Veins of Desire

12. Are You Going To Drop The Bomb Or Not? Part I

Katerina is surprised to see Jeremy Gilbert approaching the entrance of the tomb instead of one of the Salvatores. She raises her eyebrows in amusement as the teenager stops right in front of the magical barrier separating them from each other, looking entirely nervous.

"The youngest Gilbert. This is an intriguing surprise."

She looks around and listens in, trying to determine if he's alone. Perhaps Stefan and Damon sent him ahead to try and talk her into compliance. Really, they should know her better by now.

"I'm here for the moonstone."

The look in little Gilbert's eyes is determined as he tries his best to conceal the shaking tone in his voice. Truly, if Katerina wasn't so hungry, dirty and bored out of her mind, she would find it adorable. Though as things are right now, she really has no nerves for a teenager on a stupid dare.

"Yeah, yeah, the moonstone," she mumbles, rolling her eyes. "It's very popular today."

As if she's going to hand the stone to anyone. It's her only bargaining chip against Klaus. Well, the only one she doesn't feel bad about using to her advantage.

"Just give it to me."

Katerina sighs. What is it with people in this town thinking she's some good Samaritan on a quest to make the world a better place? She isn't going to give up the moonstone, no matter how nicely she gets asked.

"Naive little Gilbert, if you want it, you're gonna have to come here and get it."

Suddenly, impressively fast for a human boy that has been consuming drugs not too long ago, Jeremy pulls a stake gun out of the sleeve of his jacket and shoots a stake directly at Katerina, hitting her squarely in the stomach. The vampire grunts in pain before grabbing the other end of the stake to pull it out. Due to not having consumed blood for so long, her body takes a moment longer to heal. Using that moment to his advantage, Jeremy pulls the ashes of the portrait out, steps into the tomb and then blows them all over Katerina.

To his utter horror, however, absolutely nothing happens. Katerina blinks at him for a moment, before she has caught herself again. Faster than Jeremy can react and jump back to safety, she has grabbed him and pressed him against the jagged, rough surface of the cave wall.

"Well, now that we have determined that I'm in fact not allergic to dust, let us move on to the fun part of your stupid little suicide mission, shall we?"

Not giving him a chance to react, she flashes her vampire face and sinks her fangs into his neck.

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"Ellie? Ellie, wake up!"

Eleonora grunts and slowly opens her eyes when she feels something violently shaking her, accompanied by her sister's frantic voice. It takes her a moment to collect herself enough to realize where she is. This isn't some jazz bar somewhere in America during the twenties. This is Slater's penthouse in Richmond, Virginia, and her name is, in fact, Eleonora. Not Alice.

She can still feel a slight pain in the back of the head as she scrambles herself up from the couch, directly confronted with Elena's concerned face.

"Hey," her sister calls out softly, relief flashing across her face as she sees that Eleonora doesn't seem to have any visible, physical ailments. "Are you okay? You just collapsed out of nowhere. That just gave me a real scare, do you know that?"

Eleonora grimaces. "Yeah, I'm okay. It's just poor circulation. I didn't eat or drink anything this morning."

Elena gives her an admonishing look. "You need to take better care of yourself, Ellie. I really thought it's something serious. You were unconscious for an hour."