Chapter Four: bang! bang! bang! boy!
Night falls fast and Nik's been driving for hours, stopping just to fill up the gasoline tank. Several times he thought to stop and maybe look around for some sign of his siblings, or maybe the people Caroline knew (it was the least he could do), but he never did. It was too much of a risk with her out cold in the backseat. And besides, it never looked like anyone was in the towns he passed along the interstate in the first place.
What he assumed earlier was most likely correct. He came across no survivors, only corpses or actual dead corpses that couldn't get back up. In addition, the sun was setting so it wouldn't be such a good idea to go scouring through a town when in the end he could come up with nothing.
The time on the radio says that it's quarter to eleven, so Nik pulls into a motel on the side of the road. There are no cars in the parking lot and it looks pretty safe, but he can't be too sure. He parks and takes a gun with a silencer on it and locks Caroline in the car. He creeps silently by the check-in office and sees nothing but a television and room keys hanging on the wall. He busts out the glass of the window and takes a key for the second floor off the rack. First floor would provide problems if they were to be discovered. Second floor rooms have a back window that open to a fire escape, and fire escapes are always good. Sometimes faulty and weak because of weight, but they'll do.
Nik checks each door on the first floor to make sure they're all locked, which they are, before he goes up the second. He tries the key, B20, and opens the door to a small room at the end of the floor. It's dark. One bed, an armchair, a small rinky-dink table, a bathroom with a shower so small that it can barely fit one person comfortably, and of course the fire escape window. It smells like dust and moth balls, but it'll do for tonight.
He goes back down to the car and lifts Caroline out of the backseat and carries her up the stairs, trying to keep her back as straight as possible. He places her on top of the mattress stacks the two thin pillows up and props her head atop them. He studies her for a moment, looks down at her hands and sees the abrasions covered in dirt and dried up blood. And then at her face and how silent and serene she is. Her features are soft and angelic, not sharp and cunning. She's not the type of girl to survive in this type of situation, yet here she is. Too young and innocent for any of this.
He makes a silent vow that he'll protect her.
Nik leaves her there in the room to get a few items from the SUV. A few cans of food, a change of clothes for the both of them, and a few more guns. He doesn't see the point in taking everything out, because if push comes to shove and someone so much as comes near the car then he'll just shoot them. Kill or be killed. He certainly wasn't going to be left for dead.
He lines up everything by the wall next to the television, and when he's done he walk into the bathroom and slips into the shower that only spits out freezing cold water from the water tower behind the motel. When he's finished, he comes out wrapped in a towel and dresses in black jeans and a black henley. He wets one of the washcloths and sits beside Caroline and wipes her hands clean before wrapping them up in white bandage.
Once he's finished, he sits in the armchair across from her and just watches her sleep. Watches her chest rise and fall so slowly and quietly it's like she's not even breathing at all. Watches her eyelids slightly twitch under the dim light from the window.
He regrets everything.
"You lay one more finger on her and I'll put this right between your eyes."
The dust settles in their home. Stares are shared, breaths are inhaled, fists ball up, jaws clench and teeth grit together. The world loses its color and turns into a horrible shade of gray.
A broken, weak woman stands in the corner of the room, shivering with a busted lip and two black eyes. She keeps shaking her head, mouthing words to her bastard son for him to stop. Put it down. Please, just put it down. He isn't worth it.
And he isn't.
The older man laughs and yanks the woman by the hair while the others watch. A small girl, five years of age and blooming with light, is scarred for life. Her older brother by two years tries to cover her eyes and ears, but she's crying as if someone has just died.
Maybe someone has died.
No. Something has died. It is lost.
Humanity is lost
Dawn breaks and Nik wakes to a gun pointed directly at his skull.
He parts his lips to speak, but the girl pushes it even further into his forehead. Well, that will leave a mark.
"Don't speak, don't move, don't do anything," she says, her voice quivering with each syllable.
He raises his hands in surrender, but she grips the gun tighter and presses it even further into his skin.
"I told you not to move!" she yells. "What is so hard to understand about that?"
Nik's mouth quirks up into a smirk. Oh, so she's mad. Rightfully so, he reasons. She could've died trying to save him. She already hit her head on the top of the jeep, so who knows what the hell is going on in that brain of hers. She should be happy that she's even standing right now.
