It took us a while to return home. We all were exhausted after previous events and wandering through the woods for quite some time in almost complete darkness. Jeremy and the girls were still quite shaken, only Bonnie was physically drained as well, constantly shivering every time she remembered that someone possessed her and used her body to do whatever they wanted. I can't even imagine how she felt to be honest, that part of ancestral magic always disgusted me the most, aside from some other quite nasty things. I wouldn't be surprised if she decides that she doesn't want anything to do with magic after tonight.
I, on the other hand, was neither shaken nor exhausted (for obvious reasons), just hurt. Physically and magically. The wound on the back of my head almost stopped bleeding, but my whole back was completely soaked in blood at this point, which was really uncomfortable and disgusting, by the way. It was the second time when I was almost drenched in my own blood, I hoped it would never become a routine. The exorcising spell also took a lot out of me, it wasn't an easy spell to perform after all.
So you can imagine how we all looked like, when we finally got home and were met by our freaked out aunt.
"Where were you?" she asked furiously, obviously trying really hard not to shout. "The house is empty, the door is locked, the cars are still parked in the driveway. I didn't know what to think! You could've at least called..." she then gave me a better look and froze for a second, before rushing to my side. "Oh my God! Is that blood?"
She turned me around and tried to remove my hair to examine my neck where she spotted blood, only to gasp when she realized that it was stuck to my back, completely drenched in blood.
Everyone else too noticed the amount of blood and second later the room was filled with gasps and shrieks, getting on my nerves a little bit. They were just a bunch of fraidy cats.
"Thalia!"
"Oh my God!"
"Why didn't you tell us it was this bad!"
Elena looked like she wanted to rip my head off and mother me to death at the same time, and I didn't know which one was scarier. Jeremy's face was ashen, all color completely leaving his face, but he was the only one who was silent, I think he was just in shock. Caroline looked like she was about to start hyperventilating and even Bonnie, who a second ago didn't even have the energy to move her legs, looked like she was ready to go running to find some help if necessary.
I waited for a few moments, but seeing that they weren't about to stop put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. Everyone shut up immediately, so I turned to Jenna, who looked like she was on the verge of tears and calmly said: "It's okay, it's just a scratch. I fell and hit my head pretty hard, but it looks worse than it actually is, I promise." It really wasn't though. The last hour I've been high on adrenaline, so I didn't quite feel the pain and couldn't identify the damage, but now I could say that it was pretty bad. Still, I wasn't going to let anyone know, when I knew that I would be okay in a few minutes. Nothing that a few gulps of a good old vampire blood couldn't handle.
"Thalia, you don't look okay, we need to go to the hospital." Jenna looked determined, but I didn't want to go to the hospital, always hated them for obvious reasons. Even though my dad was a doctor, he always had a hell of a time trying to convince me to do my usual check-ups.
"Do you trust me? You know that I would've told you right away if it was something serious, right?" She looked me in the eyes for a few long seconds, it honestly felt like eternity, but she knew me quite well and she knew that I would never lie about such things, so she finally nodded and took a deep shaky breath in a futile attempt to calm herself down.
"Don't you ever scare me like this, Thalia. Do you understand me? Ever. I'm too young to have grey hair."
"I'm sorry, but you know I can't promise that," I smiled, cupping her cheeks and planting a comforting kiss on her forehead. She huffed, annoyed by my cheeky reply but then smiled weakly, showing that she wasn't freaking out anymore.
"Now, tell me what really happened? Something's telling me that you didn't just fall. And you too," she said to others, giving each of them a quick once over. "By the looks on your faces, it's something serious."
"They'll fill you in, I need to go take a shower until all this blood dries out," I tiredly said and started climbing the stairs, secretly happy that I wasn't the one to tell her about 27 hungry, murderous vamps, that could pop up and start a massacre in Mystic Falls at any time. "And I suggest you all to go and have some hot tea. You all look like you need it."
I've spent almost forty minutes soaking up in a shower, washing dried blood out of hair was a bitch. Literally. The wound was already healed, I didn't waste a minute and took a few gulps of Nik's blood the moment I was alone in my room.
I would've spent much longer under hot, relaxing water, but something told me that I may be needed downstairs to calm down my aunt. I couldn't let her stress herself out over the threat that wasn't even quite real yet. That's why I quickly dried myself with a towel, wrapped a smaller one around my hair and got dressed in my comfy pajamas planning to go downstairs, but when I almost reached the door, my phone started ringing where I left it on my bed. When I saw the name on the screen I instantly knew that my aunt would have to wait for a little while longer.
"Hello, princess." Nik's husky voice instantly finished what's been started in the shower, relaxing me almost to a consistency of a puddle of pink water.
"Hello, handsome," I murmured, lying down on my bed.
"Are you busy? Or am I interrupting the girls' night you told me about earlier?"
"Nah, I just finished washing out the dried blood out of my hair, which was extremely hard to do by the way, and I don't have much to do at the moment."
"Did you just say dried blood? Whatever you've gotten yourself into this time, my little witch?" he asked, the mix of worry and exasperation clear in his voice, making me chuckle.
"You know, the usual," I replied with amusement. "A century and a half years old dead witch possessed my friend and attacked me."
"The usual indeed," he murmured quietly, not thinking that I would hear him, but I did. And after my indignant "hey!" he continued as if nothing happened. "You know, I've been through many horrendous occasions throughout my long eventful life and not one of them was able to give me gray hair, but something's telling me that you may end up doing just that."
"Huh, my aunt just said almost the same thing," I said thoughtfully and heard him chuckling.
"I do feel her pain," he sighed and I couldn't hold a quiet snort. "Now tell me what exactly happened."
It took me a few minutes to catch him up on the events and all the while I was talking he just quietly listened, not interrupting me even once. When I finished, stopping to catch my breath, I heard him letting out a tired sigh. Poor man must've realized that he involved himself in a mess that was Thalia Gilbert's life.
