𝕊𝕎𝔼𝔼𝕋 ℂℝ𝔼𝔸𝕋𝕌ℝ𝔼 - ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴋᴀᴇʟꜱᴏɴꜱ

² 𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

ALEX FELT...WEIRD.

She had never been knocked unconscious before.

Her head felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer—and honestly, it might as well have been. Her mouth tasted like iron and smoke, and the back of her neck ached when she tried to move it. Her entire body buzzed with a low, nauseating hum, like her nerves had been strung too tight.

She blinked hard against the sunlight slashing through the windshield. She was in her car, parked crookedly on the shoulder of a narrow road she didn't recognize. The engine was off. The keys dangled from the ignition.

It was panic-worthy, needless to say. The last thing she remembered was going to the car to drive Elena home after the masquerade. That was it. Nothing in between then and now. What had happened?

She opened the door and stumbled out, catching herself on the edge of the frame. Okay, so she may have sat up way too fast. Her stomach lurched, and for a second, she was sure she was going to vomit on the side of the road. The sun didn't help. She squinted against it, reaching up to cradle her head, where a dull, sick pain bloomed behind her right temple. She hissed.

There was a sizable dent in her driver's door. Right about head-height. She touched her temple gingerly. No blood, but it felt tender. A bruise, probably. Hopefully, she didn't have a bump. She could handle a bruise, but not a bump.

"Just focus," she muttered, trying to will the panic back down. She inhaled through her nose, slow and controlled. She was still in her masquerade dress, now wrinkled and slightly stained at the hem. Her hair had slipped out of its bun, falling in uneven curls around her face. She looked...well, she looked like she'd been in a fight and lost.

She climbed back into the car and pulled her purse onto her lap, fingers working automatically through its contents. Lip gloss. Parking receipt. A silver locket that vibrated faintly with residual energy. Too old. A brooch that Ethan had given her. That was perfect. She always kept small things in her purse that were laced with magic, for situations just like this one.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest. She didn't see, but she already knew that the veins in her hand were glowing red as she sucked a little bit of magic out of the pin. The familiar warmth spread up her arm, tingling through her fingers and curling around her wrist.

It wasn't enough to cast anything big, but it took the edge off, dulled her headache, cooled the nausea, eased her anxiety a bit.

She tried to focus on everything she needed to focus on. Someone had knocked her out. Someone had—weirdly—placed her in her car, parked it here, and disappeared. She glanced at the sky. It was morning now. Had it been hours? And where was Elena?

Was this about the doppelganger thing? Was Katheirne somehow messing with them? Was she truly locked up? Or was this something else entirely?

Whatever it was, she needed to find Stefan.

ALEX HAD MADE a quick trip home to change into anything but the fancy dress she had on. She yanked it off and threw it over a chair before pulling on her favorite pair of grey sweatpants and a faded Mystic Falls Timberwolves T-shirt that had probably been Ethan's at some point.

She tied her hair into a messy bun and examined the spot where she had been hit last night. There was a small cut that bled when she pressed a finger to it. Normally, she would resort to a spell or magic or something to heal it, but she was in too much of a hurry and she didn't feel like being drained today—being drained more than she already was, at least. Besides, the cut was mostly in her hairline, so it wasn't that noticeable. She just dabbed a washcloth on it to get rid of the blood, and hopefully it would dry within the hour.