CHAPTER 13
„Get up drunks!" Elena's shrill voice rings through my ears and wakes me up. I barely manage to open my eyes and the sight I'm faced with completely baffles me.
I'm lying on the floor next to the couch- well, not exactly on the floor- I'm sprawled over Damon's naked torso; my head on his shoulder and my hand across his hard stomach. I feel his shallow breaths under me and as soon as I try to wiggle out of this position I feel one or his arms tighten around my back; effectively holding me in place.
"Damon!" I whisper harshly and start shaking him when he doesn't stir.
I swear he sleeps like the dead.
He is dead, dumbass!
Oh yeah.. Anyways, while he's regaining consciousness I push myself off of him and assess the damage.
The house is one enormous mess.
All the chairs are either flipped over or broken, the couch is also upside down which explains the fact that we're lying on the floor, the liquor cabinet is half empty and empty bottles are situated all over the floor except for the one still placed in Damon's hand. The books from the bookcase on the biggest wall fortunately remained as they are.
Shit. This all happened and I can't remember any of it.
I feel Damon standing up behind me and groaning so I turn around and glare at him. "What the fuck happened last night?!"
He looks at me with raised brows and asks: "You don't remember?"
"No!" I practically yell but then notice Elena re-entering the room so I just whisper to Damon: "We're gonna talk about this later!" and turn to face her amused expression.
"Sooo.." She starts. "How about we get together this afternoon while the guys handle some stuff here?" Elena says with a wink and I know she's planning something by the smirk she wears on her face but I nod anyways, we haven't talked in a while and I kind of miss her.
"Fine. Let me just go home, shower, drink a handful of painkillers to get rid of the headache and we can go." I say with a smile and start to walk out of the house.
"Hey Bella!" I hear Elena yell through laughter after me. "You should probably change." She says and tips her head in my direction.
"What?" I say in bewilderment and take a look at myself for the first time since I woke up. "Oh, crap." I mumble and start searching for something normal to wear because my clothes are a disaster.
Not only do I have a bunch of holes and cuts all over my shirt and tights but I'm muddy. Like legitimately muddy. I can't believe I haven't noticed it before.
What the fuck happened last night?
I groan and make my way upstairs into Damon's room since that's the only one I can locate.
I hear the shower running and tiptoe my way around his room. The first drawer I open in the large antique armoire is one that holds the underwear so I move on to the next one. I take a black T-shirt and put it on after I take off my ruined top.
Damon's shirt falls over my ass so I decide to leave the tights on and get out.
Once I get back downstairs I realise Elena isn't here anymore but Stefan is.
"Hey." I say with a small, embarrassed smile. "Can you give me a ride home, please?"
I don't remember how I got here, again. I was too focused on ogling Damon's ass to pay attention and I didn't really expect for this to happen.
Stefan unsuccessfully hides a smile. "Sure, let's go."
We go into the huge garage and pass Damon's blue Camaro, one car that has a sheet over it and then Stefan gets into a red Porsche while I just stand there gaping.
"You plan on getting home anytime soon?" Stefan says with a smirk and opens my door.
I slide onto the black leather seat and carefully close the door.
"This is a beautiful car, Stefan." I say in awe as he starts driving.
"Thank you." He says with a smile and I can see he's very proud of it. I would be too.
We drive in silence for a few minutes and I try to remember the path until Stefan breaks the silence.
"Sooo.. You and Damon, huh?"
Subtle Stefan, real subtle.
"Um, what about Damon and me?" I ask instead.
Stefan just shoots me a look that clearly says: Cut the crap.
"Nothing's going on." I say defensively. "We're just hanging out." I shrug. "Oh, and nothing happened last night, if that's what you're asking." I add even though I still don't remember what exactly took place last night.
Stefan chuckles but doesn't elaborate further since we're pulling over in front of my house.
I get outside and make my way inside. Once I'm there, I realise there's something I should do so I turn back around.
"Hey Stefan!" I yell so he'd hear me over the car motor. "Just so you know; you can come in!"
His face brightens up with a wide smile and he nods. We both know I don't mean right now, and we both know this means I trust him.
"Thank you. Oh, and just so you know; Damon likes you." He says with a wink and drives off leaving me stunned on my porch.
I take a shower, get dressed in one of the jeans Elena helped me buy, my old Ramones shirt and my favourite black Vans shoes that have multiple holes over them.
I hear a honk outside and realise it must be Elena so I go downstairs and grab a small black purse, that has all my things in it, on the way out.
"Hey." I say once I get inside the car. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know. We'll drive around and stop somewhere if that's OK with you.." She shrugs.
"Yeah, that's fine." I answer and for the first time in months I turn on the radio in the car.
The music plays softly in the background and I realise it doesn't affect me negatively as it used to. I find myself enjoying it probably more than I did before and it feels good being able to do it.
While we're driving I let my thoughts run back to what Stefan said today. I don't really know what to make of it; did he mean that Damon liked me as a friend, or maybe more than that? I don't really think it's the latter, even though he appears to like my company, seeing how much time he spends with me when he could be doing anything else. Maybe he just feels sorry for me? Or he just wants to make sure I don't die and stay on his back for the rest of eternity?
"Maybe, just maybe he does like you. Or is, at least, starting to. Would that be so bad?" The annoying voice in my head tells me, and I know that that might be a possibility, but I don't want to get my hopes up too soon.
Ugh, I need to stop this trail of thought before I go crazy.
Once we reach a small town in the middle of nowhere, Elena notices a nice looking bar and parks the car in front of it.
We enter it and sit at a table in the back.
"You're quiet." Elena observes after we order some drinks.
"I have a lot on my mind." I tell her.
