is why." Damon pressed, almost urgently.
Edward looked confused here, "Vampires can't be compelled," the silent idiot hung between them almost smugly.
"Sure, they can, and you, my friend, were compelled by a guy named Klaus." He said, watching with rapt attention as a light seemed to go off in Edward's head when he name-dropped the hybrid, and Edward swallowed hard. "Well?"
"I have a message from Klaus," the change in Edward's voice surprised Damon, it came out guttural and cruel, angry. Hungry. His eyes darkened to a near-black, and the veins heralding his vampire visage were slithering out of hiding beneath the soft orbital tissue. Even in his weakened state, Edward was able to jump to his feet, though wobbly and definitely off-kilter, and lunged at Damon, his elongated fangs bared. Damon was able to anticipate the attack but only a split second in advance, grabbing Edward by the throat just as he went to go rip into his neck and throwing Edward across the cell. Wordlessly, Damon grabbed the nearest object, a large rock that was usually used to prop open the door so it didn't slam shut and lock them both in there—in under an eighth of a second Damon was bringing the rock down on the back of Edward's head as hard as he could before he was able to gather his bearings, following up with slamming it over his jaw to a sickening crack, and slamming him against the brick wall to knock him out, and was slipping out of the cell in the nick of time that he didn't end up trapped inside with Edward—making sure to grab the blood bag he didn't remember dropping when Edward lunged on his way out. It was definitely an overindulgence, but Damon didn't care, because he got the message loud and clear: Edward went after Bella on behalf of Klaus because it would hurt Elena. And for some reason, hearing Klaus's name triggered that same response, which is why he tried to attack Damon.
"I need Bonnie," Damon muttered to himself as he made his way back up to the main floor, something he never thought he'd hear himself say. But if anyone would be able to fix this, it had to be the Bennett witch. Otherwise, he really didn't see any other choice than killing Edward, for possibly the sake of everyone close to Elena.
.:.
𝔫𝔬𝔴
When Damon heard Bella was awake again, fully comprehensible and lucid, no signs of having an episode, there was a hollow pit in his stomach. He clucked his tongue against the back of his teeth, rinsing his hands in lukewarm water, watching as the blood turned the water pink, swirling down the drain. She's going to hate you, you know. It popped into his head out of nowhere, startling him to be thinking about what Elena had said that day. Oh, how true that would be, now more than ever. Meredith already had a cover story prepared, and Damon would easily fill in any gaps for the questions she might have, in a way that wouldn't make her think about the inconsistencies. She would already be very confused, they just had to play into it, make her so sure of one thing that she doesn't have time to dwell on another. None of them liked that plan, but it was the best way to keep her in the dark. She was far too fragile to be able to handle any of it (something they did agree on after Damon told them how Bella reacted the first time she woke up).
They all met at the hospital an hour after Meredith informed them about Bella, Elena was the first to enter the room, followed by Jeremy, while Damon lingered by the door, grabbing Alaric by the arm to keep him close by. "Are you sure about this, Damon?" Alaric muttered low enough that nobody else could hear.
"Just trust me," Damon promised, his voice barely a whisper. "She isn't going to—"
"How are you feeling?" Elena asked at Bella's bedside.
"I feel fine, Dr. Fell said I should be out of here in a couple days." Bella answered, her voice cracking.
There was a knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer, Stefan Salvatore materialized in the doorway. Elena was glaring at his younger brother, but Damon was more concerned about the fleeting expression on Bella's face. He'd only brought Stefan along as a test, not meant to stay there any longer than he had to be. It almost seemed like a light had gone off, and for a moment Damon worried that the sight of his brother, basically a dead ringer for Edward, would spark some kind of unbidden memory that was supposed to be locked away.
"What happened to Edward? Did he ever go home?" Bella abruptly asked, and Damon let out a discreet sigh of relief. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until that moment.
Damon glanced around the room, and after realizing nobody else was going to speak up, he decided to ease her mind. "He won't be bothering you again." His words were smooth and quick, full of promise. But the look on her face, all scrunched up and lacking in expression, he knew that it didn't satisfy her, so without missing a beat, he continues on, "Edward isn't in Mystic Falls anymore, okay? Nobody's seen him since Homecoming."
"But—"
There was a slightly panicked flicker in Elena's eyes when she looked over at him, but Damon ignored it. Bella wouldn't be questioning anything, he was sure of it, not after having added a little extra zest to his compulsion as his very own insurance policy. No one in this room knew what he's been up to for the last week, and he planned on keeping it that way. Luckily Jeremy stepped up next before Bella had the chance to question anything further, asking if she was hungry and wanted him to pick something up from the Mystic Gril, and she hesitantly agreed.
He watched her relax against the bed and tried to hide the smirk by scratching at his face. He glanced over toward the door, and just as he'd hoped, Stefan was already gone. He pulled out his phone and composed a quick message for his younger brother, only to be interrupted by an unknown number's texts rolling in.
(360) 829-0307: i know what you did
(360) 829-0307: and you made a big mistake
(360) 829-0307: i'll be seeing you, damon
(360) 829-0307: real soon