Kismet | Damon Salvatore

Chapter 17

Paranoia threatened to swallow them whole.

Sleeping beside one another wasn't peaceful. In fact, they could hardly sleep no matter how hard they tried.

Maribel had it bad enough naturally as her mind wandered around, making it impossible for her to feel safe even before they entered this prison world. The darkness and what could be lingering in it caused an uncomfortable twinge in her back. Sounds of small cracks and thumps around the building had always made her sit up in fear of an intruder or an earthquake. Being beside Damon helped, but not enough. Not anymore.

Damon was having a similar problem. He'd never been plagued by insomnia, never lost sleep out of fear. Even when he was scared, he managed to rest. Suddenly, all he could do was remain alert. While Maribel managed a few moments of rest, he had his eyes open constantly, listening to every creak of floorboards, wondering if Kai might burst in to try and kill Maribel.

He kept witnessing the most terrible scenes, all figments of his own imagination, forcing their way into his mind to make him feel much worse than he already did

He saw Kai tying a rope around Maribel's neck, hanging her from the stairwell just around the corner while she struggled, crying and bleeding.

He saw Kai beating her to the floor, then withdrawing from his belt a knife he used to stab her in the abdomen over and over again while she begged him to leave her alone, while she attempted to crawl away, only for him to kick her and leave her too dazed to move.

He saw Kai forcing her head into a pool while she flailed her arms, attempting to escape. He'd pull her up to let her get air for a second, snarling in her ear that she was going to die, that he was going to be her downfall. And then, at last, he slit her throat and let her fall into the water that turned crimson. She died partially because of the cut and partially from drowning in her own blood.

At one point, he realized he'd managed to get some sleep. He turned to the side and was horrified when he reached out and Maribel wasn't there. He sat up, frantic, feeling around and confirming she was not, in fact, anywhere on the bed.

Then, he heard the sink running and realized she was in the bathroom.

He watched the light turn off in the crack between the door and the floor. She emerged rubbing her stomach, appearing ill.

"My body is tormenting me," she said, slipping back into the bed. "All my worries, turning into psychosomatic symptoms. Stomachaches. As if things couldn't get any worse... that look he gave us, what he said. How he walked away afterward. I just wish I could know what he was thinking. If he's just taunting us or if we should really be worried. I was already wary of him but this is unsettling me. Which I guess is his aim."

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Damon promised, reaching out to caress her face. "He's mad at me. I'll deal with this."

"Why would he be mad at you?"

"I let him get under my skin. Snapped his neck. Turns out the little fucker won't stay dead in this world. I killed him even though I knew what it would mean to you. 'Cause he says shit about you and it makes me mad. I hate him, he knows it. And he hates me now. He'll destroy what I care about to affect me. I won't let it happen."

"You know I don't give a shit about who you kill as long as it doesn't affect me. Until I am cured of this genetic mutation, you leave him alone, please. To save us the burden of finding another siphoner. After that... I don't care what you do to him."

"He'll want you to cure him first. He'll be willing to be the test subject, the guinea pig, to make sure you can't screw him over."

"I don't want to hurt him if he doesn't give us a reason to. If he doesn't actually do anything, I won't hurt him. But if he does anything to you, to me, to Bonnie... then I can very easily make sure that when I give that injection to 'cure' him... well, I won't cure him at all. Quite the opposite, actually."