Nick gasped as his eyes shot open; he remembered hearing the glass shatter and Caroline scream. He tried to sit up but started to panic when he realized his hands were tied behind his back and his legs felt like jelly.

The darkness surrounding him gave him no indication as to where he was or if someone else was there with him. He tried to talk but his voice was raspy and he barely uttered a whisper.

He cleared his throat and tried once more, "Caroline?" He asked; his voice rough and weak. There was no answer; he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Suddenly, one single bright light illuminated the room, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut in pain, "Who's there?" He asked, pulling against the restraints and slowly opening his eyes, wincing as they adjusted to the light.

"Well good morning, Nick, or I suppose I should say good evening. You've been out for quite a while. How you feel?" Mason asked with a sickening giddy smile.

Nick groaned at the fact that his eyes were still stinging from the light, "Just peachy. Where's Caroline?"

Mason grinned and shrugged, "Probably at her dad's, recovering from the little injury we left her with."

"What? What did you do to her?" Nick growled through clenched teeth.

"Oh you don't remember? When I crashed into your place, she tried to stop me from taking you and I kinda pushed her and she fell onto some glass. I'm surprised you don't remember, you yelled more than she did. But no worries, I put her on the couch after making her fall asleep and wrapping her arms. Elijah was on his way anyway, so she was all taken care of."

Nick just stared at him and gritted his teeth in anger, at this point there was no use in spewing at him for hurting Caroline, he was strapped down and Caroline was most likely safe with Elijah by now. He calmed himself before asking, "How long ago was that?"

"About a week ago." Mason said nonchalantly as he walked across the room they were in towards a dresser. "Like I said, you've been out of it for a while; thanks to some drugs a certain hot nursing student gave to me."

That took Nick by surprise and he stared blankly at his lap, trying to remember what had happened exactly but his mind came up blank…Ice spread through his veins when he saw Mason approaching him with what appeared to be a knife, a hammer and a pistol.

"Mason whatever you're planning on doing...Please don't...Caroline will...She'll never forgive you." Nick stuttered.

Mason smiled, "She'll understand I did it for us. There's no way in hell that I'm letting you be with her and raise our child."

Ten days ago

Elijah and Kol ran into the house; prepared to beat the living shit out of Mason, what they found made Elijah sick to his stomach.

Kol gripped his bat tighter in his hand as he and Elijah crossed the threshold, glass crunching under their feet. Elijah took a deep breath to try and calm himself when he saw blood smeared across the floor as if someone crawled away from all the broken glass; he was terrified of what he would find.

While Elijah stood, scared in place, Kol went around him and paced to the living room.

"Elijah!" Kol shouted back into the room while rushing to the body lying on the floor.

Hesitating for the briefest of moments, Elijah ran to the kitchen and gasped in shock at what he saw; Kol was knelt in front of the couch, someone lying there on it, he slowly inched his way forward and his steps quickened when he realized it was Caroline lying there.

Caroline groaned, "Nick…Where's Nick?" she said, trying to sit up but was kept down by Kol's hands on her shoulders. She cried out in pain when Kol accidentally pressed down on one of the wrapped slices on her arms.

"Elijah, go call for an ambulance, she needs stitches." Kol said, internally panicked when he realized she had way too many cuts in her skin on her arms.

Elijah quickly pulled out his phone while Caroline started talking, sounding delirious, "I tried…he kissed me…Nick fought…Oh god, he took him…Didn't he? We have to…he's hurt…kill him. Gun…he had…a gun…I promised Nick."

Kol put a hand on hers in an attempt to calm her, "I'm sure Nick's fine, Sweetheart. We need you to calm down. We'll find him, I promise."

Caroline started to cry harder than before, "Find him now."

Present time

"It's been over a fucking week, Stefan. Why hasn't anything come up? For all we know, Mason carted him to Timbuktu already!" Caroline shouted in annoyance, sitting on her father's couch, glaring at the bandages wrapped around her arms.

"You don't think I know it's been a week? I'm doing the best I can. Mason knows how to hide, Caroline. I don't have a crystal ball I can stare into and locate them." Stefan snapped at her while looking over files.

She began to pace, something she found herself doing often the past days. "Why hasn't Mason contacted me? What could he possibly want with Nick? If he had wanted to kill him, he would've done it here."

"We don't know that for sure, Caroline. He's psychotic. No one knows what the hell he wants or why he does this shit."

"I'm gonna find out." Caroline said before pulling her phone out and calling Rebecca. "I'm still pissed off at you and I borderline hate you but I need your help to find Nick. I know you know Mason's number."

"Caroline…he probably changed it already." Rebecca protested at first, making Caroline's blood boil.

"I don't care, give me the goddamn number Rebecca." Caroline said through clenched teeth.

"I'll text you the contact…Caroline…I want to find Nick too…You know that right?"

Rather than answering, Caroline ended the call and waited for the text message that would hopefully give her what she needed.

Her phone buzzed just as she heard the doorbell.

Mason had a sickly sweet smile on his face as he carried a small box in his hand.

His plan was slowly but surely working. By this time next week, Caroline would come crawling to him for comfort and he would be more than willing to give her and their baby what they needed.

As it is, she had called him today. He hadn't actually answered her since he had been on the way, but he just knew she wanted to see him and talk about her maybe moving in with him. Things were all starting to work out. He could sense it.

He stopped for a second as he looked at Elijah's front door and took a deep breath before placing the box right in front of the door. He rang the doorbell then hastily made his way back to the sidewalk and out of sight.