"Stefan told me what he said to you earlier." She smiles. "I agree, you know?"
"I don't think that's true." I shrug my shoulders.
"Why wouldn't it be? You can't say you don't notice it, at least not after last night." She says with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Last night?
"I don't understand. What happened last night?"
She looks around and scoots her chair closer to me after the waiter drops off our drinks.
"So, Stefan and I came over at about 3 a.m. and found you two chasing each other around the completely unrecognizable living room. I don't think either of you heard us come in cause suddenly Damon had you pinned to the wall and started kissing your neck while you giggled." She tells the story with wide, excited eyes. "And then you dropped the bottle and it crashed into a million pieces on the floor and basically ruined the moment. Stefan and I took that as our cue to leave."
I just sit there completely confused as flashes of what happened last night come to my mind but I don't have time to think about it because Elena has more things to say.
"So... Whatcha gonna do about it?" She says and rubs her hands in a conspiratory way.
"I... I don't know." I answer grimly. "I'm not sure either one of us is ready for this."
"Oh, cut the crap, Swan! You've been bawling your eyes out for months; it's time to move on." Elena tells me sternly but that is not as easy as it may seem. "I know a small part of you still hopes Edward would call at least one last time. Maybe he wants that, too. But there is a reason why he doesn't. If hearing from him was a good thing, than you would still be trying to find him but you're not which means you're probably aware of how bad that would be for both of you."
She's right. I know it.
I don't think about him very much lately. He used to occupy my mind 24/7 and now that space I filled with the new people in my life. Okay, I admit; I mostly think about Damon. But that's just because we're together most of the time. Or so I tell myself.
But... Does Edward still think about me? Maybe.
Does it matter to me if he does? No.
"I'm so stupid. How could I have been so stupid all this time?" I groan and bang my head on the table. "I waited so long for him. Every night I would lie in my bed, bury myself in the covers and imagine his hands around me. And just as I would be falling to sleep, all the images of us talking, laughing, touching would dance in front of my eyelids." I say and realise this is the first time I'm able to talk about those things with a female friend. "That went on for too long. I get it now. He crossed the line. I give up."
Elena's smile is so bright that I can't help but smile with her.
"It's easier now that you said it, isn't it?" She says knowingly. "It makes it more real."
"Do you really think I can do this?"
"I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, because it's not. I know how difficult Damon can be, and given the fact that you literally shot him yesterday, you know it, too; but he is worth it."
We sit there in silence for a few minutes, contemplating the decision I just made until I remember something Elena said earlier.
"What did you mean when you said guys have something to handle today?" I ask.
"Klaus." She groans. "He wants the stake and we kind of lost it..."
"What?!" I shriek. "How could you have lost the most valuable thing any vampire can possess?"
Elena explains to me how they gave it to Alaric and he hid in during one of his 'episodes' which basically means it's lost.
"Damn." I groan. "Maybe Jenna gets something out of him next time." I say because she takes care of him while he's not himself.
"I hope so, otherwise we're all screwed. Klaus is capable of anything if he's mad." Elena says and starts collecting her things. "We should probably get going. It's late."
We pay the bill and go outside only to be faced with a freaking disaster.
"What the hell?" Elena yells and kicks one of the flat tires on her car. "How are we gonna get home? I only have one spare!"
"Who did this?" I ask. One flat tire may be an accident but three, not likely.
"I don't know." She shrugs. "Let me call Stefan."
She dials the number and starts pacing so I take my phone and try calling Damon but it sends me to voicemail each time.
"No luck?" Elena asks.
"Nope."
"What should we do?"
"Do you know how to change a tire?" I ask her and she nods. "Then start doing that because I don't know how. I'll run over to the gas station we passed on the way and bring help."
"That sounds good. I'll call you if I hear from Stefan."
"Great. See you soon!" I say and start running down the street.
By the time I see the lights from the gas station I'm already out of breath. I push my muscles a bit more until I'm only a few yards from it and slow down.
I feel a smile spreading on my lips from the relief and I stop for a second to catch my breath.
I hear a giggle from somewhere behind me and turn around to see who's there but there is nothing but darkness all around me.
I decide to rather go look for help then something I may have imagined so I turn back around and gasp from the sight in front of me.
She's standing there with a malicious smile spread over her face and giggles again while my heart rate speeds up.
I start moving backwards and try to subtly dial Damon's number from my phone in the back pocket on my jeans.
Her smile widens. "Go ahead, it'll just make it more fun for me." She says in her childish voice I still vividly remember from our last encounter.
I know I shouldn't put him in danger but if I learned anything in the time I spent in Mystic Falls, it's that I don't always have to go through everything alone. I know Damon will be there for me. I want to be saved so I dial and press the phone to my ear.
Voicemail.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Victoria's smile widens further.
"Why can't you just back the fuck off?" I say exasperatedly. "They fucking left me behind. No-one cares, okay? Just leave already."
"Oh, please!" She says through laughter. "I thought you were smarter that that but I guess I was wrong." She rolls her red eyes and moves to grab my hand.
Her ice cold fingers wrap themselves around my upper arms and I try to wrestle myself out of her grasp but there's no point.
"Throw the phone away now." She instructs and when I toss it on the road she steps on it and it smashes into a million pieces.
I try to keep my thought positive but as much as it pains me to admit; I know that this is something I won't be able to survive.
Victoria picks up the pace and I let my tears silently pour down my face as she drags me into the darkness.
A/N
I hope you like this one!
Bells just can't catch a break, huh? Her outfit is posted on my profile!
Like always, thank you for the amazing reviews, follows and favourites!
Jana- A special thank you for the review on chapter 6, I have put up a warning for violence. Regarding to your review for ch11; nope, she doesn't! ;)
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