Chapter Eleven: All Roads Lead to a Beating

Elena Gilbert

Elena's steering wheel was feeling the full force of her anger as she drove home. "Stupid..." Slap. "Stupid..." Slap. "Stupid..." Slap. The moment she spotted her apartment block, she immediately pulled over and turned off her engine. She was not in the right frame of mind to carry on to her parking spot and attempt to squeeze in between the two neighboring cars which always encroached on her space. She would be tempted to take off a wing mirror or two.

He was her stalker. Damon was her stalker. He must have set the whole thing up. Giving her that spa voucher, knowing she would go there and meet him, fooling her into believing he was a nice, normal guy. There was nothing normal about him. He was a low, detestable snake.

A snake with hands that had been all over her body – and she'd enjoyed it.

The thought enraged her more. Grabbing hold of her steering wheel and shaking it ferociously, Elena screamed loud enough to startle two elderly pedestrians walking on the sidewalk beside her car. They hurried past, the man grabbing his wife's hand as he stared back in disgust at Elena through her windshield, no doubt wondering when the neighborhood went downhill.

Her freak-out over, Elena breathed steadily as she glared back, her eyes heavy and her hair disheveled like she'd just crawled out of a mosh pit. Her features must have twisted into a snarl as the man tightened his hand, picked up his pace, and led his wife quickly away. What's the matter? Never witnessed the fallout of modern dating before? she thought spitefully.

As soon as they left, Elena dropped her eyes. It wasn't like her to take her anger out on others, but she needed to stay angry because the moment she stopped being angry she knew she would begin to cry. She was not shedding tears over that asshole. Yes, she'd liked him, but she'd known him a day; she would get over it.

She took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. Her chest continued to rise and fall, each exhale becoming more and more therapeutic. She could feel herself getting over him already.

Her phone, lying on the passenger seat, vibrated. She'd already blocked Damon, so it had to be Elijah.

Elijah! She'd just left him in the coffee shop after getting punched by her psycho stalker! What kind of friend was she?!

A wave of guilt hit her, and she picked up her phone to respond.

User2154257211184: We need to talk.

Elena's snarl returned.

ElenaGAuthor: Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die!

User2154257211184: Okay, first we need to talk about all those commas.

Why the hell couldn't he just leave her alone?! She came out of the conversation, ready to block him again, but wondering if it was even worth it when he would just set up another profile and continue to hound her?

Suddenly her passenger door opened, and a male figure stepped into her car, planting his entitled butt down on the passenger seat and closing the door behind him. She should have known to lock her door – nobody parked up outside this building unless they were an Uber driver.

Elena sighed as she turned to deal with the idiot beside her.

Then every neuron in her body fired up.

When it came to fight or flight, flight would have been a good idea right now. Her crazy stalker had just sat in her car – adding fuel to the fire by rambling about her obsessive use of punctuation – and she should have opened her car door and ran.

But running is what she had done earlier when she'd left the coffee shop in a state of shock and shame. Those emotions were long gone. Now she was in fight mode.

Except she had nothing to fight with. She scanned quickly around the car. The only things that were weapon-worthy were her phone and laptop – and she wasn't about to risk breaking either of those. There had to be something else.

Damon turned in his seat, concerned by her fidgeting and inattention. "What are you looking for?"

"Something to hit you with!" she snapped.

"Oh," he uttered without much surprise. "Okay... I'll help you look." He opened up the glove compartment and pulled out a thick folded map of the United States and an emergency hammer.

Elena's eyes fixated on the heavy glass breaker like it was cake and her diet had just ended. "Give me the hammer," she demanded, holding out her hand.

"Erm, no, that doesn't sound like fun for me," Damon replied, quickly slamming the hammer back inside the glove compartment and handing her the map instead.

Hammer forgotten and pleased to now have any object in her hand, Elena was quick to get to her knees on her seat and attack like she'd had map-wielding fencing lessons all her life, whacking Damon from all angles as he held his forearms crossed in front of him in a futile attempt to protect himself. "Psycho!" Whack. "Freak!" Whack. "Maniac!" Whack. "Lunatic!" Whack. "Pervert!"

