His eyes are closed, but he is very much awake thinking about what he will do when he escapes. Revenge plans pass the time; the hate and anger keep him from losing his humanity. But his eyes snap open the moment he hears Caroline walk, he can recognize everyone by their gate and smell, but Caroline is the easiest to pick out, she is the only one that wears heels and smells of strawberries and vanilla. He's a little curious, by the sounds of it Robert is still asleep, and he usually wakes up before the first person arrives.
He doesn't move from his place though; he traces invisible patterns on the ceiling of his cell instead. Caroline distracts him once more, he hears her stop in front of the door, and based on Roberts breath he's sleeping. A sigh escapes her lips and he hears her take a few steps forward, "Robert?" Her voice is soft. He is disappointed, wanting her to scare Robert.
"Robert?" She says, this time a little louder.
Robert's heart rate speeds up a little, and he wakes up. What happens next surprises him, he hears the contact of flesh. If he had to make a bet he would say Robert hit Caroline in fear, he was surprised and reacted without thinking. Caroline's sharp intake of breath confirms it, and then he hears Robert apologizing.
"I'm so sorry, you scared me, this job has makes me tense all the time." Robert incoherently pleads.
Caroline voices his thought, he's glad to learn that she has a backbone, "You were just asleep."
Robert pauses, before making up some excuse, "I know, I didn't get much sleep yesterday."
There is a long pause, and Robert soon fills it, "Please don't tell Dr. Whitmore, I need this job. I have three kids, and a wife, if I lost this job we would be out on the street. We're barely making it by as it is."
He can practically see Caroline breaking, and her exhale confirms it, "Fine, but please don't let this happen again."
Robert sighs and relief, "Thank you."
The door unlocks and Caroline walks in flicking the lights on, Robert follows closely with a stool in hand. They stop in front of his cell, Robert places the stool a safe distance and asks, "Do you need anything else?"
"No thank you." Caroline replies.
He watches as she elegantly sits on the seat and pulls out her neat notes, taking in the expensive ring on her left hand, while Robert makes a hasty exit, locking the door behind him.
"The moment everyone's gone he falls asleep." He says.
Caroline pauses her writing, still shocked by his voice. "Hmm?" She inquires, looking up from her notes to him, eyes shinning with curiosity.
He sits up easily, something she writes down, and looks into her sky eyes, "Robert, he sleeps every night."
Her eyebrows shoot up, "He does?"
He snorts, she really does see the best in people, he almost wonders what she sees in him.
He sees no need to answer, so he asks about the ring, "Is that why you're early?"
Caroline has a puzzled expression on her face, he nods toward her hand and she flushes with realization.
"No, yes, well I don't know." She mumbles.
He raises his eyebrows, she is making no sense, but her ease around him is refreshing. Ever since he was captured he hasn't had any human interaction, sans feeling the knife cut pieces out of him and bouts of torture.
Blue eyes focus on the ground as she bites her lip, "It's complicated."
"Everything is, if life weren't complicated it'd be boring. But accepting a proposal seems very simple." He says.
Caroline begins to pull at the sleeves of her sweater, a nervous habit he's noticed, "No it's not. Our families are friends, and we have known each other our whole lives. He asked me out and I felt like I was obligated to say yes, we've been together for six months." She exhales her emotions before continuing, "His proposal wasn't really a surprise, it was expected. This whole relationship is based on expectations, not to mention he's 23 and I'm almost 19, we are at the age that we're supposed to be settling down. He's a lawyer, and pretty successful for his age, not to mention we are both from founding families, it logically makes sense. But, it doesn't feel right." She pauses, and then her eyes grow really wide and her cheeks take on a pink hue, "I'm really sorry, I tend to babble and overshare when I'm stressed."
He was about to comment, but he stops and looks at the door, "Looks like the day is about to start." He mutters, feeling his body tense up with the thought of what's to come.