"So, let me see if I got everything right," he started speaking, not even trying to hide an exasperated amusement in his voice. "There's a tomb with 27 desiccated vampires, who spent a century and a half down there slowly going insane. Your friend was possessed by her very dead ancestor who sealed them in back in the days, and destroyed something that she thought to be the key to breaking that seal. But she happened to be wrong, so you are going to open it yourself and burn all those poor lads because they were wronged by your ancestors and because of that they will want revenge on their descendants, which includes your family, and your town. Did I miss anything, love?" His voice was dripping with sarcasm and to be honest I felt an urge to laugh hysterically too when I realized how insane it all sounds when it's coming from another person. Yep that's just my fucked up life now.
"You forgot to mention that I'm letting Damon Salvatore get the love of his life out of there before burning those poor lads, as you called them, alive."
"Ah yes, my apologies. That is indeed a very important piece of information," he snorted and I could almost see him rolling his eyes. "It's all interesting and informative, but I heard you mentioning that you've just got out of the shower. Now answer an important question, my love... are you still only wearing the towel?"
So, when I finally went downstairs I wasn't quite able to get rid of a dirty grin that threatened to split my face in half. I still didn't forget about all the drama that was supposed to be going on downstairs, so when I finally reached the kitchen I was surprised to find only Aunt Jenna sitting at the dining table with her face buried in her hands. I sat beside her and she jumped a little, startled by the sudden movement and I smiled at her apologetically.
"Sorry, I didn't want to scare you."
"It's okay. I guess I was just too deep in my thoughts," she said and returned the smile. "Why are you blushing?"
"Ah, I just got out of the shower, you know, hot water and all that," I mumbled, embarrassed, as if she could find out what was going on inside my mind a few minutes ago.
"You know what I love about you the most, dear niece of mine? You never lie. Because when you do it's written all over your face. Your boyfriend called, didn't he? You always have the same expression after being on the phone with him," I think I became even redder after those words, making her laugh at my tomato red face.
"Umm, where's everyone?" I quickly asked, desperately trying to change the subject until I exploded from embarrassment. Now I know how my siblings feel when I tease them. Not that I would quit of course. Embarrassing them was my sacred duty as their older sister.
"Nice try, but okay. I'll take pity on you, you've suffered enough," she smugly said before finally answering my question. "They went to their rooms, they all looked quite drained after everything that happened, especially Bonnie. Poor girl." She sobered up when reminded of the conversation that she had had earlier and I rubbed her back gently, silently apologizing for bringing it up.
"Everything's gonna be okay, Auntie. I'll never let anything happen to my family, I promise."
"That's what frightens me the most! You are only eighteen, you don't have to deal with all this," she suddenly exclaimed, finally revealing her concerns. "You should be hanging out with your friends, making art and being all lovey dovey with that mysterious boyfriend of yours, which I'm yet to meet but I like him already for being good for you. That's what I want for you. That's the only thing that my sister ever wanted for you." Silent tears started falling down her face and I wasn't any better, but I tried to fight them back, I needed to be strong for my aunt's sake. If she thinks even for a second that I'm burdened by this role that I willingly took upon myself, I would never be able to prove her wrong.
"It's okay. It's not like I'm not doing all of that already, I'm just really good at balancing things," she snorted and took the tissue out of its box to wipe away her tears. "You know what uncle Ben told Peter Parker? With great power comes great responsibility. I'm not saying that I have some great power and I'm in no way a superhero, I don't care much about other people. What I do care about is my family. I would've ignored the tomb, but it was a potential unknown threat at first. Then, when I realized that all those vampires would most probably seek vengeance on founding families if they get out of that tomb, I knew that I couldn't just walk away, especially when I have the power to stop them. They'll come after my family. I'm not letting that happen."
She watched me for some time and there was such a strange emotion in her eyes that I couldn't quite understand. What I did understand was that she was immensely proud of me, and that feeling sent me on cloud nine from happiness.
"Your parents would be so proud of you," she simply said and I felt tears trying to find their way out once again. Stop trying to make me cry, woman!
"You know, it was so hard for me to understand the meaning of a family when Miranda and Grayson took me in," I slowly said, looking at the picture of them hanging on a nearby wall. "It seemed just so surreal, the very thought that people can be nice too. I was waiting for them to drop the act and reveal that it was all just some another sick trick my torturers were playing on me, another attempt to make me break. I've met you and uncle John and both of you seemed to accept me immediately. But sometimes I wanted to scream at you to stop pretending, that I knew that it cannot be real. You all didn't look real." I heard her quite sobs and smiled gently not still turning to look at her. "I could see that you all felt it, like I was ready to burst any moment but you never stopped "acting". Then one day, out of the blue, Mom put sleeping Jeremy on my lap as if she did that a million times before and just left to do her own business. I was shocked. Even with my ill experience with people, with my birth mother who gave me to them willingly, I knew that children were most precious things for their parents and I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand for the life of me why that woman would... trust me, a broken girl with so many psychological issues, with her most precious thing. And then I looked at Jeremy, really looked for the first time, and my breath got stuck in my throat. He was so... tiny, and and adorable... and so... defenseless. I stroked his little cheek almost absentmindedly, I just couldn't resist. Then he woke up and I was afraid that he would start crying, but he just smiled at me... so sweetly... and I was lost. I realized that these strange people weren't acting, they weren't trying to fool me to feel for them, only to throw me away later because they realized that I was broken too severely and couldn't be fixed. It was all true. That's when I started realizing what it means to have a family." I finally turned to look at weeping aunt Jenna, and gave her the brightest smile that I could manage. "So when I say that I will do anything to protect my family, I mean anything."
