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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏

  -ˋˏ 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 ˎˊ-

˚ 　 ✫ 　　　 ˚ . 　　　 ⋆

. · 　　 +

✧

╰┈˚ · ° .   WITHIN THE TIME OF ONLY FEW WEEKS, a lot of things had changed. For one, Caroline and I kind of rekindle our friendship. And second, my eighteenth birthday was approaching quickly.

Monday morning and another day of school. I met the blonde girl in the front courtyard of Mystic Falls High school with Elena— that after days of being angry with her, I let the resentment go for what he had done to our brother. Still, though, I wasn't going to forget that anytime soon.

"Have you talked to Bonnie?" Elena asked Caroline.

"No, I'm mad at her." The Forbes girl replied. "She needs to make the first move."

"Be the bigger person." My sister suggested.

"Ugh, impossible in her presence."

"Why are you so pissed at her anyway?"

"She's a thief, that's why. I gave her my necklace and she refuses to give it back. It's a matter of principle."

Elena, at Caroline's answer, looked at me as if to urge me to say something. I shook my head. I wasn't going to get in the middle of that.

I'm pretty sure that Bonnie had a good explanation to not give her back the necklace. A good one was even just because it belonged to Damon.

"All right, I tried." Elena said, "I'm officially out of it.

"Good. Your turn. Where's Stefan? Have you talked to him?"

Apparently, the night of Stefan's birthday party, Damon had killed Lexi, Stefan's closest and oldest friend to cover his own tracks from the council— a bunch of people from the founding family that hated vampires.

"He's avoiding me." Elena answered her.

"Why?"

"It's complicated."

The first bell rang letting us know that the first lesson was about to begin. Elena and I walked to our first period together, History. Already sat at his usual desk next to mine was Zyran. He gave me his gorgeous smile that made my knees weak and melted my heart.

"Hello, Darlin'." His British accent was heavy in his words. He reached for my hand, kissing the back of it as I sat down in my seat.

Grinning at him with my best smile, I replied."Hi."

History was the class that Mr. Tanner taught before he died, so we had been stuck with a substitute teacher for more than one month. But apparently, no more because the newly hired teacher had just entered the classroom.

"Good morning, everyone." He was in his early-mid thirties with an athletic build. Brown hair and blue eyes. And he was wearing a very bad ironed dress shirt. "Alrighty. Let's see." Using the chalk he wrote his name on the board. "Alaric Saltzman. It's a mouthful, I know. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Saltzman is of German origins. My family immigrated here in 1755 to Texas. I, however, was born and raised in Boston. Now, the name Alaric belongs to a very dead great-grandfather I will never be able to thank enough. You'll probably wanna pronounce it Alaric but it's 'Alaric,'okay? So you can call me Rick. I'm your new history teacher.

Oh god, not the wanna be funny and cool teacher.

───── ⋆˖⁺‧ ☽◯☾ ‧⁺˖⋆ ─────

╰┈˚ · ° .   The atmosphere in the kitchen was anything but serene. Girls' night was something that I would usually decline the invite to because I always felt like I was intruding in their friendship, that I was the odd one out, most of all when only Bonnie and Elena were present. This time though, I tried to push my limits, and that was how I ended up in a room filled with awkward silence as we unpacked the take away dinner.

Having had enough of the situation, Elena looked at Caroline, communicating with her eyes and a title of her head to Bonnie for the girl to make the first step to reconcile the friendship.

The Forbes girl listening to Elena turned to Bonnie. "I'm sorry. There, I said it. If you want the ugly-ass necklace, keep it. It's yours."

Bonnie hesitated, "Will you hate me if I tell you I threw it away?"

Oh my fucking god.

"You threw it away?" Caroline asked with an edge in her tone. To be honest, she was right to be angry now.

"I know it sounds crazy. The necklace was giving me nightmares, I had to get rid of it."

"You could have given it back to me."

"Why?" Elena asked, "So you could give it back to Damon?"

"Screw Damon." Caroline said, shaking her head, deciding to change the subject. "Are we doing manicures or what? Who has their kit?"

"Mine's in my bag." Bonnie replied as we started once again to unpack the dinner coming from the Grill.

