A/N: This is where the fun begins xD

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.


The following afternoon—the day of the comet—after Rory parallel parked the Bronco a few shopfronts down, she headed into the Mystic Grill for her shift. Not long after it had started, Rory's phone vibrated in the back pocket of her skinny jeans. She slowed in the middle of the floor, having been on her way to punch in the order for Table 11, and withdrew her phone to check it. Normally she would have avoided such blatantly unprofessional behavior, but Lauren had planned to try the assistants again after school.

There was a single text in the group chat.

LAUREN: GUYS IT'S A VAMPIRE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE ALSJKLSJDLFJSD

Rory's stomach dropped. What the fuck could be done about a vampire? Particularly a vampire who was being protected by the police for some reason? Could the entire town be warned and outfitted with stakes or garlic? Did either of those have any effect on vampires?!

She tried to control her breathing as she watched a series of texts from Mackenzie and a few more from Lauren appear in the group chat. I can't do this right now, Rory thought, and she glanced up and around the floor. It seemed strange that no one else was affected by this revelation, that the middle-aged women at Table 13 were still gossiping about other PTA moms and the twenty-somethings at Table 10 were lounging in their chairs—

Rory suddenly shoved her phone into her pocket and forced herself to continue walking, though her movements felt stiff. She had to focus. She couldn't—she couldn't figure out a solution to a mythological serial killer protected by cops in the middle of her shift, she had to focus—

She curled her hand into a fist until her fingernails bit into her palm, and the mild sting helped her tether herself to the present. There was no need to worry about the vampire while she was running orders to the kitchen and serving tables in the Mystic Grill, and there were enough people milling around town, preparing to watch the comet as the sun started to set, that she was sure the vampire would have to remain in the shadows for the time being. I'll figure everything out with Mack and Lauren later, Rory thought, and she nodded to herself as she continued into the kitchen with a more confident stride.

Rory remained focused for the ensuing few hours. It helped that some lower-level drama wandered in with He Who Must Not Be Named and Vicki Donovan. Tyler waved, surprisingly friendly about it. Rory gave him a half-hearted wave back and avoided Vicki entirely. From what she could see Vicki still had a white bandage on her neck but she otherwise seemed perfectly put-together, her wavy hair flouncy. Rory had glimpsed her once or twice at school the day before.

Vicki vanished into the back, maybe to talk to the manager about her shifts. A few minutes afterward, Rory spotted her brother slouching into a chair at one of the smaller tables at the edge of the floor. She hesitated. She'd overheard Aunt Jenna and Elena discussing the fact that Jeremy had already missed enough school to warrant a parent-teacher conference, and then he'd missed the conference. At this rate he was going to be expelled.

Rory could have tried to talk to him, but she was sure he wouldn't want to discuss his personal problems with anyone, much less her. She fidgeted with the pitcher of water she was holding and resumed returning it. She wasn't even sure what she could say to him—she couldn't think past her shift, because if she did she'd zip back to the serial killer vampire plaguing Mystic Falls and what the hell she and her friends were supposed to do about it.

She stopped by a few of her tables to check in before returning to the kitchen to snag a breadstick from the reject pile. Rory talked to her coworker Rachel Major, because hearing about Whitmore College drama was much better than thinking about a vampire or her brother's drama, and she ate another few breadsticks before reemerging to check on her tables.

This time, however, after she had refilled some glasses and returned a credit card and receipt, Rory spotted someone familiar at the bar.

Rory paused uncertainly between two tables, staring at the back of his head. He had messy black hair and though he was seated he was still tall, and he was sporting a black leather jacket. That was somewhat unusual for how warm it had been earlier, though she supposed it was September—

Oh my God, Rory thought as it struck her. That was Damon Salvatore: Stefan's older brother with the proclivity for hitting on minors. Rory winced and started moving faster, keeping her eyes away from him. She could only pray he'd managed to meet someone his own age.

Her shift did not improve, because five minutes later, Rory had to duck behind a dishrack to avoid Vicki on her way out. Rory needed to do another sweep of her tables, though, and had little choice but to follow her. She tried to keep some distance between them no matter how awkward her abrupt pauses might have seemed to any coworkers. Unfortunately when Vicki reached the bar she halted and peered down it. "I know you."

Rory stopped as well and leaned forward to sneak a glance around the corner of the door and out at the bar, wondering if Vicki was addressing one of the soccer dads she usually flirted with on her shifts. Instead, Rory saw with a start, Vicki had to be talking to Damon Salvatore. He seemed paler in the dim bar light. "Well, that's unfortunate," said Damon, his tone playful but with an edge.

