The Most Powerful Scream is Silence

Chapter 9: Volunteer Day Part 2

The sound of gunfire echoed in her ears. It was a deafening sound, the kind of sound that is surrounded by silence.

Blood dripped onto the earth below and sunk into the ground, drip after drip until her body fell over, a mass of blood and agony on the ground. She couldn't hear much, if anything now, her senses dimming one by one until blackness covered her vision, and everything was still. The last thing she saw was his face, his blue eyes filled with pain and sadness.

1 hour Previous

"I'm going to kill him." Damon seethed, his mouth forming into a hard line of determination.

"I'm all for it" piped up Luna from her seat on the pine picnic table, as her fingers toyed with the label on a water bottle (courtesy of Stefan, to help the burning of her throat).

"Damon!" Stefan cried, grabbing Damon by his shoulders to stop him from storming off, and forcing him to sit beside Luna, as to not draw (anymore) attention.

"I'm not listening to any more of your peace and love crap, Stefan. He's dead" Damon threatened, bucking against Stefan's hold.

"Listen to me," Stefan pleaded, desperation coating his words "I don't like it, but you're right. He's making threats to expose us and we need to put him down."

"He's in the woods on trash duty, let's go," Damon smirked, jumping to his feet.

"I can be a distraction." Luna offered her angelic voice cutting through the tension.

"No." Damon denied, at the same time that Stefan agreed.

For once it seemed, Damon was the one who wanted to be cautious.

"Are you out of your mind?" Damon hissed to both the teens in front of him. "Have you both completely lost your fucking sanity?! In what world am I the who has to tell Stefan that..." Damon trailed off shaking his head. "No. It's not happening. End of story. You wouldn't even consider this if it was Elena. We're not dangling you out there as werewolf bait, you hear me?" He finished, sending a hard look Stefan's way.

"Obviously he has some interest in her" Stefan countered, "She'll be fine. We will be hiding in the woods nearby, nothing will happen."

"I don't like it." Damon cautioned, his tone hard and his arms crossed.

Luna stood up and made her way in front of the taller man. She set her hands on his pale forearms and looked up into his impossibly blue eyes.

"Damon." She whispered, drawing his attention to her. "I'll be fine. I promise. I know you won't let anything happen to me, and you'll be right there." She finished, a delicate smile on her face and she stared into his soul.

She trusted him more than anyone. Maybe more than she should.

"Let's go kill this bastard." Damon agreed, his eyes locking on hers for a moment before he swung his arm around her shoulders and tucked her body into his.

"What's the plan?" Stefan asked, eyeing the two with curiosity.

Mischief lit up the older Salvatore's eyes as he began to spin the story of what would go down.

Nothing could go wrong.

The woods were beautiful in a weird kind of way. Not in the conventional flower meadow and sun basking wildlife kind of way, it was a darker beauty. One filled with a fading array of green and yellow grass, towering trees (some thick and lush, others barren and dried), and flowers that once held beauty and fragrance but now were smushed under trampling feet, and Luna's own footsteps as she made her way down a worn path in the dirt.