Chapter Three

A/N: Three chapters in two days! I'm one a roll. Sorry this one is a little long. But I'm glad you guys are liking the story so far! I hope you enjoy this segment.

Monster

Caroline smacked her head against the door after she shut it. She was still able to hear Tyler breathing on the other side of it and had half a mind to open it and pull him inside with her. But she knew she shouldn't.

"I thought I said stay away from him." Damon's cool voice sounded from around the corner making Caroline jump.

"Can't a girl get one afternoon alone!" Caroline barked.

"What were you just doing? I mean it. Answer me," Damon said forcefully.

"Tyler kissed me, okay? Gosh, Dad. Get off my back." Caroline threw her purse into a corner and flipped off her shoes, nearly hitting Damon with one of them.

"Do you want to end up like Rose?" Damon said in his silky voice. "She doesn't even remember who I am anymore." He looked a little hurt when he realized what he said.

"Look I didn't ask for any of this! I was just being a good friend to him, and to you as a matter of fact. What if I didn't help him? He would have transitioned alone without knowing where or who he was and bit innocent people. You could have been one of them seeing as you, Stefan, Bonnie, Jeremy and Elena like to gallivant through the woods at all weird hours of the night. So just leave me alone. I was doing everyone a favor!" Caroline was exasperated.

"Just stay away from him and if you choose not to, make sure you tell him nothing or I'll end you both myself." Damon got in her face. "P.S. We're working on a plan, drop Fido and we'll include you in it."

Damon smirked and then sped away.

Caroline smiled to herself after finally being alone. It was already five in the afternoon and she was emotionally and physically drained. Her little meeting with Matt hadn't really done anything other than add something else to the list of things she had to deal with but with Tyler it was different. This was something new and fresh and dangerous. It could leave one or both of them hurt far beyond any heart break they'd ever felt. Was it really worth that? Caroline thought that her attraction to him was only a result of her having a caretaker's complex. She was just turned on by the fact that he needed her. And since she was there for him he felt strongly about her too. It couldn't be anything more than that, could it?

Caroline thought back on her kiss with Tyler and put her hand to her lip. She couldn't help but smile a little. She couldn't lie to herself, Tyler definitely made her feel good. But she concluded that it was because he had a lot of experience just so she could try to stop romanticizing him in her brain.

The weekend had come and Tyler and Caroline were thankful they didn't have to run into each other at school after that night. Both of them had typed up texts and erased them several times without sending them to each other and dialed each other without ever calling. Neither was sure of what to say.

Tyler figured it was useless to try to speak to her anyway. She was sort of stubborn and would never speak to him unless she wanted. He should wait until she approached him. It was just such a stressful waiting game for him, especially when all of his emotions were heightened.

Even though he knew he shouldn't, he went to the Grille in hopes she'd be there. Even if she wasn't, at least he could get some of the homework he was behind on done while he waited.

He sat for what seemed like hours sipping the same gin and tonic and working on physics problems in his thick, unused physics textbook. It was tiresome and his eyes ached from staring at all the tiny black fonts that he didn't understand nor care about.

Caroline wasn't going to come and that was clear. It was just wishful thinking for Tyler. He grabbed his books and shoved them into his bag, accidentally ripping off the entire zipper. He still wasn't used to his strength. All of his things scattered on the floor and several bar patrons snickered at him thinking that he was clumsy with drunkenness. He rolled his eyes and bent down to pick everything up.

Someone handed him his last pencil and he muttered an angry "thank you" without looking up.

"Why weren't you at your house?" At the sound of Caroline's insistent voice, his head snapped up to see her.

"Caroline. I-I uh …" Tyler stammered, totally taken off his guard.

"Shut up! I want to talk to you," Caroline said, dragging him outside.

"Ouch, damn it. You nearly pulled my arm off. Are you crazy? What if someone saw?" Tyler whispered, looking around and backing up into the brick wall to lean.

"I don't care. Look, let me talk or I'll never get this out." Caroline wasn't angry but he knew she would be if he interrupted her.

"I really like you." she paused to look at his expression. "Or I think I do. I'm not sure. But you completely messed me up by kissing me you asshole! I'll never know if I actually do or if I'm just all smitten because you kissed me you butthead!"

She started beating her fists against his chest. He started to laugh but then her hits got harder and actually started to hurt.

"Okay I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I mean I guess I did mean to, but I'm sorry for what it did to you," he said, grabbing her wrists so she couldn't hit him anymore. "I messed up everything in my head too. I have all these crazy thoughts and urges and my hormones are all over the place since I transformed. But I like you, Caroline."

"Ugh ... I'm Tyler and I'm a sexy werewolf who goes around kissing people and making them feel things they definitely shouldn't be feeling!" Caroline shouted in a mocking tone.

