ELEANOR WAS AWAKE AND MAKING BREAKFAST BEFORE CAROLINE STIRRED. She realized after Stefan left that she had no clue where the girl lived, so she just brought her home and let her sleep in the guest room. The Chetwood girl turned around when she heard a door open. "You're awake."

"Yeah, where am I?" Caroline asked, rubbing her head. She was surprisingly calm for a girl that had woken up in an unfamiliar place, but that just might be the hangover. She was still in her dress from the night before, but it was wrinkled.

"My apartment," Eleanor answered, hoping that she would not be angry. She was shocked that she had not mentioned anything about the previous night when she ran away from her. "I couldn't find your mom, and I didn't know where you lived. So, I brought you here. Sorry."

The Forbes girl just shrugged, not seeming to care. "What happened?"

"I found you unconscious in the yard at the party. Do you remember anything?" the brunette asked, praying that she would not have to compel her to forget anything. It must have been an awful night for her after everything she went through.

"I remember the party. Damon came up behind me, and he was kissing my neck, or biting my neck. I passed out," Caroline explained, scrunching up her face while trying to remember. "It's like there's holes in my memory lately. It's just weird. Maybe I let him bite me."

Eleanor sighed, and she figured that that was all right for her to remember. Maybe it would keep her the hell away from Damon. "I don't think that's what happened."

"Can we not talk about it? Don't want to talk about Damon. I don't want to talk about any of it. Just want to go back to normal. I need to call my mom," she informed the girl, walking over to her purse on the counter. Eleanor was kind of scared for that, for the sheriff would not be too excited about her daughter being brought home by a person she did not even know.

When she removed the device from her bag, a pendant fell out and dropped onto the ground. Eleanor furrowed her eyebrows at the sight of it because she could have sworn that she had seen it before. "What's that?"

"Damon gave it to me. Or he was going to give it to me. All I know is, it's mine now," the blonde girl answered, leaving it on the counter before heading into the other room to talk to her mom. Eleanor walked over to the pendant, and almost as soon as she got a better look of it, she remembered where she knew it from.

It belonged to Emily Bennett.

Why did Damon have it? How did Damon have it? She did not get a chance to wonder much because Caroline came bursting back into the room. Eleanor flew back to the stove to flip her pancake and act like she wasn't being nosy. "That was quick."

"Yeah, I just told her I was alive and coming home soon," the Forbes girl answered, helping herself to the already cooked batch of chocolate chip pancakes on the counter. "You're coming to the Sexy Suds Car Wash, right? I need more girls. "

"I thought that was for cheerleaders," Eleanor replied.

Caroline just waved her off. As long as you looked good in a bikini, no one stopped to wonder if you were a cheerleader or not. "No one really gives a crap if you're a cheerleader as long as you're hot."

"I'll think about it," the Chetwood girl answered. She was not sure she wanted to spend her day getting gawked at while providing manual labor. There were definitely better things that she could do with her day off.

The blonde girl took that as a yes, apparently, because she concluded, "Okay, great, you're coming. I'll see you there."

《❂》

ELEANOR WAS PUT TO WORK AS SOON AS SHE ARRIVED. She was on hose duty, which was something she quite enjoyed because every once in a while, she was able to get away with spraying someone with it "on accident." She and Bonnie were having fun, to say the least, while the Bennett girl informed her of who was a bitch and who was all right.

The Chetwood girl had been there for about two hours, and she hadn't seen Caroline since she arrived, which kind of sucked because she was the only reason that she even showed up. As a boy pulled up in the ugliest car that Eleanor had ever seen, Bonnie looked over to one of the other girls. "Oh. Tiki. this one's yours."

"Why do I always get the homely ones?" Tiki groaned, and she leaned down to look at the boy inside. Eleanor was not sure if he was more excited about the fact that a hot girl was talking to him or upset about what she was saying. "Just to be clear, your car's a P.O.S. I mean, we can wash it, but it's still a P.O.S."

"You don't have to be rude," Bonnie told her, and Eleanor kind of felt bad too. It most likely was not his fault that his car was like that. Maybe it was the only one he could afford.

"Rude is uglying up the road with that junk," the other girl responded, and the Chetwood girl kept a completely straight face as she lifted up the hose and pulled the trigger on the handle. It shot her in the face, and she stumbled back while Eleanor just looked around, acting confused. Tiki shrieked, "Whoa! What the hell?"

Matt laughed from where he was pouring soap on his sponge. "Wet and wild, Tik."

"Sorry, I guess my hand slipped," the vampire apologized sarcastically with a shrug, like she had no clue how that possibly could have happened.

Tiki juts glared at her, muttering, "Bitch." She then walked away to go clean herself up. Bonnie giggled and raised her hand in the air. The Chetwood girl accepted the high five proudly before getting back to work.

"Caroline practically begs me to come to this stupid thing and then runs away," Eleanor complained another hour later. She only stayed because she was kind of having fun, and she liked that it was an opportunity to get closer to Bonnie.

The Bennett girl nodded, and the brunette guessed that same situation had happened to her a couple of times in her years of knowing the Forbes girl. "That's Caroline for you."

"Sweeper duty. We have to clean the pavement," Tiki ordered after approaching them, and she tossed both of them a broom. They both stared at her like she was absolutely insane. It was literally asphalt that they had been dumping soap and water on all day.

Bonnie looked like she was about to punch the girl. She gestured all around them. It was the most spotless pavement Eleanor had seen. The Bennett girl pointed out, "It's a car wash. By definition, the pavement's clean."

"But not dry," Tiki corrected, and Eleanor was this close to shoving that broom up her ass. Clearly, she had never heard of evaporation. It was 90 degrees, the asphalt would dry itself because of the freaking sun. She just smirked. "Caroline bailed, so that leaves me in charge."

She spun on her heel and went to go get into her car, and Bonnie just stared at the ground. Eleanor jumped back when all of a sudden, the water on the ground in front of them burst into flames, leading all the way over to Tiki's car until it began burning too. There was screaming, but the vampire was more focused on the girl next to her.

"Bonnie! Bonnie! Bonnie!" she called, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her because she was in some sort of trance. Finally, she looked up at the brunette, who breathed out a sigh of relief. She had been plenty of young witches lose control before, and it never ended well for them or anyone else. "Hey. You were in some kind of a trance."

"Did I do this?" the Bennett girl questioned, looking around at the damage in shock and slight fear.

Eleanor nodded slowly, and she could see the guilt in Bonnie's eyes. She was scared of herself and the powers that she could not control. She was scared of what she could do with them, who she could hurt. The vampire answered, "I think so, yeah."

"Nobody else saw, did they? Don't tell anybody. Please," Bonnie begged her, and she just nodded before leading her over to her car. She was in no state to be driving. When asked where they were going, she answered, "My Grams' house. She'll know what's going on."

So, Eleanor brought Bonnie to her grandmother's house, and almost as soon as the girl stepped out of the car, the brunette's phone began to ring. She saw that it was Stefan and picked it up, but before she could even greet him, he said, "Elena knows."

"That doesn't seem like my problem," she replied, tucking her phone between her ear and cheek and starting the car again. She really did not give a crap if Elena knew that Stefan was a vampire. It affected her in no way, shape, or form really.

"I need your help," he pleaded, and she let out a groan. "Meet me at my house." And then he hung up before she could protest.