A/N: Hey guys! Don't know about you but I watched the finale of TVD as we were promised some Katherine, and I must say, her appearances were wildly underwhelming. It seems that they only brought her back to punish her a bit more, so I thought we were all in need of some badass and sassy Katherine, yeah? Let me know in the comments if you're still into this, now that the TV show is officially over.. (:

Now hold onto your seats and happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of its characters. This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes, but the original characters and original storylines.

"I thought all of our friends' lives were threatened! I can't believe you let me be scared to death...you're so lucky to be on the other side of the phone right now!" I shoved the last bite of my toast in my mouth and chewed it angrily.

"Would you have come with me if I'd told you I was driving you to a date with Katherine?" Damon sing-songed in a know-it-all voice.

"Of course not! I can't even begin to understand why in hell you helped her planning this! What happened to 'there's nothing good beneath the manipulative, cold-hearted bitchy surface'?!"

"You listen to me? You shouldn't, I'm always talking out of my ass. I'm a dick like that. But you already knew that..."

"I'm clear on the dick part." I stopped pacing and crossed my arm over my chest firmly. "And the ass part."

"Oh, cut the crap! Do you really think I would've played along if I even thought for a second that this was an ambush?" He paused. "Well, a real one. Anyway, I don't know what you did to her, but from the way she was all fangs and claws when I teased her about it, I'd say she likes you."

"Even if it's true, it justifies the whole thing because...?" I trailed off before drinking the rest of my coffee.

"Because you deserved to be a little carefree. I thought you were in need of some fun to help you move on. And Katherine Pierce has mistake-to-make-to-rebound stamped all over her resume," he joked, and I could picture the smug smirk that came with it. "I also took into consideration that we both know you're attracted to her, despite the reluctance and your theatrical objections. Not to mention that you enjoy her company...well, half of the time, at least. So tell me I was wrong! Tell me you had an awful night and that you didn't enjoy the date one bit. I'm listening."

"There's maybe mistake-to-make-to-rebound on her resume, but there'll be mistake-you-will-regret-for-the-rest-of-your-life on mine if I ever do that."

"Don't worry, I'll be there to help you stake the bitch if the mistake becomes a little too troublesome. But you still didn't tell me I was wrong about last night."

I would have loved to tell him that the evening had been dreadful, just to teach his annoying conceit a lesson, but I couldn't bring myself to lie to him. I busied myself with washing my empty mug instead of answering him.

"Uh-oh..."

"What?" I snapped.

"Come clean, woman. What happened? Was there some kissing involved? Or even better, a make-out session. Is she having breakfast with you?"

"What? No!" I exclaimed, half grossed out, half amused. "You really need to find yourself a fuck buddy, Damon..."

My attention drifted away from the conversation as I felt a presence approaching my house. There was something familiar about it, but I didn't recognize to whom it belonged.

"Oh come on! After all the trouble I've been through to plan that date with the she-devil, you could at least dish out the juicy stuff!" Damon complained, just before I heard a knock on my front door.

"You backstabbed me, dick. No kiss and tell for you," I shot back, only too happy to have my little revenge on him.

"Meany."

I laughed at his childishness as I walked into the foyer.

"Look, I got to go, Damon. Talk to you later." I hung up after his goodbye and wondered who was that human behind my door. I was hoping Katherine hadn't booked a limo to drive me to school this time.

I pulled the door open but didn't get the chance to see who was standing behind it. The only glimpse I had been able to catch was a fist coming right for my head at incredible speed. I didn't feel the pain at first, but the blow made me spin around and fall face first to the floor. I could no longer see, vision filled with black spots, but my instincts were telling me to run. I tried to stand up but crashed back down onto the floor, dizzy. I tried again, straightening myself up enough to crawl away from my attacker. I pulled with my arms with all my might, digging nails in the hard wood, but my hands kept slipping over the floor. I was swimming in a sticky substance, but couldn't make sense of what it was or why it was there. My assailant stepped over me, walking up my body, and I panicked. I writhed and swung my legs, desperate to get away from them. My last chance was to find my phone. I groped around frantically at the sticky pool I was in, but only met air. Suddenly, I heard a dull sound and felt an intense pain at the back of my head before everything faded to black.

KATHERINE'S POV

I was about to compel a couple of handy men to clean up the clearing for me when I decided on an impulse to pass by Maya's house first.

