Children Of The Damned

Eliana

I heard the crowd cheering in a deafening roar as Tyler made another basket, but I was already far away from the game. I looked back at the gym and saw that Stefan was slowly trying to dislodge himself from the teacher’s conversation, and I walked outside in a rush, hoping to avoid being followed when he eventually managed to notice I was no longer with him in the gym.

I ran for the back parking lot, and prayed that Richard wasn’t hurting Matt while he was waiting for me tom appear.

I turned around a corner of the building that opened out into the back parking lot, and was immediately caught by the elbow by someone with a bruising grip.

My hand flew to my coat pocket, and I whipped around and sprayed my attacker with my vervain pepper spray.

Richard screeched, his hands momentarily flying to his face, giving me time to pull the stake from my boot. Letting out a yell, I plunged the stake into his chest, earning a groan from him. But nothing happened.

Instead, he let his hands fall from his face as his skin and eyes healed, and he whispered, “You missed.”

He pulled the stake from his chest and broke it in half as if it were only a toothpick.

Then he moved more quickly than Stefan ever had, and he was holding my hands behind my back.

“Now, no sudden moves, Elly, or Matt dies.”

“Please, don’t hurt him!” I cried. “I’ll go with you. Just let him go.”

“That’s very noble of you, but I need him for leverage. After all, you have a mind of your own now, and how am I going to get you to do what I say if I don’t have your human boy toy to damage if you don’t?”

“Fuck you!” I hated myself for being so easily caught, but more than I hated myself, I hated him for hurting the people I loved, for scaring me and my family so much that I had to move across the country to get away from him. And even then, that had not been enough.

He shook me, hard enough to make my teeth rattle and my head snap back. He took me to the back of the parking lot and threw me into the passenger seat of a nondescript black SUV.

He opened the glove compartment and retrieved a zip tie. He bound my wrested together tightly.

I heard a groan from the back seat as Richard walked around the front of the car to reach the driver’s side. I gasped when I saw Matt sprawled in the backseat, his wrists and ankles bound, an ugly bruise forming along his temple.

My phone started to ring in my pocket, but Richard opened the driver’s side door before I got a chance to reach it with my bound hands. He pulled it from my pocket.

“What’s this?” he asked as the name “Stefan” flashed across the screen. Of course he had noticed I was gone by now. Richard buckled me securely into my seat and answered the phone as he started the car and peeled out of the parking lot.

“Hello, Stefan Salvatore,” Richard answered the phone in a triumphant tone.

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Stefan

“Hello, Stefan Salvatore,” a voice said into the receiver. A voice that definitely didn’t belong to Ana.

“Richard,” I said.

I realized too late that he must have compelled the teacher to talk to me about missing essays.

“Good. Now we have been officially introduced.”

“But we haven’t,” I said in an innocent tone. “You have been too cowardly to show your face in Mystic Falls, much less to me or my brother.”

“Let’s not get smart, Stefan. We both know your not in the position to be making snide comments like that. Now, if you know what is good for you, your brother, and your town, you will not follow me. “

I heard the sound of a car engine in the background of our conversation. He was already long gone.

“And you can tell Damon it was because of your carelessness that he won’t be seeing his girlfriend anymore.”

“Stefan, no!” Ana’s voice shrieked in the background.

I heard a thud and a growl followed by a sharp cracking sound, and then Richard’s voice came in again.

“You and your brother have corrupted my Eliana. She would have never dared to strike me before. She used to be so gentle and sweet, so submissive. Your brother turned her into a defiant little slut.”

“You can’t control Ana anymore. She knew the monster you were the day you first hurt the people she loves. She will never yours to control again.”

“Eliana is mine! You may have held sway over her for a short time, but I am going to fix that.”

And as Richard hung up, it terrified me to think of what his words might mean.