"If I could have your attention, please.
Then I'll bring you to your knees.
This contagious chemistry is killing me."
Sleepless nights weren't uncommon for me, but usually, I could manage to pull out some semblance of sleep.
Last night had been different. The reminder of what I had done had me sick, tossing and turning until I finally just passed out. It felt like the second that I would fall asleep, a dream would start, dreams that I absolutely should not have been having.
The last Original brother, who I didn't know the name of, had been the first I set free, and he had been the one who grabbed onto me in a way I couldn't explain. All of the Originals were attractive in their own right; Rebekah was stunning, with a perfectly shaped face and blonde hair to compliment her crystal blue eyes, and it helped that she had a perfectly shaped body, with curves in all the right places. Elijah was like that attractive older friend who you know is too old for you, but you sometimes watch from afar as he smiles or does something that's just utterly charming. Klaus had the "dark and mysterious" thing going for him, but most of his attractive was completely ruined by the horrible things he had done. While I didn't personally find Finn to be all that attractive, he had a face shape that I knew many women did. Aside from being the original family of vampires, they had good genetics.
That one, though . . . any time I managed to sleep, my dreams were plastered with explicit scenes underneath the sheets on my bed, with sweat rolling down my body as he pleasured me all through the night.
Eventually, I gave up on sleep completely and sat in the nook in the far corner of my room and just waited glumly for the sunrise.
What had I done?
Most days, I would put in the effort to look good. I was the uglier twin, so it took more effort for me than it ever did Elena. She could leave her hair straight, wear simple clothes and shoes, and it would be okay. No one would think twice about it because she was still beautiful.
For me, it was completely different. My hair struggled to even be considered brown, and my eyes weren't the same color. There was a time I wore colored contacts, just to get people to stop making fun of me, but then they just started calling me fake.
That was the day I decided to not give two fucks about what anyone thought about me. That was the day Darcy Gilbert raised her head up high and did things for herself . . . sort of. I dressed in what I thought was cute, not giving any damns about if anyone else did.
No one else had to look at me and like what they saw. As long as I liked what I saw when I looked in a mirror, that was what mattered, and every day, I woke up and worked until I did.
Some days, I didn't let myself be bothered by the two different colored eyes, and I could appreciate the color of my hair, the way it complimented the color of my skin. Then there were normal days, like today especially, where I barely took the time to put makeup around my eyes, both to accent my long eyelashes and hide the dark circles that had formed after my night of no sleep.
My hair, which I always put effort into, was tucked into a neat bun and accented with a black bow headband to help hold all the stray baby hairs in place.
Elena and I both had the same kind of hair, even if the coloring was different. Our hair could hold curls well, and some days, we woke up with curls in our hair. Then there were others where it was just a wavy mess, and Elena found it easier to just straighten it and be done with it. That was easier, and some days, I did the same, but usually, I liked volume. I liked spunk.
Straight just didn't suit my personality.
The outfit I wore tried to hide the lack of effort with my hair or face, with a pink floral print dress paired with a blue scarf, to bring out the color of the flowers, and a grey ruched sleeve blazer.
Everyone always told me that my style leaned towards vintage, which was why I loved pearls so much. There were at least six or seven floral print dresses somewhere in my closet, with more dresses than anything else.
My dresser was full of loose tees and sweats, with a few different pairs of pants hanging in my closet, but dresses and skirts were more my style. Something about them helped me feel better about myself as I walked out of my room each day.
The thick heel of my black suede boots clunked against the dark wooden floors of my bedroom as I stepped out of the conjoined bathroom Elena and I shared and back into my room, where I began gathering my things to head downstairs.
Seeing Elena standing in the doorway of my room, just outside of the bathroom, stopped my heart for the briefest of moments, and my body jerked back away from her.
"Shit!"
"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, and her beautiful face twisted into a wince, her eyes narrowing as she shrunk back a bit. "I just . . . wanted to talk to you before we left."
"About what?"
My throat began to tighten, my mouth watering in anticipation. This wasn't a feeling I felt often, guilt and fear of the consequences of my actions. Of course I knew there were always consequences, but most times, I didn't let the fear of the consequences stop me or scare me. If I did, choices that had to be made wouldn't get made, and I would just end up with regrets.
At least if I regret making a choice, I didn't have to look back and wonder what might've happened had I made the choice. Regrets were easier for me to handle than what ifs.
