❪ 𝓢𝑰𝑿 𝓕𝑬𝑬𝑻 𝓤𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹 ❫ ⚰️ ˖ ׁ ⁩ 𓂃
𝚃𝚅𝙳  ⸻  ✸ 🔮⭑.ᐟ

❝ 𝖡𝖤𝖣𝖳𝖨𝖬𝖤 𝖲𝖳𝖮𝖱𝖨𝖤𝖲 ❞

✦ ╮ 𝟔𝟕. ❝ 𝖢𝖠𝖳𝖢𝖧 𝖬𝖤 𝖨𝖥 𝖸𝖮𝖴 𝖢𝖠𝖭 ❞ ── .✦

𝗔𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗔 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗗 across her uncle's bed as Rebekah sits next to her, reading through his journal.

Stefan comes out of his bathroom, clearing his throat as he sees the two, "I know you were, uh, daggered for a little while, but, uh, knocking is still a thing."

"So is writing in your diary apparently. I'm just checking for doubts. You can never be too cautious when it comes to love. One minute, you're begging me to compel Elena from your mind, the next, I'm up coffin creek with a dagger in my back." Rebekah tells him.

"Right. Well, you can read it all you want." Stefan says, "I'm done with her."

Rebekah turns the page, "Until we find the cure, right? Hey, I'm talking to you."

Stefan pours himself a drink, "Oh, I know you are. I'm ignoring you."

"Look, we're at a bit of a disadvantage in this whole race for the cure." Rebekah stands up, "Team Klaus had Jeremy the hunter, team Shane has Bonnie the witch--,"

Anastasia cuts her off with a roll of her eyes, "If you're here to remind us of our last place status, we're very well aware."

"Actually, I have a plan. The cure is buried with Silas, the ancient evil guy my brother Kol is afraid of. Shane was so eager to prove his existence that he gave away that he has one of the keys to resurrecting him, his headstone."

"I see. You want to steal it."

"Yes, and then Team Shane will have to join Team Rebekah, and Team Klaus will be left out in the cold where he belongs." Rebekah tells the two.

Anastasia's phone dings, causing the hybrid to pull the device out of her back pocket, eyes glancing over the text, "Speaking of your brothers, I have to meet Kol."

₊˚.༄𖥸

"𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗜𝗦 it that every time I come to Mystic Falls, I get roped into what's going on?" Dylan complains as he sits in the backseat of Damon's car.

"Because you're my daughter's ex." Damon says as they get out of the car, "Come on."

The three boys head into the bar, music can be heard in the background as they walk in cautiously with Jeremy holding up the bow in his hand.

On the ground, is a giant smear of blood that Damon walks around, "Something's not right."

They follow the trail of blood into the cold storage room in the back, and in the back is a pile of vampire corpses.

"Looks like we're gonna have to find some new vampires." Damon says, "What a waste."

"What the hell happened?" Jeremy questioned.

"I confess." Kol's voice comes from behind, causing Jeremy to spin around with the bow pointed at him, "I did it. Well, we did it. You can come out now darling."

Anastasia rolls her eyes as she walks into the room, instantly going to wrap her arms around Dylan in a hug, "Thanks for coming."

The vampire smiles softly, "Anything for you."

"Kol?"

"Jeremy, good to see you, mate. Sorry about the mess. Ugh, it was a little crowded when I arrived, and I prefer more intimate gatherings. We need to have a little chat." Kol takes a sip from a bourbon bottle. "Care for a drink?"

"He's underage, and I don't like you, so let's just cut to it." Damon tells the original vampire.

"You know, my brother bragged about his plan to complete Jeremy's hunter's mark. It was easy enough to track this lot down. They were all hiding in the shadows. Now, killing young vampires is easy or old ones, for that matter."

"Why?" Damon questioned, "What's it to you either way?"

"Because, you fools, in your zeal to find the cure, you risk waking someone very dangerous." Kol tells them.

"Oh...you must be talking about Silas."

Anastasia and Dylan turn to look at them in shock, "You've heard about Silas?"

"What do you know of him?" Kol asked.

"Nothing. Don't want to. Not our problem." Damon shrugged.

"Isn't it?"

"Uh-uh."

