It's been almost a month since I updated. Only crap. I'm so sorry. My brother just got married as I think I mentioned before and the whole getting ready for it was totally stressful, I mean serious I probably have a few dark hairs I need to do something about now but I tell you what, the reception was freaking fun! I mean they missed half of the stuff they we're supposed to do like the toast which is one of the most important parts but everyone was drunk by 8:30 so really you can't expect us to remember something like that when we're all out on the dance floor partying. Lmao!
Anyways, I hope you all like this chapter. It's a bit slow I'm not going to lie but still good, still good.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC's.
Chapter 7: Ghost World
"I'm bringing Michael out to the Night of Illuminations tonight. Well better yet, I'm bringing him out for the whole day. He needs this; I mean seriously besides school he doesn't leave the apartment. I know he's going a little stir-crazy and if I'm being honest, he's driving me crazy." Adele hears a barely recognizable "I heard that!" in the back ground. "Good!" Jasmine yells back and Adele laughs. "I still forget he can hear everything now. He's become a real pain in my ass." She mutters as if that would stop him from hearing her.
"You love him." Adele says as she's climbing the steps to the boarding house's porch.
"That doesn't mean he's not a pain in the ass." She tells her and Adele laughs again.
"I know exactly how you feel." She makes it to the front door. She wonders briefly if it's going to be locked. She'd told him to start locking it at night but has he listened to her? No. He hasn't. So she dismisses the thought all together. Of course it wasn't going to be locked.
"How are you and Damon anyways? Michael said something to me about him running off with Katherine. He didn't understand the significance of that when he told me but it made me remind myself to ask. Said you we're pissed." Jasmine is saying.
"I was but we talked it out and we're all good." She explains as she swings the door open. "It took a bad idea and a near death experience for me to calm down enough to talk to him about it but…" She cuts off as the sound of screaming meets her ears.
"Damon!" She forgets about her phone all together as she takes off towards the study. Tearing through the doorway, she rushes over to the curtains shoving them closed before whipping around to look at Damon. He's bound to a chair, healing but unconscious. Surveying the room, she spots his daylight ring on the carpet and a fire poker lying discarded next to the chair.
"Stefan!" She calls snatching up his daylight ring as the emotionless vampire leans against the frame of the door, smirking at her. "What the hell is this?" She mentions to Damon.
"I don't know. I found him like this. I removed the fire poker." He says eyeing the iron object as if that was some hard good deed that he'd done.
"Oh and it didn't occur to you to remove the chains?" He shrugs and she points to them. "Well I can't do it." She snaps and he rolls his eyes, like snapping some chains that would take him two seconds is the biggest inconvenience of his life but he comes forward anyways, pulling at the chains and letting them fall to the floor with a loud clunk. She watches him walk off. "Thank you!" She calls after him though she doesn't know why. It's not like he cares.
Damon is still unconscious and she bites her lip. He healed. Why wasn't he waking up? She blows out a breath of air when she realizes he probably needs blood.
She makes her way into the basement, to the refrigerator that stores their blood supply only to find it empty. "Are you serious?" She mutters her eyes wide as she looks around. How are they out of blood? She didn't even know it was possible for them to run out but really she probably shouldn't be surprised not with a ripper and an original living in the house. Damon probably didn't anticipate that when he stocked up the last time. What was she supposed to do now? Her eyes move over to the basement stairs as an idea crosses her mind.
He would kill her.
But then again her only other choice was to go out to the street and drag in some poor innocent person. She wasn't going to do that. She climbs the stairs passes the study where Damon is now unconscious on the floor. She makes it to the kitchen where she opens a drawer eyeing the sharp knives. Oh he's so going to kill her. Hopefully not literally. She thinks to herself as she picks up one of the many knifes.
She carries it into the study and sits cross legged behind Damon. She places his head in her lap as she brings the knife up, slicing it along her wrist with a wince. She places it to the side as she brings her now bleeding wrist to his mouth.
"Come on, Damon…" She lets off in a gasps, her eyes squeezing shut briefly as his fangs pierce into her skin. His hands come up to wrap around her arm holding her wrist in place as she lets out a breathy moan. Who the hell was he kidding? It didn't hurt. Of course it did at first but after getting over the sting of the bite, the whole experience seemed intoxicating and she realizes that it's probably just because it's Damon. She's been bitten by vampires before and it had never felt so good.
He rips his mouth away from her wrist, bolting up right as he glares at the wooden floors. She sits there watching him with wide eyes. "Why did you do that?" He finally demands, though he's refusing to look at her.
"You needed it." She answers.
"There are blood bags and you know exactly where they are."
"You're out." She says simply, pushing herself from the ground. She picks up the knife and makes her way into the kitchen. Damon is following behind; keeping a distance between them that annoys her greatly.
"What do you mean I'm out? I was just in there. I made sure there was enough till next week."
"Well you probably weren't counting on having a ripper and an original staying with you. You should really put a lock on it if you plan on keeping it stocked." Her tone is flat as she makes it to the sink, turning on the tap. She washes the knife quickly before glancing down at her still bleeding wrist with a sigh.
She gasps as Damon presses against her back, his fingers wrapping around her forearm tightly as he turns the bleeding wound for him to see. Guilt becomes heavy between them but she just doesn't understand what he has to feel guilty about. She'd forced it on him.
