CHAPTER FOUR | BLACK HOLE SUN

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SINCE EVELYN'S THREAT, STEFAN SALVATORE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE HER SERIOUSLY. He headed back to Whitmore, empty-handed, and explained the situation to Caroline and Alaric, but they were not happy about letting the humanity-free vampire slip through their fingers yet again. All they wanted was to get Evelyn's humanity back on, but it was clear the girl was not going to give in without a fight.

"We just need to be smarter than her," Caroline concluded as she anxiously paced up and down in Alaric's office at Whitmore, while Stefan and Alaric watched her. "I mean, the whole Whitmore-compelled-hostages-thing wasn't exactly hard. She had to know we'd come for her."

Stefan nodded in agreement with the frantic blonde. "Right, okay. So, what do you suggest, Caroline?"

"We find her. Lock her ass up until we trigger something inside her. She's Evelyn— she can't stay like this forever."

"No, guys. We can't just keep blindly doing this." Alaric Saltzman snapped with a pointed look on his face as Stefan and Caroline looked over to him, "Every single time we've tried to get her back, she retaliates— bigger. How long's it gonna be before she actually hurts someone because of us?"

"Last night at the bar, I think I saw a flicker of her humanity," Stefan admitted quietly, almost as if he were unsure of what he was saying. "I— It was only for a second."

Caroline's eyes widened. "Really? What happened?"

"There was this guy she was flirting with. Or, maybe he was flirting with her, I don't know. But, the point is, he called her baby." Stefan frantically began to put the pieces together in his head. "Honestly, when he called her that, I swore that I saw a flicker of anger."

"Emotion." Alaric trailed off slowly.

"And, emotion is what we need to get her back." The Forbes vampire concluded with a smile on her face. "Damon— it's got to be something to do with him. Even when we spoke about him while she was hauled up in the empty dorm, she looked like her world has collapsed the minute she heard his name."

"Okay. Then, what's what we do: Find her, lock her up and bombard her with every single moment she has ever shared with Damon until she turns it back on."

Stefan folded his arms across his chest while he raised his eyebrow. "Okay. But, one problem—How'd we find her?"

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Evelyn smiled satisfactorily as the mind blew in her hair while she drove down the freeway. She felt free. One hand gripped the steering wheel lightly, while the other fiddled with the volume dial on the radio. The brunette vampire had absolutely no idea where she was headed, but she knew the further that she could get away from Mystic Falls, the better. Everyone in the small little town was so transfixed on forcing Evelyn to turn her humanity on and become herself again, but Evelyn wanted nothing more than to be somebody else.

Then she felt it— the hunger run through her veins like a wildfire. Since Alaric, Stefan and, Caroline had attempted to dry her out, she was a lot hungrier than usual and the desire to feed was stronger than before. The sign of a bed and breakfast up ahead caught the brunette's eyes, and a smirk grew across her face just as she pulled off into the parking lot.

"Well, isn't this— quaint." The Austin vampire sarcastically mumbled to herself as she removed the keys from the ignition. The bed and breakfast were particularly run down and in need of dire renovations, but the aesthetic of the place didn't seem to bother the vampire. All she cared about was her next meal.

"Whatever you're thinking of doing, Evelyn, don't." The irritating sound of Caroline Forbes' voice echoed from behind the brunette vampire. She slowly twirled on her heel to see Stefan and Caroline stood behind her.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Evelyn's eyes locked with the Salvatore vampire who stood silent with his arms folded across his chest. "I didn't think you were this much of an idiot. You remember what I said if you tried to trigger my humanity again, don't you? Death. Are you guys sure you want all that on your conscience?"

"It's better than having you on our conscience, Evelyn." Stefan deadpanned with an emotionless look in his eyes. He blamed himself partly for the vampire's spiral. Stefan thought that maybe if he stuck around and didn't disappear to Savannah, Evelyn would've had someone else there to grieve with.

"Fun's over, Evelyn," Caroline told the vampire, who just laughed in her face. "Time to turn it back on."

"You know, what? Yeah. I think it's time, too." Evelyn tilted her head and sped right over to the blonde vampire before she tossed her across the parking lot. She set her sights on Stefan, but the vampire pinned her against the side of her car with ease. "Why the hell is it so hard for you people to let me go?"

"Because we care about you." Stefan bitterly spoke with his hands around her neck, but the brunette vampire simply kicked him off and watched him tumble backward.

A heavy breath escaped Evelyn's lips as she glanced between Stefan and Caroline, who both slowly lifted themselves from the wet ground. "You both are pathetic, you know that?"

"Stop it! You're our friend, Evelyn. You're our best friend, this isn't you and you know it." Caroline screamed out in a last-ditch attempt to make the girl feel something.

Then, before Stefan and Caroline could even blink, Evelyn's neck turned to the side and she dropped to the floor to reveal Alaric, who stood behind her. His eyes flickered between the two vampires. "What? You guys couldn't just snap her neck?"