"A few hundred years back, I came across a group that worshiped Silas. His followers told me that he would rise again, and when he did, he would trigger the end of all time. You know, being an immortal, you can see why I'm opposed to time's ending." Kol said, "So I murdered all of them. And now, here you are willing to risk raising him in your search for the cure. I can't exactly sit back and let that happen, can I?"

"We're not going to back off the cure 'cause you were told one too many scary bedtime stories, you idiot."

Kol pushes Damon, "Jeremy, we were mates in Colorado. You're a smart lad. Why don't you call off this imbecilic treasure hunt?"

"That was before you took my girl from me." Jeremy says, "I'm not calling anything off, mate."

"When will you learn? I will always be her first choice, don't forget that." Kol smirked at the hunter as he took a step back, "I could kill you. But then, I'd have to deal with the hunter's curse. And I, I don't particularly feel like being haunted for the next century. Better idea. I'll just rip your arms off."

"Kol!" Anastasia calls out as he rushes towards the Gilbert boy.

Damon rams Kol into the wall before headbutting him so that he wouldn't get to Jeremy. As the Salvatore male continues to hit Kol, the original catches his hand, and puts him in a headlock.

"Jeremy, run!" Anastasia calls out to the hunter, who stares at her for a few seconds as she calls out for him to run again.

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗔 𝗔𝗡𝗗 Matt walk into her house, "I'm so sorry. Listen. When I asked you to stay with Jeremy. I never thought--,"

"What did you expect, Elena?" Matt asked him, "It's Damon."

"I never wanted anyone to get hurt."

"Well, then you shouldn't have left him in charge." Matt said to her, "Look, I'm sorry. I know you didn't have a choice. Sire bond and all."

"Sire bond doesn't work like that."

"All I know, Elena, is that the old you would have never left Jeremy with Damon, especially after what happened last night."

Elena's phone starts to ring, ending the conversation between the two, "Jeremy?"

"Elena, we're in trouble."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down." Elena tells her little brother, "Where's Damon?"

"Listen to me. Kol attacked us." Jeremy tells her, "I barely got away, but he has Damon."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗞𝗟𝗔𝗨𝗦 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗦 on the couch in his living room in front of a lit fireplace as Elena sits on the other couch opposite of him. "A bit ironic, you coming to me for help. Weren't your friends just trying to bury me in a cement tomb?"

"This is your fault." Elena points the blame towards the hybrid, "You started this when you forced Jeremy to kill those vampires."

"And now my little brat of a brother has gone and made things worse. Well, he never did like Damon, especially not after he found out that he abandoned his own daughter when she was so young." Klaus tells her, "I suppose I should do something, shouldn't I?"

"Call him off, Klaus."

"You are in no position to make demands, love. Whilst I'd like to cure you to make more hybrids, I do have other reasons for finding the cure, not the least of which is destroying it so you lot can't use it against me." Klaus said to her.

"Whatever our differences, we want the same thing. Please, Klaus, I'm begging you." Elena begged the hybrid, wanting to save her brother's life.

Klaus smiles at her before rolling his eyes as he digs out his cell phone, calling Kol, "Little brother. Just two days home, and I'm told you've already gone and made a mess."

"Come on, Nik. I was only having some fun."

"Those vampires were for my hunter."

"I'll make some more." Kol said, "There's no shortage of people."

"Where's Damon Salvatore?" Klaus questioned his little brother.

"I gave him a good and proper beating just for old time's sake."

"Yes. Well, you've had your fun. Now let him go and come home. Avoid any more trouble, or you'll find yourself back in a box."

"Hey. No need to be nasty about it."

"On the contrary, I find nastiness to be essential whenever my siblings try to sabotage me." Klaus tells him, "Listen closely, Kol, stay away from the Gilbert boy. You understand?"

"Fine. I won't touch him." Kol tells him. "You have my word."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗞𝗢𝗟 𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦 up, looking over at Damon who is sitting on a beer keg holding a stake in his chest, Anastasia and Dylan nowhere to be seen.

"Very good, darling. Now stab yourself a little bit further." He compels Damon.

Damon pushes the stake into himself, groaning in pain. "If you're gonna kill me, do it like a man."

"I don't want to kill you, Anastasia would have my head." Kol rolls his eyes slightly, "I just wanted to make sure you could be compelled.

"I'm gonna rip out your spleen."

