Blood Sisters • The Vampire Diaries [1]

XVI. LOVE CRIMES

The night that we opened the tomb, Damon wasn't the only one who lost something. Bonnie lost her grams. Elena was there when she found her dead on the couch. That night - opening the tomb - it took a lot of power out of Bonnie and Sheila, and she just wasn't strong enough after.

I was seated beside Elena on the porch swing, a blanket wrapped around us, my head falling to rest on her shoulder as I once again, got Bonnie's voicemail. I tried calling, but expectedly she was busy after the funeral and all. She was taking a break from Mystic Falls for a while, staying with her aunt a town away, and I knew she needed time, but I missed her. A lot.

"Hey, Bonnie, it's me just checking in," I spoke into the phone, leaving a message. Her grams' funeral had brought up a lot of old feelings, a lot of memories from my mom and dad's funeral, for Elena and I both.

"And me!" Elena spoke up from beside me, into the phone. "We miss you here."

"Don't let your aunt drive you too crazy." I added as my eyes darted over to Aunt Jenna who was walking up to the house. "Come home soon. We love you."

"What are you two doing out here?" She asked us, brows knitting as she observed the two of us. "It's cold."

"Thinking, talking..." Elena trailed off, as I pulled the blanket tighter. "The, uh, funeral for Bonnie's grandma, it brought back a lot about mom and dad. We were wondering...you said that you would do some digging about them, the adoption."

"Right..."

"So did you?" I questioned, not sure of what I wanted to hear. What if my birth parents were awful people? I mean, what if I find out about who they really are, and I end up wishing I never knew? "Dig?"

Jenna sighed, giving us a nod. "Come on inside."

Elena and I got up off the swing, following her inside of the house, greeted by warmth. Jenna pulled out her laptop, and we all gathered around the dining room table. "Your dad kept everything from his medical practice—records, logs, old appointment books." Jenna explained, pulling out a journal. "I found an entry from the night you two were born. Patient and a birth date." She showed us in the journal, my eyes scanning down for the name. "Isobel Peterson."

That first name, there was something familiar about it. I'd heard it before, but I couldn't quite remember from who, or when.

"Do you think that's her real name?" Elena asked.

"Pregnant teenage runaway? Probably not." Jenna said. "First name, maybe. But where'd she get Peterson? Classmate? Best friend? So I binged it." I watched as Jenna typed the name in, and up popped different results. "I searched for all the Petersons in this area born the same year as Isobel, found 3. 2 men and a woman, Trudie, who lived in Grove Hill, Virginia."

"That's not far from here." Elena pointed out.

"Well, watch this." Jenna typed something else, and a photo of a teenage girl popped up ; of Isobel, our mother.

"Isobel." Elena smiled as we all looked at the photo. She was in a cheerleading uniform, pom-poms and all. "She was a cheerleader."

"Trudie still lives there." Jenna explained, as she pulled out a sticky-note with something written on it, handing it over to Elena and I. "This is her address."

"What about Isobel?" I questioned, not sure if I wanted to visit, even though I had an idea that Elena wanted to. What if our mother was there? What if she didn't want to see us?