"So, Elena, how long do you think this fight with Stefan's gonna last? Is it like a permanent thing?"

"I don't know, Caroline." My sister said with a sigh as she munched on a fry.

"I'm sure it won't last long. He is totally obsessed with you." I told her.

Elena denied, "He is not-"

"He is." Bonnie chuckled, cutting her friend off.

"Why are you such a little liar, Bonnie?" Suddenly, Caroline spoke again, anger tearing in her tone.

"What?"

"Caroline?"

The two best friends looked at each other as Caroline showed the necklace to them. The necklace Bonnie had presumably thrown away.

"I'm not lying to you, Caroline. I swear." Bonnie told her, but the blonde girl wasn't easily persuaded by her words.

"It's true. I watched her throw it into a field." Elena backed up Bonnie.

"Then why did she find it in her bag?" I couldn't help but question.

I get it. They did not want Caroline to give it back to Damon, but lying about it? But the panic that grew in Bonnie's eyes was too real to fake it when she spoke next.

"Emily?"

"Who's Emily?" Caroline asked.

"The ghost." Bonnie said, eyes locked with Elena's.

What ghost?

"Oh, the ghost has a name now?" The blonde girl questioned sarcastically.

"Caroline, please." Elena silenced her, focusing on Bonnie.

"I wonder why she won't leave me alone."

"Okay, what is going on?" Caroline shoutes. "Why am I not a part of this conversation? You guys do this to me all the time."

Apparently, I wasn't the only one feeling like that. And once again, I felt like I was intruding in their friendship. Even their twos with Caroline's.

"That's not true." Elena denied.

"Yes, it is." Both Bonnie and I said at the same time.

I get me. I wasn't actually their friend. I was Elena's sister. But Caroline was actually a part of their friendship and she was hurt but how they always ended up cutting her out.

"I can't talk to you, you don't listen." Bonnie told Caroline.

"That's not true."

"I'm a witch." The Bennett girl admitted seriously. But her grandmother's words that even she had mocked before weren't going to get through Caroline easily.

"And don't we all know it."

"See? That's what I'm talking about. I'm trying to tell you something. You don't even hear it."

"In her defense." I started. "You joked about this before, I get it that she won't believe you." I told my opinion to the new witch, who scoffed and stormed away.

"I listen. When do I not listen?" Caroline asked, baffled by her friend's words.

In the end, Elena convinced her to try and understand Bonnie, to listen to her words and try to believe her.

That was how the Bennett and the Forbes girls reconciled.

"Well, there is just way too much drama in this room. So, what do you guys wanna do?" Caroline asked us before gasping, "Huh! I have an idea. Why don't we have a seance?"

"I don't think that's a good idea." Bonnie shook her head, not really wanting to contact her ancestor.

"Come on. Let's summon some spirits. This Emily chick has some serious explaining to do."

"I mean, I always wanted to do one, so... I'm on board." I said, getting up and standing next to Caroline who offered me an enthusiastic high five.

Bonnie and Elena agreed too, and we moved to Elena's room to do it. We sat in a circle around holding each other's hands, the lights off and only the candle's light clustered between us where to hunt the darkness away.

"What are we doing?" Bonnie asked from my right.

"I don't know."

"Shh! Be quiet and concentrate." Caroline reprimanded them, adjusting her hold on my other hand, "Okay, close your eyes." She started giving directions— which we all followed, "Okay, now take a deep breath. Bonnie, call to her."

"Emily. You there?"

I snorted out loud. The sentiment was shared by the other two as we all opened one eye to glance at the girl. "Really? 'Emily, you there?' That's all you got?"

"Come on, try again. Possibly with something of more impact than 'Emily you there'." I told her.

"Fine, jeez." We all closed our eyes again, taking a deep breath as from the previous Caroline's direction before Bonnie spoke again. "Emily. I call on you. I know you have a message. I'm here to listen."

The lights and warmths coming from the candles increased, making us all snap our eyes open just in time to see the flames growing their heights for a fraction of a second.

"Did that just–?"

"Yeah, it just happened."

A faint gust of cold air chilled our skin, "It's just the air conditioning." Bonnie said afterwards only to be contradicted by the flames flickering higher once again.

