The first thing Vinny did was go right to a tourist shop and buy up a good deal of heat suppressants in all types. She took some before she was even out the door. No telling when it will happen, so better safe than sorry. Then she pulled out the map she'd also grabbed and began to think. Come on, Inga. It's your home. Surely you've visited it in other life times, too. Where is it now? She got nothing but an urge to get on the road. "Figures, I guess."
She quietly walked back to her house and stood on her front steps, hand on the knob. Her car keys were upstairs, next to her bed. If this is other stuff is real...maybe the ghost was too. And that's horrible because it means Clove got...murdered. Vinny twisted the knob and let herself into the house. The difference in temperature was immediately noticeable. Vinny held her hands up. "I just want my car keys. Please don't kill me." There was an odd ripple of air next to Vinny's ear and she fought not to scream when it morphed into a voice.
"It's not me you have to worry about, Vin." She whirled. Clove wasn't there. Clove wasn't anywhere. "Get your keys. I won't make you look at me anymore." There was a broken sort of sadness in the voice.
"Who killed you?" Vinny worked up her courage, not moving for the keys yet. "What happened, Clove?"
"I came to look at this grimoire you wanted me to have a peek at, and to hang out with you if I could." Clove paused. "I was looking entirely the other way on your front porch before I knew it; my neck twisted all the way around. I did see who killed me." Vinny waited. "Even in my anger I hesitate to say it, to potentially spoil any happiness you might get out of it."
"Clove, I swear to-"
"Your alpha, Klaus Mikaelson." Clove felt something in her heart drop and she whispered, newly horrified. Clove's head was... How could he..? "What are those people?" The horror began mixing in a sick manner with newly bubbling anger.
Still unseen, Clove whispered directly across her other ear lobe. "Get your keys and run, Vin. If they come back, I'll try to stall them. They won't take you, too. Not again." The presence seemingly lifted after this, the air warming. Vinny stifled a sob. This was all so much all at once and she couldn't even stop to properly grieve. She looked for her nonna's grimoire in the office on the way up for maybe five minutes. It was gone of course. Dr. Elijah, maybe? Marcel doesn't seem the type to steal books from disturbed young women.
She continued up and grabbed her keys before darting back down stairs and cramming herself into the car. She shut and locked the door and then took off into the night, her heart pounding.
x
Marcel kept his pace behind her, following from a distance. Wherever she was driving to, her movements were erratic enough it was hard to tell if she was actually sure herself where that was. Vinny was sure fighting this, every step of the way and Marcel again resisted the urge to give back all her memories at one time. He had done that before and it destroyed her incarnation at the time. She had thereafter only been able to rock on the floor, murmuring odd broken phrases to herself.
He wanted this to work. He thought he owed the young woman he knew from the trenches this much, seeing it through. She had kept him and his men alive in that lifetime, giving him her blood and his men too later. All willing, in the name of saving lives and ending the war. "Who am I to judge you? You're the same as all my other patients. Your diet is just a little different, is all." She hadn't even gasped in shock at him when he revealed the truth of what he was. She had been the one to suggest he turn the others in his regiment and then immediately offered bags of her own blood.
Vinny was her too, he knew. These lives, these women with the too-kind hearts... They were all the same soul, cursed to an eternal round-a-bout because of the Mikaelson family. "It will work this time." He said, more to himself that anyone who might hear and pushed his car back above an idle, trailing her as she moved up the road. Realizing she was in fact heading for Mystic Falls, he picked up his phone to call ahead. "I need a bit of a favor."
x
Although she wasn't too sure of where she was going, Vinny did note that...Something felt closer. By the time she reached Virginia she was starving and also startled to realize that although she had stopped for gas, she had not eaten since she left the French Quarter. The second thing Vinny realized was that she was practically dead on her feet. It had been well over twenty-four hours. Perhaps about thirty or so, with some change. So not only was Vinny dizzingly hungry, she was also bone-achingly exhausted.
Before exiting the car, she took more heat supressants and tucked the rest into her messenger bag. It normally held the tools of her school, but Vinny regrettably was finding it hard to place any importance on finishing her thesis these days; so now it housed all her travel goodies. She parked her car outside a dark green building labeled Mystic Grill and let herself in. As she was opening the doorway an officer came out from the inside and they collided. Vinny apologized, not looking up or making eye contact because the smell of unmated alpha was strong on this man. She read his nameplate and filed it away. Donovan.