"I just wanted to thank you," she said, and everything that had started to twist up on the inside suddenly relaxed. "You've been so amazing through all of this. You've been strong when I couldn't be, and you've been there for Jeremy a lot better than I have."
"It's been a lot worse for you than me," I reminded her. "Klaus just found out I existed."
If there was one thing Elena was good at, it was thinking that she could do it all. She was the older of the two of us, by about an hour I think, and she was the one suited to be the big sister. She was cautious, and she made every decision with a clear head. If anything was ever wrong, Jeremy and I knew we always had Elena to turn to, for whatever it might be.
That hadn't really been the case lately because she was the one with all the problems, problems bigger than all of us. Her problems had been different from mine; I felt isolated, as I wasn't blood related to Jeremy at all. The Gilberts, who had raised me believing me to be the daughter of John Gilbert, weren't my blood relatives.
Elena was the only Gilbert related by blood, and that was because of the mother we shared.
"But I'm not the doppelgänger who happens to be a witch and a werewolf at the same time," she said. "How are you holding up? Your temper seems . . . better."
"Believe it or not, yoga actually helps," I said. "It's helped me find a place to go when the anger gets to be too much. I know it was hard for Tyler because he never knew why he was this way, but I think if someone had told him the truth from a young age, he would've been a lot better off."
"You didn't know from a young age," she pointed out, and her pearly whites began showing through her naturally beige-pink lips as she leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. "I think, all things considered, we've been . . . lucky."
I snorted at the thought and headed for my bedroom door. Elena's footsteps were soft, but I could hear the bottom of her converse rubbing against the floor, just a few steps behind me.
It was easy to distract myself from the dreams I kept having the night before by getting ready. Even in the shower, I was able to distract myself by carefully shaving each part of my body, some places more than once, to make sure that not a single hair remained. At least if I focused on that, my mind wouldn't be rolling around in the gutter with a man I didn't even know the name of, or anything about him.
He was an Original vampire, one that even an Original had said was a lunatic. What business did I have in bed with him?
What made me pull the dagger out, though? In the moment, I didn't think twice about it, didn't let myself do anything but react, but after, thinking over and analyzing each and every second made me realize that something had pulled me to do it.
It wasn't curiosity, wasn't attraction. Something about seeing him lying there, after being betrayed by his brother who knows how long ago, felt wrong, and something felt right about taking the dagger out.
That was all I could really understand about it. It couldn't have been magic. Originals didn't have access to their powers anymore, as vampires couldn't be witches, and the spirits of the hundred dead witches that resided there sure as hell wouldn't have gotten me to take the dagger out.
Magic was the only logical thing that could explain it, but it didn't add up. It had to be something else.
The three of us rode to school without saying a word, only the low sounds of Elena's favorite pop station cutting through the silence. Jeremy had his headphones in, as he was openly not a fan of Elena's music, and while I had a different taste as well, it didn't really bother me like it did him. Sometimes, I could find songs on pop stations that I liked, at least a little.
If I was playing things off my Spotify, it was usually country or rock, with certain rap artists on rare occasion. My favorite was the indie style of music, musicians like Bryce Fox or Loote. They were different styles, Loote sounding more like indie pop whereas Bryce Fox was more like indie rock, but it was that kind of music that I could listen to on repeat.
It was good to see Caroline in better spirits. She hadn't come to school yesterday, as she was recovering from the nightmare that her birthday had become, but today, she was back with a large smile on her face, fully recovered and ready to take on the world.
Her hair was perfectly curled, falling just past her shoulders and accenting the cute denim jacket she wore with a pale pink dress and flat boots. I used to be a huge fan of stilettos or heels of any kind, but with the dangerous world around us, we had to be able to run at any time. I could get away with wedges, or heels like the thick ones on the boots I wore, but stilettos were a no-go, for any of us—at least while Klaus was still in town.
"So guess what."
My eyebrows rose. "Did you have sex with a random hot stranger? You have that 'hot stranger' look going for you."
She rolled her eyes. "No, but I'm seriously thinking about it."
"What are you talking about?" Elena asked, but upon hearing that, Jeremy took that as his cue to leave.
He had been hanging out with Tyler a lot lately, so hearing the girl Tyler cared about—who actually loved him, to be clear—talking about boning some random stranger wasn't on his list of things he wanted to do.
