CHAPTER THREE

"Where have you been?" Bonnie asks as she looks at Nyx.

"Screaming at Dean at the top of my lungs for the past two weeks." Nycole tells her as she sits down next to her on the bench in the park. "I swear to God, if he misses the twins' birthday... You will have to reap my ghostly vengeance." She says, and Bonnie shakes her head. "Just... Tell me more. You're..."

"The anchor between the living and the..."

"Dead." She finishes. "You can say it, Bon. I know what I am. I'm dead."

"I wish I could bring you back."

"Yeah, yeah. Moving past the impossible, keep going."

Bonnie sighs. "Well, um, Silas and Qetsiyah are both gone — dead. I'm the anchor between the two sides. Tyler left to get revenge on Klaus — so, he and Caroline broke up. For good." She says, and Nyx's jaw actually drops. "Yeah."

"I'd kick his ass if he could feel it." She shakes her head. "Nice haircut, by the way."

"Thanks." She smiles.

"I wish I could change my hair..." She picks up a curl as she looks at the brown locks. "Now, I have to look like Katherine for the rest of forever. What was humanity-less me thinking?"

"I'm sorry, Nycole." She says, and the ghost shrugs as she looks back at her. "Oh, and Stefan remembers everything again, but he's still keeping his distance from everyone."

"I should have you or Jeremy give him a message for me." Nyx says. "I owe him so much. He saved me and Elena, tried to save Jenna, he's helped us all through...God only knows how much. I feel like I failed him."

"You didn't fail him, Nyx." Bonnie says, and she looks at him. "You were already dead when Silas locked him in that safe, and the veil was up. There's nothing you could've done." She tells her, and Nyx forces a small smile.

—

Nyx is watching over Stefan later that day as he drinks at the grill. He was with Matt, Katherine, and her kidnapper, but Nycole has no idea what the four of them were actually doing. She got there after whatever it was was already over.

Stefan takes a shot and then he starts acting weird. He shuffles through the crowd, bumping into people, and breaks the small shot glass in his hand. After discarding the bloody shards, he continues to stumble around before finally making it outside.

Katherine finds him, and he tells her to get away from him. He starts choking her, though he's not entirely in control of his actions. Not that Nyx doesn't want her to die, but she's completely confused.

"Guis— Giuseppe Salvatore." Stefan stutters after Katherine tells him to name the first person that he ever killed.

"And the next?" She asks. "Focus on the name."

"Thomas Fell." He says, slowly letting up on his grip on her throat.

"See? You're in control, on solid ground. You're not drowning. You're not dying." She tells him, helping him slowly regain his composure. "Name them."

"Oh my God." Nyx mutters, realizing what's going on. He's having a panic attack; it's PTSD because he spent all Summer drowning in the safe in Steven's Quarry.

"Honoria Fell, Marianna Lockwood, Christopher Gilbert, Margaret Forbes." He lets go of her and backs away.

"See?" Katherine rubs her neck. "I told you I knew what I was doing."

"Thank you."

Katherine's kidnapper walks out then, pissed off that someone named Gregor is dead. She tells Katherine to rot in hell and then leaves.

"If only." Nyx mumbles.

—

"Mommy just saw Uncle Stefan save the crazy bitch who's made my life hell for a long time." Nyx whispers; she's sitting on the floor of the living room with the twins. "She's dying, so she jumped off the clock tower...and I actually feel bad for her."

"Are you ready for bed?" Sam asks as he walks into the room. "I think it's time for the little munchkins to get some sleep."

"Need some help?" Carter asks.

"No, I can get the kids down." He tells him as he picks up the twins. "How's the search coming?"

"It'd go a lot faster if Nyx would tell Jeremy where he is." He says as he looks around.

"He's in Texas, just killed a vampire. I'm pretending it wasn't some form of twisted therapy." She says. "Though, I am glad that it was a dead man's blood kind. Still, I don't like it. I also don't like that he's sleeping with some bottle blonde, but I digress."

"...fun with that." Sam's saying, ignoring her. "Now, it's bedtime." He takes the twins into the master bedroom to put them down.

"And for the record, I'm not telling Jeremy where he is because I'm pissed." She continues as she follows Sam. "The dick skipped town and abandoned my adorable babies. He's acting worse than my father, and it's making me crazy."

"He's hurting." Sam whispers as he looks at her.

"So am I." She says, and he sighs.

"I'm not defending him, Nyx. I know he should be here, and I'm pissed that he's not, just like you are." He tells her. "But what would you do if you were in his position?"

"Well, I obviously can't say for sure, but I'm pretty positive it wouldn't be leave." She argues. "I'd take advantage of what time I have left with the twins."

"Where in Texas is he?" He asks, and she clenches her teeth.

"In a crappy motel room, drunk, having sex with a blonde woman." She tells him before disappearing, going to see what Elena's up to for a while. He sighs as he looks around.

