dance with the devil ✧ DAMON SALVATORE

chapter nine

When Jordan hasn't returned after seven minutes, Damon starts to worry. A regular phone call doesn't take that long.

"Hey, where's your girl?" Bree questions with a slightly different tone.

Damon doesn't have time to figure out what is off about Bree, because he has to find Jordan. "She was right back there."

Without saying goodbye, he leaves the bar. His old flame is far less important than Jordan. The near kiss he shared with Jordan feels like ages ago, but he can still feel her warm breath on his lips.

He shakes his head. He shouldn't be thinking about it when Jordan could be missing. His mind, however, doesn't seem to agree. The near kiss plays in his head on repeat, and he hasn't felt such human emotions in a long, long time.

When he can't find Jordan anywhere on the parking lot, he decides to take a look behind the bar.

The scene he stumbles across makes him incredible angry.

Jordan is tied with her wrist to something that looks like some sort of hook. A purple bruise is forming on her arm, and her eyes are filled with fear.

"Damon, no!"

Damon whips around, but he is already too late. Some guy beats him down with a wooden plank, and when Damon is weak enough, the mystery man pins him onto something he doesn't know with the same wooden plank.

Damon curses himself for not releasing that it was a trap.

The mystery man hasn't uttered a single word, but his eyes tell whatever needs to be said. They are clouded with a blinding rage. Beside Jordan's loud protests and pleads, he pours gasoline over Damon.

"What the hell! Who are you?" Damon asks outraged and ready to beat this guy to a pulp.

The guy laughs humourless, "That's perfect! You have no idea."

Jordan's mind races at a millions miles per hour. The best—and the only—idea she comes up with is to keep the mystery man occupied. "What did he do?"

The man turns away from Damon, towards Jordan. His voice is laced with so much venom, Jordan winces in fear. Her hands are trembling terrible. "He killed my girlfriend."

In the blink of an eye, the man is in front of Damon, a stake pointing at his heart. "What did she do to you, huh? What did she do to you?!" Tears are brimming in his eyes, and he has pushed the stake further into Damon's chest. Blood drips from his chest onto the pavement.

"Nothing."

It only makes him angrier.

Something in Jordan's brain clicks, and she realizes who he is talking about. The vampire who Jordan befriended. The vampire Damon murdered in cold blood. The vampire best friend of Stefan. Lexi.

"Your girlfriend, it was Lexi." Jordan states rather than asks.

"Yes."

A deep, unsteady sigh leaves Jordan's lips. "She told me about you, she told me she loved you. I know you know that, and I know that whatever I might say won't make it better nor will it forgive Damon for his actions."

Damon throws her a look that says: are you trying to help me, or kill me?

Jordan ignores him.

"I wanted to hurt Damon like he hurt me when he murdered Lexi, but I found that I couldn't. Not because I am weak, but because vengeance will not solve anything. It isn't fair and square, and it will most certainly not bring Lexi back. Be the better person. Do what Damon couldn't, and let someone live rather than take the easy way: vengeance."