Damon finally grabbed her arm, stopping her. "Hey," he scolded, "I'm not a pervert. I didn't know you were using that massage voucher today – I thought you were at work. I offered to discontinue, and you refused."

Despite restraining her arms, the map to Damon's face was still a wrist flick away, which was Elena's last move – thwacking his cheek firmly with the pages and surprising him into releasing her – before she slumped back onto her seat. "Get out of my car," she demanded. "I never want to see you – or hear from you – again."

Damon groaned into his hand. "That might be difficult."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Removing his hand from his face, Damon pointed through the windshield, up towards the top of the red-brick building. "I live in the penthouse."

Elena's lips disappeared inside her mouth, her teeth pressing down on them as she held back from exploding. Finally, with a tight voice, she said, "Tell me you're joking."

Damon shook his head. "You'll know when I'm joking because my jokes are funny."

For Elena, the pieces were suddenly starting to slot together. He wasn't some stranger – this wasn't all a big coincidence – it was planned. Her jaw bobbed up and down, her mixed emotions bubbling up in her voice, as she stuttered, "S-so you've s-seen me here... before you ever contacted me?" At Damon's confirmation nod, she continued, her voice becoming steadier, "And you couldn't just come up to me and introduce yourself like a normal human being? You had to stalk me?"

Damon suddenly got defensive. "Well, you seemed to be under the impression you liked that kind of thing," he grumbled. "Considering the love interests in your novels are all toxic men, I assumed you were attracted to that."

"Clearly I am!" Elena declared, her eyes gesturing up and down him.

She meant it to be an insult. Damon did not take it that way.

His lips tugged upwards. "You're attracted to me?"

"That wasn't a compliment!" she screeched.

His smirk flipped upside down, his head tipping in contemplation. "You're hot, so it kind of was." Seeing her body jerk in annoyance, Damon quickly grabbed the map from her lap, holding it in front of him as a literal paper-thin shield, only lowering it when her posture relaxed again.

"You hit Elijah – you are toxic," Elena decided. "He did nothing to you –"

"It wasn't what he did to me, Elena, it's what he did to you!" Damon blurted. "He's obsessed with you. He's been stalking you. He has secret cameras set up inside your apartment –"

"What?!"

"– aaaaand he's outside your window." Damon rolled his eyes, slowly shaking his head as Elijah tapped on the glass.

Elena turned her head to see that Elijah was, indeed, outside the car, leaning down to look inside. His expression darkened seeing Damon sitting in the passenger seat. This was getting too much! First Damon followed her to her car... now Elijah was here! She felt like the Pied Piper, only – given what Damon had just told her – she didn't know if the men on either side of her were both big children or nasty rats.

It took a moment for Elena to decide to wind down her window. Damon had proven himself to be a liar. Cameras inside her apartment? He couldn't possibly be telling the truth. He had a problem with Elijah and now he was spinning stories to keep her away from him.

Elijah leaned on the window frame, strands of his normally combed-back brown hair falling over his temples. He flicked a finger inside the car, gesturing inside, as though Elena had any chance of forgetting about the asshole sitting beside her. "What's he doing here?" he asked.

"Saying goodbye," Elena reassured him, side-eyeing Damon.

Elijah continued to remain tense but there was a flicker of relief in his eyes. His cheek was still red; the bridge of his nose tinging slightly purple. It was possible it hurt to move his face – it was difficult to tell – he wasn't exactly highly expressive facially at any other time.

"You here to remove those cameras before Elena finds them?" Damon snarked.

Elijah blinked slowly in irritation. "I have no idea what he's talking about." He fidgeted with the cuffs of his shirt, avoiding Elena's eyes boring into him. "But before he leaves, he can give me back my phone."

Elena swung her head towards Damon in shock. "You stole his phone?!" Perhaps she should stop being shocked at this point. He obviously had no limit to how low he was willing to sink.

Damon took the phone from his pocket begrudgingly. "I'm not keeping it," he insisted. "I took it to prove to you that he's obsessed with you – to prove that he has video footage of you inside your apartment – and that was the reason I hit him."

Elena's head swung back to Elijah, her mouth hung open, waiting for answers.