No kidding, thought Rory. To avoid whatever the hell was going on there she hurried around Vicki and back out to the floor.

Rory took the checkbook from a table that had left and, out of morbid curiosity, glanced back to see if Vicki and Damon were still talking. They weren't—Vicki was striding down the side hall to the women's restroom. Rory looked back to find Damon and blinked. In the space of maybe five seconds, he'd outright vanished. His lowball glass was still half-empty on the thick wooden bar and he'd left a crumpled bill beside it.

She turned on the heel of her high-top, scanning the restaurant, but he was nowhere to be seen. The more she searched, eyes flicking across tables and booths and the groups hanging around the dartboards and pool tables, the surer she felt that he'd outright disappeared. The little hairs on the back of her neck rose as she started to pull the pieces together. The Salvatores had arrived when the vampire had started murdering twenty-somethings and both brothers seemed strangely timeless, and Vicki had claimed at first that a vampire had attacked her and she'd—recognized Damon—

Rory couldn't breathe and her heart was already pounding, but she jogged across the floor and down the side hall to the women's restroom to check. Please be in here, please God be in here

It was empty.

Rory leaned over to check beneath the faded beige stall doors and saw no feet, and although she listened for what seemed to be a full minute, all she could hear was faint chatter from customers on the floor and the Top Hits playlist her manager always had going over the tinny speakers. As she half-listened to the Black Eyed Peas song playing, Rory edged closer to the corner to ensure no one was crouching behind the tall potted plant. When she had confirmed she was alone, she swallowed hard and rotated toward the door.

Something was—something seemed horribly wrong, and she couldn't quite name it. Rory glanced at the sinks. One was wet, the porcelain tub shimmering slightly in the fluorescent light.

What did any of this even mean? Had Damon—was Damon murdering Vicki somewhere? Why hadn't he finished the job at the bonfire? Rory fumbled to pull out her phone as she crossed back to the door and reemerged onto the side hall, and she unlocked it with a few taps, but then she stopped, because she didn't know who to call. The police might consider her a threat, if they were covering for Damon, and it wasn't as if her friends carried stakes around.

Rory fidgeted with her phone and turned again, considering walking back out to the floor. She didn't—she didn't even know where Damon could have taken Vicki. From the little she could see the square was crowded outside, and it was definitely crowded in here. Why had Damon even chosen to attack—

Oh, shit, Rory realized. Damon couldn't have taken Vicki out through a window or even the back door or the side door, because he would have been seen. Rory pushed her phone into her back pocket and strode down to check the men's restroom, nearer the greenhouse window at the end of the hall and the distorted light seeping through it—but it was as eerily empty as the women's.

That left one option. Rory returned to the hall and the last door, which opened to the stairs up to the gravel roof. She'd only been up there once; it had to be where Damon and Vicki were. Rory stepped toward it and hesitated. It had to have been at least a few minutes, she reasoned. Surely Damon was done with Vicki by now and long gone.

Rory steeled herself and marched over to open the door to the back stairs, lit by one buzzing bulb on the wall. She trotted up them, trying to maintain some measure of composure even though she might have been about to find a dead body. When she reached the heavy door to the roof she didn't let herself stop but shoved it open. She stepped out onto the gravel, into the surprisingly cool night air, and turned—the roof was larger than she'd remembered and there were dark rustling pines lining the back—

And Vicki and Damon were standing at the front.

Rory took an automatic step backward. Damon was clutching Vicki by one arm and even at this distance Rory could see there were tears streaming down Vicki's face as she struggled futilely against him— "Rory run!" Vicki shrieked, her voice cracking.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Damon sing-songed as he clapped his free hand over Vicki's mouth.

Rory tried to think, tried to breathe, but her chest hurt and oh my God this is what I get for trying to help I'm going to d— "If you're really considering running, don't," said Damon, a confident and alarming smile twisting up one corner of his mouth. If Rory had thought him pretty for even a second during their previous encounter, all such admiration was long gone, and she couldn't imagine him looking any less ghoulish than he did in that moment, holding a crying teenaged girl hundreds of feet above a sidewalk and smiling about it, strange shadows flickering across his face from the nearest streetlamps and the candlelight below. "I'll shove her straight off the roof," Damon continued almost sweetly, "and rip your throat out with my teeth."

"Why are you even—?" Rory started, but she had to take another deep breath to regain full control of her voice and her facial expression. She did her best to rearrange both into something defiant or at least less terrified. "I—already told my friends you're the vampire. The whole town will be after you."