"Are you insane?" she shrieks, taking a step back, but never lifting her gaze from him. "You left me. You fucking left me! What the hell were you thinking? Oh, wait! You weren't! Did you think it was funny? Did you do it for fucking shits and giggles? Newsflash, buddy! There are dead bodies walking around that chased me into a tree and I was going to fucking kill myself just to get it over with! What is wrongwith you?"
Well, it was funny at the time. But now that he's thought about it, it wasn't so funny. She really could have died and that would have sucked. Not only for her, but for him too strangely enough.
He clears his throat and raises his eyebrows towards her as if asking for permission. She narrows her eyes and her lips form into a straight, pissed off line.
"You have twenty seconds to explain before I put this right between your eyes," Caroline says, her voice low. She's dead serious. She doesn't know how to shoot properly, but she'll do it if she has to. She'll blow his brains out and take his car and get the hell out of here. No regrets.
"Twenty seconds isn't a lot of time," Nik says hoarsely.
"Seventeen, sixteen, fifte-"
"Okay, sweetheart. Let's just let bygones be bygones and put this behind us. Is it really worth losing trust over something like this?"
"You're talking about trust when I could have died?" Her eyes grow wide and she's about to start laughing. Is this guy serious right now?
Nik smiles and he gets up from the chair and yawns. Twenty seconds is over, but she still hasn't lowered the gun.
"I was always going to come back for you," he says as he takes tiny little steps towards her. "I was just having some fun. Don't you like fun?"
She stares blankly. Angrily. "Your idea of fun and my idea of fun are two totally different things." She shakes her head and takes another step back. The back of her legs hit the bed and she loses her balance for one split second, yet it's the only amount of time that Nik needs to swipe it from her hands and knock her down onto the mattress.
And, as fate would have it, she brings him down with her.
There's a moment of complete silence between them with Caroline swallowing and Nik blinking. Well, this is awkward.
They stay that way for what seems like an hour. Her hair fanned out in the most unattractive way and his breathing just brushing over her cheeks. Caroline can feel her heart thumping a mile a minute and she silently prays that Nik can't hear it, because she can. She can hear it like it's right in her ears. She tries not to notice how close their hips are together. Tries not to imagine the way it might...nope. Not imagining it. Not today.
"I am truly sorry," Nik says, and she can't figure out why he's saying this while he has her straddled on the bed. "It was foolish and...impulsive of me to do such a thing. For that I am sorry."
She locks her eyes with his for a moment, and there's this tiny slip of manipulation that she mistakes for genuinity in his irises. What a bastard.
She knees him in the groin and the noise that comes out of Nik's throat isn't human. He falls to the floor with a loud thud while Caroline stands over him and gives him one more hard kick in the back. Nik howls on the dirty motel carpet as Caroline looks on in glee. She can feel her head starting to feel better with each little groan Nik lets out. Caroline's a lover not a fighter, but she can defend herself from douchebags. She's had to take out the garbage before and she knows how to handle it.
On her last day at being sweet sixteen, frat boy Damon Salvatore blew into town with his dark hair and disarming smirk. Caroline's friends had thrown her a birthday party out in the woods that lasted well into the a.m. hours. There was too much beer, there was too much dancing, there were too many sloppy kisses with random Mystic Falls boys, and then there was Damon.
He stood there at the edge of the forest standing beside Tyler Lockwood's dad's Lincoln Navigator. He had his head tilted, his hair as black as a raven's feathers, slightly covered his blue eyes. A black leather jacket, black shirt, black jeans, and black shoes completed him, and Caroline had never been so freaking turned on. Boys rarely ever paid attention to her, always flocking to Elena instead just because she was sweet and innocent and so freaking naive, but here was this guy that seemed to only have eyes for her. And sure, it should've freaked her out that this random guy just shows up at her party in the woods, but sixteen-going-on-seventeen year old Caroline thought it romantic. That it was their destiny to meet this way.
"Hey," she said when she walked over to him. She felt his eyes scan over her short pink dress. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Caroline asked with an accusing tone.
"Wasn't aware anyone owned these woods," he said, running a hand through his hair.
"Well, the Lockwoods do," she said matter-of-factly.
"You kicking me out?"
She laughed and shook her head. "Not a Lockwood, and it's my party. So, as of right now, you're on the guest list..."
"Damon," he told her, matching her smile. "Damon Salvatore."
"I'm Caroline Forbes." She extended out her hand. He took it.
"I know."
