i don't want to be a bandage if the wound is not mine-Part Three
i don’t want to be a bandage if the wound is not mine
Author: Eena
Rating: 14A, mostly for language and violence.
Category: TVD/Supernatural
Disclaimer: Like I would be so lucky. TVD is owned by LJ Smith, and redesigned by Williamson and Plec. Supernatural belongs to Kripke.
Characters/Pairings: Caroline Forbes, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Damon Salvatore, with appearances by various other characters. Slight Caroline/Dean.
Spoilers: S2-ish for TVD and this takes place about mid-S4 for Supernatural.
Notes: AU with Human!Caroline.
Summary: Snakes in Maine.
Sounds like a really bad movie, but the three dead bodies are real. Sam and Dean catch wind of a bizarre situation at U of Maine and head on down to take care of business. What they don't know is that someone else has the same idea . . .
Caroline Forbes is determined to get to the bottom of this mess, because this is supposed to be her life away from the freaky and the supernatural. She's got some experience in these matters and she's fully planning on dealing with it on her own. But a visitor from her hometown is purposefully making that impossible and suddenly Caroline's right where she never wanted to be again: between a vampire and a hard place.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on
-Winston Churchill
“Well, at least we get to start off on a good note.”
Sam sighs and sends a long suffering look up to the sky. Dean misses, or ignores, this and enters the Orono city morgue with a slight spring in his step. Sam trails behind his brother, Dean’s reason for sudden giddiness catching sight of them fairly quickly. The tall, blonde (and downright gorgeous) young woman immediately pushes away from the front desk, steps into the middle of the hall, and very obviously waits for them with folded arms.
“Now this looks official,” she greets them with a large smile, and it’s seemingly sincere. Sam knows his brother is momentarily blinded by golden hair and blue eyes (oh so blue), but Sam lets his eyes fix upon the shiny ID tag hanging from her neck.
University newspaper. Crap.
“Carly Truscott, The Maine Campus,” Sam needs to hold his breath in order to avoid laughing at the slightly crestfallen expression on his brother’s face. The girl, Carly, gives no indication that she even notices this. She thrusts out her right hand and smiles charmingly. Dean takes it with a little less enthusiasm than he had coming into the building and Sam just gives the girl a grave nod.
“Miss Truscott, we’ll have to cut you off at the pass,” Dean manages to muster up a fake official smile. “We have no comment.”
“And no names, as far as I can tell,” Carly replies smoothly, a twinkle in her eyes that is almost amused. “And no indication of what authority lets you cut me off at the path. This steadily sliding down from official to shady.”
Sam has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Dean looks as if he doesn’t know what to do, glare or laugh. It’s always fun to meet someone with a bit of personality to them, but it usually proves disastrous in the long run.
But Carly Truscott is not budging. The brothers exchange a glance and reach into their inner jacket pockets almost in unison. The fake badge is light in his hand; Sam trusts completely in the ability of semi-official medallions in setting the common person’s mind at ease. Carly’s eyes are sharp, but also very excited, as she gazes hard at the pictures flashed briefly in her face.
“Agents Sambora and Torres, FBI,” Dean announces before the badges disappear into pockets again. “Now, Miss Truscott, unless you’re moonlighting as the morgue receptionist, you really must excuse us.”
“She’d try to sell you that, if you gave her the chance.”
The voice belongs to a thin, balding man dressed in the blue scrubs of an on-duty coroner. Carly’s eyes widen for a second, a flash of panic clear in her eyes, before she recovers. The blonde turns and gives the coroner a smile that has the man blushing almost the same shade of red still stubbornly dusting the grey of his scalp. The coroner’s eyes snap their way and he gives his head a slight shake before moving forward.
“As you can see, Miss Truscott, I am indeed too busy to indulge you this afternoon,” the coroner flashes the brothers a strained smile before putting a hand on Carly’s back and gently guiding her forward. “We’ll have to wait until your next siege of my morgue.”
Carly’s eyes quickly lose their sparkle. “Well, I’d hate to inconvenience you when you’re busy sitting on your hands while people die,” the venom in the girl’s voice is slightly staggering, as is the burning anger in her eyes. “Someone is responsible for this; someone has to be accountable.”
The coroner’s face is red, but it’s because of shame this time. “Somebody will be,” the man manages to sputter, still gently prodding Carly in the direction of the door. “We’re doing our best.”