Caroline follows his line of sight, unable to hear what he said, then the door unlocks causing her to jump in surprise. He lets out a soft chuckle, to soft for any human to hear. The moment Whitmore walks in his demeanor changes from relaxed to enraged. Whitmore doesn't notice the change, he hasn't relaxed in front of the man that rips him apart, so as far as Whitmore knows this is how he always is, rigid as if ready to strike.
Whitmore stops by Caroline, looking down at her, "You're here early, good." He then starts lecturing on Vampires and hypotheses about curing humans.
She looks down at her notes and blows a loose strand of hair out of the way and begins writing, he watches her. He finds it endearing when she mumbles gibberish under her breath while writing furiously as if to write everything before it leaves the memory.
Whitmore pauses, waiting for Caroline's undivided attention, "Today we will be working on the heart, and how it functions." His cold blue eyes are a lit with glee.
He knows Whitmore is discussing this in front of him to ignite some sort of fear, it's no secret that he hates vampires, but instead of fear he ignites hatred so strong that if looks could kill he would be dead a thousand times over. Whitmore loses the glee and goes back to his usually apathetic face, he takes a step toward the door before saying, "Why don't you get something to eat and drink, today is going to be a long day." He then leaves, not waiting for Caroline to reply.
She closes her notebook and looks at him, he senses and sees fear. He does nothing to disprove it, she should be afraid of him not for him. He enters the shadows before she could speak, not wanting her around in this moment. She seems to get the message and leave. She's been here about six weeks to two months, he doesn't quite know as time seems to disappear at times. All his life, ever since he was a human boy, he craved a connection and now here she is offering it freely and he can't accept it or the false hope that comes with will kill him.
Paul and Billy couldn't come soon enough, he needs to take his mind off of this moment of despair. He could turn his humanity off, be done with it, he's thought of it countless times since arriving, but humanity keeps him from letting go of hoping, and he can't lose that or he gives up.
He is sitting in the middle of the cell, on the stool Caroline left, waiting for them before their breaths could even be heard. Billy fires three times; one entering his right forearm, the second enters his abdomen, and the final enters his chest. He does not go down, just sits on the stool without making a sound as the liquid plant burns it's way through his veins. Billy swears as he loads another one, and fires. This one brings him tumbling to the ground, nothing else but pain can be sensed, he does not hear them enter nor feel them put on the restraints.
By the time the last strap is on as he lies on the table, the pain has subsided enough for him to draw outward. He hears Whitmore go over past information, and predictions.
"We had two subjects before him, neither lasted as long," Whitmore says, "The first one had to be put down, we allowed it to desiccate by not feeding it, we thought it was dead but the moment my assistant went in to remove the body so we could dissect it the creature attacked. It went for the jugular and my assistant died, we had to put it down. It took us years to find the next one, and we found the perfect amount of blood to keep them from desiccating but also to keep them weak. It last substantially longer, but when we got to the heart, to see if it regenerates like the other organs, we took the whole thing out and it died. From that, we learned that vampires can be killed by wood to the heart, sunlight, and by removing the heart."
Caroline keeps her eyes to the notebook, Whitmore doesn't seem to notice her aversion to the topic but he does. Whitmore moves to stand over him, a scalpel in one hand ready to cut in, "Okay so first we will make an incision-" He doesn't hear Whitmore finish as he feels the cut into his chest, then Whitmore puts a device in his chest that tears it in two and keeps it open. His beating heart is out for everyone to see. Screams of immeasurable pain tear through the room, pain that no living man can understand.
Whitmore sighs in irritation at the sound, "Can someone please gag it?"
Paul and Billy immediately step forward, ready to silence the sound that brings fear to their soul. His eyes lock with Caroline's as Paul takes off the muzzle and Billy gags him, she is silently crying as she looks on. Her sky eyes are connected with his brown ones, in that moment he realizes she's not crying for the fact that his open chest is a gruesome sight to behold, but for the fact that he is laying there in pain.
"Thank you." Whitmore says in passing, he then moves his knife and stabs the heart, if he weren't a vampire it would kill him, but instead he begins thrashing against the restraints. He feels the restraints rip into his flesh, drawing blood, but he doesn't care about that, to busy trying to escape the knife.
