CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Will you please just keep her from killing anybody?" Nyx asks; she's on the phone with Damon.

"We're working on it." He tells her. "She hasn't been going to school. So, I think we're okay so far."

"I just don't want her to do anything​ that she'll regret when she turns her emotions back on."

"And who says I'm gonna turn my emotions on?" Elena questions as she walks into the living room of the Boarding House where Damon is. "What do I have to come back to? I broke up with my boyfriend because he was lying, keeping secrets from me, and turned my brother into a supernatural Hunter. My parents are dead — all four of them. My legal guardians are dead. My brother's dead. And my sister chooses her boyfriend over me time and time again."

"I did not." Nyx argues, and Caroline sighs — this is what was bothering her after her last conversation with Elena.

"Doesn't really matter anymore, does it? I chose to feel nothing rather than have you as my only living relative left." She says.

"You chose the easy way out. Rather than dealing with what was going on, you just turned it all off." Nycole argues. "Don't you think I want to turn it off too? You don't think I have that urge? Be done with the pain, the fear, the guilt — not have to hate myself every day."

"Then do it."

"Unlike you, I actually care that there are still people who need me." She says. "I'm not gonna turn my back on them. It's selfish."

"Right. Like the twins. Maybe I'll pay them a little visit​. We wouldn't​ want them to forget their aunt Elena." She says, and Nyx can hear the smug smile in her voice.

"If you so much as breathe in my children's​ direction, the first emotion that you feel when you flip that switch back on is fear. I will hunt you down—"

"Nycole." Damon cuts her off; Sam's looking at her with wide eyes. "Elena, get out or shut the hell up."

"Did I say something wrong?" She chuckles, and then disappears upstairs.

"You can't let her get to you." He says, and Nyx sighs as she sits on the foot of the bed.

"She just threatened my kids! What was I supposed to say, Damon?" Nyx questions.

"Nothing. Don't play into her games."

"That's easier said than done." She sighs as the door to the motel room opens, and Dean walks in with food for everyone. "She's my sister. She's supposed to care about us — about them."

"I know, but she lost Jeremy and—"

"I lost him too!" She snaps, and everyone looks at her. "He's my baby brother too, and I didn't get any closure. There was no funeral because there was no body to bury. She took that from me, Damon. She wasn't the only one who was hurt by his death."

The twins are crying, and Caroline's​ trying to sooth Alex as Dean holds Everly. Nycole sighs as she tries to calm herself down.

"I know you lost him too, Nyx. But Elena found his body in that cave. She sat in a boat leaving the island with him, they brought him home." He tells her. "She spent all that time with hope that he would come back. And when it all fell apart there was nothing that anyone could do for her."

Nyx sinks the floor and leans her back against the bed. "Did you hear what she said to me when I called her after Caroline and Stefan came to New Orleans?" She asks, a lot calmer now.

"No, I didn't."

"She said that she blamed me before she turned it off. I brought Jeremy with us, we taught him how to hunt." She says with tears in her eyes. "It was me who sent him down this path, and now he's dead. She said from the very beginning that she hated what I do. She hated that I was out here with them, hunting. She was furious when we took Jeremy... And she was right."

"Nyx..." He sighs.

"She knew that the worst thing that could happen to him was to become anything like me. He did, and it cost him his life." She wipes away the tears. "And it's all my fault."

"No, it isn't." He shakes his head. "When I was training him at the lake house, he told me a little about when he was traveling with you. He said that the way you taught him worked, so maybe that's how we should've​ been doing it."

She sniffs, fighting back tears. "What's your point, Damon?"

"He was proud of you, Nycole. He was proud of what he saw in you. You taught him how to be stronger, to fight harder for what he believed in." He says, and a small smile crosses her lips as she stares at the carpet. "And he looked up to that hunter of yours — Dean. Said he wanted to learn from him so he could be like him. If you and Dean are the worst role models he could've had, then he had it pretty damn good. Not many sixteen-year-old's can live through what he did and be proud of the man his sister was helping him become."

"Why should I believe that he would tell you any of that? He hated you."

"Yeah, but he loves you. It didn't matter who he was talking to, he only cared who he was talking about." He tells her, and she smiles.

"Thanks, Damon." She says as she looks up at the ceiling. "I never thought I'd see the day that I'd care so much what you had to say."

He chuckles. "Anytime."

They hang up, and Nyx rests her chin on her knee as she wraps her arms around her legs. Using one hand, she wipes away the excess tears on her face, still choking back more.