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Evelyn's head slowly bobbed up and down as she found herself confined to a chair with vervain rope, whilst Stefan and Alaric stood opposite her. A vicious hiss left her lips as she felt the rope around her wrists begin to sizzle against her skin. "Oh. Are we really going to do this again?"

"Well, we thought we might give something else a shot because the whole, leaving you to realize what you've done route hasn't really paid off, has it?" Stefan tilted his head while he hard a large, metal poker in his left hand. With a short and painful smile, he stabbed the poker straight into Evelyn's thigh and winced when she let out a scream.

Once Stefan removed the poker and the blood began to pool on her thigh, Evelyn weakly glanced down at the hole that slowly started to heal once she regained her breath. "So, you're going to torture me? Nice. Sounds like what a friend would do."

"You're one to talk." Alaric chimed in with a raised eyebrow. "You turned your humanity off and used your friends as punching-bags. I honestly don't think you'd even bat an eyelid if you killed one of them."

Evelyn blinked slowly, then let a smile sweep across her lips like a wildfire. "Nope." She popped the P with a smirk but then screamed out again as Stefan swiftly stepped the poker through her chest this time. He held it there for a few seconds, then removed it. "Keep going. Honestly, it feels great."

"You know what else would feel great— humanity. You should try it."

"I did. It's overrated."

Stefan rolled her eyes and let a deep breath escape her lips. "I heard what happened in the bar the other night. You flew off the handle the minute that sleaze-ball called you baby. Why was that? Was it because it reminded you of Damon?"

Evelyn's eyes flickered up to the Salvatore with a certain rage inside of them the minute he mentioned Damon. "That's not gonna work."

"Sure it will. As long as we press the right buttons." Alaric intervened with a smirk. "So, I've got to be honest, I get why you turned it off in the first place. I mean, it must really suck knowing that your chance to get married to your first love has literally disappeared."

"Shut up." Evelyn gritted her teeth as she began to thrash against the vervain binds that burned and sizzled against her skin. 

"No. He's right. We understand completely." Stefan followed on with a small shrug. "You've loved Damon since you were a kid. Over one-hundred-and-fifty years of loving someone the way you loved him, God. Must've hurt when he died, right?"

"How'd you feel when he died?"

"Are you kidding me?" Evelyn scoffed incredulously with an unreadable expression on her face while rage ran through her veins. "You're sick! I told you, talking about him won't achieve anything apart from making me hate you both a whole lot more than I already do." As she blinked slowly, a single tear rolled down her cheek. "It won't change anything."

"It already has," Stefan mumbled softly once he noticed the single tear. Then, he kneeled down in front of the girl and tilted his head. "Evelyn, you're so close. I know that you're scared of coming back and facing reality, but the alternative is insulting his memory. Damon lives on through you, and through me. You know that."

"I'm not afraid of facing reality." Evelyn softly spoke with a fractured voice while Stefan and Alaric glanced at each other. "I— I spent the majority of my vampire life without him. And, when I found him again I promised myself that I'd never let anything part us." The vampire's breathing suddenly became erratic and panicked. "No. No, I can't do this."

"Evelyn! Hey, Eve. I promise you. Look at me." Stefan forced the vampire's eyes up to him as he took slow, soft breaths in an attempt to make her do the same. "I promise it gets better, and it'll get easier. Coming back, turning it on will always be the hardest part but you're so close. Just— just focus on how you felt when you first locked eyes with Damon again. Focus on how you felt when you knew that the possibility of being with your first love forever was something you could actually have. Use that feeling. Use Damon."

"No! Oh, my God. What the hell have I done?!" Evelyn's eyes suddenly shot open wider as she began to thrash against the restraints. "I— I killed so many people. Oh, my God, I almost killed you, and Caroline. No! Caroline. Poor, Caroline. What if she hates me? What the hell have I done? This damn grief has turned me into someone I don't even recognize! Who am I, Stefan? What am I now? I'm a monster!"

"Evelyn, nobody hates you. You're not to blame for anything you've done. You were— you were the darkest parts of yourself, and I think we can all agree on that." Alaric smiled sympathetically down at the erratic vampire, who had finally turned her humanity back on.

"You're not a monster." Stefan nodded whilst he let his hand rest against Evelyn's cheek. "You're in pain. Pain makes a person do crazy things, especially a vampire."

"How the hell am I ever gonna come back from this?" Evelyn winced. Every single time she closed her eyes, she saw another life that she took— every life that she took. "I don't know what to do. I don't even know—"

"Look, I am your friend and I'm going to make sure that you get through this, Evelyn. We are all. I know that I was crap and all of this could've been avoided if I just stuck around and helped you grieve Damon. But, I was so wrapped up in my own selfishness that I just couldn't see straight. But, I get it now, I do. The single best parts of Damon will live on through you and I."

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