Save Me from Myself

"Maddy, what happened?" Kyle's worried voice questioned me as he looked at my left foot.
"I stepped on a piece of glass." I murmured, looking at Stefan and Elena who entered the emergency room.
"It's my fault. I dropped the glass on the floor." Elena blamed herself, making Kyle turn away to face her.
"It's not your fault." I tried to comfort her. "Let's just blame it on gravity." I added with a smile.
"It's good to see that you haven't lost your sense of humor." Kyle smiled back.
"Just wait until you try to pull that thing out of my heel. Trust me, everyone in this hospital will know me, but not by my sense of humor." I continued to lighten up the atmosphere in the hospital room, making everyone laugh slightly.
"Don't worry, it won't be that bad." Kyle assured me. "I'm going to take you an X-ray to see how big that piece of glass really is. We have to move fast because we don't want you to get an infection." he added on a serious tone.
"We'll just wait outside." Stefan said looking at Elena before leading her to the hallway.
Kyle took me to a special room where they keep the equipment needed to perform X-ray examinations. After taking me the X-ray, I was moved to another room where the procedure was going to take place.
"How bad is it?" I asked Kyle who was looking at my X-ray.
"Fortunately, it's not deep. We'll get it out in no time." his voice sounded optimistic. "Is everything ready for the surgery?" he asked the nurse and she nodded.
"Surgery?" I widened my eyes with worry.
"Don't worry, it's a very small procedure. It won't hurt, I promise." he gently replied while patting my hand.
I smiled slightly and decided to let him do his job without asking more questions. I tried not to think about it anymore and soon my mind started to play tricks on me, scrolling Stefan's demonic face over and over again. 'I know I've seen that face before, but where?' I forced myself to remember without any luck, then I closed my eyes and stood there in silence until the procedure was over.
"See, I told you that you had nothing to worry about." Kyle sat on the bed next to me and held my hand, causing me to open my eyes and look at him.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw Damon leaning against the doorframe while staring at me and Kyle. He had his arms crossed together around his chest and the look upon his face was a mixture between worry and jealousy. Kyle quickly followed my gaze, then let go of my hand as he stood up.
"You can come inside." Kyle informed Damon with a smile.
"Stefan told me what happened. Are you ok?" Damon rushed to my bed, completely ignoring Kyle.
"She's fine. She's free to go home now." Kyle replied before I could answer his question. "Just make sure she keeps the wound clean and takes her antibiotics." Kyle informed Damon, making me raise an eyebrow.
"Sure." Damon grinned.
"I'm still here, you know." I rolled my eyes at both of them.
"And just because I know how stubborn she is, remind her that she has to take at least one or two days off from work." Kyle smiled as he continued to ignore me.
"I'll take care of that too." Damon replied while looking me in the eyes.
"I'm not staying home for two days. The girls need me." I disapproved, gaining two dark glares from Kyle and Damon. "Fine, I'm not going to work tomorrow." I rolled my eyes in defeat, making Damon chuckle.
I thanked Kyle for everything, then we looked for Stefan and Elena and went back to the Salvatore house. Elena and Stefan took Elena's car while Damon led me to his vehicle.
I was sitting on the passenger seat, waiting for Damon to start the engine when he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to me.
"Who do you want me to call?" I stared at him confused.
"The principal." he pointed out on a serious tone. "Tell him that you need at least two days off." he grinned.
I took the phone and did as he said. 'Who knows, maybe this unexpected time off is what I need to keep an eye on Stefan.' I thought to myself while I was dialing the principal's number.
The next morning I woke up with a huge migraine and I was actually glad that I didn't have to go to work. After taking a quick shower, I put on a pair of blue jeans and a cute sleeveless top and went downstairs to make breakfast. When I got to the kitchen I found a post-it note on the fridge saying: "Good morning, Maddy! Something important came up and I had to leave early in the morning, but hopefully I'll be home by 4 PM. Stefan is at school, so that means you're alone until he gets home. I ordered your favorite pizza and left it on the kitchen counter. Call me if you need anything! – Damon".