Carly rolls her eyes and then fixes a glare on both Sam and Dean. “Let’s hope the federal authorities are up to the task,” she pushes off the coroner’s hand and stalks her way towards the door, tossing her final recriminations over her shoulder: “The Orono PD has been effectively defeated by a snake with the brain roughly the size of a golf ball!”
The blonde slams her way out onto the sidewalk and Sam lets loose a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He exchanges a look with Dean, to which Dean just shrugs. They turn to the coroner, Dean raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“Miss Truscott is a . . . trial, at the best of times,” the man shrugs, an apologetic look on his face before stretching out his hand. “I’m Mike Hathborne, chief medical examiner.”
Sam takes the offered hand, nodding towards Dean. “Agents Sambora and Torres . . . she’s here about the cobra deaths?”
“Almost daily,” Mike replies with a roll of his eyes. The man seems to have gained more confidence now that Carly was gone. “She makes an already difficult situation that much harder. But she’s young, and she thinks she’s Murphy Brown. That is, if she were old enough to remember who Murphy Brown was. But you’re not here for her; you’re here for the bodies.”
“Well, if she’s that interested in the bodies, maybe we’re here for her too,” Dean gives the man a measuring look. “Why exactly is she tormenting you when all the other reporters are hounding the police?”
Mike rolls his eyes again as he steps to the side, waving a hand to usher the brothers towards the actual lab entrance. “She’s trying to make a name for herself, find an angle that no one else has. She thinks that there’s more than one snake, that there’s this whole ring of animal smugglers operating in and around Orono, and they dropped a whole shipment-or something like that. She’s been after me for the autopsy reports, wants me to check for different size puncture wounds.”
“And have you?” Sam asks as they push their way through a series of swinging doors and step into a long, white corridor. The door to the lab is at the far end and Mike doesn’t hesitate to lead them forward.
“I have, though I’m not allowed to admit that to her,” Mike pauses momentarily and gives the brothers a vaguely lost look. “I wish I could confirm her story, because I like hers better than the truth.”
Great. Ominous. Sam does his best not to make a face, even while Dean tries to control his grin. They follow Mike to the main lab, pausing when Mike offers them a couple of masks to cover their mouth and noses. “You’ll need it,” he cautions, and that really doesn’t make Sam feel any better.
“What’s this truth that you don’t like?” Dean asks, voice slightly muffled as he places the mask over his mouth.
Mike just shakes his head and ushers them into the lab. Sam is instantly grateful for the mask, though it doesn’t do a lot to keep the full force of the stench at bay. Mike is already walking towards the centre of the room, a cloth-covered body his destination.
“The truth is just that this is most likely from one snake, but it’s that one snake that’s giving me heartburn,” Mike goes around to the left side of the body, leaving the brothers on the right. He looks at both of them for a second, his face grave. “Miss Truscott isn’t entirely wrong; there is something to the bite marks that is troubling. You should brace yourself; it’s not a pretty sight.”
He removes the cloth and Sam takes his first wide-eyed look at the body of Jenny Watkins. His stomach dips a little, because even he’s not immune to everything, and he can feel his eyes start to water.
Dean coughs, loudly, and gives mutters some curse under his breath. “Well, that settles it.”
Mike looks confused. “Settles what?”
Dean shakes his head. “Closed casket, for sure.”
~0~
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caroline demands, fighting the urge to rip her arm out of Damon’s grip. She had barely been back on the street for thirty seconds before he appeared, got all manhandle-y again and began directing her back to his car.
“What do you think it means?” he rolls his eyes in her face before opening the passenger side door and pushing her in. Caroline bites down hard on the inside of her cheek; this aggressive, ‘do as I say woman’, schtick of Damon’s is always hard to swallow. But Damon has the luxury of being a slightly imbalanced immortal with super-strength and super-speed, and she’s without her usual backup of disapproving vampire family and trigger-happy witch.
“Closed coffin means closed coffin,” Damon slides behind the wheel and slams his door with the same unnecessary force as before. She ignores this, keeps her eyes trained on the scenery outside the windshield. There’s no talking to him when he’s in a petulant mode.
They drive in silence for ten minutes, Damon circling around her apartment building while he broods. Eventually, when he’s managed to get a handle on most of his issues, he lets out a sigh. “You were right about the bite marks; they’re not normal. They’re roughly the size of your thumb.”