She threw herself at me and squeezed me hard in her embrace, wetting my pajama top with her tears, but I didn't mind at all. I hugged her equally hard and started running my hand up and down her back. It took her a few moments to gather herself together. She gave me one last squeeze and broke the hug, grabbing a few more tissues.
"You know, Miranda didn't hesitate even for half of a second when she found out that you had no relatives. She told me that she instantly fell in love with your beautiful green eyes that looked almost comically huge on your tiny little face. She said that those were the eyes of a fighter, not just a survivor. And she was right. You are a fighter, Thalia. And I guess I can't quite make a fighter stay out of a fight, can I?"
We both laughed and I could feel sadness washing away, replaced by silent joy. It was so comfortable that it felt like good old times, when Mom, aunt Jenna, Elena and me would kick dad and Jeremy out of the house and sit down to gossip. I never thought that I would be able to feel that special atmosphere ever again.
"Tell me what happened at the Grill, when we left," I asked, suddenly remembering that I left her alone (almost, they were in the same room) with her crush. "Were you able to flirt with Mr. "tall, smart and handsome"?" I wiggled my eyebrows at her and she burst out laughing once again until calming herself down enough to answer my question.
"Yeah, thanks for that by the way. I told him that you ditched me and he took pity on me," she laughed again probably remembering their conversion. "We spent quite a good time together and he even walked me home."
"Your night went quite well then. Sorry for ruining it for you."
"Oh, don't worry. It was ruined long before you got home," she huffed making me raise an eyebrow. She saw that and just said: "Logan is back."
"What?!" I almost growled instantly feeling pissed at the git's audacity. "What did the shithead want?"
"You know, the usual crap. Said he missed me, begged me to invite him in, hinted that I have no self-control whatsoever. I shut the door right into his face," she finished darkly with a smug smirk on her face.
"He didn't try anything funny, did he?" I swear, the asshole is begging to be beaten.
"No, just kept asking to let him in and give him another chance, like I would ever do that."
"Well screw him. I'll deal with him if he shows his ugly face ever again. Now tell me everything about your little date with my history teacher."
We talked for a while, giggling at how sexy Mr. Saltzman was (I hoped that Niklaus would never hear about this conversation, by the way), then she tiredly said that she would call it a day and retired to her room, so I went to my room, grabbed the bottle of bourbon that Damon gave me on my birthday, and went to Elena's room to see what the girls were doing.
The girls were talking, and looked like they've been on it for quite a good time. I waved a bottle at them when they all turned to look at me, making their faces lit up with joy to my endless amusement. My little drunkards.
"Here, you all look like you need this, especially you Bonny," I said giving the opportunity to make a first swallow to her, as to someone who had it worse than everyone else tonight. I waited till she took a first swig and passed the bottle to impatiently waiting Caroline and asked. "Are you okay?"
"More or less," she shrugged and I noted that she did look better than she did when I saw her last time. "I'm just angry that someone who's related by blood would do that to me. She didn't care about me at all, she just used me and didn't even have a decent enough reason for that. Not that any other reason would've justified her actions anyway."
"Yeah, totally not cool," Caroline nodded, passing the bottle to Elena after taking a sip. "I would've never done that to my great grandchild. That's just immoral. Are all witches like that?"
"The ones that practice ancestral magic, I suppose so, yes. I don't think that she was like that when she was alive though," I mused accepting the bottle from Elena. "The Other Side changes people and by people I mean witches."
"What's the Other Side?" Bonnie asked confusedly.
"I guess you never got to that part in your witchcraft lessons with your Grams, did you?" she shook her head and I took a good few gulps of the finest bourbon that I'd ever had, making a mental note to thank Damon for it later, before continuing. "It's the place where all supernatural creatures go when they die."
"Wait. Like a purgatory?" Elena asked, quite interested in the topic.
"Well, not quite. It's just the place that the witches of old times created to escape oblivion, their own version of immortality. They all can see what's happening on this side, watch their descendants, which they do like all the time and sometimes influence or affect them. Like it happened with Bonnie."
"So, you mean that some creepy dead witches or vampires or whatever, can be watching us like right now?" Caroline looked equally disturbed and disgusted by the idea, and from the looks on their faces the others felt the same.
"Probably some of Bonnie's ancestors are doing that at this moment. Maybe even Emily."
"Well, screw you, Emily!" A quite tipsy Bonnie suddenly said loudly, and a second later the window burst open from what looked like a strong gust of wind and the girls jumped. I kinda expected some shit like that, witches were suckers for drama after all.
"Good Lord," Elena whispered looking at the window with huge eyes. I rolled my eyes at the spirit's antics and waved my hand closing the window shut.
"Well, she definitely heard you Bonnie," I simply said, trying really hard not to laugh at their gobsmacked faces. Second later my words sank in and Caroline burst out giggling and did it so enthusiastically that we all followed after her right away. I was glad that girls were having a good laugh, it was better sometimes to laugh something off rather than to worry over it.
"Okay, I don't want to talk about dead witches anymore," Caroline whined after catching her breath. "Let's talk about something else. Oooh, I know, let's talk about boys." Her enthusiasm was able to lure other girls in and they suddenly all turned to look at me at once, their eyes burning with curiosity.
"Why you all are looking at me?"
"Well, you are the only one who's in the relationship at the moment," Caroline said in duh manner. "Elena's been on and off with Stefan from the very beginning, not going further than a few make out sessions. Bonnie's been alone for quite some time now, after she broke up with Paul last year. Me and Matt are just looking at each other from afar and I don't think that it would change any time soon. So, yeah. You are the only one left, and don't even try to play a long distance relationship card young lady, we know that you've been seeing him every time you left town."