"You shouldn't have done that." He mummers shoving her wrist under the warm water, letting it rinse the blood away.
"What was I supposed to do Damon? You needed it."
"Not at the cost of hurting you. I didn't need it that bad." He tells her, burying his nose in her hair.
"You didn't hurt me." She confesses and his eyes meet hers in the reflection of the window a head of them. "That's a good thing right? Now you know if you bite me you won't hurt me." Because the temptation when they we're together was always there.
"I don't like the idea of biting you." He tells her but his hands are running along her hips. His eyes are darkening; the veins under them are appearing and disappearing just as quickly. This has become such an issue for them that it's kind of ridiculous. Their life, everything about it from their daily lives to their sex life would just so much easier if he'd stop being so fucking stubborn about something he obviously wants. It's not like she has never been willing to let him do it. She swallows back the ping of annoyance to embrace the burning desire. That was just so much better to focus on when it came to Damon.
"But I do." She bites at the corner of her lip. His eyes fall to her exposed neck as his lips curl up into a smirk as if he's just realized what this could mean for him. His fangs are brushing against his bottom lip and she sucks in a breath at the sight of him. He looks so dangerous yet so…beautiful. Before she'd met Damon, she didn't know it was possible to look that beautiful and that dangerous at the same time.
His head lowers; he brushes his lips against her pulse point as his darkened eyes lift to meet hers once again, the blood swirling in the whites making the dark blue look that much more mesmerizing.
Her phone blares loudly from the other room and Damon's head picks up glaring in the direction as the veins refuse to recede. He's looking every bit the killer that he is. She turns in his arms reaching up to brush her lips against his, making sure not to brush them against his fangs before slipping away. "Take a shower." She tells him, her voice sounding breathy and she clears her throat. "You have blood everywhere."
*VD*
"I don't know Damon. All I know is when I walked into the room the engagement ring was right out in the open which I never leave it out, his shirt was hanging out of my dresser and then the shot glass shattered like it's been knocked over and there was a picture that I had on my wall of them laying on the floor. It just seemed weird to me." She's explaining to him as he's driving towards the grill at almost 80 miles an hour in a 40 mile an hour zone. She doesn't say anything, it's not like she doesn't do it. It's the cars, she thinks; it's hard to control yourself when you know the power under your fingers.
"Well I'm convinced it was Mason Lockwood taking his revenge for killing him. I mean Jeremy's seeing ghost and that whole thing that happened with Vicki Donavon, so it's could be possible. What if…" He sighs as if struggling to say what he's thinking and she looks away from watching the scenery passes by to look at him. "What if he's following you?"
"Tony? You think Tony is following me around, messing with stuff in my room?" Her voice rises to a slightly higher pitch and he flinches as she sags against the seat.
"If Mason really is the one who did that to me, which I'm 99.9% positive that he is considering the why it was done then yeah, I think…Tony is following you." God, he hopes not. He really, really hopes he's wrong but something in his gut is telling him, he's dead on.
"There's Bonnie." Adele points ahead. "Stop." She tells him and he does as she says, pulling up quickly beside the witch and Adele's blonde best friend, the tires squealing as he does. The both of them turn glancing between them as Adele leans over him to see them properly.
"Greetings Blondie, Witchy." Damon remarks regarding the both of them with little interest. Adele rolls her eyes at him. "I think you got your voodoo wires all crossed when you got rid of Vicki Donovan." He says.
Bonnie's brows furrow at them, a deep frown lacing her lips as she looks between the vampire and her best friend's sister. "What do you mean, why?"
"Because I'm pretty sure I got spit-roasted by Mason Lockwood's ghost." He tells them causing the two's eyes to widen as they look to Adele who nods at them telling them that he's telling the truth.
"Why would you think that?" Caroline asks to which Damon looks down to his girlfriend to explain.
"Because when I walked into the boarding house I found him chained up to a chair, the curtains wide open and his daylight ring was on the flour. I asked Stefan what happened and he said he didn't know just that when he came in he pulled fire poker out of his chest and left him there. Little bit of Deja vu if you think about it."
"I thought you said ghost couldn't physically interact with people?" Caroline asks turning to Bonnie who looks astonished by the news.
"They can't." She says.
"Yeah, well, I don't have time for a vengeful Lockwood. When I kill someone, they're supposed to stay dead." Damon snaps causing Adele to smirk up at them.
"It's true. It makes him feel incompetent." She says to which Bonnie and Caroline try hard to hide their smiles as her blue eyed vampire glares and she laughs as he pushes her back into her own seat.
"Whatever you screwed up, fix it." He says to the witch before speeding off.
*VD*
Adele tells Damon to go ahead in without her as she spots Alaric and Elena sitting at one of the patio tables. She makes her way over to him, placing her hand on Alaric's shoulder making him jump. Elena cracks a smile as she looks up at Adele. It was funny how she could almost be killed one day but completely fine the next, like it didn't happen. When it happened Elena had asked herself why Vicki would try to kill Adele only for her to remember that Adele had been the one to kill her. Vicki probably wanted revenge.
"Have you guys seen Jeremy?" She asks and they nod.
"He just went inside I think to get away from us after he lied about Anna being with him." Elena says a bitter under tone to her voice.
"Okay, thanks." She begins to walk away but Alaric stops her.
