Civil Twilight
Civil Twilight
By: Megan
Chapter 7: Boxed In Part 1
Author's Note: First of all, I wanted to apologize to all of my readers. I promised only a two week hiatus, and yet I delivered a very long month. It's just some issues with my school that went down, which thankfully, are somewhat settled. And now that I am back at college, classes have been kicking my ass. I hardly ever had time to actually sit down and write.
But, here is the new chapter. And I wanted to let you know that no mater the breaks in between, I plan whole heartedly on finishing this story. Especially considering the passionate reaction out there for it. I give you my word.
Elena didn’t know how many minutes had passed between then and now. Damon’s hands had been on her bare back, pressing lightly, making her slightly faint and a little dizzy much to her displeasure. The look in his eyes when she had mentioned Katherine’s name was one of threatening menace that she had never seen the likes of before, boiling right under the handsome surface of his pale face, only being contained by the magnificent self-control that had taken him years of practice to posses. Only the slight twitching of his perfect jaw gave it away.
And then there was nothing but blackness, darkness. With silver stars dancing in front of her eyes as they tried desperately to adjust to the sudden change in light, Elena could hear nothing and see nothing. But she could feel Damon’s hand squeezing her own, and somehow she felt somewhat secure. That was before she heard the screams. To blood-curdling shrill yells making their way from different trajectories of the old building. And there was a flare not to far ahead; apparently someone had tried to light a match. This sight was followed swiftly by the sound of a faint crack.
“Someone snapped that person’s neck.”
“What?”
Elena could hear the terror making its way to the ends of her voice, making it tinged with the sound of hysteria. Damon’s voice, however, remained perfectly calm. His hold on her hand was firm, and Elena was sure that if they were in the light, his face might betray him. Because, as she tripped over her own feet as Damon led her off the crowded dance floor in the pitch black room, with others bumping into them, Elena’s hands briefly made contact with, what she could only guess, was his lips. They twinged with what Elena could only assume was fear. As Damon took his left arm over to support Elena’s side and help her back on her feet, she felt something sharp and hot dig into her side. Letting out a slight “oh” Elena could feel herself falter slightly, her legs loosing control of themselves, her eyes seeing nothing but the passing of dark violet hues dancing in front of her as her mouth let out a guttural howl.
“I think something got me.”
She could hear Damon let out an exasperated sigh in front of her, which only added more to her annoyance, her rage, and her hatred that at that moment she wished she could stare straight into his eyes and channel all of those emotions right into him. If only there was light. Elena was almost sure he would let go of her hand and leave her behind as her legs gave out from underneath her and she fell smack unto the floor. Instead, she felt Damon’s strong arms lifting her body up as if she had was as light as a feather. And time became an issue again. It ceased to exist. Elena did not know how many seconds had passed before she could feel the anger towards Damon drain out of her, along with all her energy although the pain remained. And she did not know when exactly a series of bright lights assaulted her eyes and a door squeaked open and then closed quietly shut.
Putting Elena down gently on the floor of a guest bedroom, Damon went quickly to work at barricading the door with every piece of furniture and objects he could find. Sofas, chairs, a dresser, cushions, blankets and sheets. Making sure that not a sliver of light could escape through the entrance to betray his and Elena’s presence to the enemy.
“Damon.”
He could hear her faint voice behind him. And he went over to her, kneeling beside her. She was bleeding profusely. She had been shot, luckily in the side with no permanent damage if it was treated, but it would still not be pretty. For her or for him.
He didn’t know how many hours he could take in such close proximity to that much fragrant blood, even with a century and a half of practice. Elena began to shake slightly, tremors rolling up and down her body, tears escaping her cheeks.
“Look at me,” Damon demanded. “Look at me, Elena.”
Elena instead looked down at the torn flesh of her side that jolted down to the marrow of her bones. Feeling the blood leave her face and feeling the hysteria bubbling up in her throat, Elena nearly let out a scream.
“Don’t, Elena! Look at me!” Damon said urgently.
