Children Of The Damned

Eliana

The first thing that came back to me was feeling. I was shivering, and my head was pounding. My hands were numb. I forced my eyes to open, and slowly my vision came into focus. I felt the stickiness of half-dried blood on my forehead and in my hair.

I forced myself to sit up, a task I found difficult to do with my hands bound. I found back the wave of nausea that came with achieving an upright position with a head injury. Bile rose in my throat, ad I swallowed it down again so I could focus on analyzing my surroundings. It looked as if I were in an old abandoned warehouse. The air was freezing, and I could see my breath coming out in white puffs of air.

I heard a low moan beside me, and I looked to see Matt curled up on the hard concrete next to me. His right temple now sported a fully formed, ugly purple bruise, and his right eye looked swollen.

“Elly?” Matt asked, opening his eyes. Sure enough, only the left one opened all the way.

“Matt, I need you to sit up and try not to fall asleep again.” The last thing he should be doing was losing consciousness. I was almost positive he had earned himself concussions before in football, so I hoped he understood what I was trying to get across to him.

Slowly, Matt managed to push himself up. He took longer since his feet were bound as well. Richard must have decided he was a greater threat to him physically than I was.

“What happened? And why are you involved?” Matt asked.

How was I going to explain this to him?

“Look, whatever you do, don’t piss him off. You’ll get a lot worse than a bump on the head if you do.”

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Yes, why don’t you tell him what’s going on?” Richard’s voice came from behind us.

I whipped my head around and watched him walk out of the darkness through a door that I hadn’t noticed was there before.

“Please leave him out of this.”

“No, I think Matt has a right to know what you have been up to in the past few months. After all, it is your fault he is here.”

“Don’t do that! Act like I asked for this! This was your fault!”

“And how was it my fault, dear?” he asked in a coy voice that made me want to scream.

“You have always been a monster! Even before you became what you are now. My family had to leave the state without telling anyone where we were just to get away from you. You tried to kill my best friend.”

“Chris was overstepping his boundaries. I should have killed him that night. However, I am glad I managed to restrain myself, because he helped me find you. Apparently, you made the mistake of telling him where you were even though you didn’t tell any of your silly, vapid little girl friends. Chris was very useful towards the end of his life.”

“NO!” I screamed.

“What was I supposed to do, darling? He was reluctant to disclose any information. It’s hardly my fault that the means I used to extract your location were less than…gentle.”

“I will kill you!”

“Temper temper,” Richard said, speaking the way a mother would when scolding a child.

“Now, lets get Matt here in the loop. The poor boy must be dying to know.”

Matt stiffened next to me, his eyes wide with fear. “What is he talking about?” he asked me.

“Your little Elly here has been consorting with vampires, and worse than that, she thinks she is in love with one.”

“This is crazy!” Matt said, fighting against the zip ties that bound him.

“It is a little on the fantastic side, isn’t it?” Richard mused.

“Stop it!” I cried.

“Silence!” he roared, his rage breaking out behind his cool façade for just a moment, long enough to remind me of why I had lived so many months in terror.

“Now,” he began again, “where was I? Oh yes, Damon and Stefan are both vampires. Which I believe makes your dear friend Elena involved as well, doesn’t it? Well, Matt, you must really not be very satisfying if the girls you love leave you for the undead.”

“This is insane? Ana, what the hell is this?”

“Tell him the truth, Eliana. Tell him how you have been sleeping with a killer.”

“Damon is not a killer! You are!”

“TELL HIM THE TRUTH!!!” he bellowed.

I flinched at the deafening roar of his voice.

“It’s true,” I said, my voice trembling. “Damon and Stefan are vampires.”

“This isn’t real, Elly. don’t let him do this.”

“But it is real,” I told him. “All of it. Damon and Stefan have been trying to keep this town safe from him. He has been the one killing all those people. He was the one who attacked you in the woods at the party.”

“And you knew this the whole time?”

“No! No, I just learned about this pretty recently. And I wanted to protect you and everyone else in this town. That’s why I didn’t tell you or anyone. Sometimes the truth is harder to believe.”

___________________________________________________

Stefan

Ana could be hurt right now, or worse. And I had nothing in my arsenal of lies that would keep Damon from figuring out what was going on.

As if on cue, Damon walked through the front door of the Salvatore boarding house as I was packing stakes and vervain bombs into my messenger bag.

“Woah,” Damon said. “Where’s the fire?”

“Ana is in trouble.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, Damon seemed to go on autopilot. He threw on the jacket that he had just hung up on the coat rack and turned to me.

“What happened?”

“She had a plan, Damon. I know I should have told you, but I thought it would work. Richard is cocky. She should have been able to stake him quickly. But he must have turned the tables on her.”

“You hid this from me? And now he has Ana?”

“I’m sorry, but we have to work together now or-”

“Or what?” he asked, his voice hiking up in pitch. He charged at me, throwing me up against the wall. “She’ll die? Because if she does, brother, I will kill you very slowly.”

“We need to work together,” I managed to say past Damon’s hand on my throat.

“We will find her, and kill Richard. But after that, brother, all bets are off. You had better watch your back whether I get Ana back safe or not.”