Phantom ❖ Salvatore [2]

SIX

CHAPTER SIX
❝VISIONS❞

"A stomach bug."

Elektra watched Damon as he watched Sheriff Forbes. He was compact; not as tall as Stefan, but with an indefinable aura of menace that more than made up for it. He was immaculately dressed as always: black jeans, black shirt, black leather jacket, and black boots, which all went with his carelessly windblown dark hair and his soul-piercing pale eyes.

Elektra looked down at her hands, which were still covered in Damon and Stefan's blood, and stared at them in shock. She hadn't been following the conversation between Sheriff Forbes and Damon—actually, she hadn't been aware that either of them were speaking at all. She was so consumed by her thoughts, constantly going over what happened in the Lockwood's old underground cellar. The screams...the blood...the gunshots...the sound of teeth tearing into flesh. It was eating her alive.

"Yeah, it came on fast. I'll definitely be out tomorrow—" the Sheriff looked up sharply when Damon cleared his throat, raising an eyebrow at the woman. "Or longer. I'll text you. Yeah, goodnight."

Caroline's mother walked toward Damon and handed him her phone. "Thank you." He smirked. "It's not exactly the best," he said, referring to her temporary living quarters, which happened to be the dingy cellar in the Salvatore's basement, "but you could thread count and once the vervain has worked its way out of your system, I will compel you and you will forget everything. And then, you'll be a free woman."

A long moment of thick, palpable silence passed between them, but Elektra didn't dare bring herself to break it before the others. Instead, she decided to stay where she was: leaning against the brick wall opposite of the cellar, a few feet behind Damon's back. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Caroline's mother had tried to kill Stefan and Damon. And what shook her to the core was that the Sheriff had almost succeeded in killing them. With her own eyes, Elektra watched as the brothers lied on the ground, writhing with encroaching death. When it was all over with, she even offered blood to both Stefan and Damon, having this overwhelming need to nurture them. As though they were injured birds rather than powerful vampires.

     Elektra just couldn't get those tending thoughts out of her head. She felt as if she had to do everything in her power to heal them; to mother them.

"Keep Caroline away from me, please." Elizabeth requested. "I don't want to see her."

Her eyes flashed up with the first small spark of acknowledgement. "But she's your daughter."

"Not anymore. My daughter's gone."

Elektra glowered at the woman. A fire sparked in her chest; flooding her entire body with heat at her words. The Sheriff's statement was way out of line and she knew that. She shot away from the wall, the need to protect the vampires came rushing to the surface, practically stomping toward the entrance of the cell. A pair of arms wrapped around her middle just in time to keep her from entering. She shut her eyes until her breathing slowed.

Damon's eyes were surprisingly soft. "You have no idea how wrong you are about that."

Suddenly, Elektra felt eyes on her. She glanced over at the doorway leading down to the basement, where Caroline stood with sadness in her eyes. The blond was hurt, having heard that her own mother thought that she wasn't her daughter anymore. Elektra pitied the girl, knowing that she never asked for this life. Katherine forced it upon her.

Damon kept his arms around her, incase she decided to do something rash. When the Sheriff shut the cell door, his icy blue eyes were gazing into Elektra's big doe eyes. She could feel her heart pound against her chest. Right now, he made Elektra acutely aware that her body was flush against his. She felt an inward shiver. Damon had promised not to try to use his mental powers on—to use his telepathic powers to cloud or manipulate her mind. Not that it would work, anyway. But sometimes it felt as if he got awfully close to the line.