Elena, still aware of her surroundings enough to know that Damon and her were in hiding, did not scream, but babbled incoherently over and over, until she didn’t have the energy. Damon was holding her hands, and Elena was digging her nails into him. He won’t mind, Elena thought, but that was before she realized the slight pinpricks in Damon’s skin, liquid maroon seeping out. Elena realized she drawn a bit of blood.
But, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Let go,” Damon advised her, and Elena loosened the grip on his hands. “No,
not of me,” he said, smiling. “You can hold on to me as long as you want. Let go of the fear, Elena. Only then will the pain drift away.”
Her shoulders sagging, Elena let out a deep breath.
“No one would do this. This is you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Who would do this? You must have made an enemy, someone with a personal vendetta to settle with you.”
“Besides the fact that I’m the vampire nursing you at the moment and not feeding on you, I think you should know that the people who I don’t get along with very well do not have the intelligence or the flair to come up with a breach this eloquent. This is Iscariot. People who actually take pride and pleasure in what they’re doing.”
“Like you do?”
Elena and Damon both looked up at each other, something passing between them that the other, if asked, could not explain with simple words. There was nothing but silence.
Caroline sat inside the empty and huge mahogany boudoir in silence. She could hear the shuffle of Stefan’s footsteps scanning the room. The panel door to the boudoir slid open as Stefan crouched over to enter inside it, sitting beside Caroline’s frightened form.
“We are safe in here.”
“What is going on, a robbery?”
“I don’t know.”
Although, that was a lie. Stefan knew exactly what had to be going on, it was Iscariot. He was not going to delude himself, and Caroline was in grave danger, despite being with him or not. Iscariot members were especially skilled in defeating a vampire; some were even trained since birth. It was all they knew. And Stefan understood with perfect clarity that of he was outnumbered by multiple agents, he didn’t stand a chance. Especially because he only fed of human blood, his diet was his downfall. Maybe Damon, but not him.
“We’re going to be okay, right?”
Caroline’s tiny voice squeaked in the darkness, and Stefan could see her crystal blue eyes shinning with fear, her shinny blond hair shielded by the multiple coats hanging up on the rack, surrounding them.
“Caroline, I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
“Why aren’t you with Elena?”
“It’s a long story.” Stefan sighed, rubbing his temples. Caroline let out a small, reassuring smile.
“I’ve got time. We’re going to be stuck in here for awhile.”
Stefan looked over at the little girl in front of him. Because that is what she was, a little girl. He was a century old vampire with trust issues and in the middle of a not- a- relationship with a girl that he was more than sure he had fallen in love with. How could this conversation possibly work, or help anything?
“Okay. Elena and I… we’re not working out. And she thinks I’m ignoring her at the moment. Or, that I maybe even hate her. When the truth is, the only person I despise is myself.”
“Why?” Caroline’s voice was soothing with sympathy.
“I want to be with her, I do. But the only way I can handle it is to stay away from her. I’m not a good man.”
“Stefan, I don’t know you that well, but from what I’ve seen you are not a bad person.”
Stefan broke out a bittersweet smile.
“You don’t even know the half of it.”
“And you don’t need to tell me. Actually I’ve felt always… lower than everyone else. A little less perfect. Shabby.”
Stefan let out a small chuckle. Caroline looked on at him with a hurt expression.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just, you are far from shabby.”
Suddenly, a brief noise alerted the two to something that must have been outside of the room. But, within a minute, it had passed. Stefan, seeing Caroline clearly shaking in fear, slid his hand into hers.
“Yeah?” Caroline let out a broken sigh.
“Yeah.”
As they sat in the warm room, the feeling of utter silence became almost too much to bear. Damon had wrapped Elena’s wound with torn sheets from the guest bed and had tied it tightly, but still the blood seeped through. Her breathing had become slowed and more vapid. Tilting her head to the side, Elena turned to stare at Damon, their faces merely inches apart.
“I’m sorry I said those things.”
“Don’t be.” Damon blinked, trying to give of a slight smirk. “I’m a bad man.”
“I don’t know if I can…” Elena stopped to catch her breath.
“Can what?” Damon looked on her with what appeared to be concern in his usually passive or comic features. And, with her being in the current state that she was in, Elena did not know what to make of it.
“I don’t know if I can keep this up. Staying awake, I mean.”