"Why?" She looks between them before sighing.
"Damon thinks Tony is following me." She tells them causing the two to glance at each other.
"Tony's dead." Alaric says and Adele nods.
"Yeah, this is why I want to talk to Jeremy. If he is around, Jeremy can probably see him."
"I asked him the same thing about Lexi but he said he doesn't know because he's never meet or seen her." Elena tells her and she digs into her pocket pulling out a folded picture.
"This is why I brought this." She holds up the picture flashing them with the sight of a blonde male with doe eyes and a 100 watt smile. Elena had to attempt that he was good looking. Extremely good looking but then again that's not surprising everyone Adele's ever gone after has been good looking. Michael, Bruce, Tony and even if it's hard for her to attempt, Damon.
"Well he's inside." Alaric assures her and she nods waving to them as she runs off. Alaric looks to Elena. "That's not good, if Tony is following her."
"No." Elena agrees with a sigh. "Probably not."
*VD*
With Jeremy nowhere to be found Adele plops down in the chair across from Jasmine causing the witch to smile at her. "Who we're you looking for?" She asks, her voice curious as Michael leans back, his arm swung lazily over the back of Jasmine's chair playing with a strand of her hair. Adele sends a glance Nate's way, surprised to see the vampire. He'd barely ever left Michael's apartment since Justin left.
"I know what you're thinking princess." He smirks in her direction, his Australian accent wrapping tightly around each word. "How is it, he's so good looking." Adele scoffs shaking her head at him. It was no secret the two of them clashed. Something about their personalities just didn't mix well together but still through the bickering there was a certain amount of fondness that they held for each other.
"My brother." She answers choosing to ignore Nate for the time being. "Something weird has been going on."
"Like supernaturally weird?" Nate asks with narrowed brown eyes. At times in the right lightening Nate's eyes looked almost as black as Michael's.
"Uh, yeah but nothing vampire or even werewolf related for once. I don't know. It's just weird. Once I talk to my brother I'm sure it'll all work itself out." She didn't want to believe what Damon was saying. That's just something she doesn't know if she can face. "Have you heard from Justin?" The question is directed at Nate.
"Yeah a few days ago, he's moved back on to North Carolina." Nate answers with a roll of his eyes. "Truthfully I just think he needs to come back. He's not able to help us from where he is. He won't be able to help us at all if he's dead." Which he will be if he's caught. Adele thinks to herself as she's looking around. Elena is quickly retreating towards the bathrooms and to her surprise Damon and Alaric are sharing a drink by the bar. Damon's probably explaining his Mason theory to him.
"Jasmine…" Michael's voice brings her back to the present as she looks over to the witch and her ex. Michael is frowning as he leans over, taking a good look at Jasmine's face which has paled if that was even possible. She was so pale anyways. Her jade green eyes are wide; she's staring at something…
"What's wrong Jazzy?" A deep, rugged voice calls from behind Adele and her spine stiffens and Nate watches as her face pales as well her blue eyes glazing over. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Her breathing is shallow as she slowly turns her head, her eyes catching sight of him behind her and she shoots up, her chair toppling over as she whips around to face him full on.
She feels like she's been punched in the gut. Oxygen was just refusing to fill her lungs making it almost painful to breathe as she looks up at him. Her heart is beating wildly against her ribcage. His doe eyes are shining with amusement, his blonde hair falling in a way that makes it look severely under brushed but extremely sexy as he flashes her one of his famous "Devil may care" grins and she feels like her whole world is tilting out of focus.
*VD*
Mason Lockwood just shattered a damn shot glass against his forehead and everyone looked at him like he was the crazy one this morning, when he went off about a vengeful ghost. He turns to Alaric because he was the closet one standing to him. "Told you." He grumbles as the history teacher openly gaps up at the dead werewolf.
A chair across the restaurant clatters against the floor causing a few here and there to turn in the direction it had come from including Damon and Alaric who each have equal amounts of shock upon what they see.
Adele is clinging tightly to someone, her arms enclosed tightly around there neck as the guy holds her just as tightly to him but he's so much taller and he's picked her up, her feet are dangling off the ground. Damon can't see his face but he's tall, he's broad and he's blonde which there could only be two blonde guys that Adele would hang so tightly to, one being the vampire sitting at the table next to the two looking very awkward and the other is supposed to be dead but then again so was Mason Lockwood.
Adele jumps away from the guy, her hands coming up to cup his face as she lets out a choked laugh and even from where's he's sitting he can make out the tears, he can see them glistening in her blue eyes. She launches herself at him again and he catches her spinning around slightly and he gets a clear shot of his face. He closes his eyes turning away from the scene to drown the shot that's been placed in front of him. He called it.
"Is that…?" Alaric trails off, still with his eyes focused on the reunited couple across the restaurant.
"Yes." Damon growls, drowning his next shot and Alaric's eyebrows rise.
"Well one's thing for sure…" Damon has almost forgotten about Mason fucking Lockwood. "He's better looking than you." Damon glares, no he wasn't damn it, no he fucking wasn't. He didn't want to deal with Mason in the first place but knew he had to, now all he wanted to do was sit here and drink because,
He so called it.
*VD*
"I'm sorry." He's muttering into her hair and all she can do is hold him tighter. "I'm so sorry."
