The Beginning | Damon Salvatore #1

Chapter 15

Alex's heart pounded in her ears, dodging trees left and right as she ran through the damp woods. Her shoes squished through piles of soggy leaves with every stride. She knew she would slip, fall, and cut herself on something, sending every vampire within a 100-mile radius into a bloodthirsty frenzy. Concentrating on her breathing, she jumped over a log and continued running. It was all she knew; it was all she knew to do. That was before; now, she was running because that's what she was meant to do. Running toward her imminent death so that her friends, vampires or not, could live and live however they wanted as long as they were alive and not walking corpses, feeding on blood every chance they could.

But that wasn't what some were doing. She knew that for the vampires she'd come to somehow care about were chained by their need and desire for blood. They didn't want it, but they had to have it, and she was going to fix it. It was slim to think she could run away from Damon when his tracking skills were impeccable, but she had to try and save him from himself, even if that meant giving Elias what he wanted.

She came to a main road at the edge of the woods. Looking both ways, she couldn't see any signs or indicators that one way would have been the way to her old house, but she guessed and started walking right.

North. This has to be North, she thought, trying to catch her breath without heaving and making a ton of noise. She knew if Damon heard her breathing, she'd be done for. She knew if he listened hard enough, he'd hear her heart beating violently in her chest, but she took the chance and kept trudging down the road. Once she caught her breath, she ran again, faster and harder than she had through the woods. She felt her feet begin to blister in the boots Elena made her buy. She pushed away the sting of tears and pushed away her guilt for leaving them and for, what it would seem like now, lying to Damon about staying. At that point, she wasn't sure if he would come for her, but it didn't matter.

Once she topped the hill, she saw a stop sign in the distance and a van turned onto the road where she was. She knew that van.

She didn't hide, and she didn't run. She walked slowly on the road, pretending she didn't notice the van, knowing they would stop and take her again. The world slowed to a near halt as the van stopped and hands were on her and she was thrown into the van without warning; the vampires didn't burn under the shade of the trees falling over the road. She feigned a scream she'd always given and struggled only slightly before allowing them to take her. As the van skidded away, she swore she saw Damon's blue shirt in the side mirror. She was going to save him, but she had to save Elias first.

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Damon sat at the table in The Grill, waiting for Alex to return. He looked down at his phone and saw ten minutes had went by already. Surely, she's finished by now, he thought. Abandoning the table, grabbing his phone and Alex's, he walked toward the bathrooms.

He knew she wasn't in there when he opened the door—no warmth, no rushing blood, no heartbeat. A grunt escaped his lips as anger rushing over him, or was it fear? He'd never been one to care whether a human lived or died until Elena, who'd become like a sister to him—annoying and insufferable as ever—went through the loss of her parents, godparents, and countless friends because of vampires. He wasn't going to watch the same thing happen to Alex again. She wasn't going to lose anyone else and he would do everything he could to not lose her. As the shivers ran down his spine, knowing she was gone, he prayed to the God he'd once known for her safety and if not that, survival.

The only exit she could have escaped through was by the bathroom, so Damon stormed out of the door and stared into the woods, concentrating on whatever he could. Bees buzzed around the plants at the bottom of every tree, squirrels rustled leaves in every direction, a deer trampled over logs deep in the woods. He couldn't hear her. He couldn't catch her scent. With an impatient huff, he set off into the woods with no promise that she would be there.

As his senses blurred, Damon ran. The trees whirred as he passed them, crushing leaves under his feet and dodging limbs at eye level. He had to find her, he had to save her, he had to tell her how stupid she was for leaving without him, he had to tell himself to shut up for feeling what he did for her. He didn't know her. He didn't know who she really was. There was no way she would even allow it to happen, especially since God was involved now. He couldn't make her choose.

He came to a halt on the road as a van skidded away. They had stopped. He listened closely and heard the steady heartbeat of a human and nothing else.