Chuckling dryly, Elijah proclaimed, "Don't listen to his nonsense! He's crazy, Elena, dear! Haven't we already proven that?"

"Then give me your pin code," Damon insisted, "and we'll see which of us is crazy."

Letting out a long, frustrated groan, Elena demanded they both shut up. She needed time to think, but she was too tired to deal with this now. She'd stupidly stayed up half the night trying to stalk her stalker, only for him to appear in person the next day. She'd had a barrage of new information hit her like a freight train within the past hour. She had experienced every emotion under the sun... and was now starting to feel like a child being pulled between warring parents. The one thing she could do was walk away from them both. She didn't need this kind of stress. But Elijah did need back his phone. He'd had it stolen because of her.

Unfortunately, Damon was looking down at the screen with a kind of smug discomfort. Had he already figured out the code to unlock it? Before she could get curious, she decided – forget it – it was none of her business. "Damon, give Elijah back his phone," she ordered him.

Damon's response was delayed. Finally, his head shot up. "What? Oh, yeah, sure, no problem." He tapped the phone a couple of times, seemingly to wake it up since the edge of the screen brightened again. "Why don't you pass it to him," he suggested, "and... take your time."

As Elena took the phone, Damon tilted the screen in her direction so she could see Elijah's lock screen. At first, she didn't react – it was just a collection of random photos in the style of a collage – but then she looked a little closer, and her breath froze in her throat.

All the photos were of her.

Some from her social media posts. Some candid photos were taken from outside the coffee shop, looking in at her while she worked alone on her laptop. But one photo in particular caught her eye: the center one. It was a photo of her and Elijah together, his arm around her, smiling down at her.

This photo didn't exist. Elijah had edited it – putting himself in one of her social media photos, making them look like a couple.

Elena could barely process what she was seeing when Elijah's hand reached into the car, snatching the phone from her.

Was Damon telling the truth?

Unable to look at Elijah, Elena kept her eyes lowered as she spoke. "Why do you have photos of me on your lock screen?"

Chuckling nervously, Elijah slid the phone into his jacket, placing it safely in the inside pocket. He continued to lean against the window frame as he clasped his hands together, looking sheepish. "What can I say, Elena? I'm your Number One fan, just like you said." He bobbed his head by way of apology. "It was inappropriate, and I'll delete it right away, but try to remember that I'm not the real threat here."

Elena was starting to feel anxious. Why was she suddenly feeling this way? Damon had stalked her, and she'd charged at him – no hesitation, no fear – like a bull to a matador. She'd never felt this kind of unease with Damon. Not like she did now, with Elijah dismissing her concerns like she was the crazy one. She needed to tread carefully. "There are photos of me that aren't on my social media accounts, Elijah," she pointed out as calmly as she could. "Did you take those?"

This time, Elijah's laughter was stronger. "Elena, you're really focusing on the wrong thing here. I mean, look at you! You're sitting in your car with your stalker – the stalker you begged me to catch for you. He broke into your home, left you roses and takeout, and then posed as a masseuse to get a date with you. He's the danger to you, not me."

Elena was decoding Elijah's words like a machine. She nodded to appease him but swallowed the lump in her throat before she spoke. "That's true," she muttered. Until now, she had avoided looking at him, but now she turned her head and met his eyes with a cold stare. Unbeknownst to him, he had slipped up. "Except I never told you the type of flowers Damon left me." She watched Elijah's smirk drop. "And I certainly never told you he was my masseuse."

As she waited for an explanation, Damon had already figured it out. "He's bugged your phone." His voice was layered with panic, struggling to remain calm. "Elena, you need to drive."

She had already switched the engine on. Her mouth tightened. Her fury had returned.

Elijah crouched down briefly, appearing like he was picking something off the floor. Then he suddenly stood, reaching for the door handle just as Damon leaned across Elena and hit the central locking then proceeded to wind up the window. A second too late, and unsuccessful at opening the door, the handle clunked back down. "My dear, get out of the car so we can clear this mess up. It's just a silly misunderstanding."

"Elena, drive – NOW!" Damon repeated urgently.

Her foot was already on the gas, the car pulling onto the road, leaving Elijah far behind them.