After her run in with Damon, she was more shaken up than ever. It seemed like every time she learned something new, there was another revelation right around the corner to knock her off balance. Damon knew. He knew about her. He knew, he knew, he knew. It was all she could think about as she walked home, journal clutched tight to her chest. He knew. Damon Salvatore knew that she was a complete and total liar.
God, she felt like an idiot. How long? How long had he known the truth about her? How long had he known and gone on pretending? Did everyone know? Did they laugh about her when she wasn't around? Did James and John make sneering comments in her direction under their breath?
Walking faster than usual, she was desperate to get back to the apartment, to confront Caroline. She'd spent the past several months needing answers, but this was the tip of the iceberg. Someone needed to tell her what was going on, and they needed to do it fast. Because not only did Damon know her deep, dark secret, but he was also one of them. A vampire. She could see in his eyes, in the way he moved, the way the desk splintered under his fist.
She knew very little about vampires aside from what she'd read. The only evidence she'd seen with her own eyes the bloodied cut on the man's hand slowly healing back together. But increased strength and speed? That had to be a vampiric trait too, unless there were some other supernatural species she'd yet to learn about. Not like that could surprise her now. In fact, she was certain nothing could.
But what did that mean for Caroline? Caroline, who claimed to have known Damon her entire life? And how old was he really? She didn't know exactly what she would say when faced with the blonde, but it didn't matter. Anger bubbled up like acid in her throat and there was no way to shove it back down this time. She'd been made a fool of. All this time, she'd been a fool. And though that acidic anger burned in her throat, nothing hurt more than the betrayal. And she'd wanted to kiss him, God, she'd wanted nothing more than to kiss him. Even as he touched her hair, revealed his hand, she'd wanted it, him. That only added more fire to the flame. Only made her walk faster, gnash her teeth together harder.
Her rage drove her inside fast, jamming the key into the lock, throwing the door open hard enough that it hit the wall. The apartment was eerily quiet.
She deflated at the lack of reaction. The apartment was empty. She checked every room, each taking more out of her until it felt like she could collapse on the couch in a puddle of tears. But she didn't, she wouldn't cry.
Instead, she sat on the couch, tapping her foot endlessly, waiting for Caroline to show up. An hour or two must have passed before she stood back up again, pacing around the living room, trying to decide her next plan of action. It felt asinine to sit still when there was so much she needed to know. But there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but stay and wait.
So, she managed to tuck herself into bed, managed to fall asleep, and sleep, somehow, without a nightmare. Apparently, the lack of sleep had caught up with her, the constant headache of not knowing, it pulled her under and she slept until the sun came up the next morning.
Waking up to an empty apartment, she felt the rage start to bubble up again. But more than anything, she still felt tired. There were bags underneath her brown eyes, and her mousy brown hair was tangled and messy, half falling out of the braids. Despite everything screaming at her to stay home tucked into bed feeling sorry for herself, she got ready for Dr. Bartlow's class and hoped, more than anything, that Damon would be absent.
Elena took a seat in the Ancient Greek classroom, restraining herself from pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her head upon them. James and John filtered in first, James with a bright smile and John with an irritating smirk that meant he had something incredibly obnoxious to say.
"Gilbert," he said, and she groaned. It was meant to be internal, but the sound slipped out by accident, along with an eye roll.
She stared at him with those tired brown eyes, piercing right through his, in no mood for his attitude. "What?" she said.
"You seen Salvatore?" he asked, brow raised.
Elena had expected an insult. "What? No."
"Not last night?" James asked, cutting into the conversation.
"Yesterday around lunch, but that's all," she said. What were they getting at?
Marcus filed in by himself, arms crossed, looking like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. He almost looked as bad as she did.
"Where's Damon?" she asked, and it felt like someone else had controlled her, made her say the words. Because why should she care? Unfortunately, for some reason, she did. She'd wished for his absence, but now that he hadn't shown up, her anxiety spiked.
Marcus' eyes met her and he looked concerned. She'd never seen the look on his face before, but it made her genuinely worried. Her own brows creased as he spoke. "Not sure. Spent the night looking for him with Stefan and Caroline. Nothing. No trace of him anywhere."
"What?" she asked like it was the only word she was capable of saying that morning.