The truth of it all was, Caroline wasn't going to sleep with a random person. Right now, she was hurt and just talking, letting pointless fantasies that she would never allow to happen fill her mind.
"We have a new guy who started today, and he is probably one of the hottest people I've ever seen in my life." Caroline's eyes widened. "You remember how I reacted when Stefan started? Consider this me taking all of that back. I'm not going to marry Stefan in June—it'll be whoever this hottie is."
"We all know that's not gonna happen," I said, but just for fun, I took a couple steps back away from her, towards the front of the school. "Elena met Stefan first, so you know what? I think it'd be fun if I get to meet this one first."
"No fair!" she exclaimed, but the opportunity was there to get away from the two and inside, where this hot new student was probably headed to the office. Of course, being the horny teenage girl in desperate need of someone to love me like Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie all had, I was gonna at least check out the new person, see if there was any kind of spark or possibility.
It was something I tried not to get too down on myself about, but it was hard. Matt, who worshiped the ground Elena walked on most of the time, had moved on from Elena, to Caroline, who then fell in love with Tyler, after she and Matt broke up of course. Both of the Salvatore brothers were completely in love with my sister, even crazy Stefan who was trying really hard to pretend that he didn't give a damn about anything but revenge right now.
That left me the odd man out, the lone person in my group of friends who didn't really have anyone. Sometimes, Caroline would bully people into going out with me—I say that with love, though she really did make threats sometimes—but when I found out, I broke it off and made her stop. It worked, until a few months down the road when no one stepped up on their own.
She just didn't get it. People weren't gonna line up to go out with me. My eyes freaked them out if they took a good look.
The murmur of the crowd of students that lined the hallway was low, as it was still early, but the smell of perfume and cologne, with hints of deodorant, was already going strong.
Most high school students, especially the freshman, didn't know the first thing about the proper amount of body fragrance, but high school was a place to learn all of that, to figure things out. Usually, people learned through bullying and being teased, and that was a pain I understood. It was wrong, but it was unavoidable. People, especially high school teenagers, were just awful.
As I turned the corner to step into the hallway, the sight of the man turning away from the secretary's desk had my jaw on the floor—probably literally would've fallen on the floor had it not been hinged together through bone and thin muscles.
A large smirk grew on his lips, showing off the perfectly straight teeth that had remained mostly hidden when we met yesterday. He seemed hesitant to smile yesterday, as something was on his mind, but today was different. Today, the smirk didn't waste a second coming out, as if was eternally set there at one point but had forgotten its place.
His eyes were glittered with arrogance, but that wasn't the only thing that hung there. What Rebekah had described as, "A man whose ego could grow no larger, less it smother the entire world," was showing, but there was more to it than that.
"You look like you know your way around here. Why don't you show me how to get where I'm going?"
I could feel my eyes tightening as the range of my vision narrowed, almost cutting out the way he had styled his hair. Though it hadn't been long the day before, it was shorter today, with a much more modern touch that absolutely suited him.
"Sure. I'd be happy to."
The tiled floors underneath me helped me get the leverage I needed underneath the soft bottoms of my boots to spin effortlessly around, heading right back out of the office and into the still emptied halls.
One quick glance, passing over the sophomore girl who had recently dyed her hair blue and I only knew from an art class I had taken the last semester of my junior year, was all it took to realize that Elena and Caroline hadn't followed. Maybe Bonnie showed up and stopped them, or maybe they were actually giving me a shot.
Little did they know who this actually was.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I hissed, when we were barely three steps out of the office.
He held his hands up, and the smirk dimmed down, enough that it wasn't grinding all of my nerves together. "Listen, darling, I know we said that we would all leave so you wouldn't get in trouble, but your friends don't even know me. They wouldn't know the first thing about how I look, so there's nothing to worry about."
My teeth snapped together so tightly that the pain vibrated through them and pricked my gums, but it was short lived, as I had always struggled to grind my teeth and glare at the same time. "Except your psychotic brother!"
"You let me worry about him," he dismissed, but the moment of masked arrogance was gone. It was coming back out full force.
"Why are you here?" I demanded, folding my arms over my chest so that he might realize that I was actually pretty pissed off—since he didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care.
"Maybe I wanted to thank you properly and get to know the beautiful woman who decided that even though she didn't know the monsters that lay daggered in a box, she didn't believe they deserved to lie daggered there."