The rest of the night they spent drinking and dancing and Caroline caught Elena staring at Damon a few times over the course of the morning, but she never said anything. Just kept her distance from the two as if she knew that if she said anything, then she would ruin everything for Caroline.
It was five a.m. and they were all passed out in tents and Caroline slept with Damon only after a few hours, then she went home with Bonnie and cried in her bed and called herself a slut for giving up her virginity to some random guy in college who probably didn't give a rat's ass about her. She couldn't even remember his name until he called her late that night. Told her that it was all his fault, that he'll make it up to her, that he'll never leave her. He promised, so she cried and blurted out those three little words the following week and she slept with him again and again and again, yet Damon still hadn't said he loved her. But she still stayed with him. Seventeen and in love and dumb. Then the other Salvatore, Stefan, came and whisked Elena off her feet and they had the relationship Caroline always dreamt of with Damon.
They kissed in the hallways at school. He held her hand and bought her flowers and candy. He did all the boyfriend-gentleman type things that a guy should do for his girl, but not Damon. No. Damon was rough. Damon didn't care. Damon picked her up from school and attacked her right in the passenger seat, most times without even asking her how her day went. Damon took her to the home he and Stefan shared and they only did what he wanted to do. He bought her a dress once, but it didn't fit right so she didn't wear it.
It fit Elena though. It fit her perfectly. Caroline cursed herself over and over that she never noticed the signs. How when Elena would come over, he'd either stay there just to be in the same room as her and tease her, or he'd leave abruptly as if she had some type of contagious disease. And maybe she did. Or it was just some type of spell that Elena put everyone under. The Elena Gilbert Effect. Everyone at some point falls head over heels for her and the rest is history.
On their four month anniversary, Damon whispered Elena into Caroline's ear right before he collapsed on top of her. Caroline cried quietly as she pushed him off of her and gathered up her things. She walked home in the rain feeling miserable about her life choices. Why wasn't she ever the one? The first choice? Why couldn't she just be Caroline Forbes and that be enough? What was she missing?
When she got home, she took a long look in the mirror. She saw a pretty enough girl. Not the most beautiful in the world, by far not the ugliest. Not the most delicate features, but certainly not the hardest. So what was it? Was it that she was just above average not enough somehow? Was it still too low?
No. That had nothing to do with it. She was great. She was awesome. It wasn't her problem that Damon was a dickhead and couldn't see what he was missing. It wasn't her fault that Elena naturally had that magnet that some girls are born with. It wasn't even Elena's fault. Nope. It was just one of those things.
She dried off her hair and face and put on some lip gloss at her vanity. She stared into her blue eyes and nodded her head, hearing the mantra fill her thoughts.
"You're beautiful," she whispered, willing herself to keep staring. "You're strong. You're...you're full of light."
Yes. Those were the words that Caroline needed to hear. She tried to banish her insecurities, became involved in every little thing she could to take her mind off of Damon and love and anything else that could be distracting. She worked even harder on her prom queen campaign even though she was still only a junior, she got a job at her favorite accessory retailer, and things like Damon Salvatore and love were long forgotten.
But then there was that one day towards the summer where the cheerleading squad ran a car washing fundraiser to buy new uniforms next year. She went inside the school to get more buckets from the janitor's closet, and suddenly there was Damon just standing in the hallway with that mysterious smirk she could have sworn she fell in love with.
"I miss you, Caroline," he said to her and her insides twisted into something evil.
He didn't get to miss her. No. Not him. Not after he toyed with her emotions and tossed around her heart like it was some sort of ragdoll. Not after he manipulated her into believing that they were actually something. That she was first choice.
"You do?" she asked as sweetly as possible.
"Like crazy, blondie."Damon took a few steps towards her and when he touched her shoulders, she exploded.
Her right foot connected with his crotch and her left fist collided with his jaw and Caroline was suddenly Wonder Woman. She stared down at Damon rolling around on the floor shouting expletives at her, and a satisfied smirk crept its way onto her face. You're strong.
So, she knows how to handle trash.
Nik stops groaning and slowly gets up from the floor, gripping the edge of the mattress for support. She runs over to get the gun that has skidded across the carpet. Caroline then goes to the door and keeps one hand on the handle and the other on the gun. Nik sits on the corner of the bed, looking up at her as if he can't believe she would even think of doing such a thing. This girl. This girl who can't be a day older than eighteen just manhandled him. He should be ashamed. He is ashamed.