"Are you touched in the head," John said, snapping at her. "He said Damon is missing. He was supposed to meet me for drinks last night, but he bailed."
"Thought it was just 'cause he was sick of paying your tab," James added. "But this."
Dr. Bartlow hadn't arrived yet, but Elena was already out of her seat before anyone could say anything else. There was one place she was certain they hadn't checked. One place she knew was crawling with danger, with vampires. A place that Damon had warned her to stay clear of for a reason, even if she didn't understand it.
"I have to go," she said, and she darted out of the classroom before she could say anything else, leaving her bag, her books, and everything on her person behind, not stopping to think about anything else except her destination.
Before she could get across the courtyard, Marcus was standing in front of her, blocking her path. He had his hands up like he was trying to calm a wild animal. In some ways, that was how she felt.
"Do you know what you're getting yourself into?" he asked. He was the first person to actually ask this of her, the first person who didn't assume she was in over her head.
"Yes," she said, but then shook her head. "Sort of."
"Damon wasn't lying when he said you're in danger," Marcus said, casually. "But I'm not going to stop you, wherever you're planning to go. I only ask that you let me follow."
"It seems that he's in danger now," she said, thinking it another win somewhere deep in the back of her mind. Unimportant in that moment, but impossible to disregard. "It doesn't matter, I think I know where he is."
The society's secret meeting place was much different during the day, more ominous in a way. The pair reached the door together, after walking in silence across town. Elena reached out immediately to try the door, but it didn't budge. Without comment, Marcus stepped in front of her and slammed his shoulder against it. The door clicked open, splintered in some places. But he'd made it look easy. Cast in darkness, the place looked entirely different, an outline of the vibrant meeting atmosphere.
"It's a small place, if he's here it shouldn't be hard to find him," Elena said as she walked down the stairs. Her eyes searched in the dark, looking for any sign of his presence. She whispered his name, hoping for a response, but heard nothing in return. She turned around to look at Marcus, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Marcus?" she hissed, trying to keep her voice low. No response. Her heart picked up, starting to beat harder and harder as she crept through the eerily quiet room. "Marcus?" she said again, still without response.
She didn't have time to worry about what had happened to him, she could only press forward. The main room was empty, but she found her way to the bar in the dark, running her hand along the wall until it met a doorknob. She turned the knob slow, trying to make as little noise as possible, then pushed the door forward and slipped inside. The room was lit by a single candle burning to the stump.
When her eyes met his, she felt a bit of her soul crumble. There was a soaked rag in his mouth, tied behind his head, and he'd been bound similarly at the hands and ankles to one of the chairs, his body slumped over at the table she'd sat at only a few days prior. She couldn't shake the feeling that this was her fault.
"Damon," Elena whispered, dropping to her knees in front of him, placing her hands on his thighs. She shook him gently. "Look at me, please. You have to look at me."
She made quick work of the knotted fabric, removing them from his ankles, his wrists, his mouth as delicately as she could.
When had Damon embedded himself in her skin like a thorn, and when had she decided that it wasn't worth the pain of removal? Why did she care about him so much that the sight of him in pain made her ache something fierce? When had that hatred turned into something entirely different? And why couldn't she shake the feelings he'd instilled in her in the library, the way he'd looked at her, the way he'd so carefully touched her? And why, God, why did she feel the corners of her eyes burn like tears were on their way?
He didn't stir, and the pain in her chest only grew as her heartbeat quickened. There had to be something that she could do. Some way that she could help him, save him. He'd done all of this to protect her, and if that was true—there had to be at least one thing that she could do for him.
With everything she'd learned… maybe there was one thing that she could provide. Looking around, she spotted the letter opener the man had held during his speech, the same one he'd used to carve a line in his skin.
Quickly, she pressed the tip of the blade into her palm, letting blood well up in the center. For a moment, she only stared at it. Would this even work? She'd only ever seen such a thing in dreams, never once in reality.
In an instant, she was behind him, lifting his chin up with her other hand and holding her bloodied palm to his lips. "Please," she encouraged. Before she could ask again, his fangs were in her skin. One hand kept her palm from slipping away and the other gripped her forearm as he drank.
The bite hurt, stinging pain shooting up her arm, but she didn't struggle, just tried to remain calm and let him take what he needed.
