Kill Or Be Killed - Part 2
Pearl wanted to feel like she could relax. She was in Richmond. She was out of Mystic Falls. No one knew where she was and she, theoretically, should be safe.
Still, that did not deter her from wearing a big floppy hat and large black sunglasses, on the cloudiest day ever, inside of the Richmond Airport.
She was trying to look inconspicuous (or as inconspicuous as one could be in large black sunglasses and a black floppy hat), so she had decided to "dress down" from what her typical attire would be like. Pearl had managed to compel herself a pair of "mom jeans" (it hurt her soul to put them on, but they were for the better cause) and a sweatshirt that had come from a nearby college, Whitmore. She had her daylight ring on (switched to her left-hand ring finger so all those persistent, ugly, middle-aged men would stop talking to her), and then had put on leather ankle boots (brown. She preferred black, but the brown ones were all that she could find).
She was sat in the uncomfortable chairs at the little coffee shop within the airport, wishing she had taken up that random product man's shouted offers to buy noise-canceling headphones. Every single grunt, sniff, and yawn within the airport, Pearl could hear. It was like jackhammers were being plunged into her skull at every moment, and it made Pearl want to shiver in disgust. She was clutching to a semi-full coffee cup, having drunk some of it already (she had also had to compel passengers to give her spare change; she wasn't used to this year's kind of monetary system just yet). Her fingers were shaking and she was taking loud and repeated breaths, no matter how hard she tried to settle herself.
Why was she doing this?
Why wasn't she running away?
Taking a page out of Katherine's book would have been much simpler.
Your guilty conscious, that's why, Pearl's inner voice reprimanded her. That's why you are here, in a place filled with humans, who smell delectable after having only animals for a week, and yet, you are refraining from sipping.
Refrain from sipping.
Refrain from sipping.
Refrain...
from...
A hand settled onto her wrist and Pearl froze.
The hand slid around her wrist, cradling it gently in its palm. The thumb of the hand started to stroke her pulse point back and forth, and the movement was almost hypnotizing. Pearl found herself attached to that movement, not able to tear her gaze away from that.
"No need to cause a massacre, Pearl," the voice hummed and a shiver raced down Pearl's spine.
She never thought she would hear that voice again.
"H-How -" Pearl began, cutting herself off with a cough when she realized that her throat was way too dry. She swallowed a little and then continued, her voice raspy, "- H-How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to realize you are at a breaking point with your hunger," the voice continued, and then Pearl felt another hand set itself onto her shoulder. While it started to rub her back, Pearl was mesmerized by the voice. Soft-spoken, raspy, and masculine. As if he hadn't talked in days. "When was the last time you fed?"
She knew that she had no obligations to tell him anything, but her lips found themselves speaking truthfully, "Two days ago. I found a few rabbits in the woods outside of the town."
The hand on her shoulder gave it a squeeze and his voice sounded stern. "Pearl..."
"I turned against my only allies in the town and they, reasonably, turned on me," Pearl found the smallest bit of sass still left in her. "There are much more of them than there is me. Doesn't help that my once best friend has decided to become Victoria's champion."
He tsked at her explanation, and his hand on her shoulder started to rub her back again. "Okay. We can hit up the hospital near here and get you some blood on our way to town." He let go of her and Pearl felt a shiver rush down her spine. He offered out a hand to her and Pearl's hand, without her consent, automatically snapped out and grabbed onto his hand.
Pearl didn't want to show weakness. To do that would be to offer oneself out for attack.
But he was the only person she really trusted in this day and age and she was tired of being alone.
He didn't say anything at Pearl's hand in his, but when Pearl peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, he had a small smile on his face. He allowed Pearl to lead him through the bustling airport, gently guiding her towards him whenever there was a large group of people (she did leave her coffee back at the table; a shame. The coffee shop in the airport was freaking expensive). He squeezed her hand whenever she flinched away from someone making a loud and unexpected noise (such as a baby crying or a woman screaming over the phone).
They had almost reached the entrance of the airport when a voice called out from behind the two of them, "Hey!"
Pearl knew immediately that the voice was directed toward her. She had hoped to sneak out of the airport without encountering that person again, but alas.
Pearl tried to tug her companion a little faster, and he seemed to understand how urgently she was trying to escape. He took the lead, trying to tug her away. They had just reached the swirling doors when suddenly, Pearl felt another hand try to grab onto hers.
Pearl flinched so hard that some of her vampiric powers oozed out. Her instincts screamed inside, deep in her body, and she ripped her hand out, slamming it back against her chest. She stumbled in a feeble attempt to get away, tripping over her own feet. Only her companion, with his fast reflexes, caught her in his arms before she could really fall. Her sunglasses, from the sudden jerk, whipped off of her face so she was now facing the owner of the hand.
"Whoa! Sorry about scaring you there," the middle-aged man chuckled, as if the two of them were close friends.
They were not close friends.
Jackson Beaumont was his name.
How did Pearl know this?
