Jeremy hadn't been able to get any sleep the previous night. He was stunned by what Anna had told him. What didn't surprise him is that she showed up in his room that morning. "What do you mean you turned us?" He managed to get out when he saw her.

"It's kinda a long story, Jeremy." Anna told him.

"So, basically, you gave us your blood and let us get killed?"

"It wasn't like that." Anna protested. "I don't kill people."

"Then tell me what really happened."

"I can't tell you everything now, but meet me later." Anna told him. "I can tell you this much: I was never on their side to begin with." Jeremy heard a knock on the door. When he turned, Anna had left.

"Still up?" Elena asked, entering the room.

"Yeah, what's up?" Jeremy asked her.

"Looks like there's a big storm rolling in. Can you help make sure all the windows are closed?"

"No problem." Jeremy said. He headed downstairs to help his sister out.

A few hours later, Elena was at Stefan's. They had invited both Gilbert siblings, but Jeremy had gone to the Grill. Elena was surprised to find out the tomb vampires escaped. "I say we head over to Pearl's and get rid of the moron who attacked us last night."

"Are you insane? There's gotta be at least twenty vampires in there." Stefan pointed out. "Even with their help, we'd probably be dead by midnight."

"I can't believe they got out." Elena said.

"Pearl said that some of them wanted vengeance on the Founding Families." Damon told them. "That means all of us."

"Not to mention Caroline's family." Elena pointed out. "And Tyler's."

"Look, the four of us are going to have to work together to stop them, since Bonnie's still out of town." Damon said.

"There's no way we're going to let anyone get killed in the process, though." Elena said. "Last thing we need's more mysterious deaths."

"Maybe we could get Pearl to help us." Elena looked at him as though he'd lost it.

"How's that going to work? She won't take any sides in this."

"I think he's right. If not Pearl, maybe we could convince Anna." Stefan said.

"I'm going to try and figure out where they are." Damon headed upstairs.

"This can't be happening." Elena said. Stefan went over and held her.

"I know, but we'll figure this out."

"What are we going to do?"

"We'll figure out a way to deal with them. All of us."

"I don't know if I could handle it if one of you got hurt because of this." Elena told him. "It's not exactly safe."

"We're all on the same side here, Elena. We've got each other's backs."

At the Grill, Jeremy sat with Anna. "Okay, we have some time. I'm not meeting my mom until later."

"Is she…"

"She's not with the ones from the tomb. She doesn't believe in all that revenge stuff and neither do I." Anna told him.

"Okay. So, how did you get mixed in with all this to begin with?" Jeremy asked. He was wearing one of the lie detector rings.

"I did come to town the night of the comet, but I've been hanging around close to town since last summer." Anna explained. "I overheard a group of vampires talking about getting rid of the Founder's kids."

"So you turned us out of pity?"

"Not exactly." Anna said. "She doesn't know you're hanging out with me, right?"

"Technically, I haven't even told her about what you said last night." Jeremy said.

"Why haven't you?"

"Because I still need answers."

"Look, I didn't do this out of revenge or to hurt you. Truth was, I was working against those rouge idiots."

"Why didn't you stop them?"

"I was undercover." Anna told him.

Meanwhile, Elena was on her way back from the Boarding House. She walked past the trees and toward her car, when she heard something. She turned around and saw the man from last night, the one who'd called her Katherine. Then she noticed a group with him. She recognized some of the vampires from the night she'd died.

She turned around and started to run, when she felt a sharp pain in her back and fell to the ground.

A few hours later, Damon came into the house. "Is Elena still here?"

"No, she left." Stefan told him.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, why are you asking?" Stefan asked.

"If Elena left, then why is her car still out front?" Damon asked him, concerned.

"What?" Stefan went over to the window and saw that Elena's car was still parked out front. "I saw her leave earlier." He quickly tried calling Elena, but it went straight to voicemail. "No answer. Her phone's not even ringing." He looked up at Damon.

"You're not going to like what I'm thinking." Damon told him.

About half an hour later, he found himself at an old house. He knocked on the door. "Pearl, it's Damon. We need to talk." The door opened, but instead of Pearl, he found the other vampire that tried to kill him the other night.

"I'm afraid Pearl's not home." He told him. "Nice weather, isn't it? No sunlight out."

"Where is my brother's girlfriend?" Damon asked.

"Excuse me?"

"The girl you obviously kidnapped. The one who looks like Katherine."

"Oh, her." The vampire turned as though he was addressing someone. "Billy." Two other vampires showed up, with Elena. She looked pretty bad. Her hair was messed up and she looked really pale.

"Damon…" Her voice was weak.

"Let her go, she has nothing to do with this." Damon said.

"How are you going to stop us? There's like, fifteen of us and only one you."

