|𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓|
Song; When the Party's over by Billie Eilish
"Is he awake?" I asked, sitting at the top of the stairs that led to the cellar whilst Damon sat in front of me.
"He isn't responding." Damon said, "There's something I want to show you."
Damon took my hand and led me into the drawing room where he showed me a small object, "Its what John wanted, the thing that belonged to Jonathon Gilbert in 1864. Pearl gave it to me."
"Do we know what it is?" I asked, taking it from him and holding it in my hands.
Damon shook his head, "Whatever it is, it doesn't work. Thought she was stealing his vampire compass but it was a pocket watch. That Jonathon Gilbert was a crazy scientist."
"Where's Elena?" I asked, expecting her to appear since she had been staying here with us for some nights.
"School." Damon answered, pouring me a glass of water and shaking his head when I asked for bourbon, "You're too young."
"I'm 157 years old, Damon." I laughed but took the water anyways, "I'm not eleven anymore."
"You are in my eyes." Damon said, going back to focusing on the pocket watch, "Do you want to go see Stefan?"
The answer probably should've been no, but I needed to at least speak to Stefan, I knew he would've been feeling guilty and I wanted to help take that weight off his shoulders.
Me and Damon headed down to the cellar where Kaiden was standing outside, a bottle of blood in his hands, "I got you something to eat. It's 100% Stefan-diet approved. Stef, if you don't eat you'll rot away."
"I'm not hungry." I heard Stefan say, his voice sounding weak and troubled.
"Of course you are, Stefan." I said, pushing Damon and Kaiden aside and standing on the tip of my toes, looking through the small gap in the door and seeing Stefan sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees with his head lowered, "Take it, Stefan."
I took the bottle from Kaiden and placed it on the ledge, looking at him but he didn't dare to lift his head.
"The human blood should be gone by now." Damon said, pushing me over so he could look through, "Do you want to explain why you're still in here feeling sorry for yourself? Come on. Drink."
Damon pushed the bottle into the cell, landing only centimetres away from Stefan who slowly lifted his head, took one look at the bottle before cowering away again, "Fine." Damon said, "Starve. What do I care?"
He and Kaiden pushed me away from the cell and up the stairs, into the drawing room where Damon received a phone call from Alaric.
"First of all," Damon said, putting the phone on speaker so I could hear, "how did you get my number?"
"It's a mystery." Alaric hummed, "Listen, I've been doing some digging on Elena's uncle. You interested?"
"Yes we are!" I cheered, excited that we could be involved in something that could take my mind off worrying about Stefan.
"Thank you, Rossana." Alaric laughed.
"What kind of digging?" Damon asked.
"An old friend from Duke," Alaric explained, "who studied criminology when we were there together. Let's just say he's become a very proficient digger."
"Did he find anything?" Kaiden shouted from the other side of the room.
"Well, I had him run a track on John's cell records." Alaric continued, "He's getting a call from a number. The same number that Elena sailed to get to Isobel. And then the number was disconnected."