Caroline raises the aforementioned digit and squints at it. “That’s on the slightly longer scale, but still within range of normal cobra fangs.”
Damon sighs again. “Width, Blondie. The width.”
Caroline feels her heart stop for a second. “The bite marks are . . .”
“Roughly over two inches wide,” Damon affirms. “The coroner’s freaking out too. So congrats, it’s definitely not a snake. Now, let’s get you home and packed-“
“Don’t be stupid,” she interrupts, though her tone is more distracted than heated. “Width that size also rules out vampires. Werewolves were ruled out due to the extreme lack of a full moon, but I guess this would put all other regular shapeshifters out of the picture as well. But what’s left?”
“A packed bag and a ride home,” Damon turns his head to glare at her. “This is bad, Caroline. A serial killing unknown-and you fit its type. Liz will have my head if I don’t bring you home-“
“I’m an adult, Damon,” Caroline retorts, instantly annoyed at the mention of her mother. “You don’t get to ‘bring’ me anywhere anymore. And my mom doesn’t have the authority to drag me home-this isn’t Mystic Falls, she’s not the sheriff, and I’m not going home.”
He goes back to looking at the road, deliberately misses the turn for her street a third time, and tightens his hold on the steering wheel. “Bonnie will liquefy my brain matter if I leave you here.”
It’s the same faulty reasoning as before, so she doesn’t bother responding. She tries her best to clear the irritation from her mind and goes back to discussing important matters. “So, fangs that are at least two inches in width-that does not a cobra make. I’ll have to go home and see if any snake out there does match-but the cobra venom is still too hard to explain away.”
“And what of our friendly, neighbourhood g-men?” Damon switches topic easily enough, but the hard set of his jaw lets her know how much he doesn’t like it.
She laughs at the mention of the two men she had met in the morgue. “They are most definitely not g-men, that’s for sure.”
Damon looks at her curiously and she shrugs. “I’ve been around police officers and officials all my life. I can usually tell when someone’s for real. Besides, I got a good look at their badges. Special Agents Richard Sambora and Hector Torres-sound familiar?”
Damon snorts. “So, Stefan’s obsession with Bon Jovi finally pays off. Okay, fake feds with rock band aliases and something with big ass fangs that you’re too stupid to run from. What’s two plus two, Caroline?”
Caroline stifles a groan. “You cannot call Alaric.”
“Of course, because calling the only Hunter we know to get information on Hunters we don’t know is always a bad idea.”
“He’ll want to know everything,” Caroline shakes her head stubbornly. “He’ll figure it out, then he’ll show up here. The others will notice, or he’ll tell them, and then half the town is crowding around my little apartment and Orono quickly turns into the same as Mystic Falls.”
Damon shrugs. “What’s wrong with that? Don’t love us anymore?”
“Shut up,” she mutters, fingers twitching in agitation. “This is my life, Damon. My normal life. I want to keep it that way.”
“Normal is subjective, Blondie,” Damon finally starts moving in the direction of her apartment. “And how normal can it be with Donovan showing up all the time?”
Back to this. “Let’s not do this,” she says, a hint of pleading in her voice.
Damon ignores it. “He’s dangerous, a loose-cannon, and carrying around a lot of baggage. You should have told us that he’s visiting you.”
“Visited,” she corrects firmly. “He only came the once, and he was gone by morning. Don’t make it a big deal.”
He snaps his head her way, eyes almost impossibly wide. She sighs and looks down at her hands, folded nervously in her lap. “Just because he hates you and disagrees with Elena doesn’t make him dangerous,” she insists, though she can’t meet his gaze full on. “He’s still Matt; according to Stefan, he’s more Matt than he ever was before. If he wants to run off and be on his own, there’s not much you can do to stop him.”
Damon glides into a parking stall, not too far from the elevator. He turns off the car and sits back, looking through the windshield to the cement wall before them. “Was Katherine with him?”
The name still makes her flinch, makes her remember months of cat-and-mouse games and jagged wounds spilling blood across white kitchen tiles. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and banishes the monster with her best friend’s face far from her thoughts. “No.”
They sit in uneasy silence for three very long minutes. Then: “You know I’m not leaving here until you agree to come with me, right?”
She opens her car and door and stumbles into less stifling air. “Damon, I’ve accepted a long time ago that you were never going to leave.”