"No it's not." I said, and quick after me Caroline spoke.

"Ask her to show you a sign. Ask her." At Bonnie's silence she did it herself. "Emily, if you're among us, show us another sign."

Nothing happened.

"See, it's not working."

Once again Bonnie's words were revealed untrue when the windows behind us flew open.

"No, I can't. I'm done." The flame from the candles snuffed out aimenting the fear in each of our hearts. "Get the light. Please, get the light on."

"Hold on, I got it." I said, getting up and running towards the light switch turning it on.

"You guys, the necklace, it's gone." Bonnie said.

"Impossible." I shook my head. But it was. The necklace wasn't on the ground where she had thrown it anymore.

"Okay, fun is over, Caroline. You made a point and I get it. Now give it back." Elena said, falling into a serious tone.

"What? Well, I didn't take it." Caroline defended herself.

"Then you Meda. Give it back."

"Why are you so sure that it was one of us two?" I asked sliding to stand next to the blonde girl.

"You would find something like this funny." My sister shrugged her shoulders. And in that moment, she much resembled our mother. It was something that Miranda Gilbert would do a lot. Blame other people.

"We didn't take it." I said with a stern tone. And not to mention that I was scared shitless. But it was clear that she didn't believe me.

Elena's eyes shifted to the darkness of the hallways behind eyes , making us all snap towards it.

"What? What happened?" Caroline said in fear.

"I don't know. Nothing. Jeremy, are you home?" Elena asked out loud, standing under the threshold of her bedroom door and looking in the hallway searching for our brother.

"Isn't he at the Grill with Jenna?"

"Um... Guys?" Bonnie's worried tone made all look at her. She approached the bathroom with slow steps, but as soon she was in there, the door slammed shut behind her.

"Oh, my God!"

"Bonnie?"

"You guys, open the door!" The Bennet witch cried and shouted, hands banging against the door that wasn't opening.

"Bonnie? Bonnie!"

"What's going on? Bonnie!"

I'll check the hallway." I told the girl running to the other door that still wasn't budging even an inch.

"Bonnie! Open up the door!"

"Please open the door!" The girl, desperate, cried from the other side.

"Bonnie!"

"Bonnie!"

The lights flickered as I let out a gasp of surprise when a white fox flashed its form next to me. His incorporeal head brushed against my leg, and even with his almost transpired body, I could feel the fur tickling my skin.

How? What the hell is happening? I had seen this fox time and time again since I was a child, but never for more than a second and it never touched me. Not even once, until now. Before I could reach out to it as I instinctively wanted to, it vanished away when from the bathroom, Bonnie let out a loud scream.

The hallway door was as useless as the one in Elena's room so I just ran back with the others. And fortunately, not much later, it opened, revealing Bonnie, hands covering her face.

"What happened? Are you okay?" My sister asked her in concern, but Bonnie had no fear displayed on her face when she showed us our face. She was completely and utterly calm.

"I'm fine." She said,

"Unbelievable." Caroline scoffed. "You were totally faking it."

"Caroline, come on."

"No, you scared the hell out of me. I can't believe I fell for it."

There was something very wrong with Bonnie.

"I must go." Calmly and collected Bonnie walked past up

"If she's leaving, I'm leaving." Caroline declared. Yeah I wasn't sleeping here either. The cave never looked this good as of now.

"You can't leave."

"I can. I've had enough fake witch stuff for one night." The blonde replied to my sister.

"Thank you for having me. I'll take it from here." Bonnie said.

"Where are you going?" Elena asked.

"And why are you talking like that?" I added.

"I'm going back to where it all began." Was the witch's reply.

"Bonnie. Bonnie?" Elena went after her.

"No Bonnie." I gulped, eyes wide with fear. "That's not Bonnie."

"Oh, my God. Emily." My little sister called, understanding my words. WItches, vampires and fae were real, and now, spirit possession was too?

"I won't let him have it. It must be destroyed." Emily stated. She closed the front door behind her, her witch magic doing the work of keeping it that way.

"What's happening?" I asked, as both Caroline and I reached Elena who was struggling to open the door.

"I don't know. The door, it's not–"

We let out screams as it suddenly opened revealing Jeremy.