"Are you alright miss?" He was quiet and spoke as if he were trying to coax a frightened animal. I feel like a frightened animal, so that's not that far off brand.
"Just really hungry. Been a long drive." Unbidden, Vinny yawned a yawn that stretched her lips to their max and then immediately felt dizzier than ever.
His hands steadied her back the shoulders and began to guide her back inside. "Caroline, I know you're trying to close early to get back to the school but I think she's going to faint." She was seated at a table as her vision cleared a little from the dizzy dots and Vinny found herself blinking up at a woman. A woman who, now that she had been carefully looking for it... maybe wasn't so human. Vinny tried to keep her recoil to a minimum. Is she really a vampire? The same thing as Klaus? She could rip my head off if she is. Oh fuck, what have I done? The woman, Caroline was talking but Vinny was looking at the officer with the last name of Donovan.
He was definitely something different than Caroline. A regular human, which really made Caroline's smooth predatory motions stand out. Vinny looked away, down at the table top. "I'm sorry." She said. "I keep fading in an out. If you could just make me a big basket of fries to go, I'll pay a little extra and get out of your hair."
Caroline appeared back in her view, sitting on the other side of the booth. She gently reached out to cup Vinny's cheeks. "No. No, the school can wait." Caroline's eyes were tearing up. "I never thought I'd be so lucky to run into you again. How are you doing, Chase?"
Vinny frowned at her, eyes narrowing as she scrambled for a response or a defense that would leave her less at a disadvantage. She deicded to play completely dumb. "I'm Vinny Morselli. I have no clue what you're talking about. I'll just leave...weirdo."
"Please...don't." Caroline stood at the same as Vinny and Vinny's fist closed around the mace in her pocket.
"Why not? You going to eat me? Rip my head off? Keep me in the basement as some form of food?" Whoops. There goes playing dumb. Vinny was shaking now, feeling scared and cornered and defensive. "I'm not going to die again." She began to back up, towards the other side of room where she had noted a back exit by the bathroom.
"What? No! I don't kill when I-" She took a deep breath. "I'll call Jeremy. Please...just sit down." Caroline held up her hands and began to slowly back away, toward the bar behind which was the kitchen. "I'll stay in your sight."
Vinny didn't sit. "If things like you can twist someone's head all the way around, I won't be fooled into thinking I'm faster than you." She glanced at the sheriff. "And what, does this mean I can't trust cops either? Do you all know what's going on?"
"Hey now." Sheriff Donovan warned. "Yes, I know about supes. That doesn't mean every cop does. Mystic Falls is...unique. You'll see if you stick around."
"Good luck making me forget. I drink the leaves." What the fuck am I saying? Vinny could feel her head whirling as something else within her stirred and spoke for her. The sheriff seemed a little startled but just kept silent. Caroline was speaking softly, but very fast into the reiceiver of the phone that probably got call in orders.
"Jeremy, I have someone here we both know and she's very scared and confused. How fast could you make it down to the grill?" She hesitated at whatever he was asking and finally answered. "Chase. I know, I know. I was at the funeral too. But its undeniably her. The scent is spot on."
"Funeral?" Vinny asked, mind whirling even harder. The sheriff gasped and reached forward with a cloth from his pocket to dab at her nose. Vinny didn't move and wasn't the slightest bit surprised when it came away red.
"You weren't supposed to hear that." Caroline looked chagrined.
"Well I did!" Vinny protested, finally sitting because she was just so sick. "What...what happened to me here? Dies everyone know about my multiple lives but me?"
"I'm afraid it will absolutely look like that, the more you find out." Came a voice from the doorway. Vinny froze as icy slivers of recognition filled her, accompanied by a pain in her throat and the cold feeling of blood loss. She looked at him, at the man in the doorway and screamed, fully aware now that this was someone who had killed her before. Vinny snapped up one hand and released a burst of alpha mace even as she was scrambling backwards, up from the booth.
She made contact with a solid wall of flesh and glanced up to see a worried looking man. At the same time that the killer clutching his eyes filled her with fear, this one made ber relax. "Why don't we have a seat, Vinny? I'll explain a bit more. Matt, for the love of- Get Damon out of here!" The sheriff moved to do so as the new arrival helped Vinny sit back down.
"Hello, Vinny." He began. "My name is Jeremy Gilbert. Yes, Damon killed you once. But let me explain why everything is different now." Vinny fainted, smacking her forehead on the table and letting go entirely. This is crazy. I'm going to wake up in my bed at college and tell nonna all about this wild bullshit.