All this time. A vampire. Even as he drank from her, took her blood to heal himself, she still had a hard time believing what was right in front of her. Everything she knew, it had still felt like an impossibility. But there wasn't enough time to think about that, not now. Not when both of their lives were still at risk.
The pain became unbearable, and Elena yelped, trying to rip her hand away from Damon's harsh grip. "Damon," she said, her voice soft but full of fear.
Something shifted in him, and he dropped her hand like it was fire. Before she could move, he was across the room, looking at her with blood dripping down his chin, veins darkened around his eyes, a monster. "Elena," he said, brows pulled together with so much confusion and… pain?
It was the first time he'd said her name. Not Jeremy. Not Gilbert. Elena. It chilled her to the core to hear him say it.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, ever the knight in shining armor. Always protecting her no matter what, even if she didn't want it, didn't need it. Well, maybe this time she did need it, though she was too headstrong to believe otherwise.
But his words made her feel a sort of arrogance, and she couldn't help the smile that drew across her lips. "It's too late for that. Besides, you needed me." What would have happened to him if she hadn't arrived? If she hadn't shown up just in time?
The fangs retracted and the veins around his eyes softened and he was just Damon again, though the blood trailing from his lips remained. He was in front of her in an instant, a hand on each side of her face, and it felt as if the world froze around them.
His ice blue eyes met her large brown ones and searched. What he looked for, she didn't know, but nonetheless, she looked too and found desperation, fear.
"What's going on? Please, you have to tell me," she said, the words coming out as more of a plea than she'd hoped. Her desire to sound strong and confident in the face of his painful expression did not make it through.
Still, he held her face, looking at her like she was everything in the entire universe, like if he let go she'd just disappear right then and there. "I will tell you anything you want to know. Okay?" he said with a slight nod. "But right now I need to get you out of here."
Before she could respond, he dropped his hands and let his fangs elongate, piercing into the flesh at his wrist. Pulling her toward him her back to his chest, he held his wrist up for her. "To heal you, your hand," he said softly. "What you did for me…" he stroked her hair with his free hand. "I won't forget it." Every place their bodies touched felt aflame.
Gently, she drew his wrist toward her mouth, letting his blood flow in. There was no time to remark upon the strange taste, to remark upon anything that was happening, really, so she just drank and marveled at the sight of her wound stitching itself back together.
Her mind moved so fast, thoughts racing through without enough time to even acknowledge them. Damon Salvatore was a vampire. Someone had hurt him. They were in danger. His blood had healed her. The way he'd looked at her. The way his hands had felt. They were in danger.
The door opened behind them. Damon immediately pushed her behind his body, holding an arm out to protect her. She tried to peer over his shoulder, look around him to catch the eye of this new person.
"Well, well, well." Shoes clicked on the stone as someone entered the room, shrouded in darkness. He tossed a body to the ground next to them. Marcus'. "This is quaint, isn't it?"
"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Salvatore? Always after the same girl. But don't worry. I won't hurt this one." He paused, stepping out of the shadow and into the candlelight. "Yet."
The man was a stranger, unrecognizable with curly blonde hair and a terrifying smile.
"Klaus," Damon snarled. She could hear the anger in the single word, could nearly hear his teeth grinding together. "You won't—"
Klaus stepped forward, in a flash he stood in front of Damon, hands at the base of his neck and a sickening snap. Elena gasped as his body fell into a heap on the floor and Klaus took a step closer to her. She tried to keep her composure, tried to steady her heart, tried not to look down at Damon's crumpled body on the ground at her feet.
He grabbed her face, thumb and fingers grasping her cheeks. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. Unless he continues to interfere. But none the matter." Klaus trailed a slow finger down Elena's cheek and she shivered. "I think it's time you drop the disguise." He grabbed her arm roughly, forcing her into the seat Damon had occupied when she arrived. "I have big plans for you."
END OF ACT II
A/N: Thank you so much for all your kind reviews on the last chapter. So many of you read it so fast, I just had to get this last chapter up. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far! I've been having such a ball writing it and reading all of your reactions. I just have a few finishing touches to put on Act III (the final act), but I should be back to posting either next weekend or the weekend after at the latest. Thank you so so so much again for all of your support.