"I've been trying to get you to talk to me for weeks, and you've refused, but you spend five minutes on the phone with him, and you just volunteer the information?" Dean questions, unable to contain his anger — and jealousy​ — and Nyx looks up at him.

"What?"

"You know, I think I'm gonna take the twins outside." Caroline says suddenly. "Sam?"

"Yeah, I'll help." He nods, and the two of them take the babies and leave the room.

"Why won't you talk to me?"

"What are you talking about?" Nyx questions as she stands up and looks at Dean. "I'm with you everyday."

"So, why don't I know anything?" He questions. "Is that what Elena said that was bothering you when we were working that trickster case?"

"I..."

"You have been shutting me out since you turned. We don't talk about anything that's​ going on in Mystic Falls, we hardly talk about us, you won't sleep in the same bed as me anymore." He shakes his head. "It seems like I'm fighting​ harder for this relationship than you are... And now I sound like an insecure chick."

"You think this is hard on you?" She questions as she takes a step closer to him. "You have no idea what this feels like for me. From the second that I woke up on my couch, everything has been heightened. Every little fear that I have, every ounce of self-doubt that I have ever felt." She shakes her head as she looks at him. "It's like someone put all of my emotions under a microscope...and you think us breaking up was hard for you? I knew that I was in love with you long before I turned and when I woke up, that was magnified. And still, it wasn't enough to stop me from trying to feed on you. How do you think that felt? To be so in love with you, and not​ be able to touch you or even stand too close to you?"

"So, why don't you tell me any of these things?" He demands. "Instead of talking​ to me, you spend all your time talking to Tyler or Damon."

"Damon?" She scoffs. "Please tell me that we are not back to that. Damon is my friend, and he's been helping me with this because I felt like I couldn't trust Stefan. And Tyler—"

"Is your ex! The first guy that you were ever in love with." He quickly cuts her off. "How do you​ think it felt to have you distance yourself from me while you talk to them? Your ex who you have all this history with, talking about how you loved his mom and this relationship that your families had with each other. And the vampire who's been in love with you for as long as he's known you! They can both give you things that I can't. You don't have to worry about losing control with them, and they can help you in ways that I'll never be able to, with things that I'll never understand. And I listen you to talk to them and joke with a smile on your face, all while you can barely even look at me. How do you think all of this feels Nycole?!"

"What do you want from me, Dean? You want me to apologize for having a past? For falling in love with someone else before I even knew that you existed?!" She questions. "I can't do that. Because I am not sorry. I'm grateful for what Tyler and I had, and I'm grateful for everything that Damon does to help me. I don't think I'd be able to handle what I am if it weren't for him. I haven't done anything wrong, so I sure as hell am not going to apologize for it."

"What about calling​ you and finding​ out that you were in New Orleans specifically​ looking for Marcel?" He questions. "Every time we've been there, this guy finds you at the drop of a hat. And you can't help making comments about that smile he's always got plastered on his face while he talks to you."

"This is about Marcel now?!" She shakes her head. "God, are you even hearing yourself​?!" She turns away, trying not to get angry because she knows how easy it is for anger to turn to hunger.

"This is about how you will go to anyone and everyone else for help before you'll even let me see that something's wrong!" He snaps. "This is about how I feel like I'm in constant completion for your attention, and I'm losing! Damn it, Nycole!"

As the last sentence leaves his mouth, the glass he'd picked up from the table beside him leaves his hand. Nyx hears it wising through the air and she quickly ducks. The glass flies right over her head before it shatters on the wall above the bed that she'd been leaning against a few minutes ago.

They both stand there for a moment, completely frozen in their places. After a second, Nyx slowly straightens up, and then the door opens with a thud, causing them both to jump.

Sam rushes up behind Caroline, and they stand in the doorway with the twins; she immediately recognizes the look on Nyx's face. She was there the night that Matt and Tyler got into that fight after the way Tyler treated her — when he hit her. Nyx has the same dumbstruck and slightly scared expression as that night, as well as the glassy, tear-filled brown eyes.

"Get out." Caroline says, the first to break the silence between them. Her eyes are on Dean.

"I think it's time for you to take a walk." Sam tells his brother when he just stands there.

Dean grabs his leather jacket and then walks past them as he leaves the room. Nyx turns away from Sam and Caroline, who take the twins to the other room that they got for the night. The shaken brunette needs a minute alone to collect herself, and they both understand without it actually needing to be said.