"Are you kidding?" She pulls away and looking up at him with wide eyes before shocking them all when she slaps him, hard. "You are such a fucking idiot!" She yells as his hand comes up to rub his red cheek. That one actually kind of hurt. "You should've told me, you should've told me what was going on!"
"Yeah?" His voice is sarcastic fueling her rage that much more. "And what would you have done? Give yourself over to him?" She doesn't say anything as she presses her lips together. She forgot how much she liked his voice. It was deep and there was just a small hint of a Russian accent laced in his words, if you didn't know where he came from or you weren't looking for it, you'd never detect it. She hadn't even noticed it at first. "I wasn't letting that happen."
"You're dead Tony, you're all dead!" She whispers in a frantic kind of way.
"But you're alive." He says to which Adele eyes him before she seems to realize something that makes her blue eyes fill with horror.
"You knew." She hisses. "You knew what would happen to you."
"I didn't care what happened to me. There's a difference. As long as you we're safe nothing else mattered to me and I'm sorry Della but I wouldn't do anything differently." She sucks in a breath of air at that name. Nobody but him has ever called her that with the exception of Scotty who used to call her Dell. She feels like she could cry…again.
Tony turns his attention to the witch still sitting at the table staring up at him with wide eyes, though they shine with unshed tears. "I've been dead for over a year now Jazzy. Where is my hug?" The raven haired girl stumbles out of the chair, almost losing her footing as she rounds the table, crashing into the much taller male. Adele watches as he enfolds her into his arms, dropping a kiss to the top of her head something he's always done. Tony plus of course the rest of them we're the only family Jasmine had for the longest time and Adele rubs at her arms as Jasmine sobs into his chest, her shoulders shaking violently. She was one of two survivors of an attack that killed her entire family; Adele wonders why it has taken her this long to react in such a way.
Michael appears behind her, his arms wrapping around her neck as he rest his chin on top of her head. He's watching them to offering to her whatever comfort he can because this sudden and completely impossible reunion had to be extremely hard on both her and his girlfriend. "What the hell is going on Short Stuff?" He mummers to which Adele can only shake her head. She has no fucking idea.
Her blue eyes slide over to the bar once more and she lets out one more struggled breath. "I'll be right back." She mutters catching Tony and Jasmine's attention they watch her escape Michael's hold sliding towards the bar, her eyes locked on the dark haired man sitting next to Damon.
"Who is that?" Tony's deep voice breaks through the silence and Michael shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.
"Mason Lockwood." He answers sliding his black eyes up to the slightly taller male. "He's also dead."
"And that's Damon Salvatore." Tony observes as he watches Adele slide in between the vampire and the dark haired guy. She looks him over before pulling him into a tight hug, the guy's arms automatically wrap around her.
"Yeah." Jasmine swallows back the crack in her voice.
"Just answer me something Jazzy…"
"Anything." She looks up at him, her green eyes wide and innocent.
"Is she happy with him?" His doe eyes look down at her, sharp and calculating.
"Yeah Tony. She's extremely happy with him." Jasmine answers, her tone apologetic. She realizes how hard that must be to hear. "If you want to, she'll introduce you to him."
Tony doesn't say anything at first moving his gaze back to Adele who is now looking at the raven haired vampire. He eyes the hand placed securely on her hip, the finger playing with the back pocket of her shorts. "That's probably not a good idea." He finally says.
*VD*
"So that's what's going on." Adele says glancing back towards Tony. "Bonnie made them visible."
"Is it the wrong time to say I told you so?" Damon snips causing Adele to look back at him with wide eyes because no, this was so not the right time for that and he knows it. He sighs spinning his bar stool towards her. He places a hand on her hip, pulling her forward. "Don't worry so much Kitten. This is a…good thing." His phone buzzes once more and he opens the incoming text from Caroline practically growling. "I am never going to hear the end of that damn necklace." He mutters. Adele figures that fixing whatever is going on here now has something to do with Elena's necklace.
"One of you will pay for this right?" Their attention is turned back to Mason Lockwood. "Cheers." He lifts the shot glass downing it quickly. Adele stares at him, she still doesn't believe it. She doesn't believe any of this. Maybe if she gives it a little while and she'd wake up panting and sweating in bed and it would be up to Damon to make her feel better.
"Let's get to it." Damon pushes his phone away, wanting nothing to do with it or the content of the text messages on it. He wanted nothing to do with this day at all, if he could just skip it completely he would. "I killed you. You want revenge. Get in line."
"Actually," Mason turns smirking at the raven haired vampire who had been responsible for killing him. "I want an apology." Adele's eyebrows rise in alarm as Alaric laughs from behind them. That was totally unexpected and there's a 90% chance that it's never going to happen.
"Don't you have a family to haunt?" Damon is pulling her closer without seeming to realize it, the prospect of actually having to apologize making him extremely uncomfortable. "You know your nephew has turned into a mindless hybrid Minion."
"That's why I'm here. To help Tyler." He tells them and Adele sighs looking towards Damon before turning back to Mason.
"I'm not sure Tyler can be helped Mason, at least not while Klaus is alive which is…always." She tells him.
"Not necessarily. Not if you found a weapon that could kill him."
Damon rolls his frosty eyes. "There is no weapon that..." He trails off his eyes narrowing dangerously. "What do you know?" He demands.