"Is that a threat?" laughed Damon in disbelief. Rory just stared at him and Vicki sniffled beside him, her hair a mess and her legs close to giving out. "Gutsy of you, Rory," Damon added, "but I already know you're lying. I can hear your heartbeat."

"I'm not lying!" Rory retorted despite herself. "I'm just nervous!"

In the next instant Vicki yanked against Damon with more fervor and he looked away from Rory. She took two steps back toward the door but faster than she could comprehend, in a whoosh of invisible movement and air, Damon was there and shoving her shoulder with such force that she hit the rooftop and her arm ripped open on the gravel—as her arm stung and blood welled in the scrape, Damon reappeared with Vicki at the edge of the roof. "Don't try anything else," Damon warned Rory with no amusement. "If you do I'll break your arm. Or your leg. I'm not picky."

Rory struggled to sit up, infuriated by her apparent helplessness, and she slapped around on the ground for a handful of the sharp gravel. There was no way she'd make it to the door and she couldn't yell for help or even call anyone because Damon could probably crush her phone with minimal effort. She and Vicki were going to have to double-team this jackass—

With a gust of night air, someone appeared on Rory's left, and she jumped. Then she stared, because the other Salvatore had arrived. She couldn't believe she hadn't registered how incredibly out-of-place Stefan seemed before now, even though he looked entirely normal, albeit almost too handsome, not one brown hair out of place. He glanced from Damon and Vicki to Rory, and his eyes widened. "Rory?"

Before she could answer, he seemed to zero in on the blood oozing from her arm, and she gritted her teeth. Great. Please God don't make me fight two vampires. "Um, yep," said Rory, and she nodded toward Damon. "Thanks for the warning about your murderous brother, by the way."

Damon almost interrupted her. "Not bad, Stefan!" he said, voice light and airy. "Have you been eating bunnies?"

"Let her go," Stefan ordered as he stepped down from his ledge and closer to Damon and Vicki.

Damon removed his hand from Vicki's mouth, shushing her as he did. "Really?" he said. He twisted back to look down over the edge of the roof. With a little shrug he said, "Okay," and pretended to push Vicki back—Vicki, Stefan, and Rory all yelped "No!" at varied levels, and Damon just grinned as he threw Vicki back down to the gravel rooftop. Stefan moved as if to catch her but Vicki managed to catch herself on her hands.

"Relax," said Damon as he hopped down from his ledge and strutted toward Stefan and Vicki, exuding confidence. "I don't need her to be dead, but…" Damon lifted his eyebrows at Stefan. "You might."

Rory tightened her grip on the gravel she still held and watched as Damon returned his attention to Vicki. "What attacked you the other night?"

Vicki sniffled and leaned back on one hand, facing Damon. "I don't know. An animal."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Damon as he crouched in front of Vicki. "Think. Think about it. Think really hard. What attacked you?"

There was a long, strange moment of quiet, during which Rory could only hear a burst of laughter from the people crowding the square below, waiting for the comet to pass overhead. Vicki's eyes widened. "A vampire."

"Who did this to you?" Damon demanded.

"You did!" Vicki shouted back.

"Wrong," said Damon.

"Don't," Stefan started—

"It was Stefan," said Damon. He grasped Vicki's arm to pull her to her feet and several steps back from Stefan. As he did Rory climbed to her own feet, clutching her handful of gravel and praying for an opening. Damon took hold of Vicki's head and forced her to make direct eye contact with him. "Stefan Salvatore did this to you."

"Stefan Salvatore did this to me," Vicki echoed, curiously blank.

"He's a vampire," continued Damon, voice lowering. "A vicious, murderous monster."

Oh, shit, thought Rory as she realized what he was doing. She'd never read about it before or even heard of it, but vampires must have had some sort of mind control ability. She remembered how Damon had tried to control her in the bookstore, ensure that she was charmed by him, and somehow the thought of what could have happened then made her even more nervous than the current situation.

She refocused on the confrontation between Stefan and Damon just as Damon shoved Vicki back at Stefan. Her bandage was gone, Damon throwing it to the gravel, and her neck was freely bleeding. Stefan caught her to balance her. "Your choice of lifestyle has made you weak," Damon told Stefan. "A couple of vampire parlor tricks is nothing compared to the power that you could have. That you now need!"

Stefan, still holding Vicki up, lifted his head toward Damon, and Rory saw his face change, dark veins cobwebbing out beneath his reddening eyes. "But you can change that," Damon continued as Rory watched with increasing disgust. "Human blood gives you that."