She yanked her wrists out of his hands and just looked at him. He wasn't sure if she was going to kiss him or hit him, but either way she looked mad.

"Can you just get mad at me for once, Tyler? Stop being so nice to me all the time. I rejected you! Get mad. I want you to hate me. You're a werewolf and I'm a vampire, you're supposed to hate me anyway." She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall next to him with a huff.

"How can you expect me to hate you?" Tyler said, leaning his head on her shoulder.

Caroline didn't know what else to do to make him want nothing to do with her. As much as she wanted to try to be with him or at least just be his friend, she knew she couldn't. At least not right now when everything with Elena was still up in the air.

"Tyler, you're the first guy that didn't chose me as second best," Caroline whispered after a few minutes of silence.

"You're not a second choice kind of girl, but I feel like I'm your second choice guy." Tyler let go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding and raised his head to nestle his face into the rook of her neck. His sense of smell was intensified and he felt like he could smell every ingredient in her shampoo and her perfume. But the layer of chemicals wasn't enough to mask her natural aroma that left him completely intoxicated.

"That's not what this is, Tyler. I promise you. This is bigger than that." Caroline placed her hand on his face and rested her cheek against the top of his head. "There are things that are going on with me that I just can't tell you about. I want to but I can't."

"I don't care about any of that, Caroline. There's nothing you can do to make me hate you. When you scream at me you just look incredibly sexy and when you're sad I want to give you a hug but I think I like it the most when you're happy." Tyler laughed at how corny his own words sounded. "I'm laying myself all out there for you. I hope you appreciate this." He moved closer so that their lips were just inches apart.

"I appreciate this so much I can't even explain. It's just that I've been lying to you." Caroline closed her eyes waiting for him to explode with fury, but he never did.

"I don't care. There's nothing you can say to me that'll change how I feel." He kissed her so lightly and pulled away that she wasn't sure if he'd kissed her at all.

"There are more vampires out there and they want Mason's girlfriend, Jules, dead," Caroline blurted.

"So what if there's more? And I don't even know that girl anyway," Tyler replied, brushing a piece of her hair off her shoulder so he could get a better whiff of her scent.

"That's not all. Mason's dead and I know who killed him." Caroline spit the words out. "A vampire named Katherine turned the both of us so that we could be sacrificed in a ritual that would free vampires and werewolves of their curses. At first she used Mason but then he was killed, so she compelled Matt and Sarah to provoke you so you'd kill one of them and trigger the curse yourself."

"The same vampire turned us?" Tyler asked, stunned.

"Yes. When I was in the hospital, I had some vampire blood in my system and she smothered me with a pillow." Caroline was relieved but also annoyed that he wasn't angry. "But we're not the only ones, okay? They also want Elena dead and I think Bonnie too."

"What, why?" Tyler was shocked.

"Because Elena is Katherine's doppelganger and Katherine is the one they originally wanted to sacrifice and Bonnie is … Well she's a witch. I'm still fuzzy on whether they need her to perform the spell to break the curse or because they want to sacrifice her too. I should pay attention to Damon more." Caroline smacked herself internally.

"Damon Salvatore!" Tyler demanded.

"Yes. He and Stefan are also vampires. They're the only other ones I swear. Unless you count Rose, who was kind of like Damon's girlfriend until Jules bit her and she lost her mind." Caroline winced, awaiting his reaction.

"Jules is a werewolf too?" Tyler was mulling everything over in his mind. "So why did she attack Rose?"

"Because Damon is the one that killed Mason. Please don't get mad and get revenge on him. Mason was working with Katherine to get the moon stone which binds the curse. Katherine is the one that killed Aimee and turned me and did a whole huge list of other bad things so Damon just saw Mason as a threat." Caroline closed her eyes to fight back tears. "If Damon hadn't done it, Katherine would have and it would have been more painful."

"Why would Mason be a threat? He was harmless. He never hurt anyone during his transformations." Tyler clenched a first.

"A wolf bite is fatal to a vampire. Jules's bite to Rose has her terribly ill with pain and memory loss and I'm afraid she's going to die. It's also why he told me to stay away from you, but I didn't listen." Caroline was ashamed that she hadn't told him any of this before.

Tyler backed up and Caroline screamed as he punched the wall, making a waterfall of broken bricks and cinder blocks come down. Caroline looked around to make sure no one saw and was satisfied when she didn't see anyone.

"Let's get out of here, okay?" Caroline tugged at Tyler's arm and they both became streaks of light speeding away before anyone saw the damage.

Unbeknownst to them, someone did see. Across the street, Matt stepped out of his car and walked over to the broken wall. He had only been hiding in his car watching because he wanted to see what was going on between Tyler and Caroline but he never expected what he actually did see. He picked up a piece of broken brick and tried to smash it against the side walk but to know avail.

"What the hell was that?" he whispered to himself.