Because this man had singled her out the moment that she had stepped into the airport to pick up her companion. He was like a dog with a bone (or Damon with Victoria) and she was the bone (or Victoria, in this equation). Wanted to know if she was single, wanted to know if she wanted to get a drink with him after she was done picking up whoever it was she was there to pick up. She had to circle the airport five times, switch her outfit twice (which was why she was dressed down), and duck into many bathrooms to escape from him. She had hoped that that was enough to sneak away from him.
Evidently, it was not.
The manners that Pearl had embedded into Anna rose up and she swallowed heavily, nodding her head in a general acceptance of this man's presence. "Mr. Beaumont."
"Ms. Zhu," Jackson sniffed, giving her a sleazy smile. Pearl's hand clenched up and she tried her best not to shake. "The two of us got lost from each other a while back and I've been trying to find you. Glad you see you're alright." He looked up at the man behind her and Pearl noticed that his eyes noticeably hardened. "Who's this fellow behind you?"
Her companion stuck his hand out (specifically, Pearl noticed that it was his left one, and his daylight ring had been noticeably switched to his ring finger on that hand as well). "Hi, nice to meet you. You can call me Riah Zhu. I'm actually Mrs. Zhu's husband."
Pearl was glad that she was already on edge with Jackson there. If she hadn't been, she would have jumped at the audacity of her companion to lie and say that he was her husband (though she will admit, she blushed horrendously).
Jackson's eyes darkened a little at her companion (Riah Zhu...what a ridiculous name) introducing himself as such. He stuck out his hand and grabbed onto his hand, giving it a firm shake. Pearl could see Jackson's hand tense up, as if he was trying to squeeze with all his might. "Jackson Beaumont. Your pretty little wife and I got very well-acquainted today while she was waiting for you to show up. Where were you off to, leaving such a woman behind?"
"Riah" took Jackson's snide little remarks in stride and had an easygoing smile on his face as he chuckled, "Unfortunately, a work trip took me out to New Zealand for about four days. I wanted Pearl to come, but she offered to stay back in the states to look after my daughter."
"Oh, a little cheating done on the side?" Jackson bluntly commented, and Pearl's eyes snapped wide in disbelief.
How dare he...
Riah stiffened a little, and his smile turned feral. "Actually, my daughter's from a previous relationship. Pearl has been amazing with her, which really made me fall more in love with her. My daughter's a junior in high school."
"Your daughter look like you or your previous woman?"
"Neither. She was adopted," Riah grunted. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to get back to her. I don't want her getting worried about us being late."
Her companion moved to push the two of them out of the doors, but Jackson took an insistent step forward. "Well, Mr. Zhu, you should be aware that your wife here promised to have a drink with me after she picked you up. I like people who keep their promises so -"
In a flash, Riah's hand shot out and grabbed Jackson by the front of his shirt. He tugged Jackson hard enough and fast enough that Jackson stumbled towards them. Riah got his face close to Jackson's, close enough that only he (and Pearl) would be able to see how his eyes had turned a deep red, deeper than any vampire's eyes should be, and the dark veins underneath his eyes. When he spoke in his harsh whisper, the tips of his fangs showed up. "We're going to make things very clear here, Mr. Beaumont. I don't like you. You are disrespectful; a piece of trash. You have the audacity to insult me, to insult my wife, to insult a woman I once cared about greatly, and to insult my daughter. My daughter. If we knew each other -"
"- Holy shit, your eyes -!"
"- Be quiet," Riah spat, and Jackson's mouth continued to form words, but no noise came out. Frightened tears started to appear in this man's eyes as Riah continued, unperturbed. "If we knew each other better, I would have ripped your fucking spine out of your body and made you eat it before you died. However, since we are, unfortunately, only acquaintances, I will say this firmly." Riah's eyes did a shimmer and Pearl realized half-heartedly that he was compelling Jackson. "You will go home and you will sit on your couch for two whole days. You will not sleep. You will not eat. You will not speak. You will just sit and contemplate every time you have insulted, demeaned, or hurt a woman or a man. Once that is done, then you will go out and you will do everything you can to make things right. If you do not succeed by the end of this year, then you will sell everything you own. Now, forget you ever saw me, my wife, and do not remember that this conversation has happened."
Then, Riah gripped Pearl's hand tightly and the two of them were running, and not like humans. They sprinted like vampires and they only stopped once they reached a dark corner of the parking garage. Pearl was placed in the corner, her companion looming large over her. He had his hands planted firmly on either side of the wall and his shoulders were heaving, as if he was struggling to breathe.
"Are you -"
His head slipped forward until his forehead and resting against Pearl's and the movement was enough of a surprise for Pearl to shut herself up (it also knocked her hat off). His eyes were closed and when he panted, his breath spilled out across her face. It didn't feel disturbing...
...it was actually kind of nice.
"Please don't speak," Riah murmured. The dark veins underneath his eyes were still there, and they didn't look like they had receded even a shade of color. "S-Sorry, that's rude. I'm just trying to calm down and when you speak, all I can think about is what he called you and how much I want to tear him open."