His body lurches as Whitmore pulls the knife out, and a new pain surges through him, one even more terrible than the initial stabbing. His threshold for pain is higher, higher than the average vampire, and much higher than any human, but his heart, like any other vampires, is the most sensitive piece of his body one of the very few things that could kill him. If he could he would reach into his own chest and rip out the beating organ as it heals, anything to end the pain. Once his heart is healed, and the other pain became tolerable, Whitmore moves the scalpel in. He knows what Whitmore's going to do before he even does it, Caroline does too.
"Stop." Her soft voice rings through the room, a room that has been filled with silence after his screams were subdued.
Dr. Whitmore swivels around, some of his blood goes flying and stains her white blouse, "What?" Whitmore asks, his voice filled with venom.
Caroline takes a step back as if she was punched, and she was this morning as the swelling of her lip shows. Her eyes dart around the room, to find support, if he could offer it he would.
The knife clatters as it hits the metal tray after Whitmore drops it, he slowly takes off his gloves and drops them in the trash before standing. All eyes are on him, all but one pair shine with fear and uncertainty.
Whitmore takes a few steps toward Caroline, invading her personal space, he grabs her left wrist and shakes her a little, Paul and Billy tense but neither do anything, "Do you think your here because your of some worth?" Whitmore pauses, as if waiting for an answer, "Your not, you are worthless. I could replace you in a heartbeat. The only reason you are here is because of your father." He spits.
Caroline stares at him with eye full of fear, with a touch of defiance in the sense she doesn't immediately apologize. Whitmore feels the defiance and becomes even more enraged, he rips her left glove off revealing her rind to the world. "Not even the Lockwoods can protect you. This project is to important to them, more important than a useless girl." Whitmore stops his rant, his chest heaving with anger.
Paul steps forward, and in that moment he has never respected the man more, "Maybe we just need a break." Paul's hands are held up as a sign of peace, trying to keep both sides calm.
Whitmore drops Caroline's wrist as if it were infected and he storms out of the room. Caroline stands there, her chest heaving as she tries to calm herself.
Paul walks up to Caroline and places a gentle hand on her elbow, "Go."
She opens her mouth to protest but Paul shakes his head, "You need to go, I'll take the rest of the notes. Come back tomorrow."
Caroline nods and hands the notebook to Paul and slowly walks out of the room, once she's gone Billy swears.
"That girl has some nerve." Billy says, irritated.
Paul shakes his head, "No, she doesn't. She knows she got the job because of her father, but she keeps it because of her connections to Mystic Falls. He won't fire her, she will stay until she deems it's the right time to leave."
Billy sighs and runs a hand through his hair, "She's lucky."
Paul hums in agreement. Billy smokes as Paul looks over Caroline's neat notes, grumbling on the amount of detail he's going to have to replicate. He just lays their with his chest open heart beating steadily, silently thanking Caroline, he has time to heal and he knows this break will cut into Whitmore's busy schedule.
Whitmore comes back, calm as ever, if he notices Caroline's absence he doesn't say anything, instead he throws himself into his work.
A/N I'm on the fence about this chapter, to me it feels rushed. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading, it means so much to me to know that people actually read this!
To clarify, false hope is terrible, but hope is not. When I reread that I realized it might cause some confusion. If it does please let me know and I will try to clear it up!
Loveklaroline: I'm glad your enjoying the story so far! It means the world to me that you take the time to read this and review! Also, thank you for your kind reviews, they always make my day! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'm not naming names yet, but I'll leave a big clue in the next chapter that will either confirm or deny your prediction ;) As for "Riser", the next chapter of is outlined, and it should be done by next weekend. But "You took my soul and wiped it clean" has nothing in terms of progress, I would love to tell you my plans for the story but I wrote it without putting my thought into it. I know that was a terrible way to start a story, but...Anyways, I have a busy week ahead and you probably won't seem me until next weekend. Thank again, you are the best! Until next time!