Predator or Prey ➳ D. Salvatore [REWRITING]

➳ 34: down the rabbit hole

CARTER anxiously paced the beach while Elena spoke to Caroline on the phone, and Stefan and Rebekah eavesdropped on the conversation. The huntress quickly formulated a plan in her head that would lead her to Jeremy or Damon.

She suddenly grabbed a rock off the sand and launched it at the water with an infuriated scream.

Stefan placed a hand on her arm while glancing down at her in concern. "Hey. It's okay. We'll find them."

"No. It's not okay. I have failed. My whole purpose in this is to aid and protect Jeremy, and I have failed." She mumbled in self-pity, internally beating herself up for not keeping a closer eye on the hunter. "I'm going to look for him."

"Carter, wait." He immediately stopped her. "We can't split up right now. We're already spread too thin. Once Caroline translates the sword, we can look for Jeremy."

"I'm supposed to trust that Caroline can translate a two-thousand year old sword?" Carter questioned incredulously, shook her head, and pulled away from him. "No. We don't have time for that."

"If you go out there alone, you could die, and Damon would never forgive me if I let something happen to you." Stefan pointed out, causing her shoulders to sink slightly and her face to soften. "Unless you can translate the sword and read the map, we're gonna have to wait."

Sighing heavily in frustration, Carter lowered herself to sit down on a log and sulked with her chin resting in the palm of her hand.

While she did, Elena and Stefan had a heart to heart about why he would want the cure, and Rebekah held her phone up in the air, trying to fund service.

The blonde finally got enough bars to receive a Caroline about the map just for Klaus to reveal that there was only one dose of the cure. After the call dropped, she rejoined the group so they could follow the map together.

"What did Caroline say?" Elena asked curiously.

"I don't know. We lost the signal." Rebekah replied as they walked the path. "Come on, this way." She led them toward the edge of a huge cliff where they stopped. She held the phone up, compared the map to the terrain, and looked down at the large body of water below them. "We need to get down and across. Advantage, vampires: all we have to do is jump."

"Uh... hi. Yeah. Human here." Carter spoke up, pointing to herself with a look in her face. "I don't have vampy powers."

"Then you should stay behind. You'll just drag us down." Rebekah snarkily suggested.

"Oh? Do you really wanna take the chance that Jeremy can't get the cure from Silas without me?" Carter confidently raised the point, cocking her head to the side and smirking at her. "Also, I may be a human, but I sure as hell can fight like a vampire. Maybe even better than one."

"I'll carry you across." Stefan offered, breaking up the glares between them.

"Wait, wait." Elena protested suddenly, causing the other three to glance at her in confusion. "Um...maybe you should leave the map behind. In case you fall, you don't want anything to happen to the phone."

"Are we doing this again? I thought we were a team." Rebekah argued aggravatedly.

"Are we?" Carter challenged as she stood there with her arms crossed and a passive-aggressive smile. "Because you just suggested leaving me behind."