Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

40. Hello From The Other Side

"Vampires will take whatever they want. They will hurt whoever they want, and they'll do it without remorse. It's their nature."

"You don't have to use pronouns Ric," Elena told their history teacher. "You can say 'Stefan'." She thought about what had happened between her and Stefan back at the high school. He'd bitten her, on Klaus's command. She knew that it wasn't his fault, but she couldn't deny the fact that he was a totally different person now... a person who didn't love her.

Riley nodded in agreement.

"Look, I get why you're here. Stefan hurt you, both of you. And no one wants that to happen again," Ric said sympathetically.

Riley took one of Ric's stake sleeves, slipped it onto her left forearm and punched a mannequin, managing to successfully eject a stake.

"Good," Ric complimented. "Again."

Training with Ric in the woods had become a regular occurrence for the human girls. With Stefan's humanity off, and the start of senior year looming, they couldn't take any chances.

On the way to meet Caroline and Bonnie, Riley decided to check in on Damon, just to make sure that his brother hadn't tried to kill him in the last day.

As she walked into the house, she saw Damon chained to a chair, a hot poker sticking out of his chest and his daylight ring on the floor. Stefan was admiring the chains.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, coming into the room, running through Ric's training in her head. Stefan couldn't be trusted, so she was prepared for anything.

"Stefan's playing some twisted ripper game," Damon said, grimacing.

"I didn't do this," Stefan told Riley with a smirk that looked foreign on his face. "Pretty messed up though..."

He pulled the poker out and started to relieve Damon of the chains, before walking from the room. Damon began to untangle the chains, and Riley walked forward to help.

"Think he's telling the truth?" she asked as, together, they managed to free him of all the chains.

"Unfortunately I do," he said. "I'm getting a sense of déjà vu."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked curiously.

Damon thought back. "Remember when I killed Mason Lockwood?" he asked, before nodding to the chains. "That's how I did it." Riley followed him outside to his car, not even bothering to hide her look of disapproval.

"What does that mean? Someone's punishing you for killing Mason?"

"I'm guessing something went wrong when Bonnie got rid of Vicki Donovan," Damon informed her. Vicki had managed to get a foothold in the human world when Matt killed himself. To allow herself to stay, she would have had to kill Elena – which obviously wasn't gonna happen. Bonnie had trapped her on the other side forever. Or so they thought.

"So you think the actual dead Mason Lockwood is messing with you?" Riley asked him, fear in her tone, as they pulled into the town square, spotting Bonnie and Caroline.

"Who else could it be?" he asked, before greeting their friends. "Blondie, Witchy. Something went seriously wrong when you sent Vicki Donovan back to the land of ghosts."

"What do you mean, why?" Bonnie asked, worry clouding her features.

"Damon thinks he just got spit-roasted by Mason Lockwood's ghost," Riley said, getting out of the car. "Someone chained him to a chair and shoved a hot poker in his chest."

Caroline turned to Bonnie, mirroring her own worried look. "I thought you said ghosts couldn't physically interact with people?"

"They can't."