"No," Vicki managed, and Stefan threw Vicki to the ground. He leaned over, pressing his palms to his knees and grunting as he—Rory hoped—resisted the urge to drink Vicki's blood, and Rory took a few quick, quiet steps over to snag Vicki's arm and tug her back to her feet.

"Why are you up here?" Vicki whispered to Rory, still unsteady.

Because I just love doing shit for people who wouldn't do the same for me, Rory thought. "I don't want you dead."

Vicki blinked at Rory as though she'd never seen her before. Rory, however, continued, "We should try to make a break for it while they're—"

They'd already spent too much time talking—Damon returned to take Vicki's arm and pull her back into him. Rory watched, bewildered and alarmed, as Damon murmured into Vicki's ear, stroking her hair with his free hand. Rory couldn't make out what he was saying, but she caught sight of a hefty silver ring on one finger. It was identical to the one she had seen Stefan wearing.

Damon released Vicki and moved back, the gravel crunching beneath his boots. He glanced at Stefan and gestured to Vicki with one hand as though indicating an expensive gift—and Vicki, Rory saw with a start, had stopped crying. "What happened?" said Vicki. She looked around at all of them, confusion furrowing her eyebrows. "Where am I?" She gingerly touched her neck. "Ugh, I ripped my stitches open."

"You okay?" Stefan asked quietly.

"I took some pills, man," said Vicki with a laugh. "I'm good." She tossed Rory a glance as though daring her to judge and then she left, striding to the heavy door, slinging it open, and heading down the back stairs, her footsteps receding. Damon had to have used mind control on her again for some reason.

As the door swung shut, Rory realized much too late that this left her alone on the roof with the feuding vampires.

She gritted her teeth and faced them.

"Now," said Damon. He turned his attention to Rory and she tightened her grip on the gravel in one hand. "What are we going to do about you?"

"Just—compel her too," said Stefan.

"Would you believe it," returned Damon, waving vaguely at Rory. "She can't be compelled." He strolled toward her and she fidgeted with her gravel, wondering wildly where she should smack him with it—the forehead? The throat? "But we can't have Elena's sister go missing, can we?"

Even in that second, as she half-planned how to assault a vampire before he could assault her, Rory couldn't help but think Of course this is somehow about Elena. "What then?" Rory demanded.

Damon paused and Rory glared at him as he studied her face in calculation. Then he rotated back toward Stefan. "You know," he said, "it's good to be home. I think I might even stay a while. This town could use a bit of a wake-up call, don't you think?"

"What are you up to, Damon?" asked Stefan.

"That's for me to know and for you to…dot dot dot," quipped Damon. He turned to keep both Stefan and Rory within his sight. "Now," he continued, "if you want to see Rory during homeroom tomorrow"—the way he said it was somehow mocking—"I'd suggest leaving us. And don't hang around to listen in."

Rory couldn't imagine what the hell Damon could want from her. Considering the options included murdering her or worse, she thought, I will literally just jump off the fucking roof if he tries anything at all.

Stefan seemed as suspicious as Rory. "Why?"

"We want to discuss you and Elena, of course."

Rory and Stefan glanced at each other as Rory tried to think. "I'll—be fine," Rory decided aloud, and Stefan's eyebrows shot upward. "I have a backup plan." She saw Damon glance at her with evident amusement and ignored him. "I'll, um—" She couldn't ask Elena to text Stefan and let him know she was still alive, and she didn't have Stefan's number—

"I'll wait downstairs," said Stefan. He gave a sharp look to Damon. "Out of earshot." With that Stefan offered Rory a grim nod that she returned. He took a rather hesitant step toward the door. When neither Rory nor Damon moved or said anything else, Stefan seemed to vanish, moving so quickly the closing door was the only evidence he'd even been there at all.

Rory and Damon faced each other. He regarded her with an almost lazy smirk. "I assume," he said, "you're smart enough to realize if you tell anyone about this, they'll be dead by tomorrow night."

"Between 10 and midnight, I assume."

Damon pretended to applaud her. "Very good. You've been paying attention."

"But I want two exceptions," Rory interrupted.

Damon eyed her, his bright blue gaze unsettling. "Fine," he seemed to decide. "As long as neither of them are family members and neither of them will run through the town square screaming 'Vampire.'"

"They aren't, and they won't."

