Status: Complete

Eat Your Heart Out

Chapter 13

I stood in shock for a moment, before shaking my head to clear it.

“Kris, are you okay?” I heard Elena ask me from my right.

I nodded before I spoke. “Yeah. No harm, no foul.” I replied, not looking at her.

“Kris!” Aiden and Eric shouted at me at the same time.

“See y’all later,” I mumbled walking back over to my brothers. Eric had his head cocked slightly at me and Aiden was glaring.

“You scared us –“

“- taking off like that –“

“-please don’t do it again.”

“I walked across the room. I’m sure you could hear me.”

“That’s what scared us-“

“-we couldn’t.”

We all sat at the table, and I slowly raised my eyebrows.

“I was just talking to Stefan and Elena about practice while y’all were getting drinks,” I said smiling, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

They nodded and we dug into the food.

~*~

It was the first time in a long while that the three of us came home laughing. We weren’t worried about life in New York, we weren’t worried about the crazed killer that was roaming the streets, and the Salvatore brothers didn’t come up once. It was nice to have my brothers acting like my brothers for once.

Sighing, I rolled onto my stomach, my head facing left, gazing at the trees outside my window. It was too quiet out here, even in the suburbs. I craved the crowded streets and loud car noises that usually are outside the house that we lived in. I hated the quiet…I felt too exposed. My mind was working overtime, even though my body begged for sleep. The worst part was that I wasn’t even sure what I was thinking about. After about an hour, I fell into a rough sleep.

~~
Arms crossed and a glass firmly held in one hand, I glared at the neighboring house outside my bedroom window. There was something weird about this family. I had no actual proof that these people had anything to do with the murders, but there was something that was familiar about them, nagging at the back of my mind. Mainly Kris, but I wasn’t exactly sure why.

Sipping slowly on my drink, I watched the quiet night patiently, not exactly sure why. Then I saw something move. It was fast, disappearing as fast as it had appeared. I watched the area right under the second story window, where the hedges stopped and the brick wall began.

It was another five minutes before I caught a glimpse of it again. This time, it took off across the street at an unnatural pace. I cocked my eyebrow, retracing where he ran with my eyes, and finishing off my drink.

Carefully, I sat down my drink and left the house, quickly walking over to the house with the hedges. I looked up at the dark window this thing was standing under earlier. What was he doing here? Without a second thought, I scaled the tree and peaked through the window. What I saw almost made me fall from the branch. She is across from my window?

Kris was fast asleep, facing the window, but she looked slightly in pain. Her lips moved wordlessly and her grip on the blanket tightened. Nightmares showed a lot about a person. I balanced myself on the branch, focusing on Kris, slipping into her mind.

I opened my eyes, but it was pitch black. After my eyes adjusted, I could tell that I was in a
forest, but not a familiar one. I wandered, following unfamiliar sounds of the night. That’s when I heard the scream.

I turned a full 180 degrees and took off, dodging the trees until I was on the outside of a clearing, but no one was in it. I hid behind a tree when I picked up footsteps coming my way. I peeked around, seeing a terrified Kris, dressed in solid black
, her hair only half up. She turned away, watching the dark, backing up slowly.

A man soon appeared, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He was about my height, light brown hair and dark eyes. He walked forward, hands outstretched. “Kristyna, my love, you know running won’t save you.” He pinned her against the tree right beside mine. “Come home,” he whispered into her ear.

“No,” she replied shakily, trying to push him away to obvious no avail.

He just chuckled, pushing closer to her, if it was possible. “It’s no use, my dear.” He replied, easily grabbing both of her hands in one of his, using the other to push some hair of her eyes and then lifting her chin to stare into her eyes.

“Jeremiah, please don’t-“

“But you taste so delightful,” he purred. I could see her shaking from here.

“Jeremiah, please!” She sounded like she was going to cry.

“You know if you didn’t run away, this wouldn’t be so bad. But you’ve started a rebellion, and it needs to end. So either I bring you back, or I kill you.”

She let out a cry, but he covered her mouth quickly.

“Shh, it’ll be quick.” He did the grin once more, pushing her head sideways to expose the right side of her neck. An old scar was revealed, lighter than the tan skin it marred, in the shape of a large bite-mark.

My mind flashed back to that of the eight year old, but I shook it quickly. There was no possible way she was the same little girl. Without thinking about it, I yanked Jeremiah off, and caught Kris before she fell.

“Damon?” she asked looking at me right in the eye.

I heard a laugh, but I turned and Jeremiah had taken off somewhere.

“Who was that?”

“How the hell did you get to New York?”

“You’re dreaming, that’s how!” I stated, not even thinking about it, which proved to be a bad idea.

“Dreaming?”

“How the hell would you be in New York if you weren’t?” I stated, throwing her own question back into her face.

“No. No. No. No. No.” She said clutching her head. Squeezing her eyes tight, she repeated that over and over, everything around her disappearing. I realized she was waking up and came back to reality on the tree branch.

Kris was sitting straight up in bed, panting. She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed something before putting it on her left hand. I realized she was putting on rings. She placed her hand on her heart and took deep breaths, calming herself down. Once her vitals were back at normal, she laid back down and fell back asleep.

I tried to push into her mind again, but found a wall.

Her rings had vervain. And if she knew about vervain, she had a whole past that I felt obligated to bring to light. Not that it was needed to catch the killer, but for the simple plan of having something over her – and possibly her brothers.

Hopping out of the tree, I walked calmly back into my house, stopping by the living room only long enough to grab myself a drink.
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~Kait