"You ought to be thanking me. I mean you don't really want the cure found. You fancy Elena. I mean, even more now that she's a vampire." Kol walks around him, "Admit it. The last vestige of her humanity is her annoying little brother Jeremy, and deep, deep down, I bet you want him dead, don't you?"

"Nope." Damon grunts out, "My daughter's kind of in love with him."

Kol laughs, ignoring the part about Anastasia still loving the young hunter, "You're lying. I bet you'd love to rip his head right off...And I'm gonna give you your wish." He crouches down in front of Damon and compels him, "You're not gonna remember what I say, but you're going to find Jeremy Gilbert, and when you do, you're going to kill him."

₊˚.༄𖥸

"𝗝𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗬, 𝗜𝗧'𝗦 over." Elena tells her little brother as she looks down at all the weapons resting on the table as Jeremy puses a magazine into a gun.

"Klaus still wants me to finish the mark. He's not gonna stop." Jeremy tells her.

"Okay. Well, Damon's gonna be back soon and then we can figure something out." She said.

Jeremy looks at her in disbelief, "Seriously? You still trust Damon?"

"He saved your life."

"He saved the map to the cure. He couldn't care less about me."

"I care about you." She puts her hand on Jeremy's shoulder, but immediately he swats it way.

"Don't. Whatever's inside of me that makes me want to hunt, right now it's on overdrive." Jeremy said to her.

Elena looks down, "Jeremy."

He looks down at the wooden stake in his head which startles him a little causing him to drop it, "I'm sorry. I know what I have to do, Elena. I really want to get that cure for you, but..I just -- I don't know how I'm gonna do this."

Elena nods at him understandingly.

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗦𝗠𝗢𝗞𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦 over the desk in the dimly-lit office belonging to Shane. Stefan sighs, walking around. "So much random crap in here."

"Crap, maybe. Random, no." Rebekah says as she's sat down, "Looks like Shane has a bit of an afterlife fetish. Hopi prayer feathers, the Han dynasty soul vase, and that is a Polynesian sacrificial knife. Brutal way to die, but at least you appease the gods."

"Since when did you become such an artifact expert?" Stefan asked.

"I enjoy other cultures, Stefan. I know that might be hard for you to understand, considering you dated a child who only thinks about herself.

Stefan smiles before throwing the knife at Rebekah, who catches it right before it could hit her face.

"Still a senstivite subject, I see." She laughs and stands up, walking towards Stefan, "Do you know why I wouldn't compel Elena from your memory?"

"Because you wanted me to suffer."

"I did. It's the only way you'll learn. It took me a thousand years and hundreds of betrayals to realize that love, and caring, ruins you."

"Hmm. That's awfully bleak."

"Quite the opposite. It's liberating actually. You know why we had so much fun in the twenties, Stefan? Because we didn't care. We just did what felt good -- drinking, feeding, sex." She lightly drags the knife against Stefan's neck.

"The sex wasn't good because we didn't care. It was good because you're crazy. Crazy sex is always good."

"You were hardly the model of sanity."

Stefan grabs her wrist that was holding the knife and pulls her arm down as she laughed and smiled at him.

"Stop...caring." She drops the knife while they continue to stare at one another, their faces nearly touching.

The door suddenly comes open as the two vampires disappear as an unknown man enters, beginning to search the office for something, removing books from the shelf and tapping the walls. He eventually opens a door and finds a large stone.

"Good. You found it." Rebekah appears behind him, grabbing him by the neck as he chokes, "Question is, who are you?"

₊˚.༄𖥸

"𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗬𝗢𝗨 have to do to make it stop is tell me who sent you." Rebekah asked, licking his blood off of the knife she was using to torture him, "You're full of vervain, so I know you haven't been compelled."

"Or maybe somebody compelled him before he ingested it." Stefan tells her.

"He was after the headstone. We need to know who sent him."

"Okay. Fine. So we take him home, wait til the vervain is out of his system, and then compel him and get whatever information we want." Stefan tells the blonde.

"That's not a bad idea."

The man grunts and begins spitting out blood. Stefan grabs his face and looks into his mouth.

"He just bit off his own tongue." Stefan tells her.

"So he does know something."

The man grabs the knife from Rebekah's hand and jabs it into his own neck. Stefan pulls it out but it's too late and he bleeds out, dying.

"I guess he was compelled."