I hadn't expected to enjoy the date that I had planned for her. Predicted that it would be interesting, certain that it would be fun if she was in the right state of mind, but definitely surprised that I actually took some kind of pleasure in sharing bits of myself with her. Maybe because she was the straightforward type of girl and yet treated me like a human being, instead of the calculating monster everybody else contented themselves with seeing. Maybe because now that Klaus was out of the picture for good, I could finally allow myself to try something more than pure survival. The reason didn't really matter. I was in the mood for an entertaining little chit-chat, and I was going to make sure to remind Maya that the reason behind this date wasn't to ravish her taste buds, but for her to have sex with me.

When I approached her house, I suddenly felt in my gut that something was wrong. I looked around the neighborhood warily before walking up her front walkway. I had only reached the halfway point when it hit me. The smell of blood. I dashed to her porch and stopped at her front door. It was ajar and the metallic scent was even stronger. Without a second thought, I turned around and ripped off a wood slat from her guardrail to push the door open with. When I saw the red pool behind it, I automatically took a step forward only to meet that damn invisible threshold. Some of the blood had been soaked up by what seemed to be clothes, the rest of it swept with wild finger marks.

"Maya!" I yelled toward the inside of the house. I focused and tried to hear a sound, a heartbeat telling me that she was alive in there. "Maya!" When the only answer I got was a deafening silence, I fetched my phone out of my pocket and called her.

"Come on, Maya...pick up." I heard a buzz coming from behind the opened door. Fuck. I rushed toward her windows and checked them one by one, trying to catch a glimpse of her body lying somewhere or to perceive a muffled sound. When she was nowhere to be found as I reached her back door, I quickly dialed another number and jumped over the first floor gutter. My feeling about this was getting worse with every passing second. I scanned her bedroom window frantically before speeding to the next one to no avail.

"Damn it, Damon, pick up your damn phone!"

The sudden voice in my ear almost threw me off balance. "What? If you're calling me to help you set up another date, I'm not-"

"You need to come here. I can't find her. Her door was open when I-"

"Hey, hey, wait a second! What the hell are you talking about?"

"Maya! There's blood all over the floor and I can't get in! There's no heartbeat. Damon, I can't get in!" I shouted despite myself.

The line went instantly silent. I swallowed deliberately to regain my calm, forcing my fists to unclench in the process. Damon could get inside her house and he was on his way here. I had done the smartest thing in this situation. I needed to keep thinking practically.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket as I examined the last window of the first floor. There was no trace of her in that room either. If she was inside the house, I couldn't find her. I slammed a hand against the window frame out of frustration. Keeping myself detached was proving to be difficult.
Wondering what in the hell was taking Damon so long to arrive, I retreated to the backyard and jumped off the first floor. When I finally felt his presence, I had almost reached the front of the house.

He was frozen on the doorstep, staring at the blood pool with horror in his eyes. He glanced up at me before speeding inside the house, and I paced back and forth on the porch, waiting for his report. When he reappeared at the bottom of the stairs, he was purposely standing away from any of the blood stains. We exchanged a look and I didn't like the deep wrinkle crossing his forehead.

"So?" I pressured him.

"She's not here." He studied my face a little too intently for my taste. "Did you do this?"

"Oh please," I spat with contempt. "Like I'd do something like that and then pretend to look for her. I don't need an alibi. If I wanted to disappear with her, you wouldn't be able to find me." I could almost hear the gears turning in his brain as he tried to assess my honesty. When I saw a dark glint flashing in his eyes, I was sure he was going to do something stupid for his own health.

"Why weren't you with her?" he asked, angry.

"I'm sorry...what?"

"I helped you set up this fucking killer date, so why weren't you eating your damn breakfast with her?! She wouldn't have been injured by god knows who and taken god knows where if you had been there!"

I blinked a few times at his outburst. Blaming me for not protecting Maya, I surely didn't see that one coming.

"Trust me, if it were all up to me, she wouldn't even have left the bed," I replied dryly.

He clenched his jaw and ran his fingers through his hair. "I was on the phone with her fifteen minutes ago...damn it!"

"And I arrived five minutes ago. She's gone. It's done. No need to argue endlessly about it." My sharp comment seemed to snap him out of his little freak out haze.

"If this is all the blood she has lost, she's still alive," he eventually stated, focused again.

"Agreed."

"Any idea who might have done this?"