I quickly ate half of the pizza and put the other half in the fridge, then decided to take advantage of the fact that I was home alone and looked through the house. I decided to start with Stefan's room, but the door was locked and I couldn't get in. That made me even more curious and I was very determined to find out what he was hiding. I couldn't find anything useful in the library, nor in the living room and I was about to finish my search when I found a basement with lots of prison cells like the ones that you see in the old movies.
'I don't think I'll find anything useful in here.' I pouted after looking through the first three cells and discovered that all of them were empty. But when I reached the fourth prison cell, my heart skipped a beat. The cell was stuffed with some sort of plants and then it hit me: 'Their parents are dead, but they don't work and still have a lot of money. They're drug dealers!' I thought to myself while staring at the plants.
I tried to get inside the cell, but the door was locked. I stretched my hand between the bars and managed to get a small sample of the plant and hid it in my pocket when I heard that someone opened the front door. I panicked and tried to run out of the basement as fast as I could, but I tripped and fell to the floor, making a lot of noise. When I stood up I bumped into Stefan who was coldly staring at me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked visibly annoyed.
"Um... I, I was just... Why aren't you at school?" I babbled without knowing what to say.
The next moment I saw Stefan looking at my left wrist where I was supposed to keep the bracelet that Damon gave me, but I took it off before going into the shower and forgot to put it back. He grabbed my wrist and almost dragged me out of the basement and made me sit on the living room couch.
"Forget about the prison cells and don't you ever go back to the basement! You were never there and we never had this conversation. Do you understand?" Stefan demanded while looking me in the eyes, but his tone wasn't angry. It seemed more like he was trying to hypnotize me.
I stared at him for a few seconds, then said just "Yes." and tried to look obedient.
"Good." he replied before walking out of the living room.
'What the hell did just happen? Did he try to... compel me?' I asked myself while sitting on the couch unable to move. 'Is he a... no, vampires aren't real. But what about his demonic face? Why couldn't he compel me if I wasn't wearing vervain?' I kept questioning myself until I found the strength to stand up and go back to my room.
'What am I gonna do now?' I asked myself while leaning against the bedroom door with my eyes closed. Soon, an idea popped into my head. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Jeremy's number. 'If he's been using drugs, maybe he knows something about this one.' I thought to myself while looking at the small sample, waiting for Jeremy to answer his phone.
"Hi, Maddy! I was just about to call you. Elena told me what happened last night. How are you doing?" Jeremy's sweet voice greeted me.
"Hi, Jer! I'm fine, thanks for asking. I still had to take a few days off, though." I pouted. "I was wondering if you'd like to meet me after classes. It's about time we start working on the Economics essay, don't you think?" I added with a smile.
"Sure, but shouldn't you stay home and rest?" Jeremy asked a little worried.
"I can take a cab. I really want to get out of the house. Meet me at the Grill at 2 o'clock?" I enquired.
"Sure, I'll meet you there." Jeremy replied before he hung up.
It was 1:45 PM when I called for a cab and headed to the Grill. As soon as I got there I spotted Jeremy waiting at a table and I joined him. We started to write the essay and after almost 3 hours of hard work we managed to finish it. At that point it was about time to show him the plant sample.
"That night at the cemetery Elena said that you are using drugs." I started awkwardly.
"Come on, not you too..." Jeremy rolled his eyes.
"No, let me finish. I don't want to scold you or anything. I just want to show you something." I replied while taking the plant sample out of my pocket. "Maybe you can help me figure out what this is." I added while showing it to Jeremy.
"Where did you get that?" he widened his eyes with shock.
"One of the students dropped it." I lied. "Have you ever seen something like it before?" I asked curiously.
"It looks like vervain, but I'm not sure." he shrugged.
"Vervain?" I asked surprised. 'So that's why Stefan couldn't compel me. But why would a vampire keep vervain in his basement? I think I'm starting to lose my mind. Vampires don't exist.' I was lost in my thoughts for a while.
"Yes, well..." Jeremy scratched his head. "A while ago, I wrote an essay about vampires and during my research I found out about vervain. People believed that this plant protected them from vampires, but it's just a legend." he added with a smile.
"Of course it's just a legend. Vampires aren't real." I smiled back. "I'm just glad this isn't a drug." I said while looking at the plant.
