Elena found that she couldn't walk through the doors. She pushed and pushed, but couldn't get inside.

"That's weird," she said, turning to Damon. "The feeling like I'm not allowed…."

"Join the club," he said, crossing his arms.

She walked back over to the bench and sat down. Bonnie rushed over and sat down before Damon had the chance. She gave him a superior look as she put her arm around Elena with a "I'm her best friend, back off' glare.

Damon shook his head and leaned against the porch.

"So can you invite me into my house, then, Bonnie?" Elena asked after a moment.

Damon was the first to respond. "She has no claim to this house, so no. The only ones who can do that are Jenna and Jeremy."

"I guess I should text him. I don't feel like talking to him right now," she said, standing up and reaching into her pocket. "Ugh. My phone's in the house…"

"On it," Damon said sighing. Within seconds he was back outside, handing Elena her phone.

She went to text him, but found that her hands were too shaky. She dropped the phone as she was bringing up Jeremy's name.

Damon caught it before it hit the ground and looked at her worriedly. "I'm still a bit shaken up, I guess. Can you text him and tell him to come home? But don't freak him out," she said looking at him seriously.

"Where' s the fun in that ?" Damon replied as he sent out a text message.

"I don't know if the spell worked on Katherine too," Bonnie said after a minute. "I mean, if Elena pictured both of them, I'm not sure if it works for two people…"

"I hope it works against her too," Elena said sighing and leaning her head on Bonnie.

"We could do the spell again…meaning me and Damon," she said hurriedly, noticing Elena's panicked look.

"I've had enough of your Sabrina the Teenage witch routine for the day. I say that if Elena pictured them both, then it works on her too," Damon said decidedly.

"It's something I don't really want to test out, though," Elena said looking at Damon hopefully.

He thought about it for a moment, but the silence was interrupted by Elena's phone going off.

Damon opened it. "It's from Jeremy….."he said, his face dropping as he read the message.

"What….?" Elena asked worriedly.

"Katherine's at the hospital….and he's going after her," he said exasperated.

"Let's go!" Elena yelled out, running for her car.

Damon grabbed her by the wrist before she got further. "You stay here with your witch friend. I'll handle it. The last thing I need is to have 3 Gilberts to watch out for," he said seriously.

Before Elena could argue, he placed a kiss on her cheek, gave her one final look, and rushed off.

"What was that?" Bonnie asked after he was gone.

Elena touched her cheek in shock and shook her head. "I don't know….but we have to get to that hospital," she said, grabbing Bonnie's hand and heading to the car.


Caroline glanced around the room one more time before she headed to the shower. She stopped when she saw the notepad on the desk. Walking over, she bent down to read it and saw that it was a list that included things like founder's journals and notebook with an asterisk next to it.

"Is this some sort of inventory of missing things?" Caroline thought to herself. She shook her head not understanding the importance and headed to the shower.

But before she reached the top of the stairs, the doorbell rang. Caroline closed her eye and let out a sigh of frustration. She reluctantly walked back down and answered the door. She was surprised to see Stefan at the door with a weird expression on his face.

"Hey Stefan," she said confused, watching his face as he seemed to smell the air and look around the house.

"I know, I need a shower. I smell like a dog," she said to break the silence.

"No. You're fine, Caroline," Stefan said, bringing his gaze back to hers. "Sorry. I'm being rude. How are you?"

"Fine," she said waving her bandaged arm. "I have to shower with a shopping bag over by arm so I don't ruin the stitches, so that should be fun…but otherwise, I'm dealing with being mauled and robbed…..What are you doing here?"

"Robbed?" he asked thrown off guard.

"Yeah. Someone decided to break into the house and rip things up and maybe steal something. I'm not really sure," Caroline said shaking her head.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I had no idea," Stefan said looking past her into the house to see for himself, but it looked cleaned up. "I came here actually to talk to your mom."

"Oh. You just missed her. She's heading to Tyler's house to get his statement on last night. She'll be back later if you want to try back. Is everything alright?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah…I just had some questions for her on….the animal running around town," Stefan said, making it up as he went along. "Was Tyler home last night when everything happened, then?" Stefan asked changing the subject.

"I don't think I've ever heard you ask so many questions!" Caroline commented looking at Stefan curiously. "Whatever. But to answer your question, no. Tyler wasn't home. He was out somewhere else also being attacked by an animal. This town is becoming some animal freak-show," Caroline complained.

"I mean seriously. Did some circus lose its rabid, mutant sideshow dogs or something?" she said smiling at Stefan.

Stefan wanted to ask her more, but knew he already seemed too suspicious. "It is pretty random," he said agreeing with Caroline.

"Totally. Hey, so if you don't mind, I'm going to go. I feel disgusting. I'll tell my mom you stopped by," she told him.

"Thanks, Caroline. Have a good day," Stefan said.

"You too," she said closing the door.

Stefan waited until she closed the door to begin analyzing her house. It smelled off. There was a scent lingering in the air similar to some animal smell mixed with blood. If he didn't know any better, he would say there was a wolf around. But he knew what the smell meant—that the werewolf had been to Caroline's house.


