It was Friday morning. Stefan and I were downstairs as we noticed that Damon was waking up. We had been keeping them in the dungeon in the boarding house. I now understood why we had a dungeon. Was that something that they had been planning for when the house was built? I knew it was unlikely, but I really wanted to avoid getting locked up in there because I was kind of afraid of closed spaces.
"Where am I?" He asked. He sounded pretty weak.
"You're in the cellar." I explained. Maybe I should have just called it a dungeon.
"Where's my ring." He responded. We had taken it off so he wouldn't be able to leave even if he managed to get out of the cell. For some reason, I still felt like he would be able to get out somehow.
"You won't be needing it anymore." Stefan answered.
"How long have I been in here?" Damon questioned as I stayed close to Stefan. I knew that I probably shouldn't underestimate him. The mark on my neck had healed, but being bitten by a vampire was still incredibly scary.
"Four days." The younger brother replied. "In the old days when a vampire's actions risked exposing the race, they would seek to reeducate them rather punish them."
I couldn't help but wonder how true any of that was. How old were vampires anyway? Had they even been around since that long? I didn't really read vampire books, so I didn't really know. I also hadn't watched the show, so I couldn't confirm anything.
"You know what happens if I don't feed." Damon replied. If they both knew what would happen, I couldn't help but wonder why they needed to say it. I supposed that it was for the purpose of telling the audience. Also, I didn't know, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to or not.
"You'll grow weaker and eventually you'll desiccate." Stefan stated. "Soon you won't be able to move at all. I'll move you to the family crypt and in 10 years, I'll reevaluate you."
"I'm stronger than you think I am." Damon tried to boast. The coughing did not help. I was pretty sure that Stefan wouldn't be able to do what he planned though. Damon was one of the main characters and he would escape.
"You're not stronger than the vervain." I pointed out. It did feel good to have some sort of power over him, but I also knew that it would probably be a bad idea to underestimate him. I really hoped that I was as important of a character as I thought that I was.
We headed upstairs to where my dad had breakfast. I was just starting to get used to him as my father. It was nice to have a dad. One thing that I couldn't help but note was that I didn't seem to be spending a lot of time with him. I poured myself some cereal as I got ready for school.
"He's awake." Stefan replied. "He's weak, but I don't want either of you going down there without me."
"Are you going to school today?" Zach asked in surprise. We had both missed all week. Controlling Damon took a lot of effort. I was a little surprised that he was willing to let me miss school, but he seemed to be okay with it.
"I came back here to have a life, Zach." Stefan explained. "I'm also wasting Faith's. Now I just have to hope Elena will be willing to talk to me."
"Same goes for me." I added. I couldn't help but wonder if we were in a new episode because the last few days seemed like a bit of a blur to be honest. I hoped that Elena wouldn't be mad at me.
"Why haven't you called her?" Zach questioned.
"What are we supposed to do, lie some more?" Stefan asked rhetorically.
"You two have to face your problems and figure out a way to solve them." Zach instructed. That actually seemed like it was good advice, but I was pretty sure that things wouldn't be that simple.
I was kind of nervous about going back to school. I hadn't really talked to Bonnie since what happened at the party. I hoped that things wouldn't be too weird between us. I really wasn't flirting with her. It seemed like she was too afraid to be seen doing something as innocent as dancing with me. I hoped that she would be over it by now. Maybe we would be better off not mentioning it at all.
I was wearing a simple pink tee shirt and jeans. It turned out that I did have a few pairs and to be honest, they weren't as tight as I thought they would be. Maybe it was because I was just naturally small. I might not have been done with puberty yet. I didn't know when girls were supposed to be finished with it. There was also a part of me that did like wearing skirts for some reason. Even though they were undeniably girly, they were also pretty easy to move in, as long as I didn't fall over.
When we got to school, I kind of wanted to see if I could find Bonnie, but I thought it would be a good idea to stay with Stefan. As far as I knew, he was going to compel people into excusing our absences. Zach had at least called the school and said that both of us were sick. It seemed like the first thing that he wanted to do was talk to Elena. She was with Bonnie.
"Hi." He greeted.
"I need to go be somewhere." Bonnie announced before she left. I wasn't entirely sure if it was because she was avoiding me or because she wanted to give Stefan some space to talk to Elena.
"I know that we haven't been around for the past days, but we were dealing with Damon." Stefan explained.
