Try {One | Alaric Saltzman}

Children of the Damned

The only source of light in Alaric's classroom came from the lamp on his desk. Abigail was taking her time, as she always did, telling him stories that may not have been hers to share. She didn't know how it was so easy for her to trust him until she realized that he was just like her; searching for answers that he may never find, living in a world that was out of his control, holding onto and running from the one thing he could: the past.

When they opened Jonathan Gilbert's journal, they searched for answers about the tomb. Nothing stood out to them, so, instead, they found themselves drawn to the entries that explored his early inventions. The ones that laid out the doubt he faced from other Council members, the doubt he never faced in himself.

A sound in the hallway grabbed their attention, giving them only a moment to pull tighter a silent plan as they approached the open door.

"Hello?" He took a step forward, reaching behind his back for her hand. "Someone there?"

Down the hall, a figure moved from classroom to classroom in a way only a vampire could. They took off in the opposite direction, using quick, light footsteps until they made it to the teacher's lounge. There was a duffle bag in his staff locker, one that stored a blow dart gun that he modified to shoot wooden stakes. He passed her a stake as he stood up, but still moved to shield her body with his own.

Papers rustled in his classroom, forcing them to lean against the wall just just outside of it. They didn't stay that way for long, he didn't at least, before moving into the doorway. He shot a stake as he moved, prompting the person inside to say, "You shouldn't have done that."

She ran into the classroom as Stefan pinned him against the wall. "Stefan!"

"Abigail?"

They stared at each other, neither moving to ask what the other was doing there.

In a swift motion, Stefan forced Alaric into a front row seat. "What is this, compressed air? Did you make it yourself?"

Alaric looked up at him with something of a proud expression. "Yes."

Stefan slammed the gun in front of Alaric before he turned to Abigail. "What are you doing with him?"

"Stefan." They settled in the silence that was created just before a secret was uncovered. "What are you doing?"

He turned back to Alaric, asking, "Who are you?"

Abigail motioned around the classroom. "He's a teacher!"

Stefan scoffed, shifting his gaze back to her. "Are we going to have to do this the hard way?"

"I'm a historian," Alaric said as the tension between them grew. "And while researching Virginia, I made a few discoveries about your town."

"So, you show up like Van Helsing? Come on tell me the truth." He chuckled darkly. "Where's the Gilbert journal?"

Abigail took a step forward. "Stefan-"

"Where is it?" He asked her.

Alaric jumped to his feet. "It's on my desk."

Stefan ignored him, keeping his question targeted at her.

She pointed behind him at the desk. "It's on his desk."

"No." It was a firm no, a no that could not be argued with. "It's not."

Examining the surface, she did not find it empty. She found a messy stack of ungraded papers, a slightly neater stack of graded papers, the pens he switched between, and the clutter on his desk that she had grown used to. The journal, however, was not there.