Out of sight yet still able to watch the front door, Mason felt giddy as he watched the front door swing open. Caroline had answered the door, he could see her arms were still bandaged and she was clutching a pistol. He had wondered why she would need that…What was she scared of?

He felt a slight twinge of guilt when he saw there were some blood stains on her bandages, the guilt quickly dissipated when he saw her start to open the package and close the front door.

Hearing her screams coming from the house, he slowly walked down the street toward his car, his plan was coming along just perfectly.

Stefan, Elijah and Kol ran into the front room when they heard Caroline's bloodcurdling scream resonate through the house.

They all froze for a fraction of a second when they saw Caroline rocking back and forth, her hands covering her face and sobs shaking her entire body.

Stefan saw the gift on the floor and what was in it and quickly went outside, his gun drawn. Elijah went to Caroline and put his arms around her, not even looking at what she had seen while Kol bent down and looked at the box's contents.

He felt bile rise in his throat as he lifted up pictures from the box. With shaking hands, he flipped through them, each picture making him feel more and more sick.

The pictures were of Nick, his body was bound and bruised, his skin welted and varied in colors of purple, blue and yellow. Each picture was of Nick in a different position, he seemed to become more and more mangled after each picture was taken

The last picture in the stack made Kol drop all the other pictures in his shaking hands, he stumbled back several steps and fell against the wall behind him, "Oh god." He choked out, covering his face.

Caroline began to scream and cry, her arms flailing out as the pictures scattered across the floor in front of her. She attempted to push Elijah's arms off of her while she continued to scream, "He's dead! He killed him! Oh god, no please! He can't be dead! No! NO PLEASE!" She screamed over and over again, rocking back and forth before folding in on herself and sobbing.

Elijah let himself look at all the scattered pictures and he focused on the one that made Kol so startled, it was a picture of Nick. His skin was so bruised that it made his stomach churn, his heart dropped when he saw that there was a gunshot wound to his head and Nick's eyes appeared to be rolled to the back of his head.

"Caroline, honey you have to calm down." Elijah tried to shout over her sorrowful shrieks but his voice was barely above a whisper, yet Caroline heard him.

"DAD HE'S DEAD! MY HUSBAND IS DEAD! HOW CAN I BE CALM?! HE'S NOT COMING HOME! I PROMISED HIM I'D BRING HIM HOME! I FAILED HIM! HE'S GONE!" Her voice cracked at the end and she started to scream, it was all one sorrowful wordless shriek.

Stefan walked in, his own eyes filled with tears, from the pictures he had seen and the way Caroline was hugging herself while screaming. "There were no traces of anything outside. No car, no tire marks, not even a goddamn note." He told Elijah, who had stepped away from Caroline because she only pushed him away, her screaming ceased but her sobbing intensified.

Stefan walked into the other room, pulling a reluctant Elijah along with him, "I need to be with Caroline, Stefan." Elijah protested.

"I need to make some calls to the station and I need you to call Rebecca. Tell her to come here, who knows what the hell Mason is planning on doing next. I need her here where I know she's safe but I can't call her. I can't tell her what's happening. I can't." Stefan said while looking away, tears threatening to spill across his cheeks.

Elijah nodded and pulled his cell phone out, Stefan and Nick were best friends, closer than he and Nick ever were. Those pictures were taking their toll on him too.

Kol looked over to Caroline and wiped his own tears slowly before crawling over to her. "Caroline, try and breathe…come on think of the baby…You need to try and calm down for the baby…Stress isn't good." Kol stressed while putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Her sobs started to quiet and she looked up to him, it physically pained him to see her so heartbroken. "What am I supposed to do? We had so many plans, Uncle Kol…I need him." She whispered to him, pure agony making her voice crack every few seconds.

He wrapped his arms around her and shook his head slowly, "We'll get through this. I know we aren't much compared to Nick, but you still have me, your dad, and Stefan. We'll help you with everything, I promise."

She slowly put her arms around him and after a few seconds, she buried her head in the crook of his neck and her shoulders shook in a new wave of violent sobs, "I can't do this without him. I can't raise this baby, our baby, without him, I can't."

Kol didn't know how to answer or even begin to truly comfort her, all he could do was hold her and let her cry and thrash and scream until the tears ran out and until she got tired.

Mason walked into his house, where he had been residing without any of Caroline's family knowing, a triumphant grin on his face.

It had been a few hours since he left the package with Caroline, he knew she was grieving right now, but he was willing to wait. He knew that she would come crawling to him for everything in a matter of days.

The phone in his pocket began to ring and he smiled when he saw who was calling, he answered with a laugh, "Good news travels fast."

"You weren't supposed to kill him!" A voice shouted at him from the other end.

"Calm down, Babe. I had to do what I had to do to get Caroline to come to me."

"Oh, I must've imagined the time you told me that I was the one you actually wanted. And you seriously think Caroline is going to go to you after you literally just killed her husband?" The person sneered, jealousy evident in their voice.

Mason laughed wholeheartedly, "I can't believe you actually believed me. And Bonnie; I know she'll come to me. She loves me. Just like her uncle loves you. Keep talking to me like that and I'll be sure he finds out what you're doing."

"Fuck you." Bonnie spat out in anger before hanging up on him.

Mason rolled his eyes and put his phone in his pocket before walking down to the basement.

Playlist

Turn It Off – Paramore

Broken – Seether feat. Amy Lee