MONSTER, stefan salvatore [2]

No Exit

CHAPTER 23: NO EXIT

The Salvatore Boarding House

Natalie had given herself the task of talking with Sheriff Forbes about Damon, trying to track him down so she could make sure he would be alright. Even if she was pissed off at him, she cared about him a lot. She had luckily gotten Stefan on board with her plan, seeing as he felt a bit guilty about the situation. 

And so she met him at the boarding house, having found a lot of things that she knew hewould find very interesting, or terrifying. Most likely both. "You were right. He's off the rails. This is from Liz."

The brunette girl handed her boyfriend a few papers of leads on his brother, but he didn't have to go deep into thought to figure out what most of the things in there said. "Let me guess: missing persons and animal attacks?"

"Check and check," Natalie answered, biting the inside of her lip as she knew there was something a bit more disturbing in there as well. "And, there's something else. All the victims were found decapitated in their homes... but their skin was desiccated."

"Damon's feeding on vampires..." he trailed off, showing his obvious guilt on his face, starting to look at the pictures of the people he had let die by releasing him brother into the wild. "I shouldn't have let him go."

His girlfriend sighed, grabbing his hand reassuringly, but not giving him a small smile or anything. She only grabbed his hand and gave him a few words. "You can't blame yourself, Stefan.  Nobody could have stopped him from going after Wes."

He gave her a small smile in gratitude of her words, as she always seemed to find a way to make him feel better. "I guess Wes must have injected him with whatever he was going to give Elena that makes vampires feed on vampires."

"This doesn't have to end like it did with Jesse. Maybe we can find a way to save him." She tried to force herself to think positively, although it was pretty hard as she had never been a particularly positive person.

He frowned (surprise, surprise) and seemed to have chosen what he was going to end up doing. "I have to find him."

Another female voice spoke up, one that Natalie had tried to force herself to not notice because she was kind of jealous about her behavior. And that person was  a doppelganger. "Well, I can come with you."

"Oh, hi, Elena. I didn't see you there. Why are you here?" Natalie asked with a faux sweet voice with an equally falsely sweet smile, making Stefan wonder what Elena had done to make her seem so passively aggressively angry. 

She didn't seem to be the only one able to be passive aggressive, mocking her tone of voice and smile with a sentence that made the former huntress annoyed. "Stefan has been helping me study."

"Oh. Stefan who doesn't go to college," Natalie commented lowly, and Stefan was really wondering what they had done to piss her off (because she seemed a bit annoyed with the thought of both him and Elena, although mostly Elena). 

"Stefan, who's an expert in history," the doppelganger retorted, a small smirk on her face that was a bit uncharacteristic for Elena, it reminded her more of Katherine than anyone else, especially on that face. 

"So, how about I go with you two. I need to talk a bit with him too, so you can just pick us up at our dorm after we've gotten some clothes?" Natalie asked her boyfriend, getting a nod in response, and she sent him a shining smile.

She sent a glance back at the face of sister, who was sitting with her arms crossed as she looked at them. Natalie suddenly grabbed each of Stefan's cheeks and pushed his lips towards hers sweetly. That was sure to hold her off a bit.