"Was it my bastard brother or yours?" Rebekah asked him.

"Maybe it was option number three. There's another team in the race."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡'𝗦 𝗖𝗘𝗟𝗟 phone rings and he looks at it, but Rebekah grabs it from him before he can answer it, answering it himself, "Hello, Elena."

"What did you do to Stefan?" Elena asked as she walks through the tunnels, going after Damon who was compelled to kill Jeremy.

"Rescued him from his old, dull life, but it keeps calling." Rebekah tells her, "Stefan's not in the mood to talk right now."

"Then he can listen. I know you might not care about me right now, Stefan, but Kol compelled Damon to kill Jeremy. They're somewhere in the tunnels, and -- it's one giant maze down here, and I can't find them, so if you still care about the cure or about Jeremy, then maybe you can come help. Think of Anastasia when she loses someone else that she loves." Elena looks angry as Stefan stays silent, "Okay." And she hands up.

"Well that is an interesting predicament. For both of us."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗝𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗨𝗡𝗦 through the tunnels, hearing Damon calling out from a distance.

"Did you miss the part where I said I'm compelled? Don't stop!"

Jeremy withdraws a knife and uses it to cut his hand.

"Seriously? You're being haunted by a vampire, and now you're bleeding?" Damon uses his speed to where Jeremy left his jacket on the ground.

He picks it up when Jeremy suddenly runs at Damon and puts the vampire in a headlock. Damon bites his arm as Jeremy yells out in pain and Damon throws him to the ground.

"Dumb move, Jer." Damon's fangs and the veins under his eyes on full display, "You can't fight me in closed quarters."

"Worth a shot." He shoots Damon twice in the abdomen.

Damon groans out in pain, falling to his knees. "You're gonna have to shoot me, Jeremy, in the heart. I'm not gonna be able to stop myself. Jeremy, you are a hunter. You know you want to. Do it."

Jeremy stands still with the gun aimed at Damon, but he doesn't shoot.

"Do it!" Damon gets up as he fails to resist the compulsion just as Jeremy fires the gun.

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗜𝗡 𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗡, Jeremy keeps running through the woods before he stops, leaning up against a tree, sliding his back against it as he sits on the ground. His left hand is wrapped up but it's still bleeding heavily.

"Jeremy!" Anastasia slides against the ground, grabbing his face in her hands, "Are you okay? Where else are you hurt?"

"Just -- just my hand. And my arm." He grunts as another set of feet stop next to him.

"Is he okay?" Dylan asks as he looks down at his best friend and the hunter.

"Yeah, I got him."

Dylan nods, "I'm gonna go see if I can stop Damon."

"Hey, hey. Here, drink." She bit into her wrist, bringing it up to his mouth, letting him drink some of her blood so that he would heal. "That's it. All better."

"Stacie, you need -- you need to go." Jeremy tells her. "I don't wanna--,"

"Hey, I'm not leaving you." She shakes her head, "I don't care that you have the urge to kill me, I'm not leaving you alone right now."

Jeremy cocks his gun as Damon and appears in front of them.

"Jeremy." Damon makes him turn to him, "Shoot now."

Jeremy fires at the exact moment that Stefan comes from nowhere and pushes Damon up against another tree.

"Hey, brother. Long time, no see. Dylan."

Dylan comes from behind Damon, snapping his neck just as Elena gets there, watching as Damon collapses to the ground.

Stefan turns to Elena, "You're welcome."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗔𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗔 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗦 in the cellar next to her uncle, right next to where the vervain used to grown, Stefan holding a wooden stake.

"Easy there, buddy." Stefan speaks up as Damon stirs on the ground, groaning as he wakes up, "You lost a lot of blood."

Damon groaned, "So you beld me out?"

"Yeah. We didn't really have much of a choice." Anastasia tells her dad, "Kol's compulsion is still in effect, so you need to stay locked up."

"We don't have any more vervain, so..this was the only way we could weaken you." Stefan said.

"You sound real torn up about it." Damon said, "Shouldn't we be going after Kol, making him decompel me?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Stefan says sarcastically, "That sounds easy enough, Damon. I'll get right on that."

Coughing, Damon fails to sit up, "At least let me see Elena."

"Come on. You know you can't do that." Anastasia crouches down to her dad's height, a fake pout on her lips, "With the sire bond, all you have to do is tell her to let you out of here. It's too risky."