“You have to, Elena. You could die if you pass out.”
“I know. It’s just…” Elena’s eyes began to droop as her vision started to falter, the objects in front of her became blurred and the colors started to drain out… until his hands came up to cup her cheek and tap her forehead slightly. “Stay awake Elena. You can.”
“I’m just so tired.”
“I’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“About Katherine.”
Elena was not prepared for that surprise, but she downplayed it with a simple “Now this will keep me awake.” Damon let out a sad smile.
“I guess I should start this off with one of those taglines, it’s a story worthy of one after all. The year was 1864, and I had just joined the Confederate Army. It wasn’t for my country, or some preconceived sense of liberty, but to piss my father of. And, as I was being drafted, my hat flew of my head and landed right into the face of this girl. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She looked like she was created out of alabaster and porcelain, and her hair caught the light in the most gorgeous way. She introduced herself as Katherine Price.
Her family was traders from the North, and we both laughingly joked that we could not be associated, that we would be enemies after all. But that is not how it planned out. We met by chance at the river before I went off. She scribbled down her address and told me to write to her, which I did. And she wrote back, I would usually receive ten letters or so a month, as both of us wrote every other day, but they were delayed, of course, because of the war.
We were reunited in New Orleans, when I was on leave for several weeks. Needless to say, it was a wonderful week. Our families were not aware of our relationship. And that is how it remained, I would go of and it would be absolutely awful, and then I would come back and it was… everything seemed to be at peace for a brief period. There was a time when we reunited in England, and…”
A pause so lengthy and with so much weight loomed over the two sitting on the soiled carpet soaked in Elena’s blood, that she knew there was something rather momentous that Damon was about to confess, as much as it was a surprise that he had told her so much already. Elena just didn’t know if he could bring himself to do it.
“… I proposed. She was beside herself with happiness; she said yes. And it was the best night of my life.”
Elena felt her stomach churn and knot with grief for Damon… and something she could not name. And the thought that perhaps, despite all his words soaked in sincerity, Damon was in fact telling a lie. This was not the Damon that Stefan had designed in her fantasies. Most of the walls were down, and he was bare in the most mysterious of ways. And Elena could only be in awe of that.
“We separated after that. I didn’t see her until a year later. It was by chance; I had discovered my father was in fact a secret Union sympathizer. The Prices came to stay with us, and I was with Katherine once more. But she was different, more pallid… her naivety was absent, and her body language was entirely new, foreign. When she told me what she was, I had not believed her. She had been turned while I was away. And at that point in time, she was a newborn vampire. Crazy with violence and drunk with power. And she wielded these to her advantage, through pursuing Stefan. It was as if an alien had possessed her body and sucked her essence out. But, it was still Katherine; I would take what I could get.
I always found it strange that Stefan seemed to return her affections. She had a little sister, Clara, who was only sixteen and was rather fond of my little brother. She was exactly like Katherine to a tee. All the pent up energy and giddy happiness locked up in one little person.
I will not indulge you as to the events that occurred next between the three of us, Katherine, my brother and I. Only that, what you know about The Church, is a twisted fantasy. Vampires, witches, and any other supernatural creatures were being hunted and killed, it was mass genocide. Rules did not apply. Women and children, family members…”
Elena cut of Damon softly. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Well, then ask Stefan when I tell you this: Clara burned with Katherine. A sixteen year old human girl was murdered simply because her sister was a vampire.”
And Elena, before she could say anything, saw Damon suddenly get up from where he had been sitting, and put his ear to the door of the room.
“They are coming. We have to move.”
Gently lifting Elena into his arms, Damon made his way to the door to open it. As Elena’s head tilted back into his shoulder, her tiny fingers tightening around his firm neck, she felt the need to close her eyes. But she forced herself not to.
Walking quickly down the hall as silently as he possibly could, Damon elected not to use his speed to leave the house, as it could have drawn to much attention to anyone in the shadows. Looking down at the floor, he could faintly see the outlines of multiple bodies. Shit. He thought to himself. Iscariot was there, and whatever they wanted, they meant business.
To be continued...
And how much do I love you guys? So much so that the new chapter will be up by Monday. Because, I'm just awesome like that.
