𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄 [𝟐]

𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄

"I'm fine." He breathed out with a light smile on his face. Though, he knew their current situation was nothing to smile at. "I'm more concerned about what he's doing to you. I swear if he touches you again, I'll kill him."

"Riley? Damon?" Elena's voice echoed in the tunnels as she sat up straight and looked over to them. The doppelgänger had been cornered by Wes, and dumped into one of the cells opposite Riley and Damon. "What the hell is going on? Why are you here? Why am I here?"

"It's pay back for what happened to Jesse last night." Riley explained why she and Damon were both captured. The little witch slowly began to sit up in her cell.

"Wes is carrying out the grand Augustine tradition. Getting his kicks out of vampire torture." Damon explained, his eyes shifted over to the doppelgänger.

"Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't have to." Damon's face instantly hardened as he noticed Riley's sympathetic gaze catch his own. "I've been here before. Someone in my family sold me out to the Augustines in 1953. Every day this nut job, Dr. Whitmore, tortured us, cut into us, took pieces of our eyes out. Pushed us to every limit he could imagine, and he had quite the imagination. He kept me in this very cell, don't think I haven't appreciated the irony."

The strawberry-blonde listened intently to her boyfriend's story before she took a deep breath. "How long were you here?" She asked, though she was terrified to hear the answer.

"Five years, give or take." Damon answered, honestly.

Elena's eyes widened with fear. "How did you not go crazy?"

"Believe it or not, I made a friend." The Salvatore explained. "His name was Enzo. He was a solider in Europe during World War Two."

"But, how did Enzo end up in this creepy little basement with you?" Riley asked as she watched Damon through the gap between their two cells.

"Dr. Whitmore was working in a battlefield hospital when he discovered Enzo was a vampire. So, he drugged him, locked him a coffin and shipped him overseas. He'd been here ten years by the time I'd joined the party." The Salvatore stopped explaining his history with the Augustines and finally sat back down on the cell floor.

"Guys." Elena's voice broke the silence that surrounded them, both sets of eyes clapped onto hers. "Wes knew my dad. They worked together. He said that my dad was an Augustine, too."

"You're kidding me, right?" Riley took a breath. "Elena, I wouldn't believe anything he tells you, okay?"

"I know that my dad was a vampire hunter, but he was also the town doctor. He was kind and gentle and loving. He wouldn't be part of a place that would cut your eyes out."

Damon just rested his head against the concrete wall while emotions ran high in Elena. "People are full of surprises."

The doppelgänger let emotions get the better of her, and she immediately sank her head down into her hands. She didn't understand any of it, and Riley couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"Elena. Elena, listen to me. We're going to get out of here, all of us. I promise." Riley then looked toward her boyfriend with a sure smile. "Stefan will notice we're gone. I mean, of course he will, why wouldn't he? He'll find us."

"Points for optimism, but unfortunately Stefan doesn't even know this place exists."

Elena's eyes shot toward the vampire who was in the cell opposite her. "But, you were here for five years."

"Yeah, and the first year I thought he'd rescue me. He didn't. Once I escaped, there was no point in giving him more to feel guilty about, so I never told him what happened here. I never told anyone." Damon explained to the two girls who just sighed out hopelessly.