Wayward Heart: Book 1

Part 30

"I don't know, I woke up alone. There's no sign of it."

"Lovely," Damon sighed, "now what?"

"Well, I think I need to get out of town. Somewhere secluded. I keep blacking out which means I'm still a threat to everyone."

"Not only is now so not the time to go soul searching, you can't just leave Emma hanging, at least come see her," Damon started to get angry.

"It's just for a couple of days," Alaric assured Damon, "I've got plenty of Bonnie's herbs and Emma has you. I gotta go."

Alaric hung up the phone and smiled, his ploy worked perfectly.

"Quite the cunning liar," Rebekah commented.

Alaric smirked, "Damon is too arrogant to think his only friend would betray him."

"And that hunter of his, I trust she won't be a problem."

"Nothing I can't solve if the need arises," he said coldly.

Rebekah moved over to a closed casket, "Niklaus will blindly accept an invitation from his beloved sister, unaware that he is heading to his own death."

"Did you give him the stake?"

"He burned it without hesitation."

"So where is the real one?"

"You'll get it when it can no longer be used against me in this body," Rebekah grinned as she lifted the lid to the casket, her mother lay dead inside.

"So...how do you..." Alaric questioned.

"Return to my true form?" Rebekah laughed slightly, "With a little magic and some help from a vampire hunter."

Rebekah handed Alaric a silver dagger, dipped in the white oak ash, and without a moment to loose, he plunged it into Rebekah's heart. As she hit the floor, Ester's body suddenly came to life, she opened her eyes and gasped.

Damon hung up his phone and tossed it on the bed, Emma had heard every word that Alaric had said.

"That wasn't Ric," a line formed in the center of her brows as she thought, "I mean, it was, but it wasn't Ric."

"Give the guy some credit Em," Damon defended his friend, "maybe he does need some time off, we all do."

"He wouldn't just leave."

"Apparently he would," Damon tried to end the conversation there by walking into the hall, but Emma wouldn't let it go and followed him.

"Which one of us knows him better Damon?" She challenged, "I'm telling you, Ric wouldn't just leave me."

"So him being here in Mystic Falls without your knowledge was what exactly?"

"Him out hunting, just like Sam and Dean."

"But you didn't know where he was?"

"We talked, extensively, about him leaving to find Isobel. At the end of it, he wanted to either find her or avenge her," Emma explained.

"And he failed at both."

"It wasn't him Damon," Emma grabbed her helmet and keys off of a table as they passed them, Damon stopped walking and turned around to look at her when he heard the jingle of her keys.

"Where in the hell are you going?" He asked, putting one of his hands on his hip.

"To prove you're wasting time by not looking for him," Emma passed Damon and walked towards the door and slammed it behind her as she left.

Damon relaxed his stance once the door was between them.

"Dammit," he groaned as his head dropped back and he looked at the ceiling, mad at himself for letting her leave as he heard her bike start up.

Emma pulled her motorcycle up next to Alaric's car in parking lot of the apartment complex. As she walked around the vehicle she looked for any signs that it had moved recently, but found none. She dug her phone out of her pocket and called Damon.

"Do you like gardenias?" Damon asked before she could say anything.

"What?" His question threw Emma off, "No, yes, but that's not why I'm calling."

"Oh, gotcha, so...phone make-up sex?" He asked, only half joking.

"What the fu-," Emma said frustrated but stopped herself, getting back on topic, "I'm looking at Alaric's car."

"Congrats?"

"It's in the parking lot of the apartments Damon, he either never left or something is wrong."

Damon sighed into the phone before speaking again, "Just, wait for me to get there before you go barging in."

"See you in ten," Emma hung up the phone and leaned back on the seat of her bike while she waited.

As promised, Damon's Camaro pulled up in the spot next her and he got out. His eyebrows furrowed and he wore worry on his face. Emma was right, but Damon's pride didn't allow him to admit that just yet. He watched as she pushed herself off of the bike with a slight arrogance, he had doubted her even after she had never doubted him; and she was going to make sure he knew that he wasn't going to live that down anytime soon.

"You have the key?" Damon asked.

Emma held up her keychain by a single key, the one to Alaric's apartment door, "Let's go."

She led the way upstairs but handed the key over without argument to Damon when he motioned for it and pushed her behind him slightly. As Damon turned the key and opened the door she prepared herself for a fight, but when the door opened there was no one inside. Damon stepped inside and Emma followed.

"Ric?" Emma called out, but didn't receive an answer.

She moved towards the bedroom, but it was also empty. Acting on a gut feeling she started opening his dresser drawers and pulling things out.

"What are you looking for Em?" Damon questioned her.

Emma opened the nightstand drawer and pulled up exactly what she was looking for, Alaric's herbs that Bonnie had given him, she tossed the bottle to Damon. She pulled out her phone and called someone.

"Emma," Dean Winchester answered, "what's goin' on?"

"I'm bringing Alaric to the bunker, I need you to meet me there," Emma told him.

Dean seemed confused, "What the hell happened?"

"A curse, his continued brushes with death made him crazy," Emma explained, "I need somewhere to lock him down until I can get this figured out."

"Emmy," Dean tried reason with her, "there might not be anything to figure out at this point."

Damon took a step back as Dean's words spiked Emma's anger and he saw a flash of orange in her eyes.

"We have done crazier things Dean," Emma yelled, "get the damn bunker ready, as soon as I find him I'm bringing him to you!"

She hung up on Dean and shoved her phone back into her jacket pocket. Without saying anything else she turned on her heel and walked out the door and started down the stairs.

Damon ran after her, "Emma, where are you going?"

She looked up to the platform he was on, "To get ready for a dance, if history here has proven anything, that is where he will be."

Emma finished descending the stairs and hopped on her bike, she sped back to the Salvatore boarding house with Damon's Camaro close on her heels.

He watched her in a brooding silence as she pulled out a backpack and began stuffing it full of everything she needed for the trip to Kansas, where she hoped Dean would be getting the bunker ready for her and Alaric.

She slung the bag over her back and Damon quietly followed her out of the house and to his car and they drove in a tensioned silence the entire way to the school; both having very different plans on how tonight was going to go.