"You tell me. You know her better than me, after all..." I gave him a taunting look. "Definitely supernatural, though."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Oh you didn't see her in action, Damon, but I can assure you that to catch her off guard enough to hurt and kidnap her, whoever did that has to be very strong and fast. Not to mention they obviously carried her to a car, and in broad day light. That requires efficiency."

"That's why there's no trail of blood on the walkway," he realized. He stepped over the bloody floor to pick Maya's phone up from behind the door.

"I tried to spot a scent, but there's nothing out of the ordinary. Where is your car?"

He averted his eyes from the screen to look at me and frowned. "At the mansion."

"Close the door behind you."

I sped off before he could make me lose any more time, a whooshing sound following me quickly after.

"If you were planning to make phone calls during the entire search, why didn't you let me drive?" I snapped in annoyance.

"It's my car."

"Was that Katherine?" I heard Stefan ask through his brother's phone.

"Hello gorgeous," I purred teasingly.

Damon glared at me and made a disgusted face.

"Instead of babbling on and on, make yourself useful and turn to the left," I added sternly.

"We've already circled that part of the woods!"

"Why are you with Katherine?" Stefan continued as if he was having a different conversation.

"Jealous?" I asked him while scanning the surroundings carefully.

Damon didn't give his brother a chance to answer and pretended like I hadn't said anything.

"Long story short, she's the one who found out Maya has been kidnapped."

Stefan stayed silent for a while after hearing the news and asked Damon to hold on.

"It's pointless. We're never going to find her like that! Whoever took her is probably long gone by now," I grit out, plopping back down in the seat.

"Damon?" Stefan spoke again.

"Yes?"

"I just hung up with Caroline and Bonnie. They came back empty handed too. We're meeting in front of Maya's house to discuss what to do next."

"Got it."

"A Good-guys-crew meeting...perfect. Just what I needed," I sneered.

"If you have a brilliant idea to spare us all what I'm sure is going to be a happy reunion..." Damon shot back with a sarcastic smirk. I gave him a dark side-glance, crossing my arms tightly over my chest to signify my displeasure.

When we parked on Maya's street, the whole gang was there, waiting for us. Reluctantly, I got out of the car, my level of annoyance and boredom already at its maximum, and strutted my way to the porch.

"How come you're the one who found out she was missing?" Caroline was the first to open fire.

"She was probably stalking her. She seems to have nothing better to do lately," Bonnie answered in a condescending tone.

"Did you do this?" Elena asked, worry and suspicion dripping through her voice. I looked them straight in the eye, one by one, to make them feel as scared and uncomfortable as possible.

"You are the ones who seem to lose your friend on weekly basis and I'm the one rescuing her every single time. Yet, you dare to put what happened to her on me?" I took a step toward them in a threatening manner, and Stefan immediately interposed himself, raising his hands in front of him as an attempt to calm everybody down.

"Yeah, like you'd never do something like that," Caroline shot back, ignoring Stefan's peace offering completely.

"You can't blame us for not trusting a word you say," Elena added harshly.

"Oh no, I get it. It must be easier for all of you to blame me for everything that goes wrong in your pathetic little lives." The comeback left them tongue-tied for a moment, and I seized the opportunity.

"You were able to trap Maya between invisible walls, but is a tracking spell going to work on her?" I asked the witch, looking at her with piercing eyes.

"I can try..." She averted her gaze to look at her friends, obviously reluctant to reveal too much.

"But it won't work," I insisted, leaving no room for trust issues. The odds of finding Maya were getting slimmer by the second; there was no time to waste.

"I doubt it would," she finally admitted.

"Okay then, Caroline, ask your mother if she can track Maya's phone," Stefan intervened.

"If she does, she's going to find me," Damon said, waving the phone in front of him. "The only thing Liz can do is to tell us if there have been any traffic violations around Mystic Falls, or if they noticed something out of the ordinary since this morning."

"Caroline, call your mother. Bonnie, you try that location spell and I'll keep searching the area with Elena," Stefan directed. Taking advantage of the fact that they were too busy organizing their rescue plan, I fetched the keys out of Damon's pocket discreetly and started walking backwards toward the car. It was clear that they were going to be useless, as usual, and I already had an idea of what might have happened to Maya.

When I closed the driver's door behind me, Damon noticed my little getaway.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" I heard him shout from the porch. I ignored him and pressed the gas pedal.

A/N: *peers from behind my desk* is everybody okay? I'm sorry for the cliffhanger, please don't hate me too much lol