CHARLIE WAS EXTREMELY CONFUSED THE NEXT DAY until everything came flooding back to her. She sat up in the bed, and she was immediately hit by one of the biggest headaches of her life. She was definitely exaggerating since shifting into a werewolf was a thousand times more painful, but it felt really bad in the moment. She took a moment, waiting for the pain to lessen before very slowly climbing out of the bed.

Once the girl got all of her stuff together and put her shoes on, she made her way down the stairs where she heard talking. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she saw Elena on her way out the door. The Gilbert girl's family eyes widened when she saw her, and she glanced between her and the Salvatore man standing next to her. "Did you two...?"

"There's not enough alcohol or money in the world," the Lockwood girl answered when she realized what she was insinuation. She was almost throwing up at the thought of it. Charlie made her way over to where the other two were standing.

Damon scoffed, a little offended that she was so opposed to the idea, even though it was definitely not an ideal situation for him either. "Hey, I could totally get you in bed if I wanted to."

"No, you could not," the younger brunette informed him because there was no way that she would ever climb in bed with Damon Salvatore. Sure, he was attractive, but she was looking for someone a little younger than 150. "I don't wanna be mean because you may have saved me from getting murdered last night while walking home, but I don't know where you've been."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, wondering what she was trying to say about his bedroom habits.

She rolled her eyes because she was certain that he knew what it meant. He did not care about getting her in bed. It just hurt his ego to know that she wouldn't sleep with him in a million years. "It means 'absolutely not.'"

"You say that now..." he muttered with a small smirk, raising his eyebrows at her suggestively as she glared at him. She mimicked throwing up, causing Elena to giggle as she watched the interaction between the two of them.

"Yeah, well, thanks for letting me crash," she said because she really was thankful that he did not let her walk home the night before. Not only would it have been dangerous, but her mother would have killed her. She probably would have ended up in a dumpster somewhere before she could even make it home. "That bed is incredibly comfortable."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Once she got home, she got Tyler to drive her to the Grill so that she could talk to the manager, Carl, about maybe getting her job back. He agreed, saying that he was supposed to be meeting Caroline there anyway. Every time he mentioned to girl, a small smile appeared on his face, and it was freaking Charlie out because she wondered what the hell they did that made him so happy.

Her boss had given her her job back thankfully, and as she was walking away, she ran into Jeremy who was walking away from Matt. She furrowed her eyebrows since she recalled him telling her the previous day that he did not have to work that day. "Hey, what are you doing here? I thought it was your day off."

"I was talking to Matt about something," he informed her, and he seemed a little antsy about whatever it was. Charlie decided not to ask about it. "What about you?"

"Begging for my job back. Turns out, when you don't show up for work for three months, they fire you," she explained with a small chuckle, gesturing to where Carl was standing behind them.

He scoffed jokingly, and he did not fail to notice that this was the first time that he had seen her smile in a very very long time, since before JJ died, probably. "What the hell? That's so rude of them."

"I know, right?" she responded before sticking her hands into her back pockets of her jeans. "Well, they let me back purely because you suck at your job."

"Hey!"

She giggled at his response as he pushed her shoulder playfully. She waved him off and rolled her eyes. "I'm just kidding. They're understaffed."

"Elena mentioned that she saw you doing the walk of shame out of the Salvatore house," he informed her, changing the subject to what they had been talking about the previous night at the party. She gasped because she had explained to Elena that she didn't and would never sleep with the Salvatore man. "When I said get laid, I didn't mean Damon."

"First of all, I did not sleep with Damon. That's disgusting. Second of all, if I did sleep with him, it wouldn't be any of your business," she replied, shooting him a pointed look. It was kind of weird that he was concerning himself with who she was sleeping with.

"Whatever you say," he sighed, pretending that he did not believe her. He glanced nervously to where Carl was giving him the stink eye for being there on his day off. "I'll see you later, okay?"

As he walked away, she shouted after him, "He was letting me crash at his house so that I didn't get kidnapped on the way home!" She groaned before walking over to her brother who was still all alone at one of the tables. She sat down across from him and started eating his fries. "Did Caroline stand you up?"

"Yeah, there's something weird going on," he answered, and she was not going to comment on the fact that it was not weird for girls to stand him up.

"Maybe she just realized that sleeping with you was an awful idea," she suggested, and his eyes widened when she said that because it had just happened the night before and no one knew but him and Caroline. "Please, you guys were kissing last night, and you had a goofy little grin on your face like someone who just got laid."

He glared at her before leaning back in his seat and taking some of the fries for himself. "Well, anyway, I swear something's happening...Oh, my God."