By: Megan
Chapter 7: Boxed In Part 1
Author's Note: First of all, I wanted to apologize to all of my readers. I promised only a two week hiatus, and yet I delivered a very long month. It's just some issues with my school that went down, which thankfully, are somewhat settled. And now that I am back at college, classes have been kicking my ass. I hardly ever had time to actually sit down and write.
But, here is the new chapter. And I wanted to let you know that no mater the breaks in between, I plan whole heartedly on finishing this story. Especially considering the passionate reaction out there for it. I give you my word.
Elena didn’t know how many minutes had passed between then and now. Damon’s hands had been on her bare back, pressing lightly, making her slightly faint and a little dizzy much to her displeasure. The look in his eyes when she had mentioned Katherine’s name was one of threatening menace that she had never seen the likes of before, boiling right under the handsome surface of his pale face, only being contained by the magnificent self-control that had taken him years of practice to posses. Only the slight twitching of his perfect jaw gave it away.
And then there was nothing but blackness, darkness. With silver stars dancing in front of her eyes as they tried desperately to adjust to the sudden change in light, Elena could hear nothing and see nothing. But she could feel Damon’s hand squeezing her own, and somehow she felt somewhat secure. That was before she heard the screams. To blood-curdling shrill yells making their way from different trajectories of the old building. And there was a flare not to far ahead; apparently someone had tried to light a match. This sight was followed swiftly by the sound of a faint crack.
“Someone snapped that person’s neck.”
“What?”
Elena could hear the terror making its way to the ends of her voice, making it tinged with the sound of hysteria. Damon’s voice, however, remained perfectly calm. His hold on her hand was firm, and Elena was sure that if they were in the light, his face might betray him. Because, as she tripped over her own feet as Damon led her off the crowded dance floor in the pitch black room, with others bumping into them, Elena’s hands briefly made contact with, what she could only guess, was his lips. They twinged with what Elena could only assume was fear. As Damon took his left arm over to support Elena’s side and help her back on her feet, she felt something sharp and hot dig into her side. Letting out a slight “oh” Elena could feel herself falter slightly, her legs loosing control of themselves, her eyes seeing nothing but the passing of dark violet hues dancing in front of her as her mouth let out a guttural howl.
“I think something got me.”
She could hear Damon let out an exasperated sigh in front of her, which only added more to her annoyance, her rage, and her hatred that at that moment she wished she could stare straight into his eyes and channel all of those emotions right into him. If only there was light. Elena was almost sure he would let go of her hand and leave her behind as her legs gave out from underneath her and she fell smack unto the floor. Instead, she felt Damon’s strong arms lifting her body up as if she had was as light as a feather. And time became an issue again. It ceased to exist. Elena did not know how many seconds had passed before she could feel the anger towards Damon drain out of her, along with all her energy although the pain remained. And she did not know when exactly a series of bright lights assaulted her eyes and a door squeaked open and then closed quietly shut.
Putting Elena down gently on the floor of a guest bedroom, Damon went quickly to work at barricading the door with every piece of furniture and objects he could find. Sofas, chairs, a dresser, cushions, blankets and sheets. Making sure that not a sliver of light could escape through the entrance to betray his and Elena’s presence to the enemy.
“Damon.”
He could hear her faint voice behind him. And he went over to her, kneeling beside her. She was bleeding profusely. She had been shot, luckily in the side with no permanent damage if it was treated, but it would still not be pretty. For her or for him.
He didn’t know how many hours he could take in such close proximity to that much fragrant blood, even with a century and a half of practice. Elena began to shake slightly, tremors rolling up and down her body, tears escaping her cheeks.
“Look at me,” Damon demanded. “Look at me, Elena.”
Elena instead looked down at the torn flesh of her side that jolted down to the marrow of her bones. Feeling the blood leave her face and feeling the hysteria bubbling up in her throat, Elena nearly let out a scream.
“Don’t, Elena! Look at me!” Damon said urgently.
Elena, still aware of her surroundings enough to know that Damon and her were in hiding, did not scream, but babbled incoherently over and over, until she didn’t have the energy. Damon was holding her hands, and Elena was digging her nails into him. He won’t mind, Elena thought, but that was before she realized the slight pinpricks in Damon’s skin, liquid maroon seeping out. Elena realized she drawn a bit of blood.
But, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Let go,” Damon advised her, and Elena loosened the grip on his hands. “No,
not of me,” he said, smiling. “You can hold on to me as long as you want. Let go of the fear, Elena. Only then will the pain drift away.”
Her shoulders sagging, Elena let out a deep breath.
“No one would do this. This is you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Who would do this? You must have made an enemy, someone with a personal vendetta to settle with you.”
“Besides the fact that I’m the vampire nursing you at the moment and not feeding on you, I think you should know that the people who I don’t get along with very well do not have the intelligence or the flair to come up with a breach this eloquent. This is Iscariot. People who actually take pride and pleasure in what they’re doing.”
“Like you do?”
Elena and Damon both looked up at each other, something passing between them that the other, if asked, could not explain with simple words. There was nothing but silence.
Caroline sat inside the empty and huge mahogany boudoir in silence. She could hear the shuffle of Stefan’s footsteps scanning the room. The panel door to the boudoir slid open as Stefan crouched over to enter inside it, sitting beside Caroline’s frightened form.
“We are safe in here.”
“What is going on, a robbery?”
“I don’t know.”
Although, that was a lie. Stefan knew exactly what had to be going on, it was Iscariot. He was not going to delude himself, and Caroline was in grave danger, despite being with him or not. Iscariot members were especially skilled in defeating a vampire; some were even trained since birth. It was all they knew. And Stefan understood with perfect clarity that of he was outnumbered by multiple agents, he didn’t stand a chance. Especially because he only fed of human blood, his diet was his downfall. Maybe Damon, but not him.
“We’re going to be okay, right?”
Caroline’s tiny voice squeaked in the darkness, and Stefan could see her crystal blue eyes shinning with fear, her shinny blond hair shielded by the multiple coats hanging up on the rack, surrounding them.
“Caroline, I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
“Why aren’t you with Elena?”
“It’s a long story.” Stefan sighed, rubbing his temples. Caroline let out a small, reassuring smile.
“I’ve got time. We’re going to be stuck in here for awhile.”
Stefan looked over at the little girl in front of him. Because that is what she was, a little girl. He was a century old vampire with trust issues and in the middle of a not- a- relationship with a girl that he was more than sure he had fallen in love with. How could this conversation possibly work, or help anything?
“Okay. Elena and I… we’re not working out. And she thinks I’m ignoring her at the moment. Or, that I maybe even hate her. When the truth is, the only person I despise is myself.”
“Why?” Caroline’s voice was soothing with sympathy.
“I want to be with her, I do. But the only way I can handle it is to stay away from her. I’m not a good man.”
“Stefan, I don’t know you that well, but from what I’ve seen you are not a bad person.”
Stefan broke out a bittersweet smile.
“You don’t even know the half of it.”
“And you don’t need to tell me. Actually I’ve felt always… lower than everyone else. A little less perfect. Shabby.”
Stefan let out a small chuckle. Caroline looked on at him with a hurt expression.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just, you are far from shabby.”
Suddenly, a brief noise alerted the two to something that must have been outside of the room. But, within a minute, it had passed. Stefan, seeing Caroline clearly shaking in fear, slid his hand into hers.
“Yeah?” Caroline let out a broken sigh.
“Yeah.”
As they sat in the warm room, the feeling of utter silence became almost too much to bear. Damon had wrapped Elena’s wound with torn sheets from the guest bed and had tied it tightly, but still the blood seeped through. Her breathing had become slowed and more vapid. Tilting her head to the side, Elena turned to stare at Damon, their faces merely inches apart.
“I’m sorry I said those things.”
“Don’t be.” Damon blinked, trying to give of a slight smirk. “I’m a bad man.”
“I don’t know if I can…” Elena stopped to catch her breath.
“Can what?” Damon looked on her with what appeared to be concern in his usually passive or comic features. And, with her being in the current state that she was in, Elena did not know what to make of it.
“I don’t know if I can keep this up. Staying awake, I mean.”