—

"I am so, so sorry I got you caught up in this." Damon says as he leans forward and gets Elena to look at him. "But I promise you, I will get you out of here. I'll get you out of here."

They're locked up in two cells because this crazy ass professor wants to do some weird medical experiments on them. Apparently, this is what some group called Augustine does for a living, and Grayson Gilbert was a part of it before he died. That's part of the reason Nyx hasn't gone to tell Jeremy and Bonnie what's going on — she's in shock.

She can't believe that her father would be a part of something like this. These people torture vampires and they say it's for the greater good, that they're trying to further their scientific research and save lives. But truthfully, it seems like they just don't care that they're hurting vampires because they view them all as monsters.

It's a lot to process, that her father tortured people like them. That, and the fact that Damon was here for five years living through this horrific experience. That was almost sixty years ago, and he thought that they had disbanded. Obviously not.

Another reason she's not going to them is that when she went to talk to Bonnie last night, Nyx found her and Jeremy about to sleep together. No girl ever wants to see her little brother in that position. And now she doesn't know what they're doing.

"Damon, how did you survive all those years?" Elena asks.

"Enzo's friendship kept me alive." He tells her. "He gave me a reason to hang on to my humanity. Even when I thought I'd be a prisoner forever."

His friend talked to him about cars and women, even stopped their tormentor from using Damon on an occasion or two. He should've been ruthless and only cared for his own well-being. Nyx doesn't understand how he could possibly stay himself so long.

Damon asked their tormentor why he did it and the answer he got was beyond disturbing to Nycole. He wanted to understand their genetic make-up, understand them on a cellular level, so he could put them to use. Those were his words anyway.

"Oh my God, Damon. Okay." Elena sighs as she looks at him. "Stefan is gonna figure this out. When you don't come home, and no one hears from me, he will— He will find us." She says, though not very hopeful.

"Points for optimism," He says. "But unfortunately Stefan doesn't even know this place exists."

"But you were here for five years."

"Yeah, and the first year, I thought he'd rescue me. He didn't. Once I escaped, there was no point in giving him more to feel guilty about, so I never told him what happened here." He tells her. "I never told anyone." He leans against the bars of his cell. "No, I'm gonna put my eggs in another basket here. Nyx? Nyx, you there? I know you can't talk to me, but you can find your brother and Bonnie. Come on, tell them where we are, Nycole. I'm begging you here."

"Right." The ghost nods, snapping out of her shocked state. "Time to stop fixating on my dad and go for help." She shakes her head and then disappears from the cells.

Nyx appears in Bonnie's room. Luckily, she's alone now. "Hey, Bonnie, I need your help. Elena and Damon are trapped by this creepy ass professor guy, and—" She stops suddenly, realizing that Bonnie's not paying any attention to her. "Bon? Hey, Bonnie?"

She waves her hand in front of Bonnie's​ face, but gets no reaction out of her. Her eyebrows furrow, and she immediately goes to look for Jeremy.

"Jer?" She gets in front of him while he's walking through the grill, but he just walks right through her. He didn't​ even flinch like he usually does when she just pops up. "Jer, please tell me that you can see me."

She watches him leave and then shakes her head. She refuses to believe that this is actually happening.

"Sam." She looks at him as he plays with the twins in the living room. "Hey, come on. No, you gotta see me. Please tell me you know that I'm here. Sam? Sammy? No, no, no, no."

After a few more failed attempts at getting their attention, Nyx goes back to the cells. Damon seems to be in the middle of a story. He's talking to Elena's​ friend, Aaron, who has a gun pointed at him. There was a fire, and Damon's friend, Enzo, died.

So, Damon had a plan for revenge.

He was going to kill all of the Whitmores, one by one. Leave one alive to carry on the name. And repeat. That's how Aaron lost his entire family. Damon killed his parents and his other relatives — left Aaron to be that one survivor to continue the family line.

"How many Whitmores have you killed?" He asks him.

"Since 1958? I lost count."

"When was the last one?" Elena asks, and he doesn't answer. "Damon, when was the last one?"

"A few months ago. Her name was Sara. I had to go all the way to Charleston to find her." He says. "It was a weekend trip. No one knew. I hope to God that Nyx didn't see."

She didn't.

"You had just buried her a few months ago."

"Starting the worst summer of my life — next to the five I spent here." Damon says.

"I had no idea." Elena shakes her head.

"Told you it wasn't pretty." He says, and Aaron shoots him.

"No!" Nyx yells when he ends up on the ground, bleeding out.

She kneels down next to him and looks for any sign that he's okay. Aaron only shot him in the head, so he's not dying.

He wakes up a while later and groans, unaware of the ghost sitting beside him. "I guess I had that coming." He says as he presses his fingers down near the bullet in the side of his forehead. "Elena?"

"She's not in here." Nyx mumbles, knowing damn well that nobody can hear her. "Crazy ass Professor Psycho took her, and I'm afraid to watch what's going to happen next."