"What?" Charlie asked at her brothers random exclamation. It seemed like a light bulb had just gone off in his head, as if he had just come to some sort of realization.

He sat straight up in his seat and grabbed his phone from the table like he was getting ready to leave. "Mom made me coffee this morning, and it tasted weird."

"So?"

He stood up, and she was quick to follow him, eager to know where he was going and what he was talking about. "So, I think she put vervain in my coffee."

☾❄☽

"WELL, WHATEVER YOU SAY TO HER, MAKE SURE YOU'RE at the cellar by eight," Charlie told Tyler as they stepped into their house. Carol was in her study, and Tyler was practicing what he was going to say to his mother about the vervain. She reminded him, "It's a full moon tonight."

"Whatever I say to her? We're going together," he informed her, like it was obvious that it was happening. He had been rehearsing how he was going to approach their mother the whole drive there and the walk up the driveway.

She furrowed her eyebrows at him in confusion since she was unaware that this was happening. "What? Why? She didn't put vervain in my coffee."

"Well, first, Caroline's your best friend. Second, solidarity, sister." Charlie groaned at his words but followed him nonetheless into the mayor's study where Carol was sitting at her desk. He leaned on the table while the girl stayed back. "You put vervain in my coffee this morning. Why?"

"Vervain? What are you talking about?" the woman questioned, glancing to her daughter in question. Both kids knew that she was lying her ass off, though.

He rolled his eyes at her playing dumb because he was sick of it, and they did not have enough time to worry about all of this. "Let's skip the part where we pretend we don't know about the vampires in this town. You were testing me to see if I was a vampire. I want to know why."

"You've been spending so much time with Caroline," Carol breathed out with a sigh, and Charlie realized what was happening. She wondered why her mother had never tested her with how much time she spent with Caroline. Maybe she did, and Charlie just had not noticed. "I had to know for sure."

"What does Caroline have to do with it?" the Lockwood boy questioned, trying to hide Caroline's secret even though it was obvious that their mom knew what the Forbes girl was.

The woman shot him a pointed look before using his words from earlier against him in her own way. "Let's skip the part where we pretend she's not one of them."

"Did you do something to her?" the brunette girl questioned, stepping forward as she spoke for the first time since she entered the room. Her mom was being really weird, and she was also acting a little guilty.

Carol just looked between her two children. "Tyler, I don't want you to be with her. Charlie, I would also appreciate it if you stopped being friends with her, or at least only hang out with her in public. I can't let you guys be with her."

"What did you do to her?" the girl asked, and it was almost like a demand. She had never demanded anything from her mother. "Where is she?"

"You can't be with her. She's a monster," her mother insisted, acting like she just had her kids' best interests at heart, but Caroline was Charlie's best friend and maybe even Tyler's too. She would never hurt either of them.

Tyler furrowed his eyebrows as he glanced at his sister who was frantically shaking her head, knowing what he was about to say. He said it anyway. "You don't know about us, do you?"

"Know what?"

Tyler led Carol to the cellar while Charlie trudged behind them. She was sitll not okay with the fact that he told their mom about the werewolf thing, let alone tha t he was showing he their transition. Carol was very nervous as well, hesitantly following her children and terrified to see what the hell they were talking about. "Guys, what is it? Just...just tell me."

"You need to see for yourself," the Lockwood girl muttered. Despite the fact that she hated this, she understood why he was doing it. She needed to know that if Caroline was a monster, then her kids were even worse. At least the blonde girl had control over what she could do.

They both grabbed their chains and started hooking themselves up as she watched, so very confused and scared. She asked, "What are you doing?"

"You think Caroline's a monster? We're the monsters, Mom," the boy informed her, and he grunted a little bit. Charlie looked up to the small hole in the top of the cellar and saw that the moon was almost all the way above them. The transformation was going to start soon.

"What? Tyler, Charlotte, what's happening?" the woman questioned, glancing between them as they groaned. Charlie reached over and pushed her into the part of the cellar that looked like a jail and closed the door so that she would be safe. "Charlie, what are you doing?"

"Us, Uncle Mason, it's in our blood. It's our family curse," Tyler explained.

"What curse?" she asked, but the transition had started. The brunette girl screamed as a sharp pain shot up her back. "Tyler, Charlie, what's happening?! What's happening?" Their fangs were out, and their eyes were yellow. She shrieked and backed up to the back of the cellar, "Oh, my God! Ohh! No! Ohh!"

The siblings woke up, and they were naked and on the ground. Charlie looked up at her mother who seemed in shock before sliding over to the blanket that she brought and sliding it over her body. Tyler did the same. The woman just looked in between them and their hopeful and scared looks before informing them. "I'll take care of it. I'll make sure nothing happens to her."

"Thank you."