Eighteenth.

"Ale…" I started to say but she jumped up and covered my mouth. She removed her hand put her finger to her lips and pointed up.

"Shh," she told me, "she can't hear me but she can hear you loud and clear." I threw up my hands at her. She tilted her head at me and smiled, "Looks like I'm finally going to have a chance to get the last word," she teased. "Where's your phone?" I let out an exasperated breath. I was kidnapped, I hadn't exactly had a chance to pack my things. "It's here somewhere Norrah, it was in your pocket earlier." I looked at her with a question in my eyes. "Just because you couldn't see me doesn't mean that I wasn't here."

I looked around the room and saw nothing. It must have fallen out of my pocket in the trunk. "Hold on," she said" I'll be right back," and then she disappeared. I looked around the room but she was gone. Then suddenly she reappeared holding my phone in her hand. "It was in the trunk," she smirked as if she had thought of that herself. I hit the button and the welcome screen lit up. No service, of course there wasn't, why would Katherine bring me somewhere where I could call for help. "Lexi bent down and looked at me over the phone. "You don't need service, just open a text message and we can talk that way."

Right, of course we can. I opened a new page and typed in a message complete with a few choice four letter words to start off. She read it over my shoulder and laughed. "Well, why don't you tell me how you really feel. It's not my fault that you got caught you know."

'What are you talking about?' I typed in as fast as I could, 'you took off and left me and the next thing I know I am blindsided, blindfolded and drugged, then I wake up a few days later back in the boarding house.'

"What?" she asked me innocently, "I didn't leave you. I got about two hundred yards ahead of you and then realized you weren't behind me anymore. I turned around and see you running around the hills calling my name. I was right in front of you waving around like crazy, trying to get your attention because I knew they were coming. Why would you think I left you?"

'One minute you were there, the next you were gone.' I typed in furiously, 'what was I supposed to think?'

"You were supposed to think that your necklace fell off, run back and gotten it and then caught up to me."

'What does one have to do with the other?" I was getting frustrated feeling like we were going around in circles.

"Norrah, the ring." I stared back at her blankly. She sighed, "I figured it out when all of the sudden you couldn't see me anymore. I saw that your necklace wasn't around your neck while I was trying to get your attention. That ring is a very powerful talisman. You triggered it's magic with your desire to escape that cabin. It was spelled specifically for you so it won't work for anyone else. The magic it holds could only be activated in dire circumstances."

'Like starving and rotting in that cabin,' I typed in slowly.

"Exactly," she told me, "and that is why you can see me now. As long as you have the ring on and you have a desire to see me you will. You just have to be careful."

'What do you mean?' I asked.

"Katherine isn't the only one looking for that ring."

'Who else is looking for it? Am I in danger?' I typed in response."

"Shh," she put her finger up to her mouth again. "Quick, turn that off, someone's coming."

I hit the standby button and the screen went blank. I sat in silence as we listened to someone coming down the stairs. I could tell by the somewhat bouncy steps that it was the witch. We sat and listened as she made her way into the kitchen. "I'm going to go talk to her," I whispered to Lexi.

"Are you crazy, she can take you down with one good stare?" she responded.

"She can't kill me and I'm sure she has pretty strict instructions not to hurt me. Katherine knows that I have to be able to concentrate to heal so what's the worst that can happen?"

"You of all people dare to ask that question." She says as she follows me out of the room and we walk silently down the hall. "This isn't a good idea Norrah, I don't have a good feeling about this." She reached out and took my arm, but I shook her off.

Dull light shone into the hallway from the kitchen and I could hear the faucet running. I stepped into the entranceway and stopped. The witch, obviously sensing my presence took a deep breath in, slowly turned off the faucet and spun around to face me. She sized me up trying to figure out what I wanted. "Why are you doing this?" I asked her quietly. "Do you know what Katherine is, how dangerous she is?" Lexi was desperately trying to quiet me down, looking up at the ceiling, worry written all over her face. I ignored her warnings.

"We haven't officially met yet," she says to me, "I'm Maude." She extends her right hand.

"Charmed," I say without reciprocating. "I'm sure that you already know who I am."

"Ella-Norrah Christian, or, to be more accurate, Katherine Ella-Norrah Christova, daughter of Branimir Christova and Ellanor Madison, born in 1490, bastard offspring of Katerina Petrova, aka. Katherine Pierce." She spouted off to me as if it were the first time I had heard it. "Of course I know who you are, after all, you are the only one who has ever survived."

I admit that the last part shocked me a little, "what do you know about that?" I asked her. It was less of a challenge and more of a curiosity. I was not aware that anyone besides Katherine and my friends in Mystic Falls knew what I was.

"I know that Katherine turned you five hundred years ago and I know that neither of you should have survived the turn. What I don't know is how she did it."

"I see, and you think that by helping her it might make her more likely to tell you?"

"No, I don't," she replied. "I don't think that Katherine is going to tell me anything, but I think you might."

Lexi was actively trying to remove me from the room by now but I held my ground. "And just what makes you think that I would tell you that?" I asked her, very intrigued by now.

She paused for a moment and listened for Katherine. Hearing nothing she took a step closer to me and lowered her voice. "I know that you are a Unique, and I've spent enough time with Katherine to know that you don't just heal like a normal vampire."

"Are you threatening me?" I asked her, "because I could be over there in a microsecond and snap your neck just like you did mine."

"You could, but from what I've seen you aren't really the violent type which I can only assume was a trait of your father's because Katherine acts first and asks questions later. I'm not really afraid of a Super supernatural being who can't even keep herself from being caught by the Salvatore's and a newborn."

I had had enough, I felt my face transform and my fangs descend. I'll give her something to be afraid of I thought as I started towards her. Before I was able to take two steps a pain in my head took me down to my knees. She stared down at me as my brain threatened to explode out of my skull. Lexi stood next to me, helpless. I cried out, saw a flash and a blur and then the pain stopped. I looked up to the sky, my vision spinning but I was able to concentrate just enough. When the room finally stilled itself I looked over to see Katherine holding a bloody heart in her hand and Maude's lifeless body on the floor, a large gaping hole in her chest.