Pearl kept herself silent, though it did pain her to see the man in front of her struggling as he did. He usually had excellent self-control, so to see him so bothered and worked up about a crude man's comment about her (and his daughter) was, dare she say, kind of attractive?
(No, she had to have better self-control than that).
Pearl swallowed heavily, but eventually, she found the bravery to reach out and gently cup the back of Riah's neck with her two hands. Riah exhaled shakily, as if all the tension in his body had dissipated, and the veins under his eyes went away. After a few seconds, he pulled his hands away from the concrete wall that Pearl was backed up against, moving them to settle against Pearl's hips. Pearl had never really had a man touch her hips the way that Riah was (and no, her first husband did not count; he had touched her out of duty) and it made her want to blush all over.
Pearl, cautiously, stroked the baby hairs at the back of her companion's neck. His chest hummed as her fingers moved, almost like a purr, and he pulled Pearl closer to him so their chests were basically touching. Pearl let out a mini gasp and her companion's eyes snapped open immediately. They were back to their light blue hue, and they were concerned and worried. About her. "R-Right, sorry."
He moved to let go of Pearl's hips, but then she had to blurt out, "You were dead."
Her companion froze, not sure if he was supposed to pretend that he didn't hear her and move on, or let her say her peace. In his silence, Pearl found all the words that she had kept deep inside of her spilling out.
"Y-You were dead and I-I just ran a-away like a coward," Pearl whispered, feeling her chest begin to tighten up. Was the room spinning or was it just her? The entire world felt like it was starting to tip on its axis. Her hands started to slide off of his neck, drifting down his chest as she started to breathe heavier and heavier. "I-I hid and I-I scavenged and I-I prayed, every day and night, that I-I would be killed b-because I was a horrible, d-disgusting wretch of a person. I d-deserved so much w-worse than what I got."
"No, you don't, Pearl," her companion cooed. One of his hands moved to cup the back of her neck, the other circling around to place itself at the small of her back. She was undoubtedly trapped within his arms, and it was a place that she didn't mind being in, she found. "You don't deserve that, Pearl."
"I-I deserve that and much worse," Pearl quoted, speaking the words she had said that night.
"It's time to let go, Pearl."
"B-But I-I...I-I killed you."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, filling her eyes to the brim until they couldn't hold anymore. She was still able to see her companion, though, and the warm, gentle smile he had on his lips. "And yet, I'm still here. You know what you did was wrong, Pearl. You repented. And here I am, your road to redemption.
"I-I'm so sorry," Pearl sobbed, and all her perfectly crafted restraints tore apart.
She threw herself at her companion, wrapping her arms around his strong chest and sobbing into his shirt. He didn't even falter, immediately moving to hold her too. The hand behind her neck swooped up, carding its fingers into her silky locks and keeping her pressed against his chest. He spoke soft, gently cooing phrases of words, some in English, some in broken Italian. Pearl shook and cried and cried and shook as she let herself feel him underneath her.
He was alive.
He was alive.
He was alive.
She wasn't alone anymore.
Victoria liked to think that she looked alright. Not normal, mind you, since she had just spent a good five minutes sobbing in the back of her mother's car over a letter that her mother had written, but alright. However, when she had managed to catch up to Damon, one look was all it took for him to grab her and pull her into a hug. With a low voice, and words whispered through clenched teeth, he growled, "Who do I need to kill?"
Victoria just sighed and rested her forehead against Damon's shoulder. "No deaths needed, Damon. Just read something...sad, that's all." She pulled her head back and kissed his collarbone. "Thanks for the worry."
"Of course, Baby," Damon stated, as if threatening to kill people for her was a no-brainer. He pressed a kiss to her temple and then asked, "Hey, Mama Bear, can I ask you something -?"
"- Sure -"
"- Seer something," Damon interrupted, giving Victoria a look. Victoria nodded her head and took a step closer, hugging Damon lightly and resting her head against his chest so she looked like she was simply hugging him. Damon duck his head down, wrapping her up in his arms and he whispered, "Something is up with Liz. What is going on?"
Victoria was silent for a moment, racking her brain to try and figure out why Liz was acting weird. A thought raced past Victoria's mind and she breathed out an "Oh." She patted Damon's back and whispered in return, "Because a certain someone stabbed another certain someone's hand, that stabbed someone told Liz that you and Stefan were vampires."
Damon tensed up in surprise, but Victoria gave him a harder squeeze. "Don't worry. She doesn't believe Mason at all, but he says he's going to try and get proof. I can't remember what it is just yet, but I'll keep thinking to make sure."
"Thanks, Mama Bear," Damon replied, giving her a final squeeze before he stepped back. "Perhaps me and your stepdad should have another little chat."
"Hey now," Victoria interrupted, glaring at Damon. She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her best disappointed look. "Are you not even going to apologize for stabbing Mason?"
"Should I?" Damon reasoned, raising an eyebrow in question.
Victoria sighed. "Yes, Damon, you should. You had no reason to stab him. He wasn't antagonizing you."