"Caroline's right. Tell us about your trip to Atlanta. It's obvious that you've met there. How'd it go? I remember you being sad that he never called on your birthday." I looked at a genuinely curious Elena and thought about brushing them off again as I did many times before. I just never felt comfortable with sharing the details of my relationship with Niklaus as everything about it was deeply personal and intimate. But then I thought that it would be a little unfair, knowing that others always shared willingly the details of their love lives.
"Well, I arrived to Atlanta when it was already late and spent the rest of the evening cleaning the house, so no he didn't call that day," I started with a small sigh and took another sip from the bottle. "Almost all the next day I spent in business meetings driving around the city, and it was late evening when I finally arrived home and started making dinner for myself. My grandma had a huge collection of wines in the cellar, so I fetched one bottle and was about to spend the rest of the night alone when... someone knocked on the door," I paused when Caroline squealed "yes" and couldn't help but snort. All of them leant in closer to me, eager to hear the rest of the story.
"Please tell me it was him! This is like, so romantic," Caroline demanded enthusiastically and I happily obliged.
"Yes, it was him. Can you imagine my shock when I've found him on my doorstep? I was so happy. He apologized for being late for my birthday and then we had dinner, and then talked and danced and... well you got the idea." I gave them a knowing look and blushed slightly at their excited exclaims. It took them a while to calm down, at the end I was as red as tomato hearing their theories of how we spent the night.
"You know, you never showed us his photo. Don't tell me that you don't have one I won't believe you," Bonnie curiously mused and others looked at me like hawks.
"She's right you know? You never showed us the man who's swept you off your feet," Elena wiggled her eyebrows making me snort.
"You mean to tell me, that she never showed you his photo? You are her sister!" Caroline was shocked.
"I know!"
"Okay, okay, calm your tits. I'll show him." I tried to understand how I ended up in this situation and realized that it was all my own fault. I should've never tried to avoid showing them his photos, because the longer I refused the more they wanted to see him. But in my defense, I didn't have any of his photos when they asked me the first time. Then when I finally took a photo of him I realized that it wasn't exactly the type of photo you show someone else. And then I just forgot.
So I rolled my eyes at them and summoned my phone from where I left it on my bed, I kinda felt lazy to actually go and grab it, then opened the gallery and started scrolling through my photos.
"What in the world?" Caroline shrieked and I looked at her confusedly. They were all looking at the phone in my hand with huge eyes.
"That was awesome! You need to teach me how to do that," Bonnie asked her eyes shining with excitement. "This is the first time when I saw magic do something useful so far."
"Well, I'll show you how to do it later. It's no big deal. I just enchanted it so I could summon it any time when I can't find it." I shrugged my shoulders and returned to scrolling until I finally found the right photo. "Here. This is my Nik."
They instantly forgot about the magic that I performed earlier and leaned closer to my outstretched phone, almost hitting their heads while trying to take a closer look.
"Wow," Caroline said throwing a look at me then returning to the photo.
"He's cute," Bonnie smirked
"I wouldn't call him cute," Elena murmured.
"Elena's right there's nothing cute about him. He's gorgeous," Caroline sighed with a mock dreamy smile, batting her eyelashes at me then asked, "Can I enlarge the pic?"
I just nodded and thought about the picture that I was showing them. It was a selfie actually, the only photo of us both that I had. We were relaxing on a couch when I said that I wanted to take a mutual photo. I was looking in the camera with a happy smile on my face, but he was looking at me and even though he had his usual smug smirk on his face, the look that he was giving me was full of tenderness.
"Wow, the way he looks at you," Elena smiled gently, while Caroline tried enlarging the picture. They kept looking until...
"Sweet baby Jesus..." Bonnie half shouted half whispered, looking at the screen with huge eyes and blush blooming on her face. Elena and Caroline didn't look better, though Elena quickly looked away with tomato red cheeks.
I became suspicious and turned the phone to see what'd made them react like that and instantly blushed myself.
"Caroline!" I tried to give her a dirty look but failed miserably.
"I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose, I swear!"
It turned out that Caroline skipped to the next picture while trying to enlarge the previous one. But the picture that they saw was exactly that one picture that I didn't want them to see, a picture of a shirtless Nik standing in front of the half finished painting. He was engrossed in what he was doing and never noticed me taking a picture of him. He looked so sexy with messy hair, his veiny hands covered in paint and you could also see his tattoo. He looked totally delicious there and you probably realized that it was exactly the picture I would look at when I missed him.
"You shouldn't have done that, Caroline Forbes," I said in an ominously calm voice, doing my best to keep a poker face. The girls exchanged nervous glances and prepared themselves for my outburst. "Now I have to erase your memories, but before that..."
I didn't finish the sentence and leapt at Caroline and started tickling her with no mercy.
"No! Please! Erase my memory all you want, but stop tickling me!" she begged but to no avail. Others started laughing but unfortunately for them I noticed that and... well... it's safe to say that no one escaped my wraith.
We goofed around for a while before finally setting up for the night. Everyone was exhausted but luckily I managed to lighten them up at the end. We decided to stay in Elena's room, Caroline and Bonnie took Elena's bed while me and Elena lay on the floor in our sleeping bags (our usual routine during sleepovers) on either sides of the bed.
I was almost asleep when Bonnie who was lying on the side of the bed that was closer to me, suddenly called out my name.
"Thalia?" she whispered. "Are you asleep?"
"Not yet. What's up?"
"I never really thanked you for what you did back there in the forest when you kicked Emily out of my body, so I'm doing it now. Thank you. You have no idea how much it means to me." Her voice broke at the end and I grabbed her hand that was hanging from the side of the bed and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"You're most welcome, Bonnie Bennett."
When I came downstairs the next morning ready for the jog, Jeremy was already waiting for me in the hallway.
"Good morning," I greeted him and ruffled his hair affectionately, before starting stretching.