"You are both really enjoying this, aren't you?"

"It's better for Elena if you stay in here for now, at least until we find the cure, and then once she's no longer sired and you're no longer compelled, you can both do whatever the hell you want." Stefan says, "Eloise, come on."

While walking the hall upstairs, Stefan sees Elena round the corner, all three of them stop in the way.

"Going to see Damon?" Stefan asked her.

"I need to talk to him." Elena tells them.

Anastasia rolls her eyes, pressing her back against the wall, "Well, you can't. He'll just ask you to let him out."

"I won't let him out." Elena looks between the vampire and his niece.

"You won't have a choice. You're sired." Stefan tells him as Elena shifts uncomfortably, "That all?"

"Stefan, what are you doing with Rebekah?" Elena asked, ignoring the sound of Anastasia's scoff, "She tried to kill me."

"And this will be the second time that Damon tried to kill Jeremy. So I guess nobody's perfect, right?"

"Are you trying to punish me? I don't know how many times I can apologize."

"I never asked you to. He shrugged, "You can do whatever you want, Elena. I really don't care."

"You're hurt. You're hurt, and you're acting out." Elena tries to get through to him, "Stefan, this isn't you."

"Sure it is. You've just never seen him like that." Anastasia moves to stand next to her uncle, arms crossed over her chest.

"You don't know what I look like when I'm not in love with you." Stefan says, causing Elena to look at him in shock before he smiles at her, "I'll let Damon know you stopped by."

Anastasia wiggles her fingers in a teasing wave as she smiles at Elena, "The doors downstairs. You should make your way to it."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗞𝗟𝗔𝗨𝗦 𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗞𝗦 up the front steps and knocks on the front door, waiting as it comes open to revel Elena, Jeremy standing behind her, "Good evening, Gilbert clan."

"What do you want, Klaus?" Elena asked the hybrid standing on her front porch.

"I've come to fetch my hunter." Klaus tells her, "Seeing as how my brother's become a liability, Jeremy will be safer with me."

"I think I'll pass." Jeremy shot him a sarcastic smile, "I've killed enough people for you today."

"You think you're safer here? Hmm. Clearly you don't know Kol." Klaus says to the Gilbert's, "He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants, so strange as it may seem, I'm your best bet."

"Sorry," Elena sighs through her nose, "But I think we'd rather take our chances."

"Fine. But when Kol does come -- and he will come -- be sure to let me know preferably before he burns your nice little home to the ground. As for you, hunter," He looks back at Jeremy, "There's no shortage of people to turn or loved ones to threaten, so sleep well. We'll plan on finishing our work tomorrow."

He turns to leave and just as Elena starts to shut the door, "Oh! And by the way! Fair warning. Be careful what you plot. More than one person may end up dead."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗗𝗬𝗟𝗔𝗡 𝗟𝗔𝗬𝗦 across Anastasia's bed as she paces around the hardwood floor, "Stassie, you're gonna put a hole in the floor with all of your pacing. Just calm down."

"I can't calm down, Dylan! Kol compelled my dad to kill Jeremy! What if he gets out and we don't stop him in time?" Anastasia turns to face the boy she had turned into a vampire years ago, "I can't live with myself in something were to happen to him because of Kol!"

"Stassie, you know the two of us will do everything in our power to make sure that nothing like that happens to Jeremy." Dylan tells her, standing up to stand in front of her, eyes searching hers, "You're scared."

Anastasia scoffed, "Of course, I'm scared! God, everything has gone to shit from the moment Uncle Stefan and I stepped foot back in this stupid ass town, things have gone wrong! I'm scared that I'm going to lose more people that I care about! I've already lost so many! We all have."

"Something else is scaring you." Dylan shakes his head, "What is it, Anastasia."

"Somebody is going to die."

₊˚.༄𖥸

𝗝𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗬 𝗔𝗡𝗗 Elena stand at the kitchen table, "This is never gonna end. If Kol doesn't kill me first, then Klaus is just gonna force me to kill more innocent people. How many is it gonna take? Ten? A hundred?"

Elena looks off the the side as a look of realization overcomes her face, "If you kill one Original vampire, their entire sire line will die with them. That's thousands, maybe tens of thousands of vampires. Kol compelled Damon to kill you. You're gonna kill Kol instead."