"Fabulous," said Damon. He took one long stride closer and Rory reflexively stepped back, but his hand shot out to grab hers. His grip was then strangely gentle as he forced her fingers apart to make her drop the gravel she'd been holding. The instant the gravel clattered to the rooftop, he released her hand. "Take out your phone."

The action and the order were so completely unrelated that Rory almost laughed. "What?"

"Take out your phone," repeated Damon, and he added a sarcastic, "Please."

He wasn't going to crush it, was he? Rory pulled out her phone. When Damon didn't make a move to take it from her she said, "Um, now what?"

"Play anything."

Right—this must have been to ensure Stefan, with what must have been his vampire hearing, wouldn't be able to overhear their conversation. Rory unlocked her phone and bypassed the numerous texts she'd received from Mackenzie and Lauren to open Spotify and shuffle the first playlist she could find. She turned the volume up until it was almost at maximum and soon Coldplay was blasting.

She glanced back up at Damon and found him watching her phone with clear distaste. "Coldplay? Really?"

Rory snorted. "Would you rather hear Katy Perry?"

Damon rolled his eyes and shifted, suddenly close enough that Rory could smell his cologne. She leaned back and he just moved with her, keeping his head bent down near her ear. "You're a Gilbert," he said, and his breath ghosted over her ear. "What do you know about the Founders' Council?"

"The what?"

Damon sighed. "Wonderful." She saw him shake his head out of the corner of her eye. "The Founding Families were all on an anti-vampire council some two hundred years ago, and if they aren't already active, they will be soon." Rory could only guess that was because he'd murdered the twenty-somethings. "The Salvatores were on it, and I'd assume my nephew is, but for obvious reasons I'd prefer to avoid joining him."

Rory had been under the impression the Salvatores only had an uncle, but she guessed a nephew made more sense if they were hundreds of years old. "So you want me to join an anti-vampire council?" Rory surmised. Then she remembered that the medical examiner had mentioned the Gilberts were a Founding Family—and she remembered that the Forbes were a Founding Family. "Would Sheriff Forbes be on it?"

"The Forbes are a Founding Family, so probably."

"What do you want me to get from it?"

"I'll ask for specifics later," said Damon. "You just need to join it. Give me that." Without waiting he snatched Rory's phone from her hand and, as she watched, he entered his number into her contacts and shot a text to himself. "And," he continued as he slapped Rory's phone back into her hand, "you're going to invite me into your house."

"No," said Rory at once.

"Yes, unless you'd like me to tear your throat out right now."

"Then how would you get information from the Founders' Council?" Rory snapped. Despite herself—because Elena did seem important to these two vampires for some insane reason—she added, "And how would you explain my disappearance to Elena?"

Damon shifted back to study Rory and she stared challengingly back. "Ugh, fine," Damon decided. "I don't need to be inside yet. But I will make it in, with or without your permission." Rory prayed he wouldn't. "Now. Tell no one about this except for your two friends or your boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever. I'll be in touch."

"I don't have—" Rory started automatically, but Damon took one step back, wiggling his fingers at her in a snarky little wave, and then he was just—gone.

Rory whirled to find him but saw only shadows and the brick chimney and the heavy door to the stairwell. She was out in the cool night air alone on the wide empty roof, Coldplay still blasting from her phone, blood still oozing out of the stinging gash on her arm. She paused Viva la Vida and lowered her phone to take another look around. There were no signs anyone had been there at all aside from some scattered gravel. Rory faced the ledge over the square and the visible leafy treetops, lit by the streetlight and the candlelight from the people waiting for the two-hundred-year-old comet, and the lines of darkened shopfronts across the square. She heard the low hum of voices from below.

It seemed beyond bizarre that no one had heard Vicki and Damon, the brothers confronting each other, or even Rory playing Coldplay. She remained there for a long second. Then she prayed for a minute and swallowed hard. She hadn't been to church in months and she couldn't believe she'd missed it for so long—not that, of course, she'd known she would be facing her own mortality shortly after junior year started.

Why was a vampire running around Mystic Falls, Virginia, ensuring an anti-vampire council was reconvened? Rory couldn't imagine Damon's reasons and she wasn't sure she even wanted to know. He could have been older than the building she was standing on—older than Mystic Falls itself—and he'd chosen for some reason to play a game in a small town in Virginia when he could have been in Greece or Australia or Japan—

Rory had to lean over and draw in a deep breath. She'd been to a few yoga classes and she did her best to remember a relaxing breathing technique she'd learned. When she was certain she could at least return to work and maintain some semblance of composure, she strode back to sling open the door and head down the stairs. As she did she briefly checked her phone and considered texting the update to Mackenzie and Lauren.