"Morning," he mumbled suppressing a yawn, then he instantly became serious as if he remembered something. "How are you feeling? You lost a lot of blood yesterday. Maybe you should rest today?"
"I'm feeling great, don't you worry. Besides, if I skip today I'll become sluggish and won't be able to wake up properly." I finished stretching and looked at him expectantly. "You ready?"
He nodded and we went on our usual route around the neighborhood. The sun's just started rising, so it wasn't completely dark outside, but everything was as if painted in grey and for some reason I felt that it was ominous. I was also feeling extra energized today, but it was probably the post effects of Nik's blood that I consumed yesterday.
We returned home after half an hour and went to the backyard to do our usual training. I instructed Jeremy to start doing push-ups and went to my favorite punching bag. All in all I managed to make it look even worse than it did before and finished with a thought that I needed to buy I new one quite soon.
After the training we went upstairs to take a shower, making an agreement to meet in the kitchen in 20 minutes. I took a quick shower, got dressed in a black turtleneck, black skintight jeans and heavy combat boots. I stood in front of a mirror and pulled my hair up in high ponytail, applied some red lipstick and did a quick once over, only then noticing that I was dressed in everything black. I smirked at my own reflection, grabbed my black coat and an already prepared school bag and went to wake up others.
For breakfast I decided to cook some pancakes and a fruit salad for everyone. While I was cooking, Jeremy made a few trips to the closet bringing back every interesting journal or book that caught his eye. I guess he was determined to show Mr. Saltzman that he was right to give him a second chance. He gathered everything on the kitchen table and started going through them one after another. Few minutes went silently, only the sound of pancakes being flipped in the pan filling the kitchen, until Jeremy started reading out loud drawing my attention to his person.
"I live in fear. It consumes me. In the early evening when I see the sun begin to fade, the fear comes, because I know that the night brings death." He finished reading and looked at me thoughtfully. "You know when dad tried to make me read this back in the days, I lied and said that I did, while in truth I just flipped through it after reading the part about vampires. I thought that maybe the author was a fictional writer or something, and while I appreciate some good fiction it just seemed a bit too dark and... uneventful I think. But now I understand that the man was just freaked out by vampires and was slowly going insane from that fear."
"Jonathan Gilbert?" I just asked glancing at him from the corner of my eyes.
"Yeah, you've read this?"
"Oh, honey, I've read and memorized all of them, even though unintentionally," I sighed, internally cursing my perfect memory. It was exactly in times like these when it became a curse, when you read some dull, boring or literally bad book and then can't forget it no matter how hard you try. Or in times when it's the exact opposite, when you read a really good book and after some time you decide to reread it in hopes of experiencing the same emotions that it brought you the first time, but you can't because you remember it almost by word. It sucks.
"Hey look," he exclaimed taking something out of the book and showing it to me. It was a drawing of something that looked like a vampire face, with fangs and all that. "He was a decent artist as well." He then pulled his favorite sketchbook and a piece of charcoal out of his backpack and started recreating the drawing from the journal.
I finished cooking, served the table, reloaded the coffee machine and poured two glasses of orange juice, before going to look at what my adorable brother was drawing. I set Jeremy's glass on the table where he could reach it and leaned over his shoulder, taking a peak at his sketch.
"Have you ever thought about starting doing this professionally?" I asked, gently running my fingers through his hair.
"Drawing? I don't know, never thought of it. Why?"
"Well it's the career fair today if you remember? Just came to my mind, you know? I know that Elena already decided to become a doctor, so I thought that maybe you have something in mind already as well."
I smiled gently at the thought of my sister. Our dad's job always fascinated Elena, making her want to be just like daddy. He was so proud when she told him about her decision last year.
"Well, I have few more years to decide, so..." he just shrugged carrying on with his drawing, not really thinking about the future. "What about you?"
His question surprised me somehow, even though it wasn't that unexpected.
"I've been thinking about attending a business school or whatever and opt for distance learning."
"What? Why?" he frowned, finally looking at me.
"You know why," I sighed and took a sip of my juice. "I'm already running my family business. And even though my grandma did teach me everything about it and it doesn't really require my closest attention, I still need to do everything not only to not ruin it, but to potentially make it prosper in future. And to achieve that I need to learn how not to screw up." I ruffled his hair one last time ignoring his grumbling and finished my drink, before going to hurry the girls up. It was almost time for school.
School was boring. I know, shocking, right? Everyone was preparing for the career fair that was supposed to start a few hours after the classes. No one really cared about the classes. Everyone was distracted, students and teachers alike. I noticed that every time when there's an event approaching, everyone would just throw themselves in preparations as if their lives depended on it. It was annoying, I needed some action. If I was about to spend half of the day at school I would've preferred to learn something useful than waste my time. Also I didn't have any MMA training after school, so I couldn't even comfort myself thinking about all the physical activity that would've been waiting for me otherwise.
Even while dying out of boredom, I didn't miss Matt approaching Caroline, happy that I wouldn't have to beat some sense into him for ignoring my friend. They looked really cute together and attracted quite a few looks to their pair too.
After classes, me and my siblings decided to head straight home and wait there until it was time to attend the career fair. We were heading to my car when we met Stefan in the parking lot. He was obviously waiting for Elena, so me and Jeremy decided to leave them alone and go wait for Elena in the car, but Stefan asked us to stay and by that, instantly set the alarms in my head off. Something'd happened. I knew that I had the ominous feeling for something.
"Hi," Stefan greeted us receiving nods from me and Jeremy and silent "hey" from Elena in return. "We need to talk."
"What's the matter? You look too serious," Elena frowned.
"Sheriff Forbes came to our house this morning looking for Damon. Another animal attack," he said giving us a knowing look. Elena gasped in horror and Jeremy tensed beside me. "Damon said it's not him, and strangely enough I do believe him. There's another vampire in town."