"I know you need to apologize." He grins and Adele turns away from him gazing down at Damon who mutters a "You've got to be kidding me" as he scoffs.
"Are you incapable of remorse? Just apologize!" Alaric snaps but still Damon remains staring.
"Damon…" Adele says, her voice suggesting that he's being ridiculous about this whole thing.
"You're right." He finally says, squeezing her hip to the point where it's painful. She shifts uncomfortable and he automatically releases his grip soothing his fingers over the forming bruise. He glances up at her but she shakes him off. He didn't mean it. "I didn't have to kill you." He turns back to Mason. "I do a lot of things I don't have to do." He says through clenched teeth and Adele closes her eyes turning around to Mason.
"You might as well take it Mason. It's the closest thing you'll ever get." He grins up at her having realized this himself.
"It's good enough." He pushes himself off to his feet. "Meet me at the old Lockwood cellar. Bring a shovel." He glances between Adele and Damon. He leaves quickly causing the couple to glance at each other.
Adele quickly glances back to Tony who is sitting in her abandoned seat across from Jasmine. They seem deep in conversion and Adele bites her lip. "It's okay." She turns back to Damon. "You don't have to come. I can handle this."
"I should go…Damon if he isn't lying then this could lead us to a way to kill Klaus…" He shakes his head causing her to trail off.
"I've got this. You need to go over there, that is where you are needed right now." He tells her but she still looks ready to protest.
"Adele…" She'd completely forgotten about Alaric. "Nobody is going to blame you for not helping this one time. This may be the only chance you have…" He doesn't need to say it, she knows what he means. This may be her only chance to say goodbye.
*VD*
"So apparently the town is being invested with ghost…" Adele says after everyone at the table had stopped talking. She'd sat down in the middle of a heated debate between Nate and Michael only for the topic of conversion to jump around randomly, she swears she's been sitting there for an hour. She sends Tony a glance, still feeling like this whole situation was a little surreal.
"That is not surprising." Nate says tapping his long fingers against the table top. "This is the town from hell, I swear."
"Bonnie casted a spell to make the ghost that are stuck on the "other side" visible and now she has to find a way to reverse the spell and send them back. Something about when she brought Jeremy back from the dead it left the door open or whatever and now some dead witch is trying to use ghost to interact with the living which is what was up with Vicki Donavon. It explains why she tried to kill Elena and me."
"Wait…" Jasmine's eyes close briefly before they open again and she's openly frown at Adele. "Who is Vicki Donavon and when and why did she try to kill you and Elena?"
"Oh I forgot to tell you guys about that?" Adele asks tilting her head slightly as she watched Michael nod with a raised eyebrow. Damn, she'd been almost dying so much it's become normal to her. "Vicki Donavon was Matt's older sister." She tells Jasmine. "She had a drug problem and back when Damon was the villain in our story, back when life was simple, he turned Vicki just to spite Stefan and since she was an addict she had a bit of a problem adjusting. She turned into psycho bitch that tried to eat my little brother and Elena, so I killed her." Adele smiles at them like what she was telling them was no big deal.
"Unfortunately for me, she was the ghost this witch was trying to use so after Matt did something very stupid it made her able to interact with the living, we may not have been able to see her but that didn't stop her from setting Alaric's Tahoe on fire and locking us in. She was only supposed to go after Elena; Matt had told us something about putting the balance back. Klaus's hybrids shouldn't be allowed to live and Elena being alive makes that possible so she had to die."
"If she was only supposed to go after Elena, why did she go after you as well?" Jasmine asks.
"Revenge." Nate answers for her. "You killed her. She saw an opening and she took it but what she didn't realize is that you my love are not easily killed."
"Isn't that the truth?" Tony mutters beside her and she turns her head her blue eyes wide as she regards him.
"You've been following me. How many times have you seen me almost die?" She asks, her eyes softening.
"Too many." He answers quickly. "When you left Florida I didn't anticipate that you'd go running back head first into the supernatural. I was hoping you'd get a normal life."
Adele snorts a laugh bubbling in her chest. There was so much wrong with that, how could he expect her to have a normal life after them? Seriously? After everything that she had learned from them? "Well that's not really possible when the Salvatore brothers are involved."
"Yeah," Tony grumbles. "So I've noticed."
Adele sighs; she knows it must be hard to have to watch her, with no way of talking or touching her. She knows if she we're to get stuck in some supernatural limbo with nothing else to do but follow Damon around, she'd go crazy not to mention she'd probably be watching him tear down city after city if she we're to die.
"Tony…" She stops breathing, completely freezing as she feels something press between her shoulder blades roughly. It's a gun and by the confusion clear on Jasmine's face as she gazes above Adele, she knows that someone has to be standing there.
"Stand up." A female voice demands and Adele catches the eyes of the two vampires across from her, there ready to stand up, to come to her defense but she shakes her head. They we're not going to make a scene in the middle of The Grill, especially when the whole town was out for the latest festival. She pushes herself up from the table slowly. "All of you go ahead of us; don't even think about doing anything funny or she'll be dead."
*VD*
The female pushes her roughly causing her to stumble forward, into Tony who catches her effortlessly, baring his fangs at the girl in a growl and she looks away, she was never able to get used to seeing his vampire face, everything about him just become so sinister, so dark from the guy she knew and loved that it left her skin crawling. Adele looks around the ally at them. Jasmine is standing with Nate, her small hand clenching tightly to his larger one and Tony is holding her up. Where the hell is Michael?