~0~
Author: Eena
Rating: 14A, mostly for language and violence.
Category: TVD/Supernatural
Disclaimer: Like I would be so lucky. TVD is owned by LJ Smith, and redesigned by Williamson and Plec. Supernatural belongs to Kripke.
Characters/Pairings: Caroline Forbes, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Damon Salvatore, with appearances by various other characters. Slight Caroline/Dean.
Spoilers: S2-ish for TVD and this takes place about mid-S4 for Supernatural.
Notes: AU with Human!Caroline.
Summary: Snakes in Maine.
Sounds like a really bad movie, but the three dead bodies are real. Sam and Dean catch wind of a bizarre situation at U of Maine and head on down to take care of business. What they don't know is that someone else has the same idea . . .
Caroline Forbes is determined to get to the bottom of this mess, because this is supposed to be her life away from the freaky and the supernatural. She's got some experience in these matters and she's fully planning on dealing with it on her own. But a visitor from her hometown is purposefully making that impossible and suddenly Caroline's right where she never wanted to be again: between a vampire and a hard place.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on
-Winston Churchill
“Well, at least we get to start off on a good note.”
Sam sighs and sends a long suffering look up to the sky. Dean misses, or ignores, this and enters the Orono city morgue with a slight spring in his step. Sam trails behind his brother, Dean’s reason for sudden giddiness catching sight of them fairly quickly. The tall, blonde (and downright gorgeous) young woman immediately pushes away from the front desk, steps into the middle of the hall, and very obviously waits for them with folded arms.
“Now this looks official,” she greets them with a large smile, and it’s seemingly sincere. Sam knows his brother is momentarily blinded by golden hair and blue eyes (oh so blue), but Sam lets his eyes fix upon the shiny ID tag hanging from her neck.
University newspaper. Crap.
“Carly Truscott, The Maine Campus,” Sam needs to hold his breath in order to avoid laughing at the slightly crestfallen expression on his brother’s face. The girl, Carly, gives no indication that she even notices this. She thrusts out her right hand and smiles charmingly. Dean takes it with a little less enthusiasm than he had coming into the building and Sam just gives the girl a grave nod.
“Miss Truscott, we’ll have to cut you off at the pass,” Dean manages to muster up a fake official smile. “We have no comment.”
“And no names, as far as I can tell,” Carly replies smoothly, a twinkle in her eyes that is almost amused. “And no indication of what authority lets you cut me off at the path. This steadily sliding down from official to shady.”
Sam has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Dean looks as if he doesn’t know what to do, glare or laugh. It’s always fun to meet someone with a bit of personality to them, but it usually proves disastrous in the long run.
But Carly Truscott is not budging. The brothers exchange a glance and reach into their inner jacket pockets almost in unison. The fake badge is light in his hand; Sam trusts completely in the ability of semi-official medallions in setting the common person’s mind at ease. Carly’s eyes are sharp, but also very excited, as she gazes hard at the pictures flashed briefly in her face.
“Agents Sambora and Torres, FBI,” Dean announces before the badges disappear into pockets again. “Now, Miss Truscott, unless you’re moonlighting as the morgue receptionist, you really must excuse us.”
“She’d try to sell you that, if you gave her the chance.”
The voice belongs to a thin, balding man dressed in the blue scrubs of an on-duty coroner. Carly’s eyes widen for a second, a flash of panic clear in her eyes, before she recovers. The blonde turns and gives the coroner a smile that has the man blushing almost the same shade of red still stubbornly dusting the grey of his scalp. The coroner’s eyes snap their way and he gives his head a slight shake before moving forward.
“As you can see, Miss Truscott, I am indeed too busy to indulge you this afternoon,” the coroner flashes the brothers a strained smile before putting a hand on Carly’s back and gently guiding her forward. “We’ll have to wait until your next siege of my morgue.”
Carly’s eyes quickly lose their sparkle. “Well, I’d hate to inconvenience you when you’re busy sitting on your hands while people die,” the venom in the girl’s voice is slightly staggering, as is the burning anger in her eyes. “Someone is responsible for this; someone has to be accountable.”
The coroner’s face is red, but it’s because of shame this time. “Somebody will be,” the man manages to sputter, still gently prodding Carly in the direction of the door. “We’re doing our best.”