"They just keep popping up," Jeremy murmured clenching his fists.
"Where did they find the body?" I asked, trying to keep my composure.
"She didn't say where exactly, but as far as I understood, it wasn't even properly hidden," came the disturbing answer.
"So, you have no idea who it could be?" Elena asked him desperately.
"None. But it must be somebody new because leaving a body like that, they're either sloppy or they're trying to send the message."
"Probably the first one's more accurate," I mused thoughtfully.
"And you are sure it's not Damon?" Jeremy inquired, disbelief clear in his voice.
"Well, I'm never sure about Damon, but he's been trying to keep a low profile lately, so it just doesn't make any sense to me," Stefan sighed and it was clear to me that he didn't want it to be his brother.
"So what are you gonna do?" Elena asked.
"Damon's tracking them right now. I want you guys to be careful."
We all nodded and I nudged Jeremy on the shoulder, signaling him that it was our cue to leave.
"Thanks for the heads up, Stefan."
We walked to my car, leaving Elena and Stefan alone as it was obvious that they both had something to say to each other. I thought that we would have to wait for her for a while but she came back pretty quickly.
At home everyone went on with their business. Elena disappeared inside her room, while Jeremy and I settled down in living room, him working on his paper and me checking out some emails that Mr. Cooper sent me regarding one of the auctions that my company was organizing in a few months.
I sat down comfortably in a chair and opened my laptop, getting ready for the long list of dull looking words and numbers. The auctions that my company organized once a year were one of the most anticipated events, gathering attention of fat cats and collectors not only from Atlanta, where they usually took place, but from other states and cities as well. My job was to approve or decline the suggestions of different people who wanted to auction something, and approve a list of everything that was about to be put on display. Usually when someone wanted to sell something through our auction, we always sent a professional to make an appraisal of the item. They then would pass the list to people who would make the final list and only then it would be sent to me for approval. It was just a formality, though I was a little versed in the topic and could've participated more actively. But why bother when I had a herd of experts and everything was working like clockwork? I still went through all the items though, just to see if I would feel something negative about them.
When I finished it was already time to go to the career fair. I sighed in annoyance knowing full well that it was required of me to attend. I was a little hungry though, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed some potato chips from my hidden stash. Just something to munch on before dinner.
The fair was in a full swing when we arrived. I spotted a high level of police officers in the building and nodded to my siblings reminding them to be careful. We told Aunt Jenna about the new vampire and let me tell you she wasn't happy to hear the news. Not happy at all.
After some time Jeremy drifted off, Elena went to greet Matt and we were left alone with Aunt Jenna, who was looking around in hopes to see Mr. Saltzman, while trying to look inconspicuous. I couldn't see Caroline or Bonnie anywhere, so I just guessed that they were somewhere in the building.
Me and Jenna wandered around for some time, my potato chips already gone to my greatest displeasure, until she froze in mid step and turned around abruptly, looking quite annoyed.
"Logan's here," she hissed and started quickly walking in opposite direction, dragging me along. I looked around and saw him standing smugly, surrounded by his fans. He was such an attention whore.
"Come on, aunt Jenna. You know that I can take care of him if he tries something funny."
"I know, I just don't want to deal with him. Not now not ever."
She took a sudden turn and we walked into a classroom, where we then spotted Elena and Stefan talking quietly by the stands and headed in their direction.
"Hide me," Jenna whispered to Elena and went to hide behind her back ignoring my amused snort.
"What's going on?" Elena asked us confusedly.
"Scum Fell's in the building. Jenna's hiding from him," I simply said.
"Logan's here," annoyed Elena elaborated for confused looking Stefan who instantly froze, his eyes growing bigger in alarm.
"Wait, Logan Fell?"
Jenna nodded, while I closely watched Stefan's reaction. Something suspicious was going on.
He quickly went out into the hallway and looked in Logan's direction making us all exchange surprised glances and go after him.
"Stefan what's going on?" Elena asked him, while I stood in the doorway hiding Jenna from the view.
He wasn't able to answer when the Scum himself approached us with that little annoying smirk on his face and looked past me at Jenna. The second he came closer I felt that something was wrong with him and frowned trying to decipher my own feelings. He was behaving suspiciously and Stefan became alarmed the second he heard his name, as if he never really expected to see him again. The thing that finally made an imaginable bulb light up above my head was the memory of Jenna saying that he kept asking her to invite him into the house. So, when I realized what was going on, the only thought that appeared in my head was, what the hell?
"Jenna, are you dodging me?" he asked looking quite pleased with himself for some reason.
"Yeah, that's exactly what she's doing," I said, annoyed that it took me so long to figure out that he was a vampire, and gave him an unimpressed look, daring him with all my posture to come closer. "And now when you've finally realized that, why don't you go and annoy someone else?"
He looked at me, not affected in the slightest by my rude words and opened his mouth to say something, when Stefan interrupted him.
"Thalia, why don't you take the girls somewhere else?"
Normally I would've declined, I didn't need anyone to fight my battles for me, but something in his reaction to Logan told me to oblige.
So I took Elena and Jenna's hands and guided them away from the newly turned vamp. When we finally stopped in an empty looking classroom, I turned to them and simply said: "Logan's a vampire."
"What?!" Jenna hissed, losing her voice from shock. "How...?"
"I don't know how or who turned him, but now it's obvious why he kept asking you to invite him in."
Elena's eyes went huge from realization and she grabbed Jenna's hand for support. They both looked lost.
A few seconds later Stefan entered the room and closed the door behind himself.
"Is that true?" Elena asked him immediately. "Is he really a vampire?"
"Yes," he simply said taking out his phone.
"You knew the second you heard his name," I stated looking at him closely. "But haven't felt the need to share before he popped up out of nowhere and took us by surprise?"
