Hey everyone! Here's chapter 5, enjoy!(:

Instead of being terrified of Damon and Stefan, I was furious with them. I couldn't believe Damon had listened to me tell him how much I trusted him, while he'd been sitting there holding onto this huge, horrible secret the whole time! He must've thought I was a complete fool.

Or maybe he thought I was a game to be played. Maybe he'd planned for me to feel that way about him; was it possible that it'd been a trap? Was his intent to lure me in, get me close, and then attack?

If it was, then it sure had worked. I had definitely been lured. Oh, God, we'd kissed. I'd had my mouth on lips that had, at some point, sucked blood from someone's neck.

But why? I couldn't imagine why he would ever go to all that trouble to play such a twisted game when it was so easy for him to just get it over with, to just snap my neck and then drink from it before the blood ran cold. He could've killed me so very easily at any point, but he hadn't. Could it have been because he wanted to drag it out? To make me fall for him and then rub it in my face when he finally decided he was ready to end my life?

Somehow, I couldn't picture Damon ever being so cruel. This was, after all, the same person who had enchanted me so many nights ago on Wickery Bridge, right in the middle of a boyfriend crisis; he was the same person who had looked at me in concern when Vikki and Jeremy were found half-dead; and he was the same person who had rushed to help both of them.

But then, he wasn't really a person at all. He was a monster, a gruesome character from a horror story. His kind killed for pleasure. So, it definitely could have been possible that he'd been playing me the whole time.
Still, I wanted to believe that he at least deserved the benefit of the doubt, and so I anxiously dialed Caroline, and asked her for Damon's number. She read it off to me, and I thanked her before we hung up, because truthfully, without Carr's help this whole thing would've been a lot more complicated.

Damon's phone only rang twice before when answered. "Elena," he greeted, voice smug.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Lucky guess." There was a rumbling noise, like papers being shuffled or maybe a creaky chair moving under his weight as he shifted it. "Did you need something? A favor, maybe?" I could practically hear the winking going on at the other end of the line.

"Not the kind you're hoping for."

The humor seeped out of his voice. "You sound pissed, Elena."

"You sound worried."

"Yeah, well, Confuscius say: man who argue with wife all day, get no piece at night."

I rolled my eyes, in no mood for his jokes. "Can you be serious for just one second, Damon, please?"

"...One..."

I groaned. "Listen, I need you to meet me at Mystic Grill in ten, okay?"

"I'll be there in five."

He hung up and, with a heavy, steadying sigh, I began the walk to Mystic Falls' only decent cafe.

The air was bitter, and the fog wrapped around my ankles in thick, eerie swirls. I made a quick promise to myself that after this day, I would finally get back behind the wheel of a car.

After all, there were scarier things out there than driving. I could appreciate that now.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do when I saw Damon. I felt a little safer knowing we were in public, but at the same time, I knew I couldn't talk freely with so many witnesses hanging around.

I settled on the conclusion that I was doing this to grant myaelf some peace of mind. I needed to know what Damon's plans were, or what they had been. I needed to know if he'd been faking all his emotions around me, because one thing was for sure: vampire or not, our kiss had had been real, and full of sparks.

Damon beat me to the Grill. He was waiting for me at the bar when I got into the warm little shop. I saw him sitting in a stool, turning away from the counter so he could keep his eyes in the door. In his hand he held a small, faceted glass with a rich honey colored liquid sloshing inside it.

I met his deep blue eyes and instantly felt as breakable as the glass he was holding in-between his palm and long, pale fingers.

I stiffened and rolled my shoulders slightly. The room seemed to press in, the walls seed to fall closer to each other. The last thing I wanted was to be in a smaller space, but it was necessary; and so I signaled 'no' to him, at his current seat in the center of the room, and then tipped my head towards the back of the room to show where we should've been was a small, barely lit corner where a table meant for one was laid. It was dusty and blocked by several other empty booths.

Damon gave me a curious look, but stood and followed me compliantly, grabbing a chair and dragging it noisily on its back legs as he went. I gestured for him to sit down.

Placing my hands I the table and leaning forward, I met his eyes cooly. "You've been lying to me." I waited to see if he would deny it.

His beautiful eyes narrowed. "What do you know?"

I took a deep breath. My heart paced rapidly inside of me. "You're a vampire." I meant for the words to be strong, but they tunneled out in a fearful whisper. "Aren't you?"

For the briefest second, his eyes fluttered in defeat. His face was open and vulnerable for just a flash, and them he turned back to stone. Still, that was all I'd needed to know that my instincts had been dead on about him-he may not have been human, but he was still grasping onto his humanity.

"How...? Who told you this?"

I blinked. "It's true, then?"

He looked at the table, refusing to meet my intense gaze. He seemed almost ashamed.
Before I could help myself, a tear rolled down my cheek. I hid my face quickly, grateful that he couldn't see my weakness.

"Elena..." His voice was as quiet as mine, and it sounded hopeless.

I couldn't look at him.

"Elena, I'm so sorry."

I swallowed. "Was it you? Who attacked my brother and nearly killed Vikki?" I finally looked up to find an expression filled with pure torture on his face. He looked like a man being burned alive, and it hurt me to see that face in so much pain, even if it was the face of a criminal, of a monster.

Besides the agony, there was something else there. Something...off. I wished I knew him better so that I could place the strange look. "I didn't know he was your brother," he said quietly.

The tears flowed more heavily. "Like it matters! He's human, Damon! Whether he's my brother or not, he's still human, and what you and your brother are doing is still terribly wrong!"

"Not wrong, Elena," he argued. "Immoral. But I'm not human, and I have no morals. Not anymore."

Disappointment folded in on me. "I-I have to go. This was a mistake."

"Elena-"
I shoved out of my chair and turned away from him in one fluid motion. I tried to run out, but his hand clamped down on my wrist. I froze, went deadly still, and waited with my eyes squeezed shut in both terror and anticipation of what he was going to do to me.

He pulled me into him and spun me around slowly. I didn't even react, just let him move me. He held my face in his hand and caressed my cheek, my lips, with his thumb. Intensity and passion glared in his eyes. "I never wanted to hurt you, Elena." Very slowly, he leaned down and pressed the softest kiss to my unmoving lips. When he pulled away, his face was blank. "Go."

More tears slid down my face, and my voice cracked miserably. "Goodbye, Damon."