"I'm taking the car, your supplies, guns, and getting the hell out of here," she tells him, confidence beaming in her voice.
He just looks at her. Is she serious? How can she even say that with a straight face? As if she'll survive out there without him. All the guns in the world couldn't protect her.
"Caroline, you go out there and-"
"And what?" she questions bitterly. "You know, I have the strangest feeling that without you I wouldn't have to worry about being left alone in a goddamn tree on purpose! At least if I'm in a tree then it'll be my own damn fault!"
Is she ever going to get over the tree thing? It's been like eighteen hours since then. It's time for her to let it go, Nik figures.
"I already apologized for that, so I don't know what else you would like me to do."
She can think of several she can do herself. For starters, it'd be nice to shove this gun right up his-
"What was that?" she asks as she spins around and backs away from the door. Jesus Christ, not another horde. She hasn't even gotten over the one from yesterday.
"Go into the bathroom and lock the door," Nik whispers harshly as he leaps up from the bed and makes his way over to where she's standing. "Now."
She keeps her gaze fixated at the door and the light noise coming from the other side. If it really is another horde, then they're really dead this time. There are no distractions and no being bait. There is no way out.
Panic mode sets in and her walls breakdown once again and tears stream down her cheeks just like every other time. She's been in this type of situation more times than she can count, but it's never gotten any better. Knowing that she could die at any moment and not even be remembered by anyone for anything. It's kind of like her whole life was just a waste since everyone's gone. And soon, everyone who is still alive will be gone too.
"Caroline," Nik says, gripping her shoulders.
She meets his eyes through her bleary ones and tries to shake the anxiety away, but it doesn't work. She's still shaking madly, her thoughts are racing as fast as her heart, and she can barely breathe. Where is all the oxygen? Who took the air?
"Caroline, love," Nik tries again, his voice low and smooth as silk. "Take this gun and go into the bathroom. Nothing is going to happen to you if you do as I say. Do you understand?"
She blinks, trembling.
He leans closer to her, just a breath away from her lips. "Do you understand me?"
Caroline nods dumbly. Bathroom. Gun. Lock the door. Right.
She disappears in a blur and the bathroom door slams shut behind her. Nik turns his attention back to the outside world and picks up the AK-47 leaning up against the wall. He loads five cartridges into the magazine and rotates the spindle, removes the last two cartridges and replaces them and then locks the spindle into place. After he's finished setting up the rifle, he looks through the peephole and sees nothing but the dirty railing in front of the door.
He sucks in a deep breath and closes his hand around the door handle. He's vowed to protect Caroline and that's what he fully intends on doing. He owes it to her, even though she kicked him pretty hard and gave a new definition to the phrase "numb nuts." She's this incredible fire that can't be put out even though he's a waterfall crashing over her just by talking to her.
He opens the door fully and the sun hits him the face, slightly blinding him. There seems to be mostly silence, so he doesn't know where that noise was coming from. It was like a shuffling, a pacing up and down the walkway or something. He cracks the door behind him and walks down the walkway to the stairwell and sees nothing.
But then he notices something. In the parking lot.
Another car.
A scratched up blue Mustang.
He races down to the scene and peers through the windows and sees a few duffel bags thrown sloppily in the backseat. It doesn't look like whoever it is came very prepared, so he leaves and stalks about the motel looking for any sign of the mystery person or persons.
But two minutes in, he still sees no one. And the motel area isn't that big, so he can't figure how they disappeared so quickly especially with literally nowhere to hide. How can one disappear when there is nowhere to disappear to?
But then he hears a sharp scream from the distance that he immediately recognizes as Caroline, so he immediately thinks the worst. He should've just taken her with him, he thinks as he rushes back upstairs and into the room. He should've just took the key and closed the door. He should've just...
Time stops. The earth pauses its rotation on its axis. Stops revolving around the sun. Hell freezes over because right there in the flesh is Nik's baby sister.
"Bekah."
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A/N: Oh so many canon lines! Next chapter might take a little longer because I have to update my other fic Have and Hold since it's been awhile. And special thanks to Devi Lethe and everybody else who has promo'd this on tumblr. My heart is exploding with thanks and gratitude. I really can't thank you enough. :)
P.S. I went on eHow for, well, you know what I had trouble with in the last chapter. So if it doesn't sound right, Devi (miss gun expert over here), I shall fix it. :D