"I knew the second I heard his name, because I saw how he died. He attacked me the day Vicki turned, shot me with wooden bullets and if it wasn't for Damon, I would've been dead. He was the one who killed Logan. I thought he was dead, because in order for him to become a vampire he needed to have a vampire blood in his system before he died and knowing that me and Damon were the only vampires in Mystic Falls I never considered the fact of him turning. I guess I was wrong."
He finished speaking and called someone, presumably Damon, putting that person on a speaker.
"Logan Fell is a vampire and when I find him I'm gonna destroy him limb by limb." We all heard Damon's voice and let me tell you, he sounded pissed. Something must have happened between him and Logan, Stefan did say that he was tracking him down.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Stefan asked, coming to the same conclusion.
"No, I'm not okay," Damon huffed and I had to fight back a snort, hearing the annoyance dripping from his voice. "I was ambushed. I was shot. Now I'm vengeful. Just got to find him."
"Well there's no need," Stefan sighed, giving still shook Jenna a once over. "He's here at the school."
"You're kidding me. Why the hell is he there?"
"He's working the crowd."
"I'll be right there." And with that Damon hung up.
I gestured Elena at the still shocked Aunt Jenna telling her silently to try and calm her down and took out my own phone to sent a quick message about Logan to my brother and friends.
"We need to find him," I told everyone and went to a nearby desk pulling my bag off my shoulder and started going through the stuff that was inside.
"We'll need to search the whole building. He could be anywhere," Elena said, soothingly stroking Jenna's back.
"No need," I said finally finding what I've been looking for and taking it out. Everyone watched with confusion as I put the tarot deck on the table.
"How is it gonna help us find him," Stefan asked.
"Simple. I'm gonna see wherever he is."
I didn't say anything else, closed my eyes and started shuffling. I kept Logan's image in my mind repeating where? where? where? over and over again until a few seconds later one card slipped through my fingers and fell on the desk. Under my company's curious looks I observed the card warily and slowly touched it with just the tips of my fingers.
As soon as my skin made a contact with card's surface, I was hit with a vision.
Logan sitting in his car talking with Caroline who stood at the side of the road. Logan offering her to drive her home and oblivious Caroline sitting in his car. Logan smacking her head against a window. Logan calling the Sheriff and threatening to turn Caroline into a vampire. Logan being ambushed by Stefan and Damon. Logan being shot. Logan bullshitting his way out. Logan loading his car by the abandoned warehouse. Logan running away. Logan... Logan... Logan...
"Thalia!" I felt someone shaking me and came to my senses.
"He has Caroline!" I breathed out shaking off someone's hands. They turned out to be Elena's, who was worried out of her mind, seeing me being hit with a vision for the first time. "The bastard kidnapped Caroline and is about to turn her into a vampire!"
"Oh my God!" Jenna said, with horror filling her eyes, pale Elena not looking better.
"Where? Thalia where's he?" Stefan asked ready to take some actions.
"I don't know, it was just an empty road, I couldn't recognize it, it was too dark." I burrowed my fingers in my hair and pulled in frustration, then I realized something. "You'll know where she is. You and Damon saved her. You'll somehow end up knowing where she is!"
Stefan's face lit up in realization when he understood what I'd just said.
"The compass," he whispered, then told us, "I need to go," and left in a second.
The room was silent for a few seconds, everyone trying to process everything that happened in such a short time.
I looked at my family and knew that I needed to take them to safety. Logan would escape Damon and Stefan, but he wouldn't be walking around freely for too long.
"Let's go find Jeremy. We are going home. Logan will be dealt with."
I put my tarot deck back in my bag and looked at them expectantly. Jenna gave a quick nod and followed me out of the classroom as did Elena, but she then suddenly turned to aunt Jenna and said.
"I want to wait here for Stefan, can I borrow you car? You are too shaken to drive anyway."
Jenna hesitated, not wanting to leave her here when she knew that Logan was somewhere around.
"It's okay. He won't come back here. It's safe, I promise," I firmly said and she nodded before giving Elena her keys. We said our goodbyes and went to look for Jeremy, only to find him a few seconds later heading in our direction with worry clear on his face.
"Here you are!" he exclaimed and engulfed us into a hug. "Are you okay? I received your message about Logan. Is he still here? What should we do?"
"It's okay. He's being dealt with at the moment. We are going home," I gestured at aunt Jenna and he nodded and hugged her shoulders comfortingly, seeing her condition.
"What about Elena?" he asked, still worried.
"She's taking Jenna's car."
We left soon after that and reached home in no time, all the while catching Jeremy up with everything that happened. He was horrified when I told him what Logan's been planning to do to Caroline, the thought that vampires could just forcibly turn a person into a vampire just for revenge never occurred to him.
I parked in our driveway, waited till they got out of the car and said: "I'll go check on Caroline, she must be freaking out right now."
They nodded in understanding, so I gave Jeremy one last look, silently telling him to take care of our aunt and left after he gave me a nod.
I lied to my family. I wasn't going to visit Caroline, not right away anyway. I was driving to the old warehouse that I saw in my vision, the same one where Logan would be at in a few minutes, preparing to run away. He wasn't going anywhere, not after what he did.
I reached the old Fell warehouse and after making sure that it was the right place, parked the car and took a wooden stake from under my seat. I walked to a little parking lot in front of the entrance where I knew he would appear and waited. I was calm and collected, realizing full well what I was about to do. I hesitated with Vicki and she almost killed my brother. I wouldn't hesitate again.
He came after a few minutes and hurried into the warehouse, only to ran out a few seconds later with a duffel bag in his hands. The bastard obviously was going to make a run for it. Well he would've succeeded if he did that right after he came back from the dead as a vampire. But instead the moronic drama queen decided to make an exit. Well, bad for him.