She doesn't ask. The girl either is ignoring the fact that one of them is gone, or she doesn't realize it as she looks them all over, her gun rising to her as her eyes narrow dangerously.
"Who are you?" Adele asks straightening herself out; Tony's hands linger at her sides before dropping slowly.
"You don't need to know." She snaps, her dark eyes regarding Tony now. "You're supposed to be dead." He tilts his head, the veins pulsing under his eyes. He'd always had trouble controlling himself when his anger got the better of him, she'd learned that quickly not that he'd ever gotten angry with her but he'd once killed William before anyone had the chance to blink and William was just as old if not slightly older.
"I am dead." His voice is remarkably flat and low, his Russian accent more detectable now.
"No, I mean dead, dead." She says pointing the gun towards him.
"I am." He snaps.
"So your one of them then?" She speaks up, cutting the two off. She didn't want or need this situation to get any worse.
"You make it sound like we're the bad guys. Like we're the ones running around feeding off of human blood." Every word she says is wrapped in venom. "We're not the bad guys; we're not the blood suckers."
"No." Adele agrees with a nod. "Your worse."
"Coming from the girl sleeping with them, first him…" She sends Tony a glare before turning her gun back to Adele. "And now the infamous Damon Salvatore, you want to talk about a monster…"
The amount of fury that rips through her chest is almost blinding as she takes a threatening step forward only for Tony to catch her wrist. "Don't talk about him. You don't know anything about him."
"I know that he's a blood sucker and I know that he has no regard for humans at all. He's the very definition of monster."
"That just proves that your naïve and arrogant. You want to talk about a monster, go seek out Klaus Mikaelson." The girls face pales considerable at the mention of the original hybrid. "There is your monster."
"What do you want?" Jasmine calls from Nate's side.
"I was on one the biggest cases in years and James pulled me off to follow you around." She spits at the blue eyed blonde. "He told me it needed to be my top priority. That you are the answer to a lot of our questions that you could help us in our war against the vampires and I come here just to find out that you surround yourself with them. You're dating one of them. It's disgusting. We shouldn't be wasting our time with a corrupted mind. He's blinded by you though. You blinded him and you blinded Justin. Justin has a target on his back because of you."
"So what?" Adele asks narrowing her blue eyes at the auburn haired girl. "What are you going to do? Kill me?" The girl's dark eyes flash with confliction as Adele steps forward again. "Go ahead." Her lips twitch up into a dark smirk that as the girl swallowing. "But that makes you no better these monsters you hate so much. You're going to kill me because you blame me because your life isn't working out the way you want it to? Kill me for such a selfish reason and honestly that makes you worse."
"Shut up!" The girl snaps moving forward a step. "I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for James; he needs to be clear headed. He can't be worrying about someone as useless to us as you. It doesn't matter what he does because they have you now. They've corrupted you, you're not worth it!"
"Gianna." Adele watches as the girl's dark eyes widen slightly, she turns her eyes falling to the opening of the ally. Adele's own eyes move there as well, a wide smile breaking across her face as she realizes who it is.
"Justin…" The girl –Gianna lets out in a breath.
"Gianna…" He calls again coming forward slightly. "In your mission to right the society, you've forgotten one of your most important lessons." He sings and from what she can see from so far away, he's got a complete "the cat who ate the canary" grin on his handsome face. "Never take your eyes off the enemies."
With a confused frown Gianna turns back to look at her but Justin's tisking sounds draws her attention back. "The real enemy in this situation."
With a loud gasp from Jasmine, Adele springs back further away from Gianna, pressing her back into Tony's chest as Michael drops from what seems like the open sky but upon looking up Adele realizes he'd been staked out on the roof of The Grill the whole time. She doesn't think her eyes could get any wider, or her mouth could fall open any more as she watches her ex rip into the hunters neck until she falls to the ground, non-moving, her dark eyes staring up at them, wide with terror.
Adele's blue eyes find Michael and for some reason, she wants to cry. The veins under his eyes are pulsing and his fangs glisten with blood as it runs down his chin, dripping onto his navy blue t-shirt.
He wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be a vampire. He was supposed to graduate and become a musician. This is all her fault. She should've never dragged him into this. Blinking Adele realizes that everyone has begun to move. Justin is bending down to Gianna whispering to Nate who is across from him. Jasmine is back in Michael's arms using his shirt to wipe at his face but Tony is still behind her, his hands resting lightly against her sides.
"Are you okay?" He asks softly, the words vibrating through her back.
"Y-yeah." She takes a deep breath as Michael's black eyes meet hers. He mouths that he's sorry but she just shakes her head. He had nothing to be sorry about; he'd just helped save her life. It unnerved her slightly to think that having a gun pointed at her, just didn't scare her as much as it should. She'd been shot before, it was painful but there we're worse things out there.
"What do we do about this?" Nate finally asks pushing himself from the ground. Justin does as well, moving towards her only for him to stop as his eyes find Tony standing behind her.
"What the…" He trails off as Nate clasps him on the shoulder.
"Don't ask." He warns lightly and Justin shakes himself out of it turning his attention to her. She breaks away from Tony, rushing over to him and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.
