CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | AMERICAN GOTHIC

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STEFAN MET UP WITH THE TWO VAMPIRES THAT HAD THEIR NECK SNAPPED BY REBEKAH MIKAELSON. It was safe to say that Stefan was not the least bit impressed that, not only did they manage to lose Elena, she disappeared with their only lead to Katherine Pierce.

"Something's not right." Damon drawled out as he glanced around the small town that had managed to track Elena and Rebekah to. "Katherine Pierce does not hole up in Hickstown, P-A."

"Well, this is definitely the car they stole." The youngest Salvatore glanced at the car that Elena and Rebekah had stolen. It was parked neatly on the sidewalk, considering a vampire with no humanity had driven it. "We're in the right place."

"Points to them for their choice in vehicles," Damon muttered and pressed his head up against the glass to look inside the car.

"Okay, ignore me if I'm not making any sense, but do either of you even have a plan?" Evelyn glanced between the two Salvatore's who looked back with furrowed brows. "I hardly think that Elena is just going to come with us willingly. Especially not now that she's got Rebekah on hand."

"We do whatever we have to do. I don't care if I have to throw Rebekah under a school bus and wrap Elena in a burlap sack. We do whatever we have to do." Damon grunted with an irritated tone of voice.

"Damon, she's right. This is serious." Stefan grumbled.

"I am, too. I don't care what Elena wants right now. She's this close to going off the rails for good." Damon lifted his left hand and used his two fingers to show how close Elena was to snapping. "And that ain't happening. She's a pain enough as it is."

"So what happened to the guy who thought Elena should embrace being a vampire? Let the chips fall where they may." Stefan asked with a slight smirk.

"That guy and Evelyn got their necks snapped in New York. This guy's royally pissed off." Damon glanced at the brunette vampire who tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "The sooner we grab her and lock her ass up, the better."

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"Ladies, playing nice?" Stefan glanced between Katherine Pierce and Rebekah Mikaelson as he slid himself into a booth of the local cafe in the small town.

"There goes the neighborhood." The doppelganger huffed under her breath as she watched Damon and Evelyn booth slide into their seats.

"I see you got Katherine already," Damon spoke approvingly at Rebekah, then turned his eyes to Katherine. "You're losing your touch, evil one."

"Rebekah, I just want to thank you again for snapping my neck and pissing me off. I can assure you, I will return the favor." Evelyn's eyes remained firmly on the blonde Original, who glared back at her.

Stefan glanced around and noticed that Elena Gilbert was missing from the table. "Where's Elena?"

"So, let me get this straight." The blonde took a short breath and then finally spoke. "I tell you where Elena is, you shove the cure down her throat and then I end up in a box, right? I don't think so."

"Yo, Chatty-Kathy." Evelyn's eyes darted to Katherine, who remained uncharacteristically quiet with a smile on her face. "What's with the grin? I'm guessing you know exactly where she is, right?"

"I can give you a hint," Katherine stated simply. "Start by looking at the town morgue, she's probably dead. She went to meet up with a friend of mine. You may know him— An Original brother. Impeccable taste."

The once devilish look that remained on Rebekah's face immediately subsided when she heard that her brother was also within the small town. "Elijah?"

"Elijah's here?" Damon raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you sort of have to question Elijah's impeccable taste if he's friends with you," Stefan commented towards Katherine, which caused Evelyn to scoff.

"Oh, and when I say, friend. I mean friend." Katherine admitted which caused an array of disgusted groans and moans to escape the vampires' lips. "It probably took him about ten seconds to realize that she wasn't me. At which point, he probably yanked her heart right out of her chest."

"Alright, where are they?" Stefan directed his question to Katherine, who remained quiet but kept a smile on her face. He then turned his attention to the Original. "Rebekah, you do realize if something should happen to Elena you have no chance of finding the cure, right?"

"Fine." The blonde Original vampire exasperatedly sighed. "They were supposed to meet at the gazebo by the park."

"So—" Evelyn took a deep breath and glanced between the two Salvatore boys. "Which of us is heading to the park, hm?"

"I'll go talk to Elijah." Stefan nominated himself and immediately got up from the booth.

"You deal with Elijah. Katherine will take us to the cure."

"No. She won't." Katherine scoffed in response to Rebekah's bold statement. "The cure is the one chance to win my freedom back from Klaus."

"And give us one good reason why Klaus would take any sort of deal from you?" Evelyn narrowed her eyes toward the doppelganger. "He would kill you on sight, and you know it."

"No, she's gonna get Elijah to broker the deal for her," Stefan explained and then glanced at the Pierce woman, who remained quiet. "That's why you need your little friend, isn't it? Something's never change, Katherine."

Damon shook his head in agreement. "Nope."

Katherine remained silent for a few minutes and then relented. "Fine." She turned her head to Rebekah, who remained seated beside her. "Move. You have to follow me."

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Katherine led Damon, Evelyn and, Rebekah to a house that she claimed she had been living in. Evelyn knew better than to believe anything that came out of Katherine Pierce's mouth and judging by the house, she assumed Katherine was not it's a permanent resident.

Katherine opened the door to the house and Damon immediately shoved her inside without a second thought. "No sudden moves. No tricks, either. No Katherine-ing."

"Wow." Damon admired as he wandered inside and noticed the large fish tank placed in the center of the room. "A quilt and a fish aquarium. Who the hell are you?"

"Some old lady that clearly can't keep up with the times." The brunette vampire commented as she looked around the rest of the living room.

"A very old lady with dreadful taste." Rebekah continued as she sent Evelyn a devilish smirk. If the two could agree on something, it was their mutual hate for Katherine Pierce.