I waited till he loaded his truck and went to open the car door, before approaching him. He turned around only when I was already within arm's reach, so he either wanted to play with a poor mortal that decided to sneak up on him or he didn't hear me at all. Either way as soon as he turned around I paralyzed him with a simple spell. I wasn't taking any chances.
He didn't realize right away that I froze his whole body aside from his face and smiled smugly when he recognized me.
"Thalia Gilbert! What a surprise. I didn't expect to see you here." He gave me his professional smile and looked me up and down with hunger in his eyes and trust me, it was in no way sexual. I just stood there silently and observed him. He didn't like that for some reason and probably tried to move or something, when his eyes went huge. He finally realized that he couldn't move and panic started filling his eyes. "What is this? What... what did you do to me?"
His breathing became rapid. He struggled to break free but it was all futile. I came a little closer and raised my hand with a wooden stake firmly grasped in it. He saw it and started panicking even more, but this time it was panic mixed with anger. His whites turned red, dark veins became visible under his eyes and then he hissed baring his fangs at me. I just observed him silently, maybe I should've said something, but I was in no mood for a chitchat.
"You..." He never finished what he wanted to say, when I hit him right through his heart with a stake. He choked and slowly started turning grey. His horror filled eyes never leaving my face.
I broke my spell and watched him fall on the ground, his body convulsing in death agony. I tried to find any hint of remorse, pity or anything really, but felt nothing. It had to be done. No one ever hurts my family and lives. No one.
I observed him for a few more seconds, before taking out my phone and dialing Sheriff's number.
"Thalia? What happened? Are you all right?" she asked right away, knowing full well that I wasn't calling just to chat, especially with a rabid vampire on the loose.
"I killed Logan Fell," I simply said and gave her the address of old Fell's warehouse. "You probably need to hurry until someone stumbles upon us."
I ended the call, not feeling any need to act scared or something. I put on a show when I killed Vicki because it would've been weird if I didn't, especially since she thought that I didn't know about the vampires. Now was a different story. I had a good reason to hunt Logan down, since he kidnapped Caroline and was stalking Jenna. I didn't care what she would think anymore.
The police car arrived a few minutes later, she was smart not to turn the police lights on. She came running with her gun out of the holster and stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed Logan's body laying on a ground beside me.
"How..? What happened?" she finally was able to ask.
"I hunted him down." She gave me a look saying that she needed slightly more than that. "He came to our house yesterday and was begging aunt Jenna to let him in, it's a miracle that she didn't. Then he started stalking her at the career fair and then Matt told me that he saw Caroline leaving with him. When she finally picked up her phone and started crying I knew that he had to be stopped. So I hunted him down and killed him."
"How did you do that? How did you kill someone who's thousand times stronger than you?" she asked, still shocked that someone, let alone a young girl was able to kill a vampire.
"I guess he didn't expect anything from a petite little high school student. He didn't even turn to me right away even though he knew that I was there. He arrogantly let me get close and paid for it." I shrugged not really knowing what else to say.
She sighed tiredly, then finally put her gun away and crouched down near the body to give it a quick once over. I knew that she was probably just gathering her thoughts to start asking me more questions but she surprised me.
"Thank you," she suddenly said. She stood up and came closer to me only to put her hand on my shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. "You have no idea how much it means to me and this town. We owe you."
I observed her intently, trying to find any signs of deception, but found none.
"No need to thank me, aunt Liz, I was just trying to protect my family." I tried to change the subject to avoid the awkwardness and my eyes fell on the warehouse. "He was doing something in there, so you should probably check it out."
"Yes, of course," she nodded following my gaze, then with the last squeeze let go of my shoulder and turned her attention back to the body. "You should go home. I'll take care of this."
"I wanted to go see Caroline. How is she? Is she okay?"
"She's asleep. Shaken but okay, thanks to Damon and Stefan."
"So they know too? Damon and Stefan I mean?" I asked cautiously, even though I knew the answer.
"Damon does, he helped to kill one of them before. He told me that Stefan doesn't know anything and I believe him," she paused and suddenly looked at me with a weird emotion in her eyes. "You are a true Gilbert, Thalia. Your father would be so proud of you."
I gave her a small grateful smile, even though her words left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I said my goodbye and left, planning to visit Caroline. But as soon as I started my car I was hit with a short vision of her having a good time with Matt. He probably heard about what happened and came to check up on her. I smiled and shook my head, happy that those two were finally making a progress. I decided that Matt would do a better job at cheering her up than me.
The house was quiet when I returned home. I haven't found anyone downstairs and went to check the second floor. First I checked on Jenna and found her soundly asleep in her bed. I covered her with a blanket, turned off the lamp on her bedside table, gave her one last look and quietly left the room.
I found Jeremy sitting at his desk, working on his paper with his headphones on, so I left him be and went downstairs to wait for Elena.
I poured myself a glass of wine from Jenna's "secret" stash and sat on a couch, glancing at my phone from time to time to see if she would text or call.
My thoughts returned to the moment at school, when I used the dreaded tarot deck as if I'd been doing it for years now. Now when I thought about it, I didn't even remember taking it with me when I left the house. I didn't question it back then because I had a rabid vampire on the loose, but now...
I sighed, then decided to stop thinking about it and enjoy my wine instead, only to realize that my glass was empty. I poured myself another one and checked my phone once again.
An hour passed and I was becoming worried. I sent Elena a few more messages, but received no response.
I knew that she was with Stefan, but she had no reason to not answer my messages.
I was considering calling Stefan, when someone knocked on the door. I rushed to answer it, even though a part of myself was telling me that Elena wouldn't knock, so it couldn't be her.
I opened the door with so much force that it hit the wall with a loud bang, but I never noticed the noise.
Because Damon Salvatore was standing on my doorstep with my sister's unconscious and battered body in his hands.