"Thank god you're okay." She says as she pulls away.
"I don't understand." He says, looking down to Gianna. "What was going on?"
Adele tells him everything she'd said causing the ex-hunter to look on thoughtfully. "What are you thinking?" She asks.
"I'm thinking…You should call James."
*VD*
They said goodbye to Michael, Nate and Jasmine before leaving for the boarding house. It had taken 30 minutes for Tony and Jasmine to say goodbye not that Adele could blame them. She wasn't sure how long it would take Bonnie to fix the problems going on, they may not have much time left.
Now it was just the two of them. Justin had taken off almost right away, having needed to check back into the motel. Adele holds out a glass to Tony who takes it his eyes wondering around the house.
"I know…" Adele says downing the amber liquid before pouring herself another glass. "It's huge."
"It's…something." Tony mutters taking a sip from his own glass as she's pulling out her phone. She scrolls down in her call log to the number she dreads seeing. Her finger hovers over the button. "You don't have to do it." His deep voice calls from in front of the book case and she swallows lifting her eyes to study him. He's got his back to her but she knows that he knows she's looking at him. He always knows.
"Yes…" She sighs pressing the button and pulling the phone up to her ear. "I do." He turns, his doe eyes watching as she clenches the glass tightly in her hand.
"Miss. Gilbert," His eyes narrow dangerously as James' voice cracks over the line and she sends him a soft smile that he visible relaxes to. "How nice to hear from you. Have you reconsidered my offer?"
"Mm, not even slightly." She says downing the rest of the Bourbon in her glass.
"Then what do I owe the pleasure of this call to? Hm?" Adele moves around the couch, taking a seat and throwing her feet up on the coffee table.
"More like a who. Gianna," She says softly. "Was a pretty girl James, a lot of spunk in that one."
He's silent for a moment as if running over her words in his head. "Was?" He finally asks his voice void of all emotion.
"Yes well it would seem she came into a bit of an accident, you see." Adele says and Tony is watching her carefully, watching as she studies her nails, her expression collected giving nothing away.
"What happened to her?"
"Well she's dead." She states bluntly. "That much I can tell you. I'm not sure you actually want all the horrific details. Hm…you know what, let's just say she was poking her nose some place that it shouldn't have been." With that said Adele snaps a second IPhone from her pocket, scrolling through the many pictures they'd found once getting it unlocked. Tony watches as her expression darkens the same way it had upon catching sight of a photo of her and Damon in his Camaro talking to Bonnie and Caroline. She'd explained to them that that moment happened just earlier in the day. "She's very talented with a camera. I'll be erasing these pictures by the way."
"…What are you playing at here Adele?" James asks, his tone clipped and Adele stands up abruptly.
"I'm not playing at anything James. I warned you and now your little hunter has paid for your mistake and if you decide to send more, then they will keep paying because I will find them, I will track them down and I will kill every last one of them. I'm done playing games with you. Keep them away from my family or you can kiss your hunters goodbye." She hangs up, squeezing the glass in her hand as she drops her phone onto the couch. Tony's eyes close briefly when the glass shatters. He's in front of her in a second pulling her closed fist open and wincing at the sight of her bloody hand. With careful fingers, he picks the glass from her wounds, some of the gashes deeper than others. He disappears.
"You should've told me." She repeats from earlier once he reappears with a small dish towel in hand and he carefully wraps it around her bleeding hand. "You should've told me what he wanted from me at least."
"I know." He nods surprising her. Tony was hardly the one to attempt when he was wrong. "I should've at least told you that much, I was just hoping it would never come to this. I was wrong, so…very wrong. I thought I'd still be around to help you, I didn't know about the ambush. Obviously."
"Yeah, things would be a lot different right now if you we're still here." She says moving to pour herself another glass of Bourbon, in a new glass ignoring the stinging of her right hand and the smear of blood on the glass bottle. "We'd be married." She almost snorts. That whole idea of it just seemed like another life.
Upon glancing back up, she stops pouring. He's giving her a look that tells her she's wrong and she finds herself so confused. "Do you remember the trip you we're planning for us to take, the trip back to your hometown? Back here?"
"Yeah." She nods. "So?"
"You we're planning on us taking it around the time when you returned, after the fire. Stefan and Damon Salvatore would've still been in town, even if I was alive."
"I don't understand Tony," She shakes her head. "What are you getting at?"
"I'm getting at the fact that you still would've met Damon." He comes forward to stand in front of her again, gazing down at her with a soft expression. "You still would've fallen in love with him."
"Tony…" She breathes. "That's not true. I loved you…I…"
"I've come to terms with the fact that you could've never loved me the way you love him." He shrugs his shoulders, like this whole conversion was normal. "To tell you the truth Della, I'm kind of glad of the way things turned out. It would've hurt a hell of a lot more to lose you to him if I was still alive."
Tears prick at the corner of her eyes as she stares up at him, guilt welling up inside of her as she realizes that he's possibly right. She couldn't think of a life without Damon, even if he was still alive so there was a good chance she'd still be with Damon right now.