That wasn't the answer I expected, nothing that I could've ever in a thousand years expected to hear, especially coming from the raging lunatic with no morals. He wanted to thank me properly? He had thanked me the day before, so how does one show appreciation more properly than that?
The beautiful woman part, however, rubbed all irritation away, and even though I wanted to be irritated about that, I just couldn't be. This ridiculously attractive man thought that I was beautiful?
"I'm Darcy Gilbert," I finally said, but not before straightening my chin so I could look right into his eyes. "Pleased to meet you."
The smirk began to fade again, or at least the arrogance of it. If I didn't know any better, I would've said an actual smile was trying to form.
"I noticed you were a Petrova doppelgänger," he said, but when the words left his mouth, his smile fell off of it as well. "Well, almost. I've seen Tatia, briefly met Katarina. I didn't think the doppelgängers could look any different at all."
"Yeah, well, my genetics gave nature the finger and decided that I needed to be partially albino, with a hint of heterochromia to make things even better."
His eyebrows rose. "Darling, I was up all night trying to catch up with the world, but I have no idea what you just said."
"Albinism is a genetic disorder that causes someone's hair, skin, and eyes to either have complete lack of pigment, or like in my case, partial," I said, letting out a sigh. "Heterochromia is a genetic thing—don't know if it's considered a disorder or not—that makes someone have two different colored eyes. The albinism is in one eye but not in the other. It's why my hair isn't rich like Elena's, why my skin is so pale."
"Who's Elena?"
"My twin sister," I said. "The only doppelgänger people actually knew existed. They weren't sure if I was, but lucky me, I am."
"I like pretty things with sharp tongues." His lips curled back into the smirk as his eyes began moving, pretty noticeably, over the full frame of my body. "I'm Kol, by the way."
"Kol." I rubbed my lips together and was reminded of the vanilla chapstick I had put on earlier, as a precaution. I despised chapped lips, so whenever it started to get cold, I put it on at least once a day. "It suits you."
"Something about Darcy suits you as well."
Seeing him smile, without the presence of arrogance, made me forget how wrong this conversation was. When was he going to snap and kill someone? When was he going to threaten me and everyone I cared about?
Was he going to do that?
"Why are you here, Kol, really?"
"If I could explain it, I would," he said, but hearing me question him again, the insistence that he give me some kind of answer, pulled the smile back off his face, his eyes falling down to the ground, where he began eyeing my shoes. "I've never done anything like this, so forgive me if I don't know how this works."
My eyes narrowed a bit, one eyebrow rising, but I shifted my weight to the other side. Most times, I didn't stay in one place long enough to have to do that, but here we stood, in the middle of the hallway that was growing more and more crowded by the minute.
"How what works?"
"Human decency," he murmured. "I-I don't want to spoil all the fun, but come to class with me, Darcy. We've got a whole day ahead of us to learn and explore."
He started to walk away, and I found myself following after him, without thinking anything about it at all.
Getting caught up in the stories I had heard about him would've been easy to do, and it probably would've been the smart thing to do. Trails of bodies? There was no way to know how many people he had killed, with no remorse about it at all.
None of it was making sense, though. If he didn't have anything inside of him that was capable of feeling something real, something that wasn't just psychotic and narcissistic tendencies, then why was he here properly thanking me? Why go to all this trouble?
Maybe, deep down, there was someone worth loving hiding underneath all the blood and destruction.
It was also easy to lie to myself, to say that it had nothing to do with me, but he put himself in my classes. He wanted me to follow him around, to talk to him and get to know one another, so it had something to do with me, even if just minutely.
If something about me brought him here, had him enrolling in school to get to know me, maybe I could get to know that person inside, the man worth loving who deserved a chance to find redemption for all of the horrible things he had done.
Damon had done horrible things, too, and if he had lived as long, surely his number could compare. Yet I still loved him like a brother, was still secretly hoping that he ended up with my sister—it helped when she admitted that they kissed the other night, so there was hope at least.
Maybe Kol needed a friend, and while no one around me knew who he really was, I could take the chance I had to be that friend.
Or something more. There were multiple different roads ahead, but I wasn't gonna think about any of them too much.
Whatever path I took would be the path that made the most sense as each turn came.
A/N: Yeah, so, another band I highly recommend? You Me at Six. I'm currently pretty obsessed with them. The lyrics at the beginning of this chapter are from their song Contagious Chemistry.
Read, review, and enjoy. :)