Carly rolls her eyes and then fixes a glare on both Sam and Dean. “Let’s hope the federal authorities are up to the task,” she pushes off the coroner’s hand and stalks her way towards the door, tossing her final recriminations over her shoulder: “The Orono PD has been effectively defeated by a snake with the brain roughly the size of a golf ball!”
The blonde slams her way out onto the sidewalk and Sam lets loose a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He exchanges a look with Dean, to which Dean just shrugs. They turn to the coroner, Dean raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“Miss Truscott is a . . . trial, at the best of times,” the man shrugs, an apologetic look on his face before stretching out his hand. “I’m Mike Hathborne, chief medical examiner.”
Sam takes the offered hand, nodding towards Dean. “Agents Sambora and Torres . . . she’s here about the cobra deaths?”
“Almost daily,” Mike replies with a roll of his eyes. The man seems to have gained more confidence now that Carly was gone. “She makes an already difficult situation that much harder. But she’s young, and she thinks she’s Murphy Brown. That is, if she were old enough to remember who Murphy Brown was. But you’re not here for her; you’re here for the bodies.”
“Well, if she’s that interested in the bodies, maybe we’re here for her too,” Dean gives the man a measuring look. “Why exactly is she tormenting you when all the other reporters are hounding the police?”
Mike rolls his eyes again as he steps to the side, waving a hand to usher the brothers towards the actual lab entrance. “She’s trying to make a name for herself, find an angle that no one else has. She thinks that there’s more than one snake, that there’s this whole ring of animal smugglers operating in and around Orono, and they dropped a whole shipment-or something like that. She’s been after me for the autopsy reports, wants me to check for different size puncture wounds.”
“And have you?” Sam asks as they push their way through a series of swinging doors and step into a long, white corridor. The door to the lab is at the far end and Mike doesn’t hesitate to lead them forward.
“I have, though I’m not allowed to admit that to her,” Mike pauses momentarily and gives the brothers a vaguely lost look. “I wish I could confirm her story, because I like hers better than the truth.”
Great. Ominous. Sam does his best not to make a face, even while Dean tries to control his grin. They follow Mike to the main lab, pausing when Mike offers them a couple of masks to cover their mouth and noses. “You’ll need it,” he cautions, and that really doesn’t make Sam feel any better.
“What’s this truth that you don’t like?” Dean asks, voice slightly muffled as he places the mask over his mouth.
Mike just shakes his head and ushers them into the lab. Sam is instantly grateful for the mask, though it doesn’t do a lot to keep the full force of the stench at bay. Mike is already walking towards the centre of the room, a cloth-covered body his destination.
“The truth is just that this is most likely from one snake, but it’s that one snake that’s giving me heartburn,” Mike goes around to the left side of the body, leaving the brothers on the right. He looks at both of them for a second, his face grave. “Miss Truscott isn’t entirely wrong; there is something to the bite marks that is troubling. You should brace yourself; it’s not a pretty sight.”
He removes the cloth and Sam takes his first wide-eyed look at the body of Jenny Watkins. His stomach dips a little, because even he’s not immune to everything, and he can feel his eyes start to water.
Dean coughs, loudly, and gives mutters some curse under his breath. “Well, that settles it.”
Mike looks confused. “Settles what?”
Dean shakes his head. “Closed casket, for sure.”
~0~
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caroline demands, fighting the urge to rip her arm out of Damon’s grip. She had barely been back on the street for thirty seconds before he appeared, got all manhandle-y again and began directing her back to his car.
“What do you think it means?” he rolls his eyes in her face before opening the passenger side door and pushing her in. Caroline bites down hard on the inside of her cheek; this aggressive, ‘do as I say woman’, schtick of Damon’s is always hard to swallow. But Damon has the luxury of being a slightly imbalanced immortal with super-strength and super-speed, and she’s without her usual backup of disapproving vampire family and trigger-happy witch.
“Closed coffin means closed coffin,” Damon slides behind the wheel and slams his door with the same unnecessary force as before. She ignores this, keeps her eyes trained on the scenery outside the windshield. There’s no talking to him when he’s in a petulant mode.
They drive in silence for ten minutes, Damon circling around her apartment building while he broods. Eventually, when he’s managed to get a handle on most of his issues, he lets out a sigh. “You were right about the bite marks; they’re not normal. They’re roughly the size of your thumb.”
