"Hey Damon." I greeted, throwing my backpack on the backseat before hopping in the front.

"Little Gilbert." He grinned, pulling his car into drive. "So Stefan tells me you've got yourself a stalker."

"Elijah's a weirdo."

"Oh, first name basis, there a relationship I don't know about? Perhaps it was love at first sight." Damon speculated with a grin. "I mean, he did answer your questions, right?"

"That is so not why." I grumbled, punching Damon's shoulder. "And he talked to Stefan too. It's not like I'm the only one."

"Mhm, sure, I believe it." He laughed, pulling into the Grill parking lot. "Now here's the deal, I'll be watching, but you need to figure out why wolf boy's so desperate he'll go after the baby of the group."

I folded my arms. "I'm not the baby."

"You are, you're the youngest." Damon deadpanned as we got out.

"By four minutes!" I shot back, shoving his arm.  Damon held up his hands in surrender. "Stop teasing me about it." He locked his car, though it wouldn't do much, the top was down.

"But it's so fun." He smirked, ruffling my hair.

I groaned, patting down my hair. "I don't like you."

"You love me." Damon grinned, pulling open the door for me to walk through.

"Nope." I rolled my eyes, glancing around for Tyler.

He was sitting in the corner by the pool tables, his leg bouncing. I approached him, Damon moved to sit at the bar. "Hey." I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets.

"You came." Tyler sat up.

"Yeah." I hesitantly joined him at the table "Why exactly did you ask me to come here?"

"I'm really sorry." He did look genuinely apologetic.

"What do you have to be sorry for?"

"Look I really don't want to hurt you, so just come with me." he pleaded.

...

Groaning, I sat up only to come into contact with metal.

What the hell?

Caroline sat as best she could next to me, pain marring her face. "Are you okay?" She asked, as she looked me over.

"My head hurts." I felt around the area, and gasped when I saw red. How hard had I been hit?

"Do you want some of my blood?" She offered, but I declined, I didn't want to be a seventeen year old vampire.

"What are we doing here?" We were in a trailer.

"We're being held hostage, Jules got the jump on me." She growled.

"Tyler got me." The little fucker. This was my second time being kidnapped in just as many weeks. Caroline suddenly perked up. "What?"

"Shh." She held her finger to her lips and then pointed at her ears. "Stefan and Damon are here to rescue us." She listened again. "They're bargaining Tyler for us." I struggled to hear, but all I got was muffled voices. "Now someone else is here, it's a man, and he isn't very happy." Her eyebrows furrowed together in concentration.

"Does he have an accent per chance?"

Caroline's head snapped to me "he's uh- taking care of the werewolves." She cleared her throat.

The door to the trailer slammed open, a desperate looking woman marched over to our cage. She pulled out a gun and shot Caroline, successfully knocking her out, I gasped.

I would never get used to seeing my friends like that.

She opened the cage, grabbing my arm harshly and dragging me out, before locking it once again. She held the gun to my head and pushed me out of the trailer. "Stop or I'll blow her brains out." The woman threatened. I tried to look anywhere but down, because I knew that if I did I'd throw up. The kidnapper man's dead body flashed in my mind and my stomach churned.

Damon stepped forward, his grip on Tyler tightening. "Hurt her and his heart gets ripped out." He threatened in turn. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Elijah, he was cleaning his hands with his handkerchief.

Why was he always so fucking calm? Especially after killing people.

Elijah stepped forward, tucking his now dirty handkerchief in his pocket."Release the girl, or I will drag the deaths of you and your comrades out longer, mind you, every wolf will die, but it really depends on how you want to do so."

"I'm warning you, one step closer and she's dead." The woman grew frantic.

"Jules." Tyler's voice wobbled. "You picked the wrong hostage, all right." he took half a step forward but faltered, seems he'd reached the end of Damon's grip. "Just let her go, she has nothing to do with Mason's death, she's not even supernatural." Tyler tried to reason. The boys let him, I was one wrong move from dying.

Why was Tyler trying to convince her, he was the reason I was in this mess at all.

"Just let him go, and I'll let her and the blonde have their freedom." She promised, adjusting her stance.

"I'll be all too happy to kill the boy." Elijah remarked. "If one hair on her head is harmed, he is as good as dead." he warned.

"Fine." Jules growled, shoving me to the closest person, who happened to be Stefan. He caught me, pulling me into a hug. Faster than any of us could react, the rest of the living werewolves were dead, Jules disappeared.

Elijah returned to the group. "I believe Miss Forbes is waiting to be released." He gestured to the trailer. Eyes widening, Damon took me while Stefan rushed in to help Caroline. Keeping my view of the other werewolves, thankfully, limited.