"Well did you deal with him?" She asked. She probably was wondering what he meant when he said we were dealing with him.
"Yes." He nodded.
"And this took four days?" She questioned. She didn't look like she was angry, but she looked a little upset for sure. I couldn't help but wonder if she was also upset with me for not answering her calls either.
"I know I have a lot of explaining to do but just give me a chance." He bargained. "I have to be home after school but maybe could meet at the Grill at 4:00?"
"Sure." She agreed. I was kind of glad that I didn't have to say anything because I didn't know what to say.
At that moment, Caroline walked over to us.
"Faith, where's Damon? He has some major apologizing to do." She stated.
"He's gone." I answered. It was probably better than saying that we had him locked up in our dungeon. I was pretty sure that Stefan did not want to let people know that we even had a dungeon.
"When's he coming back?" She asked in confusion.
"He's not." Stefan declared before he walked away.
"This is a good thing, Caroline." Elena told her.
"I know that." The blonde declared. "So, you two need to make sure that you have your bikinis for the car wash tomorrow."
Oh fuck. Why were they doing a bikini car wash on this show? Also why were they doing it in October? I supposed it wasn't that cold, but I was not looking forward to that.
When I got home, I had to see if I could find my bikini. I assumed that I had one and I really hoped that it wouldn't be too skimpy. I knew that probably anything would feel skimpy to me. Maybe I wouldn't notice. It turned out that I had a few of them. I had to decide which one I was going to wear. It was a bit of a tough decision. I also hoped that nothing weird was going to happen at the car wash.
I then heard something coming from downstairs. Stefan was there. I also realized that it was 5:00. Had I really been looking for clothes for over an hour. I went downstairs to see him nursing Zach's neck.
"What did I tell you?" He scolded my father.
"Did you already go see Elena?" I asked him.
"Damn it." He cursed before he rushed out. I was going to assume that he hadn't.
He was back a few minutes later.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Well things were already going bad, but then this guy who had seen me in the 50s showed up and said that he knew me." He explained. "She just left after that."
I wasn't sure why, but I got an idea.
"Maybe I can try to fix things for both of us." I suggested.
I decided to go to the Gilbert house and knocked on the door. I was going to try to cook dinner for her. I really hoped that she hadn't already eaten yet. Jeremy answered the door.
"Elena's not home." He replied. I was pretty sure that this was the first real interaction I was having with him.
"Did she tell you to say that?" I asked. "I want to make dinner for her. I know I have a lot of apologizing to do, but I am sorry."
"Fine, come in." He stated.
"Can you give me a few minutes to set things up?" I requested.
I went into the kitchen with my bag of food. I decided that the first thing that I should do was turn the oven on. I really hoped that I wouldn't screw things up.
"Jenna? I thought you were…" She started. I did wonder what her aunt was doing. "Faith…"
"Will you please let me talk?" I requested. "I know that I have a lot of apologizing to do. Stefan and I were trying really hard to get rid of Damon and it wasn't my intention to neglect you in the process. I thought this dinner would help make it up to you."
"What are you making?" She asked.
"Chicken parmesan: I hope you like it." I explained. "I don't have a lot of experience cooking. My dad taught me a little bit, but I'm kind of winging it."
I assumed that was the logical reasoning for me knowing how to cook.
"I love chicken parmesan." She explained. "So did you dad ever tell you why your mom left?"
"No." I answered. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the vampires. She also said left not died, which guaranteed that I would probably be seeing her at some point. "Elena, I hope you don't think that I was avoiding you. This was really important, and I had to do it."
"Do you think that if something like this ever happens again that you could perhaps call me?" She requested. That was easier than I thought it would be.
"Yes." I answered, even though I was pretty sure that it would not happen again. "I also want you to give Stefan another chance. He's not the best at talking about himself. Is it okay if I have him come over?"
I hoped that he had a plan with the amount of time I was going to give him. He came over and he told her a lot of things about himself. He did freak out a little when she accidentally cut herself, but we managed to salvage things pretty quickly.
The following day, I put on my blue bikini with a dress over it. I saw Zach was there.
"So, before I go, I just wanted to say that I love you." I told him as I gave him a hug. He probably thought that I was being extra sentimental.
"I'm going to be here when you get back." He replied. This was a character that I didn't remember hearing a lot about which made me think something. I had no idea if it was going to happen, but I probably needed to prepare myself in case it did.