"He tried to kill you -"
"- Under the influence of a full moon, Damon. It's like you when you tried to kill me after being starved of blood -"
"- He was in cahoots with Kelly when she caused Pearl to kill Zach -"
"- But he wasn't the one who stabbed him," Victoria spat. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to try and center herself. "I don't want to argue with you, Damon, but I need you to realize that making yourself an enemy of Mason makes all of us an enemy of him. He has Kelly on his side," Does he? a small voice inside of her whispered, "he would have Tyler on his side, which is another werewolf, and maybe even Richard Lockwood, who is yet again, another werewolf. Damon, they bite you, you die. There is no cure for you here."
"So I won't get bit," Damon shrugged off Victoria's worry and that only added fuel to the fire which was her annoyance and anger.
"There are thirteen other people you have to worry about besides just you, Damon," Victoria retorted. "Stefan, Lee, Lexi, Harper, Caroline, Bonnie, Amber, Ms. Gibbons, Alaric, Jeremy, Jenna, Elena, and me. What one of us does affects everybody else. So please, for everyone's sake, for my sake, don't antagonize Mason anymore. We can't move on if you keep wanting to rehash every single issue point between the two of you."
"Have a little more faith in me, Mama Bear," Damon sniffed, giving her an eyeroll and a smirk before he started to saunter away. Calling over his shoulder, he shouted, "Safety is my middle name!"
"It's Francesco," Victoria murmured under her breath as she walked him stalk away.
She felt a presence sidle up right next to her, and she knew it was Caroline without having to even look behind her. "Was that your guys' first fight?"
"Caroline, the moment we met we were fighting each other," Victoria laughed darkly, shaking her head.
Caroline rolled her eyes as she came up to Victoria's side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her. "Yeah, but that was before you two were 'together'. Was that your guys' first fight since you started dating?"
"Well, considering we've only been 'dating' since yesterday, I can tell we're already off to a great start," Victoria hummed, frowning. "I hate dating. And romance."
"No, you don't," Caroline argued with her, knocking their two shoulders together. "You don't like conflict. It stresses you out."
"Yes. Yes, it does," Victoria just agreed, nodding her head. She let out a breath. "Any idea where Lexi and Lee are off to?"
Caroline just shrugged. "I thought I saw them off to the side, helping Jenna with something, but I lost them in the crowd. There are so many people here!"
"It does seem more crowded than I thought it would be," Victoria mused, glancing around. It was a huge mix of all ages, from babies to literal elders who looked on the verge of death. Everyone was helping out, though, with a cheery smile on their faces, and a plastic cup of what looked like lemonade in their hands. "Is that lemonade?"
Caroline nodded her head. "Yep, it is! Charity Fell set up a little stand underneath one of the covers further into the park. I heard about how she wanted to raise a little money to get a puppy."
"Nice," Victoria laughed. "Lemonade is pretty good..." She trailed off, her brow furrowing in confusion. Her brain was pounding in her skull, like she was missing something important. "Lemonade...?"
Then it all clicked.
Vervain.
There was vervain in the lemonade.
That was how Liz found out about Damon and Stefan.
And, eventually, Caroline.
"Shit!" Victoria hissed. She started to sprint through the crowds of people, trying not to look too panicked so she didn't set off anyone's mental radar. She danced around couples and small children who looked like they had been playing in the mud nonstop. She pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed until she finally caught sight of Damon's back. He was speaking to Mason, but Mason was leaving and Stefan was just arriving, the trademarked disappointed brother look on his face. There were too many people for Victoria to try and hear their voices, but then Damon had turned and was bending down to pick up a drink of lemonade.
Victoria reached him just in time. He had brought the drink up to his lips just when Victoria snatched it out of his hands. A little bit splashed out of the cup, but it thankfully missed Damon's hand by just an inch, landing on Victoria instead.
"What the hell?" Damon swore as he saw Victoria standing suddenly in front of him. "Mama Bear?"
"Thanks for getting my drink for me, Damon!" Victoria cheerfully lied, shotgunning the lemonade back. It burned against her throat the way that lemonade typically did, but she smiled through that burn and playfully teased, "One time of you stealing all of my drink was enough to teach me a lesson."
Victoria stepped forward and nuzzled her nose against Damon's chest, whispering under her breath, "Vervain."
When she stepped back, Damon's eyes were hard and he nodded his head firmly once. He put on a teasing grin and sighed dramatically. "A man has to try, doesn't he?" With his smile, he whispered through it, "I'll text the others not to drink it."
"Good," Victoria laughed. Her throat still burned a little against the lemonade, so she coughed to try and clear it up. She swallowed a few times, working salvia down her esophagus, and then mused quietly, "Mason's gonna know that his plan failed the moment that he learns you didn't drink it. But, at least, Liz will -" Another tickle came up in Victoria's throat and she coughed again. "- Sorry. Liz will know -"
The itching feeling in her throat was so insistent that Victoria moved her hand over her mouth when she coughed. These coughs shook her whole body as she tried to settle the itchiness within her throat.
"Geez, Mama Bear, can't handle your lemonade anymore, can you?" Damon teased.
