Whatever It Takes {Two | Alaric Saltzman}

Never Let Me Go

Abigail was staring down at her journal which was sitting open in front of her amongst stacks of books on the dining room table. Her mind was running circles around itself, stumping her in the middle of a sentence that she knew how to end. So, she looked up at the clock.

There was a knock on the front door. She planned on ignoring it, on letting whoever it was believe that she wasn't home. But when they knocked again, and then again, she didn't have a choice but to answer it.

Damon smiled. "Surprise!"

"You're here," she sighed. "Great."

"Come on, Abigail. Smile! It's a beautiful day." He pushed his way inside. "And you don't have to lie to my face anymore."

Alaric, finally catching up with Damon, huffed out, "I tried to call you."

She followed them into the living room, picking up the clothes strewn across the floor along the way. "Sorry about the mess. I've been unpacking."

"'Unpacking.' Right. Tell me, did you pretend to be drunk with Jeremy all summer or did all of the acting fall onto good ole Saltzman over here?" He looked from Alaric who was sitting on the couch to Abigail who was dumping an armful of clothes into the hamper tucked away in the corner of her bedroom. "I mean, I'm really not that surprised. Let's face it, you two-"

Coming back into the room, she cut him off, "Damon, could you just-"

"Did I leave my phone here?" He sped to the other side of the room, slapping Alaric's leg playfully as he reached between the couch cushions. "There it is!"

"How long are you planning on couch surfing?" Abigail sat down next to Alaric. "You know, you could compel yourself a whole sorority house if you wanted to."

"And miss these 'Three's Company' moments? I'm starting to enjoy the luxury of having the choice between two barely-functional shower-heads after years of being tortured by the four that I have in my actual home." Alaric and Abigail turned their annoyed expressions from him to each other and then back to him. "Relax! It's just until we hunt down Lily's lone-wolf Heretic and swap him out for my girlfriend in a coma."

Alaric leaned back. "Yeah? And, uh, how much longer until that happens, huh?"

"Pretty soon, thanks to Donovan. A phrase no one has uttered ever." They couldn't help but laugh as he looked down at his phone. "He's checking Lily's cell phone records."

Just then, there was another knock on the door. It was quick and light, the opposite of Damon's, and that was how Abigail knew who it was. They were inside before she even stood up to answer it, the look on their face not the one she was expecting.

"Bonnie! Hi!" She sat straight up. "What are you doing here?"

Damon smiled at her. "Hi, Bon Bon!" 

The way Bonnie was furrowing her eyebrows changed. "Please tell me I'm not interrupting something."

"Oh, trust me, you're not." Abigail took a deep breath. "What's up?"

"That Phoenix Stone that I touched yesterday..." Bonnie did not sit down, she stayed in her place between the living room and the dining room. "You guys destroyed it like you promised me, correct?"

"Why?" Alaric asked. "What happened?"

"I just had another vision: a flash of horrified people with x-shaped wounds on their skin. When I opened my eyes, ten minutes had gone by."

Alaric squirmed next to Abigail, brushing his shoulder against hers. "The stone's gone. We, you know, watched it dissolve in hydrofluoric acid."

Bonnie tilted her head to the side. "You're positive?"