I was about to put it back in my pocket when Jeremy asked if he could keep it and I nodded. After handing him the vervain, I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 5 PM. Damon said that he was going to be home by 4 and I was already an hour late. I knew that he was going to be mad at me for leaving the house and I didn't want to piss him off again, so I said goodbye to Jeremy, called for a cab and headed back to the Salvatore house as fast as I could.
When I got to the Salvatore house, Damon's car was parked near the front door. 'Great, he's home. Now he's going to yell at me for leaving the house when the doctor told me to stay home and rest.' I thought to myself while stepping into the hallway. I tried not to make too much noise while sneaking back to my room, but as soon as I got to the stairs, Damon came out of nowhere, grabbed my right arm and spun me around to face him.
"Not so fast, sneaky girl!" he looked me in the eyes and smirked. "You've got some explaining to do. I thought that we made it clear last night when we decided that you were taking a few days off from work and from everything else." his voice became serious.
"You were the one who decided that, not me." I crossed my arms together around my chest and scoffed.
"What was so important that couldn't wait until the day after tomorrow?" he continued to question me.
"Nothing, I just wanted to get out of the house, that's all." I sighed.
"Really? For three hours? Stefan saw you leaving the house at 2 PM." he stared at me with disbelief written all over his face.
Fortunately, my cell phone rang and interrupted our conversation. It was mom who called me.
"Saved by the phone." Damon mumbled between gritted teeth as I took the call.
"Hi, mom! It's so good to hear you. How are you and dad doing?" I greeted her on a cheerful voice.
"Hi, Maddy! We're doing great except from missing you and your brother." she replied casually. "Unfortunately, I have some bad news too." her voice quickly faded.
"What happened?" I asked on a worried tone.
"I just found out that my aunt Margaret from Connecticut passed away." she replied with sadness in her voice.
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Are you going to attend her funeral?" I asked softly.
"I would, but I can't make it. The funeral is tomorrow morning." she pouted. "But you can get there in time. Would you represent our family?" she suggested.
"I don't know. I don't have a car. Why don't you ask Robert? New York is even closer to Connecticut than Mystic Falls." I rolled my eyes.
"I already asked him, but you know that he just moved there. He can't leave work." she shrugged.
"Fine, let me see what I can do. I'll call you later." I added before hanging up.
I put the cell phone back in my pocket and sat on the stairs with my head placed on my knees.
"What happened? Who died?" Damon asked on a worried tone while sitting next to me and gently rubbing my back.
"My mother's aunt from Hartford, Connecticut." I replied, looking him in the eyes.
"Was she close with your family?" Damon wanted to know.
"Only when I was little. I haven't seen her in the past 10 years or so." I shrugged. "But mom wants me to attend the funeral. I hate funerals. Plus, I'm not going to get there on time. The next bus probably leaves at 6 or 7 in the morning and the funeral is at 10." I looked at him and pouted.
"Of course you are. We can leave at six, get there by midnight and spend the night at a hotel. Or we can leave at 4 in the morning and go straight to the funeral." he replied calmly.
"We? You want to drive me to Connecticut?" I asked surprised.
"Why not? It's going to be fun." he said with an innocent smile.
"Since when are funerals fun?" I narrowed my eyes.
"I was talking about the trip. Come on, just say yes!" he snickered.
"Fine, let me pack a few things." I added while standing up.
"So, I guess we're spending the night at a hotel." he winked at me, making me laugh.
"Yeah, in SEPARATE rooms." I grinned. "It's safer than driving in the middle of the night." I added with a small smile before heading to my bedroom.
I grabbed my backpack and packed my pyjamas and some clothes for the funeral along with my antibiotics, then changed into a white long sleeve blouse, a black long cardigan, a pair of blue jeans and black knee high boots. After applying a little bit of makeup, I called my mom to tell her that I decided to go to Connecticut. When I was ready to go downstairs, I took the backpack and went to find Damon. As soon as he heard footsteps on the stairs, he stood up from the living room couch and led me to his car.
Damon watched me as I threw my backpack and my cardigan on the backseat, then made my way to the passenger seat. As soon as I made myself comfortable, a branched lightning split the leaden sky in two, making me jump slightly.
"Buckle up! It's going to be a bumpy ride." Damon grinned before starting the engine.
"Just don't make me regret this." I replied slightly serious while fastening the seat belt.