Victoria let out a sigh as she drew her hand back. It felt a little sticky, which was weird. "I guess I can't -"
She froze.
The stickiness that she had felt on her hand...
...was blood.
Deep, dark crimson ribbons of blood splattered against her palm like some puddle.
It was also then that she felt something tugging at her, from deep in her stomach.
An insane chill hit her then and she let out a raspy gasp, a shiver rushing down her spine and it hurt. It hurt much worse than a shiver should. She stumbled to the side, but Stefan was there in an instant to grab her.
"Tori?" Stefan questioned, but Victoria couldn't answer him. The world was spinning and the itchiness in her throat was only magnifying by the second. She shivered in his grasp, and barely heard him when he said, "Tori? Damn it, Damon, her nose is bleeding."
"We need to get her out of here right now," Damon ordered.
Victoria felt herself being wrapped up in two pairs of arms. The world was getting too blurry now. Her legs worked, but they felt like they were made of jelly. Her lips felt damp and so did the stretch of skin between her nostrils and her lips. Breathing felt like she had an elephant in her chest and everyone just hurt so bad.
Hurt.
Hurt.
HURT.
MAKE IT STOP.
All hell broke loose the moment that Victoria collapsed.
With the help of his baby brother, Damon had managed to direct the Immortalis out and away from the crowd, moving deeper into the park. They had managed to get into the woods, far enough away that nobody could see them and nobody could hear them should an issue occur, when Victoria's legs finally gave out on her.
Stefan and Damon both hadn't anticipated her collapse, so she noodled her way out of their grasp and hit the dirt floor. Her whole mouth looked like a murder show, blood dribbling from the corner of her lips down her chin, and whole rivets of blood dripping down from her nose. Her eyes were filled with the black-and-white ooze (though it was more of a lighter gray than white) and it didn't appear like she could see or hear anything anymore.
Once her head hit the ground, everything shook. Damon and Stefan stumbled, trying desperately to keep their feet underneath them. The ground acted as if it was at a rave, jumping up and down and shaking this way and that. Damon could hear the panicked and frightened screams from the park filter in through his ears. He paid it little attention, as the now seizing Victoria was taking up too much of his focus.
Her body was convulsing, more and more blood coming out from her body, and her convulsions were timing too perfectly with the shaking of the ground.
"Victoria's causing the tremors!" Damon growled to Stefan. "Hold her so she doesn't herself more!"
Stefan nodded, dropping to his knees and pulling a shaking Victoria's head into his lap. Victoria didn't even flinch at the sudden movement.
Damon whipped out his phone and dialed Lee's number, hoping that Victoria's earthquake hadn't knocked out any of the cell towers.
It didn't seem to be the case, because Lee answered immediately with a, "Please tell me that you have Victoria safe and sound."
"She's currently having seizures and we have no idea how it happened!" Damon snapped back, tripping over his own feet and using a tree to keep himself propped up. "And yes, it is causing the ground to quake. What's the read on Amber? Is she causing this?"
"Doc?" Lee asked incredulously. "You seriously think she's causing Victoria to do this?"
"The last time Victoria seized, Emotional Barbie was the cause!"
"Amber hasn't and is still not having any sort of emotional breakdown," Lee explained, and through the phone, Damon could faintly hear Liz shouting out orders to deputies. "Did she eat or drink anything?"
Damon swore under his breath in Italian. "Of course she fucking has. The lemonade was spiked with vervain. Who knows what else was smuggled into it?"
Stefan shook his head on the ground, struggling to maintain the convulsing Victoria in his lap. "John Gilbert was the only one who knew about Victoria's issue with wyrmwood. He's not even in town anymore. Do you seriously think that somebody else could have spiked the lemonade with something? With what?"
"That, Stefan Salvatore, you will never know."
A loud gunshot rang throughout the forest and, like a switch, the earthquake stopped. Stefan let out a howl of pain as he flinched away from Victoria, who was now sporting a lovely bullet hole straight through the heart (and because of the way she had been propped on his body, he too sported a new bullet hole). Victoria's eyes fluttered shut, and the earth shook no more. Damon's head whipped around to the side, watching Mason Lockwood lower a smoking gun.
"You fucking asshole!" Damon swore, feeling his fangs drop and his eyes darken with bloodlust. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"
Damon moved to lash out, to jump towards Mason, to do anything. However, Mason dropped to the ground like a stone and more gunshots rang out. It felt like hot irons were being shoved into Damon's chest and he dropped to the ground with shouts of pain. His brother had a similar echo of pain, but was quickly silenced by something.
Damon felt something prick against his neck and the most unimaginable pain raced through his system. When he looked up, the face of Elizabeth Forbes was the last thing that he saw, tears in her eyes and a look of utter betrayal on her face.
Something was wrong.
Nothing was right.
This was a different type of wrong than what Kelly had been feeling for days. Kelly had been feeling wrong (guilt, the inner voice within her cried out. You are feeling guilt) ever since the night of Caroline's transition (and the night she had helped be reasonable for Zach's death) but this feeling of wrong was wrong enough that Kelly stumbled while in her kitchen, her mug slipping from her fingers and landing on the floor. It shattered into a million pieces and Kelly could feel her heart physically pound against her chest. Her hand shook as she moved to palm the area.