Jeremy looked at Alaric and Katherine with confusion. They were really close together and she looked like she was about to attack and he looked like he was about to do something he was going to regret.

"What's going on?" Jeremy asked a bit out of breath from rushing to the room.

Katherine looked from Alaric to Jeremy a moment for settling her eyes on Jeremy's. Jeremy tensed, ready to fight if he had to, but it wasn't necessary.

"Rick here was just going to let me see his ring and I was going to be on my way," Katherine said, still staring at Jeremy.

Jeremy shot a questioning glance to Rick. "Why would you do that?"

But Rick closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. "It's necessary. I only ask that I give it to you outside of the hospital, away from Jenna and Jeremy," he said getting Katherine's attention away from Jeremy's. "I don't trust you to just walk away."

"Jeremy comes too," Katherine decided after a moment. "You always need leverage, Rick. Don't confuse my young looks for young stupidity," she said with a nod.

"No..that's," Rick began.

"I'll go…I don't want her near Jenna," Jeremy said earnestly. "Let's go," he said leaving the room.

"I'd say ladies first, but I don't really see the point," Rick said, waving Katherine ahead.

"No wonder Isobel left you," Katherine said with a smirk as she left after Jeremy, Rick trailing behind.

Taking the stairs to head out to the back parking lot, they descended the stairs at a fast rate. They weren't surprised to see Katherine standing outside as they opened the door.

"I've been more than patient enough now. So hand it over," Katherine said, getting in Rick's face.

"Why do you want it so bad anyway?" Jeremy asked while he looked around for anything he could use as a weapon.

"It belonged to a friend of mine, and I'd like to have it," Katherine said impatiently.

Rick started sliding off the ring and Jeremy started yelling at him.

"You're just going to give up?" he yelled at him. "Fight for it. Do something. You can't just…"

Katherine shot glance one angry look before rushing at Jeremy, grabbing him by the neck and holding him in the air. "You need to leave. You're trying my patience," she said with command.

"No," Jeremy said struggling. Rick was shouting something at them, but Jeremy wasn't listening. Instead, he was remembering the vervain in his pocket. Thinking fast, he grabbed one of the sprigs and shoved it into Katherine's open mouth.

He was promptly dropped to the ground as Katherine started screaming and spitting the leaves out of her mouth.

Jeremy didn't have time to do anything more before Rick grabbed him and shoved him away from the parking lot. "Get somewhere safe," Rick told him hurriedly.

He was about to protest, but saw the veins protruding under Katherine's red eyes as she was recovering from the vervain and decided to take Rick's advice if only to get help.

He had only ran about 30 seconds before he was grabbed roughly from behind and thrown against a car. Shaking his head painfully, he stared up to see Katherine bearing down on him.

Rick took the opportunity to shout at her before she hurt Jeremy any more.

"Katherine. The ring is off. I will give it to you. Enough," Rick said rushing to them.

But he was stopped when there was a blur of movement and Damon appeared out of nowhere.

"Put that back on. I need my partner in crime here alive," he told Rick seriously and tossing him a tree branch. "It's all I could do on such short notice," he said in response to Rick's questioning look.

"How is it you always find a way to run into me," Katherine said, half surprised and half angry. She gave Jeremy one final glance, resisting the allure of the blood coming from his leg, before walking closer to Damon.

"Must be your charming and magnetic personality," Damon responded sarcastically.

"As much as I love flirting with you Damon, I'm too close to getting my way now to just leave. Now hand it over, Rick," she said angrily.

"That's not going to happen, Katherine," Damon said, staying Rick's hand.

"Oh it's so going to happen." Before Damon could react, Katherine grabbed Jeremy off of the ground and held him in a head lock. "All I need to do is apply a little pressure," she said squeezing a bit. Jeremy began gasping and struggling.

"Damon. There's no other way," Rick said, stepping around Damon and heading to Katherine. Damon wanted to protest, but Rick was right.

Waiting until Katherine unceremoniously dropped Jeremy to the ground, Alaric took the ring off and handed it to Katherine.

"See. Was that so hard?" she asked with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.

"You got what you came for, Katherine, " Damon said angrily. "Now either go peacefully, or I see how far I can shove this tree branch up your…."

"Don't tease me," she said with a grin toward Damon. She gave a disgusted look at Jeremy and Rick before she turned her back, deciding to leave. Damon rushed over to Jeremy to make sure he was ok.

"Oh, one more thing," she said, turning around to face Rick. In a blink of an eye, she grabbed him by the arm and twisted it until she heard the sound of bone breaking. Rick screamed out in pain as he felt it pierce his skin. "Consider yourself lucky," she said as she rushed out of the parking lot.

"Shit," Rick yelled out as he grasped his arm in pain. "Where the hell were you on that one," he managed to mutter angrily at Damon.

"I was a little more worried about the bleeding hero at the time, and…" but Damon's voice was cut off by the close sound of car tires screeching loudly to a halt, followed by the crunching sound of windshield being broken.

I'd love reviews, please. I see all these story alerts but no reviews. And lately reviews have been scarse. Anyways, hope you like the story so far. Cheers!