**Chapter twenty one**

Victoria Andromeda Ellis

*Hailey*

Damon and Stefan had a silent conversation, probably debating on what to tell me. I was growing impatient, and I was done with lies.

"Just tell me the truth." I said, causing Damon to look at me. his blue eyes searched mine, before he turned back to Stefan.

I sighed, and looked at Elena. I expected her to be just as confused as I was. but Elena had her brown eyes glued to her shoes. I bit my lip, anger boiling up inside of me. even she knew about Victoria before I did.

"You guys have about six seconds to explain before I throw a full-blown tantrum." I said, glaring at everyone in the room.

Damon looked up at me again, looking torn between telling me the truth and lying. "Please, Damon." I said in a softer voice, trying to coax the truth out of him.

Damon sighed, and despite the look Stefan gave him, said, "Victoria Ellis is your ancestor. She grew up in 1864 with me and Stefan. And like you said, you look exactly like her."

I exhaled, and said, "Tell me more."

"Victoria was… crazy." Stefan said, walking over to Elena. She looked like she wished she was anywhere but here.

"What?" I asked, my mouth going dry.

"She was the town freak," Damon said bluntly, leaning against a wall.

Stefan shot him a look. "What?" Damon said defensively. "She wants the truth, and there it is. Victoria was insane."

"It's fine." I said, feeling as if there was a ball of lead in my stomach, that kept growing heavier and heavier. "What else?"

"She died around two months before Damon and I turned. She was about your age." Stefan said, still frowning at his brother for his bluntness.

My eyes widened. "How?" I asked, pretty sure that even back then, people didn't die that young.

Damon and Stefan exchanged looks, and I gritted my teeth in anger. "Stop hiding things from me, okay! I want to know everything- I need to know everything. I'm a big girl, I handle it."

"Victoria killed herself." Damon said bluntly, earning another look from Stefan.

I froze, as the lead ball grew bigger in my stomach. "Why? How?" I whispered..

"She stabbed herself." Stefan said, and I closed my eyes. of all the people to look like, I get stuck with the crazy, suicidal girl.

"How do you know she was crazy?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from death, since I've had enough of it these past weeks to last me a lifetime.

"Well, she didn't exactly go around bragging about it, but it was pretty well known that Victoria had a few screws loose." Damon said, standing up and heading to a table, where he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass.

"Strange things would happen around her. Things would explode. People who would piss her off would end up with nasty burns, or almost get strangled to death by inanimate objects. Plus, she would claim to see things that weren't there, and would mumble to herself in public." Stefan added.

"There's also the fact that she killed her mom and her cousin." Damon added, taking a long sip of his drink.

"I thought that it was never proven." Elena said, speaking for the first time in the conversation.

"It wasn't, but just like with Lizzie Borden, everyone knew the truth." he said, smirking at her.

"Victoria did kill them." I said, saying the words without really thinking about them.

All three heads turned to face me, each with the same unspoken question on their faces.

"I read it in her diary. She said that she killed them to stop them from passing on the Ellis Family curse- whatever the hell that is." I sighed, and then walked over to Damon and stole his drink.

"Why do we look alike?" I asked, finishing the whiskey. I gave Damon the glass to refill and he frowned at me, before grudgingly giving me a full glass of whiskey.

"I have no idea." Damon said, pouring another glass for himself.

"I don't either." Stefan said apologetically.

"How alike do we look like?" I asked hopefully, not wanting to look like the crazy girl.

"If I didn't know for certain that she died 146 years ago, I would say that Victoria was standing in front of me right now." Stefan said after a pause.

I groaned, finished my glass and then raised my hand with my eyes closed. Damon's glass flew into my hand, and I took a long sip of it.

"Really?" Damon complained, as I downed the rest of his drink.

"When you find out that you look like your insane ancestor who killed herself, you can steal all the drinks from me that you want." I said, setting the empty glass down.

I suddenly felt very tired, and really wanted to be in Damon's comfortable bed. But I couldn't right now. I needed to tell them about my vision.

"So, does anyone want to know about my vision?" I asked, sitting on the arm of a couch. I pushed my bangs out of my face.

Damon gestured for me to start, and I told them everything about my vision. I paused a little when I told them about how Nicolai was in love with Victoria, but managed to push through. When I was finished, Damon and Stefan were having yet another silent conversation.

"What? Do you know who the leaders are?" I asked, pulling my knees up to my chin.

"Yeah, or at least have an idea who they are." Stefan responded.

"Candace, Markus, and Nicolai, right?" Damon asked, sitting down next to me. I was glad for the distraction of talking about the tomb vampires. I didn't want to think about Victoria.

I nodded, then asked, "Why does Candace want me dead? I mean, I know that 'I'm a founding family member, but you can only hate a stranger so much."

"Because she loathed Victoria, and you're her clone." Damon explained.

"Why?" I asked, though I now had a pretty good idea why she wanted my head on a stick.

"Because she was in love with Andrew Ellis." Stefan said simply.

"Who's that?" Elena asked for me.

"Victoria's cousin, the one she killed. They were actually pretty close, though he was a tool." Damon answered, smirking slightly.

"And Candace would love to rip the head off the clone of the girl who murdered the man she loved, as revenge." I summed up, remembering about what Damon said, about vampires being vengeful.

"Yep." Damon agreed, gritting his teeth slightly.

"And then there's Nicolai, who's in love with Victoria." Elena said, and despite us not being on the best of terms, our eyes met. we silently agreed that my lucked sucked, since I was the copy of a girl with more baggage than an airport.