There had been a slight tremor at the edge of Mystic Falls, the news had been crooning out for the past few minutes. No one was injured, thank goodness, but the volunteer day at the park had been pushed off until a later time, no one feeling safe to be underneath all those large trees.
Nothing ever good happened in those woods, did they?
Kelly slipped out her phone, moving to dial Mason's number to double-check that he was alright. He had told her before he left that morning that he would have his phone on him at all times in case Victoria decided she wanted to call her after reading her letter (if Mason had managed to convince her daughter to read the letter; there was no certain way of knowing).
However, just as she was about to hit the call button, that extremely wrong feeling hit her once more and she found that she couldn't do it.
Kelly's brow furrowed in concern. This kind of feeling hadn't happened since Victoria's transitioning into the Immortalis. And if she had been transitioning into a Realized Immortalis, there would have been a bigger fanfare, wouldn't there have been?
Her phone started to buzz. A different number. Bonnie's.
Kelly hit answer, too distracted by the feeling in her chest to muse about the fact that Bonnie was one of Victoria's friends and shouldn't have been calling her. "Bonnie, are you okay?"
"Are you feeling this too?" Bonnie pleaded, her voice sounding thick with emotions.
The motherly instinct in Kelly reared its head and she stepped out of her kitchen, moving to pace in the hall. "Yeah, Bonnie, I am. I need you to take a deep breath, okay? Center yourself with something, anything. Deep breath in," Kelly pretended to inhale loudly so Bonnie would be forced to follow her, "and a deep breath out." She let it out in one large gasp of air. "Do that a handful of times, sweetheart."
Bonnie did as Kelly said and Kelly continued to speak, knowing that if she explained her feeling, it would help ease Bonnie's fears. "Sometimes, witches can get premonitions. They are usually done in the form of really vivid visions, but in other cases, they can come on as cases of heartaches. And I don't mean a breakup kind of heartache. Like, your heart feels like it's shriveling up and it is about to break into a million pieces."
"Y-Yeah, it feels like that one. The second one."
Well, that wasn't reassuring. "Yeah, mine feels that way too," Kelly admitted. "It means that something bad is going down."
"But what?"
"The last time I felt this way, Victoria had been murdered and had come back as the Immortalis," Kelly mused, her eyes drifting over to the TV, which was still recounting the news of the tremors. It had switched to a reporter (someone much better than Logan Fell, thank goodness). "But I don't think that it is her transitioning because it would have been a much bigger deal than this..."
Right behind the reporter, Kelly watched as a group of people went running past.
She knew that group of people.
Elena, Caroline, Lee, Lexi, and Amber.
Shit.
Something had happened with Victoria.
"Kelly?"
"Something's wrong with Victoria," Kelly explained, rushing around to try and find a good pair of shoes. She found some boots that would work for her purposes and slipped them on, silently cursing herself when she struggled to do such a simple task by herself. Damn fever. "Bonnie, I need you to stay inside. I don't know what's causing Victoria's powers to go haywire, but if things go south, I don't want your powers to get exposed."
"But, Kelly, if I stay back, then I can't help -!"
"You can yell at me and blame me all later!" Kelly swore at her. "Right now, stay safe. That's an order."
Kelly hung up and grabbed her jacket from the coat rack. She threw her phone into her pocket and slipped it on hurriedly. She threw open the door and suddenly found herself face to face with him.
"You're dead," was the first thing that came from Kelly's startled lips, her brain unable to contemplate the sheer impossibility that was the fact that he was alive.
"I've been getting that a lot," he answered, his voice seemingly gruffer than before. Behind him, Pearl Zhu stood at the bottom of the stairs to the LeBlanc porch, looking at Kelly with an unintelligible emotion in her eyes. "You are feeling it, right?"
You can figure out all of this later! screamed the inner voice in Kelly's brain. You need to find Victoria, now!
"Something happened with Victoria. She caused tremors over by the new park," Kelly explained, stepping outside and shutting her door behind her. She locked it for good measure too. "If it's what I'm remembering it to be, then we need to go to the Lockwood old cellars in the woods. That's where they are going to be keeping them."
"Them?" Pearl asked for clarification.
"Originally, it was supposed to be Damon and Stefan. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if it was Damon, Stefan, and Victoria," Kelly explained. She pushed past the man who very well shouldn't be alive and jogged down the stairs. "We need to get there fast."
"Then it's a good thing I got the perfect vehicle," he chuckled darkly, rounding the corner faster than Kelly.
Kelly was confused, but she soon understood when she got her driveway in view and saw a perfectly-refurbished Mustang in her driveway. "Do I even want to know where you got this?"
"A guy at the airport was an asshole so I stole his car," he simply replied. "Now, get in. Let's go get our girl."