“You have to, Elena. You could die if you pass out.”
“I know. It’s just…” Elena’s eyes began to droop as her vision started to falter, the objects in front of her became blurred and the colors started to drain out… until his hands came up to cup her cheek and tap her forehead slightly. “Stay awake Elena. You can.”
“I’m just so tired.”
“I’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“About Katherine.”
Elena was not prepared for that surprise, but she downplayed it with a simple “Now this will keep me awake.” Damon let out a sad smile.
“I guess I should start this off with one of those taglines, it’s a story worthy of one after all. The year was 1864, and I had just joined the Confederate Army. It wasn’t for my country, or some preconceived sense of liberty, but to piss my father of. And, as I was being drafted, my hat flew of my head and landed right into the face of this girl. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She looked like she was created out of alabaster and porcelain, and her hair caught the light in the most gorgeous way. She introduced herself as Katherine Price.
Her family was traders from the North, and we both laughingly joked that we could not be associated, that we would be enemies after all. But that is not how it planned out. We met by chance at the river before I went off. She scribbled down her address and told me to write to her, which I did. And she wrote back, I would usually receive ten letters or so a month, as both of us wrote every other day, but they were delayed, of course, because of the war.
We were reunited in New Orleans, when I was on leave for several weeks. Needless to say, it was a wonderful week. Our families were not aware of our relationship. And that is how it remained, I would go of and it would be absolutely awful, and then I would come back and it was… everything seemed to be at peace for a brief period. There was a time when we reunited in England, and…”
A pause so lengthy and with so much weight loomed over the two sitting on the soiled carpet soaked in Elena’s blood, that she knew there was something rather momentous that Damon was about to confess, as much as it was a surprise that he had told her so much already. Elena just didn’t know if he could bring himself to do it.
“… I proposed. She was beside herself with happiness; she said yes. And it was the best night of my life.”
Elena felt her stomach churn and knot with grief for Damon… and something she could not name. And the thought that perhaps, despite all his words soaked in sincerity, Damon was in fact telling a lie. This was not the Damon that Stefan had designed in her fantasies. Most of the walls were down, and he was bare in the most mysterious of ways. And Elena could only be in awe of that.
“We separated after that. I didn’t see her until a year later. It was by chance; I had discovered my father was in fact a secret Union sympathizer. The Prices came to stay with us, and I was with Katherine once more. But she was different, more pallid… her naivety was absent, and her body language was entirely new, foreign. When she told me what she was, I had not believed her. She had been turned while I was away. And at that point in time, she was a newborn vampire. Crazy with violence and drunk with power. And she wielded these to her advantage, through pursuing Stefan. It was as if an alien had possessed her body and sucked her essence out. But, it was still Katherine; I would take what I could get.
I always found it strange that Stefan seemed to return her affections. She had a little sister, Clara, who was only sixteen and was rather fond of my little brother. She was exactly like Katherine to a tee. All the pent up energy and giddy happiness locked up in one little person.
I will not indulge you as to the events that occurred next between the three of us, Katherine, my brother and I. Only that, what you know about The Church, is a twisted fantasy. Vampires, witches, and any other supernatural creatures were being hunted and killed, it was mass genocide. Rules did not apply. Women and children, family members…”
Elena cut of Damon softly. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Well, then ask Stefan when I tell you this: Clara burned with Katherine. A sixteen year old human girl was murdered simply because her sister was a vampire.”
And Elena, before she could say anything, saw Damon suddenly get up from where he had been sitting, and put his ear to the door of the room.
“They are coming. We have to move.”
Gently lifting Elena into his arms, Damon made his way to the door to open it. As Elena’s head tilted back into his shoulder, her tiny fingers tightening around his firm neck, she felt the need to close her eyes. But she forced herself not to.
Walking quickly down the hall as silently as he possibly could, Damon elected not to use his speed to leave the house, as it could have drawn to much attention to anyone in the shadows. Looking down at the floor, he could faintly see the outlines of multiple bodies. Shit. He thought to himself. Iscariot was there, and whatever they wanted, they meant business.
To be continued...
And how much do I love you guys? So much so that the new chapter will be up by Monday. Because, I'm just awesome like that.