She didn't have the time to field any questions from them, though, and she was sure they'd have them. Rory hesitated at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the door that would open to the side hall, and checked to see what Damon had sent to himself. She realized that although he'd only sent a jumble of letters he'd saved himself under The Sexy Salvatore. She rolled her eyes and took a second to change his contact name to a row of angry red emojis.

Rory shoved her phone into her pocket and reentered the side hall. She stopped a foot in, however, because Stefan was waiting a few feet down the hall, leaning against one of the brick walls. "Hi," he said. He straightened and turned toward her, pushing his hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket as relief crossed his face. "You're okay."

The door to the back stairs swung shut and Rory almost jumped. "Um—relatively speaking, sure," she said to Stefan.

Stefan's gaze returned to her scraped arm and Rory sighed. "You should clean that up," Stefan told her, though he didn't lift his eyes from the scrape.

"I'll be back in a second," said Rory, and she hurried into the women's restroom, where she used crumpled paper towels and water from the sink to clean out the little pieces of dirt and gravel from the scrape. When she had finished doing so and the scrape seemed to be welling with less blood, she lingered in the bathroom for a minute, staring at her own reflection in the old mirror, her dark brown eyes and mussed brown curls. Even though her arm still stung and the unflattering lights and the music overhead were real—even though her lungs were working and her heart was beating—she felt almost—underwater.

Focus, Rory ordered herself. She wrapped her hands around the porcelain sink until the edges dug in. Go talk to the nice vampire before Robert kicks him out for loitering.

She managed to give her reflection a nod—then she rolled her shoulders back, summoned all the unofficial acting lessons she'd had over the years as she'd padded countless relationships with white lies, and headed into the hall. She found Stefan pacing near the door to the back stairs and as soon as he faced her, she pointed at him. "You have to tell Elena."

"I—can't," said Stefan with a helpless shrug.

"Why not?" demanded Rory, though she was sure she already knew the answer.

Stefan moved closer and stopped a polite distance from Rory. "No one can know," he told her. "And we just met last week—I can't tell her yet."

Rory sighed. "Right." She fiddled with the hem of her blue V-neck. "Just—you have to tell her before you two get serious."

"I'll tell her," Stefan promised. "As soon as I can."

"Hang on," said Rory. "How old are you?"

Stefan rolled his jaw and glanced aside, up and down the side hall to presumably ensure it was otherwise empty. He leaned in a little closer to Rory—staying as far away as possible, she noticed, from her injured arm—and said, "I was born in 1846."

Rory spluttered out a laugh. "You—oh my God, dude," she said, pressing one palm to her temple. "Why the hell do you want to date a seventeen-year-old—wait, why the hell are you even in high school?!"

"I—want to be normal," said Stefan with another little shrug, expression embarrassed and sincere.

Rory pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn't anywhere close to being ready to unpack that. "How many of you are there?" she asked, and she dropped her hand again.

"I don't know."

"How can you be killed?"

Stefan checked the hall again before he answered. "With a stake to the heart." His gaze swept over her face and he continued, "There's also a rare herb called vervain that can be used to repel us and prevent compulsion. But from what Damon said—"

"—I can't be compelled," Rory finished. Stefan furrowed his eyebrows and she said, "I have no idea why. I didn't know vervain existed until this second."

Stefan hummed thoughtfully. "I've never heard of that happening before."

Rory snorted. "Neither have—"

She was interrupted, however—behind her, back at the end of the hall and close to the floor, she heard her manager's voice. "Rory!" Robert barked. She winced and glanced over to find him staring at her in mingled disbelief and irritation. "Get back to work! You're not on break!"

"Sorry!" Rory returned. She took a step backward, toward the floor and Robert, but faced Stefan to say, "Thanks for waiting for me."

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" Stefan asked.

"Just Mackenzie and Lauren," said Rory. "And they can keep a secret." With that she turned around and hurried past Robert, who glared at her as she moved, and out to the floor. As soon as she had emerged onto it she stopped again, listening to the usual chatter of customers and clatter of plates.

With some effort she turned again and scurried back into the kitchen upon remembering her arm. Once she found a few Band-Aids she'd have to steel herself and pretend she had not discovered who the serial killer plaguing Mystic Falls was and that she had not, in fact, made some strange deal with him, and that everything was perfectly normal.

Although, Rory thought as she dug the half-empty box of Band-Aids out from under the sink in the break room, she was dead certain nothing was ever going to be normal again.