When Damon opened his eyes again, he first registered the sound of a gunshot and then hot searing pain within his leg. Damon let out a grunt of pain, already starting to become desensitized to the feeling of the wooden bullets buried deep within his body. He could feel at least one in his leg, three in his torso, and one in his bicep that was really starting to sting. He was sitting down, pressed up against a wall with his arms hanging above his head. A weak tug from his hands told him that the chains were embedded deep within the wall and with the amount of vervain racing through his bloodstream, he wasn't going to be breaking out anytime soon.
Maybe never again.
Liz Forbes' voice echoed throughout the darkness of the cell he was in (it honestly looked like the prison cells underneath the boarding house, but he knew that that was too on the nose to really be true). When he focused his eyes more closely, he could see Liz standing with her sheriff-issued revolver at the mouth of the cell. "This is how it's gonna work. Answer me and you don't get shot, understand?" Damon swallowed heavily. "How many of you are there?"
"Liz, please -"
Another gunshot rang out from within the small space and this wooden bullet landed straight into Damon's hip. The pain flared and Damon couldn't help but whimper in pain, a scream wanting to come out but he kept it shoved down.
Liz took a step forward, frustration and betrayal in her teary eyes. "How did you fool us? How do you walk in the sun?"
Damon couldn't answer it. Victoria's words from earlier echoed in his brain. What one of us does affects everybody else. He refused to be the weak link that killed all of his friends and the little family that he had left.
Liz angled the gun away from Damon and fired it again. He heard the sound of flesh squelching and he clenched his fists when he realized that it had been Stefan, and Stefan had been placed into his cell with him. "I will drag this out painfully."
"But you're my friend," Damon whispered, panting painfully.
"Our friendship was a lie," Liz growled, swiping angrily at her face. "You betrayed me, Damon. I-In a way that I never thought you would. You took friendship from me. You took Victoria from me!" Damon must have pulled a face at that comment because Liz took a step forward. "I helped raise that girl, Damon. She and my daughter were best friends. Do you think I enjoyed watching as Mason Lockwood, the girl's father, shot my daughter's best friend because she was one of you? No, Damon, I didn't, just like how I didn't enjoy logging her body down here with you so I can watch her reanimate herself because wooden bullets don't kill freaks like you."
"Liz, f-for your safety," Damon wheezed, tilting his head to the side. There. Victoria was lying up against the metal bars that connected their cell to a different cell. She wasn't chained, but her shirt was red with blood and Damon could still point out the little puncture wound from where Mason's bullet had made her heart stop beating. "Y-You need to go."
"Answer my questions and I'll kill you fast," Liz issued, leveling her gun down at Damon once more. "How many of you are there?"
"Six vampires, one witch, one Empath, four humans, one doppelgänger, and one Immortalis," came Lexi's voice from behind Liz. "If I counted correctly, that is."
Chaos erupted within the cells. From the darkness, Lexi and Lee leapt out like vengeful spirits. They attacked the deputies littered throughout the cells like they were mere fruit flies. Bullets soared through the rooms, banging on the stone walls or cell bars. A couple seemed to catch Lee's arms, but nothing could stop Lexi. Perhaps it was her hundreds of years of experience that kept her too nimble for the wooden bullets.
Damon's eyes wearily spotted Amber at the mouth of the stairs, her hands outraised (with a slight shake to them) and a determined look on her face. Her mouth was set in a tight, straight line. Every guard seemed to move more sluggishly than they should, and Damon even caught a few of them yawning sleepily. Maybe Emotional Barbie does a better job than I give her credit for.
Liz darted out into the hallway, gun raised as she moved to shoot at the darting figures of Lee and Lexi. She was so far forward that she didn't notice the body of somebody slipping past her and entering the cell behind her. She whipped around and gasped, "Elena! What are you doing here?"
Elena was kneeling beside the limp body of her boyfriend, her eyes hard with determination. "You can't kill them. I'm not gonna let you!"
"That is enough!" Liz shouted, and then did something that Damon never thought that he would say.
Liz popped off.
Liz flipped around and shot with such precision that Damon swore she must have been some sort of assassin in her past life. It only took one shot at Lee to get him down to the ground, clutching at the bullet wound in his chest as if he had just had the wind knocked out of him. Lexi took at least five bullets, but even then, she was down kneeling by her boyfriend, hands clutching at her chest as her blood rained out of her like a river. Liz whipped around to Amber, who was distracted by the fact that Lexi and Lee had just been taken down like they were toddlers, and took two steps so she was face-to-face with the young girl. She brought her revolver up and brought it back down onto Amber's shoulder, essentially pistol-whipping her. Amber wasn't used to pain, so the sharp hit was enough to send the girl to the ground (it didn't help that Liz must have broken a bone in Amber's collarbone with that move). Liz grabbed Amber by the scruff, dragging her back to the cell and tossing her down at the feet of a limp Victoria. She then took her time, marching over to Lexi and Lee before shooting them both up with syringes filled with vervain. Their cries of pain filled the room, but Liz ignored them as she marched back toward Damon.
There was a faint noise, like footsteps on the stairs, and Liz whipped her gun around, firing off one shot, without even turning her head away from Damon's stare to look at who she just hit.