"Damon…find…Jer…" Elena managed to get out.

"What do you have against her?"

"Nothing personal. Just that she should've stayed dead. It's thanks to her little neighbors we got stuck in there in the first place." The vampire told him. Elena realized what he meant then, but she couldn't do anything about it due to the stake in her back and the vervain. "Have a nice day."

Back at the Boarding House, Stefan was waiting to hear from Damon, when he finally walked into the room. "Did you find her? Is she okay?"

"The tomb vampires got her." Damon told him. "I can't take them alone."

"Then I'll go with you."

"There's no way I can go in with you and guarantee we'll both come out alive."

"It's Elena, Damon."

"Why did they take her, anyway?" Stefan asked him.

"I think the leader was her murderer." Damon explained.

"There has to be something we can do. There must be some way to get her out of there, right?"

"We're going to need help with this one." Damon told him.

At Mystic Falls High School, Alaric was heading to his classroom, when he noticed Damon. "Is this a bad time?"

"What are you doing here?" Alaric asked.

"We need your help, Alaric." Stefan told him.

They headed into the classroom to explain the problem. "A group of vampires kidnapped Elena." Stefan explained. "We'd normally handle it on our own, but there's too many to take on by ourselves."

"And we can't reach Jeremy." Damon said. "I tried calling him, but…"

"That ring you wear keeps you from dying permanently, right?" Stefan asked.

"That's right. Look, I don't want anything to happen to Elena, either, but this seems too risky." Alaric told them.

"I'll try to reach Jeremy again." Stefan said. "Maybe if the four of us work together, we can save her."

"How do we know it won't be too late by then?" Damon asked. Alaric looked at them, deciding he'd better help out.

Back at the Grill, Jeremy was still talking with Anna. "Why did you pretend to work for them?"

"This town was my home before my mother was captured, but I would never want anyone here to get hurt." Anna said.

"So how were you able to turn us?" Jeremy asked. "In order to turn…"

"You need vampire blood in your system. I know." Anna said.

"But we don't remember anything aside from being ambushed. We have no clue how it got into us." Jeremy told her.

"During one of the meetings, I heard them planning to take out two kids that were hanging around the cemetery." Anna said. "That afternoon, I saw you two there."

"You were spying on us?"

"I was keeping an eye on you, in case anything happened. Then they sprang their attack, but you fought back anyway." Anna said. "I ended up in the middle of the fight. You got knocked out, so I gave you my blood."

"And Elena?"

"Head injury. Unfortunately, they weren't done with you two yet." Anna said. "But I wasn't sure you'd turned until that night in the woods."

"So you really were looking out for us." Jeremy said.

"Normally we don't turn people for protection, but I can't stand the thought of innocent people being killed." Anna told him.

"You know, you're a lot different than I thought you were." Jeremy said.

"You know what they say, don't judge a book by it's cover." Anna told him. She noticed her mom enter the Grill. "I'll text you…" Jeremy's phone vibrated. He looked at the message. "What is it?"

"Elena's in trouble." Jeremy said.

"I'm sorry, I need a minute." Anna walked over to her mother. "Hey, mom."

"Did you get everything?"

"Yeah, the blood bank was understaffed due to the rain. It was easy."

"Who were you talking to?"

"A friend." Anna told her.

In the classroom, the guys were looking at Alaric's weapons. "Whoa. It's like you're Van Helsing or something." Damon commented.

"You know what they always say, be prepared for anything. That includes vampires."

"Vervain darts?" Stefan picked up one of the needles.

"Surprisingly, they were Isobel's idea." Alaric said.

"Jeremy's still not answering." Damon said, looking at his phone.

"We're going to have to start without him. Chances are, he probably won't even be able to get in the house." Stefan said. "Unless you wanna wait for them to kill the human."

"Please, we just have to get in, find her, and get out before they try to kill all of us."

"It's Elena, remember?" Stefan pointed out. "There's a good chance we might not come out alive."

"It's part of what I do all the time." Damon told him.

"Knock it off." They looked at Alaric. "Look, we're all putting our lives at risk here. Elena's a good person, I don't doubt that. And there's no way I'm going to let them kill her. So we can either work together or just give up."

"How are we going to get around them?" Stefan asked.

"I'm generally pretty good at finding them without them noticing."

"You really think we can do this?"

"If we cover each other, it might work. We need to keep focused and get out of there without being seen…if that's possible."

"Let's go."

A/N: Let's just hope they'll be able to save Elena in time. Anyway, sorry again for the late update. I'm trying to do better. Next chapter, we'll find out if Jeremy will be able to help them with this little mission. Please let me know your thoughts on this chapter. And for those of you interested, the sequel for The Protector Diaries is up.