"Hey…" Tony reaches forward, cupping her face in his surprisingly warm hands. "Hey, hey. Don't do that." He swipes at a tear that falls to her cheek. "It's okay Della; all I've ever wanted for you is to be happy. I watched that wall be torn down and I watched you suffer for days and while I didn't like watching you fall into some other man's arms, I found I couldn't actually care because he helped you, he loves you and he makes you happy and that's all I care about. Even if I was still alive, I would've let you go. I would've kicked his ass first but I still would've let you go."
She pulls him to her, wrapping her arms tightly around the back of his shoulders as she buries her nose in the croak of his neck breathing in his scent and it's so familiar that it causes her tears to fall harder. Nothing he said stopped her from feeling bad, it just showed her what she had already known, that he was one of the most amazing guys she'd ever known.
He pulls away, his gaze lifting to the ceiling as if he's hearing something she can't. "I think my time is up." He whispers and she sucks in a breath.
"No." She shakes her head. "Tony…"
"Shh…" He cups her face again. "It's okay." His forehead presses against hers as she struggles to breathe because it felt like she was losing him, all over again and the feeling was almost unbearable. "I love you." He mummers so softly she barely heard it. "And you're going to be just fine. You're strong Della. You can make it. I know you can." She grabs his hands that are still cupping her cheeks and squeezes as he presses his lips against hers. There warm and soft and he tastes just like she remembers as she closes her eyes. A sob catches in her throat as suddenly he's gone and she places her uninjured hand over her mouth muffling her cries as she squeezes her eyes shut even tighter.
She's not sure how long she'd stood there before her cell phone begins ringing on the couch where she left it. Though her sobs have stopped the tears seem to refuse. Moving over to it, she answers it with shaking fingers. She didn't even bother looking to see who it was. "Hello…"
Whoever is on the other line is silent for a minute. "Kitten…" She sinks down onto the couch at the sound of his voice. "Mason is gone." He tells her even though she knows that he knew she'd already know this.
"I know." She whispers.
"I…Kitten I need your help with something…" He sounds like he didn't want to ask so whatever it was must be important.
*VD*
She takes the steps down into the Lockwood cellar slowly one at a time. She could hear Damon and Alaric at the end of the steps. "Look, if Mason Lockwood can get over the fact that I killed him, can't you cut me a little slack, Ric?" Damon is asking the history teacher and if she didn't know any better she'd say he was practically begging.
"I shouldn't have to get over it." Alaric snaps back at him. "I was your friend, Damon. You shouldn't have done it in the first place."
"Well!" Damon lets out a huff as if looking for something to say. "Sometimes...I do things I don't have to do." And if her mood wasn't shot to hell, if she didn't feel the need to crawl under the covers at home and just lay there for weeks at a time, she might've actually laughed.
"You're going to recycle that same crap ass apology you gave Mason Lockwood?"
"Yeah. Well...I didn't mean it with him." Adele becomes visible to them as Alaric moves over to a good sized hole in the brick wall. Damon's blue eyes focus in on her as she comes to stand beside him, watching Alaric peak through the hole.
"Are we going to do this?" She finally calls out watching Alaric nod slowly as he steps through the hole and she takes a step forward but it quickly pulled back. Damon wraps her in his arms tightly and just as quickly she encircles her arms around his neck, the tears that she'd forced to dry resurfacing. When he pulls away, he swipes a thumb across her cheek bone, wiping away a tear as he presses his lips to her forehead and she feels suddenly like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders as she's realizing now that it's her and Damon against the world. Nobody thinks they will make it, hell almost everyone hopes they won't but as she looks up at him now, Adele thinks that they've got another thing coming.
"What happened?" He finally asks, his voice gentle as he unwraps the bloody towel from her hand, gazing at the gashes with furrowed brows. Some of them we're deep.
"I just…I broke a glass. I'm fine." She whispers pulling her hand away to shake it, the stinging hadn't faded but it was a distraction from everything else she was feeling. Though this was obviously an accident, Damon still feels annoyance bubbling in his chest as he bites into his wrist, pushing the bleeding wound to her mouth. She was always getting hurt, whether the wounds we're fatal or not.
She finally succeeds in pushing him away after he'd given her the amount of blood she'd need to heal if not more. He'd been doing that a lot lately, giving her more than she'd actually need to heal. She shakes her head at him because he knows that she hates when he does that but she knows he's never going to stop, as long as he had the power to heal even her smallest of injuries, he was going to do it.
*VD*
"So was Mason screwing with me or is there something there?"
She follows Alaric into the open area of the tunnels that Damon can't enter. It's a cave of some sort. It seemed weird to her, why couldn't he enter? Was it some kind of spell? If so there must be something in there worth something. Alaric is moving his flashlight around the walls and Adele uses her own to shine up at one of the walls away from the door.
Damon watches as his girlfriend's expression goes from completely blank to some kind of wonder filled confusion as she gazes up at one of the walls, her lips parted and her eyes wide. "Adele," He calls. "What is it?" But she doesn't answer as Alaric comes up beside her looking up at the wall with the same expression.
"She found something." He mutters.
"No shit." Damon snaps, his eyes falling back to her. "What is it?" He asks again and this time she shakes her head.
"I have no idea." She whispers but something was telling her that this new discovery was huge. Very huge.
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Previews for next chapter:
Everyone is trying to make sense of the cave.
Damon breaks Stefan out of lock up for some brotherly bonding.
And
Adele goes to Rebekah in hopes she'll share her past.