Maybe she should have.
Caroline slammed to her knees with a cry of pain, her hands clutching at the gaping bullet hole now in her stomach. Tears streamed down her face.
Liz's eyes filled with fear and she whipped around, crying out, "Caroline, no!"
She moved to lunge to her daughter, now well aware that she had just shot her, when three deputies (who had miraculously survived Lee and Lexi's slaughtering) grabbed her, keeping her frozen in the doorway to the cell. "Sheriff, don't! She's one of them! I saw her eyes!"
"N-No, i-it can't be," Liz denied, shaking her head frantically. "I-I can't be."
"We need to kill her along with the others, including Amber Bradley," one of the other deputies said. He looked into the cell, sneering at the girl crying in pain by Victoria's feet. "She may not be a vampire, but she helped two of them kill our colleagues. By that rank, she's an accomplice."
"Let's do this," stated the remaining deputy. "Each with a stake in the heart, then burn them all."
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," a new voice, a familiar voice, echoed throughout the underground cellar. The deputies and Liz looked around in disbelief, trying to pinpoint the sound of the voice. "I have a rather invested interest in keeping them all alive."
And then the room exploded with light.
A lightning bolt shot out from the stairs, hitting the nearest deputy, the one who dared to say he wanted to kill them all. The lightning bolt picked him up from the sheer force of it and knocked him against the far wall. He hit the wall with a strong crack and when he flopped to the ground, Damon didn't hear his heartbeat anymore.
The second deputy panicked and tried to draw his weapon, but couldn't do it in time. There was a sudden crunch of bones and then, a bloodied hand was stuck through the chest of the deputy, a still beating heart in the perfectly manicured hands of a woman. The hand disappeared within the next moment, and then, the body went sailing from view, revealing the vampiric face from a woman that Damon had never seen before (he was much more used to the poised look that came from this woman's non-vampiric side).
The third deputy, while his friend was being murdered right in front of his eyes, managed to draw out his weapon, leveling it at the woman's head. A loud gunshot rang out, but the bullet didn't come even close to her head. Instead, a different hand shot out, grabbing the bullet with its fingertips. It threw the bullet back, and it sunk itself into the third deputy's neck at such speed that he dropped down to the ground, dead.
Liz stumbled back towards Damon, tripping over her two feet, landing flat on the ground right in front of him.
It also revealed the faces of the three people standing right in front of her.
"N-No..." Liz whispered in defeat. "Not you too."
Kelly LeBlanc, standing tall though looking like she could really use a nap. Her skin seemed paler than it usually was, and she looked like she was about ready to keel over. She was covered in sweat and her whole body shook with what looked like chills.
Pearl Zhu, whose vampiric features were finally fading away back to the face that Damon had grown to hate. She brought her hand up, the bloodied one, and took a lick from it, giving a little sigh at the taste.
And then, the man in the middle.
A man that Damon never thought he would see again.
It was -
"- Zach?" Damon whispered broken, his words raspy as his throat filled with emotions.
Zach Salvatore looked down at Damon with an awkward smile (a smile that was so him) and gave him a nod. "Hey, Uncle Damon. Missed me?"
Sudden movement erupted from the corner of Damon's eyes. Victoria stirred, and then her eyes shot open. They were still colored by the inky black and light gray, and they settled onto Liz Forbes' fallen body quickly. In a flash, Victoria was lunging for Liz, her arms outstretched, fingers more like claws, and a snarl on her lips. Liz, from years of experience, was surprisingly faster. It was like a quickdraw unfolding right in front of Damon's eyes. Liz whipped out her revolver and let out one singular shot (her last, if Damon had counted correctly).
Victoria fell in a heap of limbs to the ground at Liz's feet, a bullet hole straight through her head.
Liz dropped her gun, tears cascading down her eyes. Damon could see the horror start to grow as she just realized that she had just shot her daughter's childhood best friend straight through the head.
Across from him, Zach just sighed. "Yeah, that's not how I wanted my reunion back with Mystic Falls to go, but I should've known better."
A/N: I am so freaking livid right now.
I had written the ending of this chapter in record time (well, record for this year, at least). I felt proud of it. I was so happy with how it turned out. It was my favorite scene I've written for all of Season 2.
I went to save it...
...and then fucking Fanfiction decided that that was the perfect time to reboot the site, thus, making me lose all of it.
1,200 words worth of writing, down the drain (basically everything past Amber slowing down the guards).
This, what I wrote here, comes nowhere close. I had to try and remember everything that I had written and I am so angry that I am going to post this chapter tonight, just out of spite.
TAKE THAT, YOU FREAKING WEBSITE!
I will finish this editing of this author's note tomorrow morning when I am more awake, but I just had to let this come out first.
Seriously though, who guessed that Zach was still alive? Who? Y'all, I legit killed off my main character and then brought her back. You seriously think people die in this story? No, they don't. That's not what we do here.
Again, I'll edit this better tomorrow, so come back late tomorrow afternoon if you want to see replies to your comments from last chapter.
See you soon!
BecomingFearless1F