"What the hell?" He said, staring in confusion at our fear-striked faces.

"I'm out of here." Caroline didn't even think twice before leaving.

I looked at my sister, both matching wide-eyes and fearful expressions, "And now? What do we do?"

───── ⋆˖⁺‧ ☽◯☾ ‧⁺˖⋆ ─────

╰┈˚ · ° .   Elena had called Stefan, letting him know what had happened and soon after she cutted off the call, she had sprinted out from the door not even asking me if I wanted to go with her and help in whatever way I could, which was nothing. I was human— at least till my birthday— I was going to be more of an obstacle than anything. And Bonnie's life was in danger, there wasn't time for distractions.

So I went to my room, secretly hoping to see the white fox again–– which I was starting to think that it was actually real and not a figment of my imagination. No lack in that, the fox was completely gone, not appearing even once in the corner of my eyes. And it was only an hour later, all of which I passed stressing out, that my phone pinged with a new message.

After reading it, I opened the window of my room, taking a couple of steps back as Zyran landed with agility and grace inside of it with a jump.

My brows furrowed at the stains of blood on his shirt, my mind panicking at the possibility that he had been hurt.

"It's not mine." he said, placing both hands on the side of my neck, titling my head to him. "It's Bonnie's." And before I could panic even more he explained better. "Emily destroyed the necklace, which apparently was the only thing that could have opened the tomb under Fell's church where she had trapped and saved from the fire all the vampires in 1864. Damon wanted to open it because apparently Katherine is in there, and since he can't do it without the necklace he got angry and tried to eat Bonnie. I threw him away from her and her blood got on me. She is safe now, Elena is taking her home."

"That was a lot." I breathed out. "So all this time, the necklace that he wanted back from Caroline was a magic key to a tomb filled with vampires and now is gone along with it his only way to get Katherine back?"

"Pretty much so, yeah." He laughed before returning serious. "Are you okay? I heard what happened with Emily's ghost here."

"That shit was scary as fuck, I'm not going to lie." I sighed, falling rather ungracefully onto my bed. And still, the only thing I could think about was the fox. "Is it possible that a dead fox is haunting me?" I decided to ask.

"A dead fox?" He asked, face showing his confusion.

"Yeah, I keep seeing a white fox that looks like a spirit. More so in the last few months though."

"A spirit white fox?" he asked. This time he was completely serious. He knew something.

"What? Zy, tell me that I'm not being haunted by a dead fox, please."

"Does it feel like it has malicious intent? Like it wants to hurt you?" He asked insted of answering me.

I thought about it, but the answer was a clear no. "It rubbed against me like it wanted to be petted, so no, I don't think it wanted to hurt me. Plus it had a lot of time to do so since I saw flashes of it since I was a kid. Now please, tell me what you are thinking about it."

"I don't know, I just-" He stammered through his words before letting out a sigh. "I may know something but I'm not sure. And since it doesn't want to hurt you, can I wait to tell you about it after your birthday— which is in two days."

"Why?"

"Just trust me, please."

I groaned, my curiosity pushing to have some answers, but I could wait for two days to have them.

"Thank you." he said. "Now, do you know at what time you were born?"

I raised an eyebrow at the unusual question. "Midnight. My father used to say that that was why I am always more awake at night." I commented, lips twisting up at the memory.

"I don't know how it is going to happen precisely but, from what I know, the blocking charms should disappear exactly 18 years after your birth." He explained. "And we should go somewhere safe."

"The cave." I told him, swallowing down my emotions that ranged from happiness to complete dread.

Sensing the mixed emotion he easily lifted me in his lap. My legs were on both sides of him and my arms automatically wrapped around him seeking comfort.

"It's going to be fine, Darlin'." He whispered, "I'm going to be there with you all the time."

"You promise?"

He left a soft kiss against my temple, purr starting in his chest trying to sooth me as his dragon sensed my emotions, "I promise."

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone!! I hope you passed a great Christmas without too much family drama!

White fox?? who knows. And why is Zy this worried?

Next chapter is going be a good one.

Might be obvious, but I don't like Elena. But love writing all the parallels between her and the mother, though.

One thing is for sure, Meda needs her own group of friends.

Thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Saturday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