Caroline raises the aforementioned digit and squints at it. “That’s on the slightly longer scale, but still within range of normal cobra fangs.”
Damon sighs again. “Width, Blondie. The width.”
Caroline feels her heart stop for a second. “The bite marks are . . .”
“Roughly over two inches wide,” Damon affirms. “The coroner’s freaking out too. So congrats, it’s definitely not a snake. Now, let’s get you home and packed-“
“Don’t be stupid,” she interrupts, though her tone is more distracted than heated. “Width that size also rules out vampires. Werewolves were ruled out due to the extreme lack of a full moon, but I guess this would put all other regular shapeshifters out of the picture as well. But what’s left?”
“A packed bag and a ride home,” Damon turns his head to glare at her. “This is bad, Caroline. A serial killing unknown-and you fit its type. Liz will have my head if I don’t bring you home-“
“I’m an adult, Damon,” Caroline retorts, instantly annoyed at the mention of her mother. “You don’t get to ‘bring’ me anywhere anymore. And my mom doesn’t have the authority to drag me home-this isn’t Mystic Falls, she’s not the sheriff, and I’m not going home.”
He goes back to looking at the road, deliberately misses the turn for her street a third time, and tightens his hold on the steering wheel. “Bonnie will liquefy my brain matter if I leave you here.”
It’s the same faulty reasoning as before, so she doesn’t bother responding. She tries her best to clear the irritation from her mind and goes back to discussing important matters. “So, fangs that are at least two inches in width-that does not a cobra make. I’ll have to go home and see if any snake out there does match-but the cobra venom is still too hard to explain away.”
“And what of our friendly, neighbourhood g-men?” Damon switches topic easily enough, but the hard set of his jaw lets her know how much he doesn’t like it.
She laughs at the mention of the two men she had met in the morgue. “They are most definitely not g-men, that’s for sure.”
Damon looks at her curiously and she shrugs. “I’ve been around police officers and officials all my life. I can usually tell when someone’s for real. Besides, I got a good look at their badges. Special Agents Richard Sambora and Hector Torres-sound familiar?”
Damon snorts. “So, Stefan’s obsession with Bon Jovi finally pays off. Okay, fake feds with rock band aliases and something with big ass fangs that you’re too stupid to run from. What’s two plus two, Caroline?”
Caroline stifles a groan. “You cannot call Alaric.”
“Of course, because calling the only Hunter we know to get information on Hunters we don’t know is always a bad idea.”
“He’ll want to know everything,” Caroline shakes her head stubbornly. “He’ll figure it out, then he’ll show up here. The others will notice, or he’ll tell them, and then half the town is crowding around my little apartment and Orono quickly turns into the same as Mystic Falls.”
Damon shrugs. “What’s wrong with that? Don’t love us anymore?”
“Shut up,” she mutters, fingers twitching in agitation. “This is my life, Damon. My normal life. I want to keep it that way.”
“Normal is subjective, Blondie,” Damon finally starts moving in the direction of her apartment. “And how normal can it be with Donovan showing up all the time?”
Back to this. “Let’s not do this,” she says, a hint of pleading in her voice.
Damon ignores it. “He’s dangerous, a loose-cannon, and carrying around a lot of baggage. You should have told us that he’s visiting you.”
“Visited,” she corrects firmly. “He only came the once, and he was gone by morning. Don’t make it a big deal.”
He snaps his head her way, eyes almost impossibly wide. She sighs and looks down at her hands, folded nervously in her lap. “Just because he hates you and disagrees with Elena doesn’t make him dangerous,” she insists, though she can’t meet his gaze full on. “He’s still Matt; according to Stefan, he’s more Matt than he ever was before. If he wants to run off and be on his own, there’s not much you can do to stop him.”
Damon glides into a parking stall, not too far from the elevator. He turns off the car and sits back, looking through the windshield to the cement wall before them. “Was Katherine with him?”
The name still makes her flinch, makes her remember months of cat-and-mouse games and jagged wounds spilling blood across white kitchen tiles. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and banishes the monster with her best friend’s face far from her thoughts. “No.”
They sit in uneasy silence for three very long minutes. Then: “You know I’m not leaving here until you agree to come with me, right?”
She opens her car and door and stumbles into less stifling air. “Damon, I’ve accepted a long time ago that you were never going to leave.”
~0~