"What a tool." Damon muttered under his breath, and I raised an eyebrow at him. He pretended not to notice me.

"And then there's Markus, the main boss." I said.

"The only thing we really know about him is that he's about 500 years old." Stefan said.

I raised an eyebrow. "What, no 146 year old grudge or crush on the girl I look like? He's my favorite." I said sarcastically.

"I barely remember him. He liked to lie low, though he scared the shit out of the rest of the vampires." Damon said.

"Yeah, I got that impression in the vision." I sighed, when I suddenly got a feeling in the back of my head. Before, the only thing that I had that was like visions, was that I just knew when things were going to happen. It was like I had a really good gut.

"Elena, Jenna's going to text you in about five seconds." I told her casually, standing up, and then sitting down next to Damon.

Sure enough, Jenna texted Elena asking her to come home for dinner. Elena stared at me, a little weirded out, before she and Stefan made their way to the front door.

"Are you coming, Hailey?" she asked me, sounding expectant.

"Nah, I think I'll raid their kitchen first. I'm starving." I said, closing my eyes.

"You can eat at my house." she offered. Suddenly, it became very clear to me that she didn't want me alone in a house with Damon. I didn't know why, but anger flared up in me.

"It's okay, Elena, I'll call you tomorrow." I said firmly, stretching out on the couch and putting my feet in Damon's lap.

I imagined that she was angry, but I was still a little pissed at her too. I heard her and Stefan leave, and just relaxed after this day full of revelations. After a few minutes, I stood up and walked to the kitchen.

"We should order pizza." I told him, as I walked to the fridge for some pop. I would try to hold off on drinking as long as possible.

"You amaze me, you know that?" he said, suddenly leaning against a wall in the kitchen. I jumped, and clutched my heart. Damon was going to give me a heart attack one day.

"I'm amazing, I know. But for what reason this time?" I asked, recovering, as I opened a coke and sipped it.

"When normal humans find out that they look like their crazy ancestor and that vampires want them dead, the first thing they do isn't to suggest order pizza. I'm actually a little disappointed." Damon admitted.

"pizza's good." I shrugged, sipping my coke.

"Come on, Hailey. You cannot be this calm, it's not natural." Damon exclaimed.

"well, technically, I've known for a few days that vampires wanted me dead." I pointed out, and Damon glared at me.

"I already had one breakdown this week, okay? My limit is one breakdown per lifetime, and I already reached it. Besides, what's freaking out about looking like a crazy chick gonna do? Nothing, it's not going to solve anything. So I'm going to just get over it and eat my damn pizza." I said, walking into the living room with my coke.

Damon blocked my way, and sighed. "I'll go get you your damn pizza, okay Hailey?" he said, his blue eyes surprisingly soft.

I nodded, and then Damon was gone. I closed my eyes, and leaned against a wall. Since I was alone, I had no distraction from my thoughts of Victoria. She had powers too, just like me. we had two things in common, our powers and our looks. What else would we have in common?

The question that I had been thinking about since I found out the truth refused to be ignored. I shut my eyes tight, as it floated around my head.

Was I going to go crazy too?

Without even really thinking, I walked to Damon's room. I flicked on the lights, and then stretched out on his bed. His scent comforted me slightly, but it couldn't make my problems go away.

I was going to go crazy like Victoria, I was sure of it. I was going to kill myself like she did. And that thought mixed with the fact that vampires wanted me and my friends dead sent tears down my cheeks.

I tried wiping them away- I would never like crying. But they kept coming, along with anger and frustration that I couldn't do anything about my fate. I was either going to go insane and kill myself, or vampires were going to do it for me. it was only a question of what happened first.

Suddenly, I wasn't alone in Damon's bed. Damon wrapped his arms silently around me, as I cried into his chest for the second time in 24 hours. I pulled away from him, and wiped my tears angrily away.

"You're not Victoria, okay? Remember that." Damon told me, as I laid down on his bed, my back to him.

"But I am, Damon. We look the same, we have the same powers, and we're going to go out the same way." I said quietly.

"Your personalities are opposites, Hailey. You are blunt, sarcastic, impatient, and a stubborn pain in the ass. Victoria was polite, quiet, and boring. Now, does that sound like Hailey Ellis to you?" Damon said, pulling me so that I faced him.

I shook my head, still afraid. "But what if-" I started to say, but Damon put his hand over my mouth.

"I won't let you end up like Victoria, Hailey. I promise." Damon said softly.

I smiled slightly at him, and despite my fears that hadn't gone away, I felt better. I buried my face in his chest, hugging him tightly as if Damon could protect me from every bad thing in the world. I had no doubt at that moment that he would try his damnest to.

Damon leaned down and kissed me. it was unusually soft and romantic, two things I never associated with either of us. But the kiss grew more heated, and soon I was shirtless. And then Damon was shirtless. Clothes were ripped off of bodies, and torn to shreds.

That was one of the best nights of my life. That was the first time I ever had sex with Damon Salvatore.

~LMF~

A/N: yay, so I didn't really expect to update this early, but my cousin went home earlier than I expected, so I had time to write.

Thank you to: vdemily, Carrie9586, AudreyDarke96, chalese, ZGeminilol23, SomebodyWhoCares, Samantha meyers, Pinkbeca, jacquline, colleenrawr, and HawthorneTree for reviewing!

Reviews are love :)

~Abby!