MONSTER, stefan salvatore [2]

A Bird in a Gilded Cage

CHAPTER 47: A BIRD IN A GILDED CAGE

The Salvatore Boarding House

Stefan Salvatore had flipped the humanity switch... again. When Natalie heard it from Elena, she felt like she wanted to scream. The last time had been bad enough, but this time they had finally been happy and it was once again just taken away from them. Caroline had told him that unless he wanted his great-niece Sarah Salvatore (who Natalie had no idea existed) to die, he had to turn it off. And he did. 

She did it because she knew that, together, Stefan, Natalie, Elena and Bonnie might have been able to find some way to trigger emotion in her, them of them being her best friends. And they were also the the people in the world who reminded her the most of her mother. But when one of them didn't care about her humanity she would be able to stay the way she wanted. 

But, fortunately, Stefan didn't know that everybody knew about his trip down no-humanity lane, so they thought that vervaining him and throwing him in the cellar was a good plan, like it usually was. 

So, Natalie felt the weigh of the syringe filled with vervain in her pocket as she heard the sound of his motorcycle stopping outside of the house ring through her ears. She did her best to act natural, not wanting him to think anything was going on. 

"Hey," she breathed, smiling at him softly as she did her best to act as love-struck as usual. He didn't even smile back at he as he walked towards her. She looked down for a moment, pretending to act hurt. "I know I did a bit of a disappearing act last night. Did anything special happen after I left?"

"No, still loud, lame and rave-like," Stefan responded, showing no emotion in the way he spoke to her. It was like he wasn't even trying to act like the old Stefan to try to fool her, like it didn't even matter. 

"Are you okay?" the brunette girl asked, tucking a piece of curly hair behind her ear as she busted out some acting skills to win the Oscar for best actress. "You know, if there's anything you want to talk about, you can come to me. That's kinda the point of the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing."

He didn't seem to care, obviously. "Where do we keep our weapons?"

"Excuse me?" Natalie asked, trying to act as though she was offended with him being a dick and ignoring her trying to be a good girlfriend and person. But, of course, she knew humanity-less Stefan, and he was a huge dick without trying. 

"Crossbows, vervain grenades, all that hunter crap you used to be into?" he listed, deciding to elaborate as he waved his hand as if she needed them to understand him. He then glanced over to the most lavish chair in the house and nodded as if he remembered. "Ah! Yes! The throne."

Stefan walked over to the throne, taking off the seat to find a hidden compartment filled with all of those things he had listed off before. He brought out a bag from what seemed like nowhere, seeing as Natalie hadn't noticed him bringing one with him. 

She resisted the urge to take a deep breath to calm her nerves as she pulled the vervain-filled syringe out of her pocket carefully, hoping he wouldn't have noticed. She used her vampire speed to get him, but he was too quick, grabbing her wrist before she was able to do anything. 

"Elena told on me. Shocker," he sighed sarcastically as he looked down on his girlfriend with a condescending look. He could see her glare at him, and somehow that amused him greatly. "You look angry. Are you angry?"

"Stefan, come on," she tried to plead, only for him to tighten his grip on her wrist, that he was still holding in the air. She was sure that if he only added a tiny bit more pressure, he would have ended up breaking it. "You know this isn't you. You didn't want to turn it off, and you know it. So, just turn it back on. It's that easy."