I went to the carwash as I resisted the urge to cry. Once I was there, I took my dress off to reveal my bikini. I also noticed that they seemed to be strange amount of people not wearing bikinis for a bikini carwash. I saw bikini tops, but not a lot of bikini bottoms.
"Wow look at you." Elena stated as I noticed she was fully-dressed.
"There's no way that you can let me wear this without wearing a bikini of your own." I replied. "Come on, take it off."
"You realize that this is turning into a bit of a male fantasy, don't you?" She asked as she stripped to a blue and black bikini.
"So I bet Stefan will like it." I remarked. I liked it too, but I didn't want to date Elena since I knew that Stefan liked her…and it was possible that Damon liked her as well. I was a little unclear about that part.
We then went to the cashbox as Caroline began to explain the rules to me.
"No friend discounts, no freebies and no pay-laters." She told me. I didn't think we had any friends that weren't already there. "This is a fundraiser not a charity."
"Okay." I agreed before I noticed that Stefan was there.
"It's called a Sexy Suds carwash." Caroline stated before she exited.
"Did I just get scolded?" Stefan asked in disbelief as I began to remove his shirt. He looked at me a little bit funny.
"I was just helping you out." I replied innocently. I supposed that it did look a little bit weird. "If I have to be objectified then so do you."
A few minutes later, I was with Lucy as we washed a car together. I was a little bit surprised that I wasn't working with Bonnie.
"The stone is so pretty." I commented as I got my first up close look at it. It was the kind of thing that I would like to have even though having one would mean becoming a vampire. I think the only ones that had them were Stefan, Damon, and Anna.
"So where did you disappear to this week?" She asked as I started to rub the car with soap.
"Stefan and I were sick." I lied. I didn't think that she even knew about Damon. One thing that I noticed was that I didn't seem to be as sexy as some of the other girls there. I was also still worried about Damon because I didn't think that he would be captive for very much longer.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"It's just…I don't really look as good in a bikini as you and some of the other girls." I improvised.
"Faith, listen to me. You are sexy. Don't let anyone tell you that you are not sexy." She declared as she touched my shoulders. I kind of expected her to kiss me to be honest. "Now we should get back to work. So what is with that stone on Stefan's ring?"
"It's called Lapis Lazuli. It means blue stone in Latin." I explained. That was because what he had told me about it. "It was his father's, so he doesn't ever like to take it off, so he made sure that it's waterproof."
"You know it's too bad that we have to do this work instead of just being able to have fun." She commented. I wasn't sure if she was flirting with me or not. I felt a little bit uncomfortable.
"I need to go get some towels." I announced. I figured that would be a good excuse. I then went over to Caroline. "We're out of towels."
"I'll go get some more. Watch the cash box," She replied before she walked away. I was kind of hoping that I would be able to get them myself to be honest. I sighed and took a seat. At least I could tell that no one was looking at me while I was sitting down.
Basically, I was just sitting around and taking money from people. I knew that it was an important job because we didn't want anyone to steal it. I wasn't even entirely sure what we were raising funds for. Was it to get better cheerleading uniforms that actually had the school's name on it? I looked over to Stefan and Elena who seemed to be having a good time. Part of wondered what would happen when she found out that he was a vampire. I imagined that she would eventually be okay with it because I knew that the two of them did date in the show. I also didn't think that Stefan would just be able to keep it a secret forever because I didn't think that would be a very realistic TV show. I was suddenly distracted by my thoughts when Elena came over to me.
"Hey we're out of towels." She explained.
"Caroline was supposed to be getting some more." I explained. Come to think of it, it was really taking her a long time. Did she have to go to the store and buy some more or something?
Suddenly a black man walked over and paid for his car to be washed.
"That'll be twenty dollars." I told him as he gave me some money.
"I remember you from last night. You were talking to my boyfriend Stefan Salvatore. What did you say to him?" Elena responded.
"It was just my memory acting up on me." He declared. That might have been a good sign if he didn't believe it. Then again, even if he did believe it, that didn't mean that he would make the vampire connection. "I couldn't have saw what I saw."
"What did you think you saw?" I questioned.
"When I first moved here, I stayed at the Salvatore Boarding House. Stefan was just passing through before the accident." He explained.