"I'd run Lockwood" Damon advised Tyler, who was eyeing Elijah suspiciously. Said boy took off without much more thought, Damon shifted me behind him. "Elijah."

"Mister Salvatore." He tilted his head at Damon, as if considering him. Elijah sped off, Stefan came out with Caroline a second later.

...

"You're sure you're okay?" Damon asked, leaning against the doorway of my room, while I brushed my teeth.

"I'm okay, Jeremy's here if I need anything." I just needed some sleep. Anything to get my mind off all the bloodshed I'd seen.

This was my third fucking time getting kidnapped, I was not a fan.

Yet none was as bad as the first time.

Don't think about that.

Damon nodded, vanishing faster than I could blink. I sighed, putting my hair up in a bun. I'd have to clean the blood out of my hair tomorrow, it seemed to have stopped anyway.

A knock on my door frame startled me. I turned to see Elijah standing there, his hands in his pockets, and a new handkerchief resting in his breast pocket.

I wasn't even surprised that he'd gotten an invitation to my house. Though I would like to know how.

"Thank you for helping rescue me today." I smiled tiredly at him, suddenly feeling self-conscious in my pajama pants and sweatshirt.

"I will always protect you." He promised, glancing at my room. "We have much to discuss, may I come in?"

Nodding, I gestured for him to sit in my desk chair while I sat on my bed, facing him. It wasn't like I could tell him no. He shut the door on his way in.

"Do you understand what you are?" He asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

"Yeah, I uh have dreams about Kol, although I had thought they were something I'd made up." I shifted on my bed, I guess this was confirmation that it is real. Which means I have a soulmate and he'd warned me to stay away from Elijah. "But he explained it to me, said you were brothers."

His eyebrows knit together. "Dreams?"

"Kol first showed up on my seventeenth birthday, after that, I only dreamed of him. I only found out who he was just last night." I explained, at first there was a lot of confusion and Kol was scary, but once he saw my birthmark, it'd been a one eighty, so I'd brushed it off and got to know him. Of course, I'd thought he was imaginary up until yesterday. "He mentioned something about not being able to get to me, because of Niklaus or something."

Elijah seemed to consider it. "Our family has a long and complicated history, Niklaus has a set of daggers he carries with them, if one of us is stabbed with one, it sends the Original into a death-like state." He explained. "It seems that through your bond, you can see him."

"So have you been daggered before?" I asked. He was here wasn't he?

"I have, but not in the last decade." He gave me a soft smile. "Rebekah will be excited to finally have a sister."

"Well who am I to keep her waiting." I grinned. "Never mind my soulmate." Jokes made it easier to cope.

Elijah chuckled. "Don't let him hear you say that."

He was laughing, that was good. The scary vampire who may or may not hurt me was laughing at a joke. What had my life come to? "Why didn't you just kill Tyler?" I blurted.

"From what I observed, Tyler Lockwood hardly knows what he's doing. That woman, the one who took the blonde, Miss Forbes, has been whispering in his ear."

How long had he been watching? Was it since we got back from the kidnapping?

"Are you going to take Elena away." This time I brought my knees up to my chest. I didn't want my big sister to be taken.

"That was the original plan, yes, but you have complicated things. Kol is known for his rather brutal nature, one that rivals Niklaus himself. Once he wakes, I would prefer my brother to not be homicidal amidst your grief."

"What were you going to do with her?"

Elijah sighed. "Niklaus needs to sacrifice your sister to break a curse placed upon him by our mother."

"Why Elena though?"

"She is a supernatural occurrence called a doppelgänger, the original girl being the one sacrificed to bind the curse to Niklaus, he would also need a vampire and a werewolf."

"What is the curse? Is there anyway around killing my sister?"

"My mother was unfaithful to my father, years ago, during that, my mother became pregnant, she told my father it was it was his, when in reality the child had been from the neighboring village's werewolf leader, the truth was not discovered until after Niklaus killed for the very first time, upon discovery, my father was enraged, he murdered the wolf and his entire family. In an act to appease him, my mother bound Niklaus' werewolf nature, cutting him off entirely unless he were to break his curse."

"And there's no other way to help unless he sacrifices my sister?" Elijah shook his head.

"My mother was a very powerful witch, the only way to break his curse is to kill the doppelgänger." I looked down, fiddling with my fingers. "We came across a doppelgänger five centuries ago, she was going to be sacrificed but caught wind of what was happening, turned herself, and has been on the run. Had she not done so, I had been talking to some witches, they gave me a potion that would enable the doppelgänger to die in the sacrifice and still wake up human."

"Can we use it for Elena" I asked hopefully.

Elijah smiled and then nodded. "Niklaus is coming." he warned. "And he may intend to kill you."