Love Sucks - The Vampire Diaries - Damon Salvatore

*57*

By the time the boys had walked out, shovels in hand, I had dug away a patch by the headstone. "What took you boys so long?"

"Working things out." Stefan sighed, shovel over his shoulder

"Come on, let's get digging." Damon interrupted and started digging straight away.

The brothers shovels were much bigger than my trowel, so they took over digging up all the grass and Earth that covered Christie. It made my stomach turn a little to know we were digging up a dead body. That soon we would hit a coffin and there would be a body. Just a body. Dead. It just, urgh, freaked me out.

It was getting dark and the boys were still digging, "We can't stay out here all night, can we?"

"We'll stay here until we find her. If she's even here." As Damon spoke, his shovel hit something in the dirt. "Jackpot."

Damon jumped down and began moving the dirt by hand and a wooden coffin came into view. He wiped away dirt from a plaque and read it out loud, "Here lies Crystal Stonewell. A daughter, sister and great friend." Damon came back up and looked at us both, "Wonder who she was great friends with. No one seemed to like her."

"Your nephew?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow, "Why else would he go through all this for her? Obviously had the hots for her."

The brothers looked at me disgusted with the thought before leaning down and opening the coffin to find Christie there, after six years of decomposing she was just bones. Little bits of flesh still hung around but it was dry and looked as if it would break the second you touched it. The smell was also just as bad; it was like rotting meat mixed with dust and mould.

"Can we be quick, it stinks." I held my nose as the stench reached me, making my stomach turn.

"Did you think it was going to smell of roses?" Stefan asked and I rolled my eyes at him.

Damon leaned in and looked around, "No necklace" he moved down to her feet and moved some of the bones around, hoping it had fallen, "Nope. it's not here." he jumped back out and we all looked down to her.

"So where could she have hidden it?" I asked as Damon patted himself down, taking the dirt off him.

"Maybe she threw it out to sea?" Stefan shrugged, not really knowing what else she could have done with it.

"Well, that would be handy wouldn't it" I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes again

"What a disgusting waste of time." Damon sighed and the boys started to throw the dirt back onto the coffin.

I wandered around, trying to work it all out. None of it made sense, why would she have the necklace anyway if she didn't want to be part of the thing? But she didn't give it to her sister, it's not in her coffin... Where else could it be? I had made it back to the grave and leaned gently on the gravestone.

"You've got moss on you." Stefan pointed out, looking up breifly from the re-burial.

I jumped up and looked at my hip, and there was some lovely, wet, green moss stuck to me, "Eww" I brushed it off and looked over at the stone. Where I had been leaning, some moss had moved to show some dots carved in to the stone, "Wait? What's this?" I said, putting my hand up to make the boys stop and kneeling down to take a better look. There was the opal, near enough at the middle. I wiped off the moss either side and found dots really close together going round the stone, "The necklace?" I muttered. The boys came right to my side.

"Oh my - " Stefan

"How do we break it?" Damon inturrupted

"Sledgehammer?" Stefan asked.

"Sledgehammer." Damon agreed and went back inside the house.

"You have sledgehammers?"

"Just one. In the basement." Stefan replied, smiling awkwardly.

"why do you have a sledgehammer?"

"why don't you have a sledgehammer?" Stefan shrugged and looked away

"... listen, Stefan, about what happened..."

"Nothing more needs to be said." he smiled at me, taking my hands in his, "It was amazing, and if it helped clear your head and realise you want Damon, then I'm glad I could help" Stefan smiled his award winning Smile. No, seriously, if there was an award for smiles, he would so win.

Damon came back out with the sledgehammer as Stefan let go of my hands. Damon starred between the two of us. "Who's doing the honours?"

"Liv. Go right ahead, first whack at least." Stefan nominated me.

"OK...erm..." I took the sledgehammer, it was heavier than it looked. I held it up and looked at the gravestone, "I'm kinda sorry I'm doing this Christie, but you were a bitch and you hurt a lot of people I love. So, this is for all of them" I took a huge swing and slammed it on top of the gravestone. Some stone flew off and a crack started to form.

"My go" Damon said, taking the sledgehammer back and looking way too excited for this, "This is for being crazy and trying to kill me when I first met Olivia." he took his swing and it cracked a little more.

"This is for trying to kill people I love and care for." Stefan added, taking his swing.

"And this," I started, taking it back off Stefan. It was rather therapeutic, think I could get used to hitting my anger out, "Is for taking over my body, my thoughts and my feelings. Making me not know who I am or what I feel now. Completely confused on everything!" I swung the sledgehammer high and smashed it on the gravestone. It split in two and I saw something shining from the dust. I kneeled down and moved some of the rubble to find the necklace laying on the ground.

It was a perfectly carved teardrop crystal hanging from a simple chain. The crystal had obviously dulled over the years making it look as if it was an opal. Hiding in plain sight.