Katherine ignored the comments and wandered over to a safe. As she opened it, a look of horror appeared across her face. She turned back around to face the three vampires. "It's gone. The cure. It— it was in the safe but, it's not there."

Damon's face dropped and made a buzzer-noise with his mouth as he rolled his eyes. "Not falling for it. Where is it, Auntie Katherine?"

"I swear it was in the safe!" The doppelganger's voice rose as she turned back to Damon, desperate to make him believe her.

"What, just like Elijah's really your boyfriend?" Rebekah chuckled in disbelief.

"And this is really your life?" Evelyn rolled her eyes. "You're a compulsive liar, Katherine. For all we know, this isn't even your house."

Damon nodded in agreement with Evelyn as he glanced around the living room. "It doesn't look like the Katherine I know."

"Maybe you don't know Katherine at all." The doppelganger scoffed. "Did it ever occur to you that you have no idea who I really am?"

"Did it ever occur to you that you're not that deep?" Damon rolled his eyes. "This whole small-town girl thing— we know it's an act."

"Where is the cure?" Rebekah viciously set her eyes on Katherine once more. The Pierce woman remained quiet, so Rebekah attempted to lunge at Katherine but Evelyn held her back.

"Hang on, we need her alive. The cure's not here." Damon stated toward the bloodthirsty Original. "You check upstairs, Eve, and I will check down."

"Evelyn, If I was a paranoid, distrustful, sociopath where would I keep my most prized possession?" The Salvatore glanced to his brunette accomplice, then wandered around the room.

"This should be fun."

"Shut up, Katherine." Evelyn hissed, viciously.

"Because I'd want it to be close but, not on me. Accessible but, not obvious. I'd want to keep it safe but, not so safe that it would be difficult to grab and run." Damon's eyes fell on the fish tank as he shot Evelyn a look. "Well, that's a fancy little treasure chest isn't it, Eve?

"Very fancy. Especially, considering it's in a tank with no fish." Evelyn spun on her heel to look back at the doppelganger.

"I think I'm gonna have to check that out." Damon rolled up his jacket sleeve then sank his arm into the water. As his skin hit the water, he immediately winced in pain and yanked it out. "Vervain water. Looks like we have a winner."

He grabbed a net and tried to use it to pull the treasure chest out of the vervain water, but Katherine rushed towards him and pushed his head into the tank. As he cried out in pain, Evelyn speeds towards Katherine and grabbed her by the throat. "Katherine, give me the cure otherwise I'll decorate this lovely home with your insides."

"Oh, honey. That threat works both ways." Katherine smirked and peeled Evelyn's hand from her throat before she tossed her across the room.

The doppelganger then rushed over to the tank and grabbed the treasure chest, which contained the cure. She rushed toward the door, but Rebekah blocked her exit. "Give it to me, or you're dead.

"You're gonna kill me anyway. So, what's more important to you, huh? Killing me or getting the cure?" Katherine pulled the cure from the small box and threw it behind her. Rebekah couldn't resist the urge, so she sped toward the cure which ultimately let Katherine escape.

Rebekah caught the cure in the palm of her hand just before hit shattered on the ground. Evelyn glanced up from tending to Damon and watched the blonde with wide eyes. "Rebekah?"

"Look, Rebekah. Don't even think about it," Damon weakly spat from beside Evelyn while the Original scoffed. "Let's just talk about this."

"Oh, give it a rest. Me taking this cure is the best thing that will ever happen to you two." Rebekah spat, though her eyes didn't flicker from the cure for a second. "Admit it, Damon. You don't care if Elena stays a vampire or not. You just want it to break the sire bond so that there's nothing standing in the way of you and Evelyn. Human Elena will run back to Stefan while you and Evelyn can finally be together, the way you've always wanted to be." She smirked and opened the vial. "It's over."

"No!" Stefan yelled out immediately as Rebekah tipped the contents down her throat. After a few seconds, she fell unconscious onto the couch beside her. Stefan stepped into the house and narrowed his eyes toward Evelyn and Damon. "Did you two even try and stop her?!"

"You forgot the part where I was bobbing for boxes in Vervain water!" Damon fired back as Stefan's eyes fell on Evelyn. "Don't look at her, this isn't her fault. It's Rebekah's damn quest to become a real girl. Quite frankly, I'm happy Evelyn didn't stop her— or would you rather she died trying?"

"Stop it, both of you," Evelyn shouted as her eyes flickered between the two Salvatore brothers. "Arguing about the situation isn't going to help anything. What's done, is done."

Rebekah's eyes flickered open from the couch and a groan left her lips. Stefan immediately turned his attention to the woman with a concerned look on his face. "How do you feel?" He asked.

Rebekah slowly sat up and glanced between the three vampires that looked back at her. "I feel— I feel good. I feel great. I feel alive." She chuckled out of sheer amazement.

"Slight problem with being alive, I can tell you now," Damon muttered, coldly and then tossed a knife directly toward her. Without even realizing, Rebekah reacted to the hazard and caught it inches before it made contact with her face.

"Oh, my God," Evelyn whispered as she saw the look of horror on Rebekah's face once she caught the knife. She opened the palm of her hand to look at the slice in the palm of her hand started to heal.

"I'm still a vampire," Rebekah stated coldly with a disappointed look in her eyes. She didn't understand. "The cure didn't work."

"It worked just like she wanted it to," Evelyn spoke quietly as all eyes averted to her. "Come on, guys, it doesn't take a genius to work it out. Katherine Pierce is a manipulative little bitch. She wouldn't just give the cure up so easily. Whatever you just took— it must've been vervain. She played us."

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