"What accident?" Elena questioned as she looked at me. I didn't have any clue. I wasn't sure why I thought I would know anything about it.
"His uncle Joseph was killed in an animal attack." He replied.
"I'm sorry but I don't know what you're talking about." She stated. "Do you have an Uncle Joseph?"
"Not that I know about." I responded. "It's just been me and my dad for most of my life."
"How could you? This happened in 1953." He explained before his granddaughter came and took him away.
"Sorry. His Alzheimer's acts up sometimes." She apologized. "You're free to go now. I'll watch the box."
Elena then took me away.
"Seriously? What was that about?" She asked.
"I don't know. I mean I wasn't alive in 1953 and it's not like Stefan was either." I answered. I wasn't completely sure how convincing I was.
"I think I want to look into it some more to see if he's telling the truth." She remarked.
I was pretty sure that not remembering something the right way wasn't the same thing as not telling the truth. I then noticed her going over to talk to the news guy that reported about the animal being killed. You know I was kind of surprised that she didn't think to just ask my dad about it considering he might know something about it…unless she thought that we were covering something up.
So I went back to washing a car. I was doing one by myself since Elena had left. I still didn't know where Caroline was. I was actually a little bit worried about her, even though I probably didn't need to be considering that Damon was still locked up and as far as I knew, there weren't any other vampires in town. Plus even if Damon had been able to get out of the cell somehow, he still wouldn't be able to go out in the sun without his ring on.
I then noticed that girl whose grandpa I was talking to was bossing Bonnie around and then suddenly Bonnie started to stare at her before I suddenly smelled smoke. Bonnie looked like she was in some sort of trance. A fire suddenly broke out. I rushed over to her and started to shake her.
"Bonnie." I said to her. At that point, the fire suddenly went out.
"What happened?" She asked in surprise.
"You were in some sort of trance." I declared.
"Did I do this?' She whispered as she looked over at everyone freaked out over the sudden fire.
"I think so." I told her. She seemed like she was particularly disturbed by it.
"Did anyone else see it?" She questioned. I was pretty sure that Stefan had but I didn't want to tell her that.
"No." I lied.
"Don't tell anyone about this." She requested before she ran off suddenly. Well, that was a little bit unexpected. From there, they decided that it was probably a good idea to end the carwash. I was pretty sure that no one would suspect anything at least, but I still didn't know where Caroline had gone. Maybe she had just gone home or something.
Stefan and I walked back into the house to see that there was a dead bird on the floor and the door was opened. I had a bad feeling about that. Stefan ran downstairs and ran back up and stood in front of the doorway. There were also some strands of blonde hair and I could something that smelled really bad, even though that might have just been the dead in front of me. Come to think of it, it looked a lot like the bird that had been following Damon around. Stefan then returned up the stairs with a bit of a somber look on his face.
"Faith, you don't want to go down there." He told me. Now I had a really bad feeling about it. Had Damon killed Caroline?
"Stefan, what happened?" I asked nervously.
"Damon got out." He answered. I then pushed past him and went downstairs…where I found that Zach was dead on the ground. I was right about what was going to happen to him and I was glad that I had told him that I loved him before he died. Of course, I still had tears streaming down my face as I saw his body. Stefan then came over to me.
"Damon…killed him." He told me. I kind of expected that. As much as I didn't want to, I felt like it would probably be a good idea not to get the police involved in this. Stefan grabbed his body and went to bury it in the backyard. He probably deserved better than that. Maybe someday I would be able to get a tombstone for him. I wanted to kill Damon, even though I probably still wouldn't be able to do it.
I went to my bathroom took my clothes off. I needed to take a shower because I needed to try to stop crying. I didn't think that it was inappropriate to cry when you found out that your father was dead. I also couldn't help but wonder how everyone felt when they found out that I was dead. I assumed that I was supposed to be dead in my world and I didn't know if I would be able to go back to it at all.
After I had my shower. I found Stefan was downstairs and he had a stake in his hand. I was pretty sure that he wanted to kill Damon too.
"He's going too far. It's time to end this." He told me. "I can't bring your dad back but at least I can avenge him."
At that point, he opened the door and I couldn't help but notice that Elena was standing there, looking very afraid.
"What are you?" She asked.
So as expected, Zach was killed, but it doesn't really look like Faith will have a chance to mourn him. Also Elena knows that Stefan is a vampire now. Please don't forget to review.