Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

64. Phantom Undead

"Is it supposed to rain tonight?" Caroline asked, glancing around as she started to feel significantly colder.

"Do I look like a meteorologist?" Rebekah replied rhetorically. They, plus Riley and Matt, were in the Grill watching Elena furiously throw darts at a dartboard.

Riley leaned her chin on her hand. "I thought her humanity was back on?" she wondered. According to Damon, the Katherine plan hadn't worked, so they went with plan D – pretending to kill Matt.

"It is," Caroline said, her face full of concern. "But now it's like all of her emotions are set to 'rage'."

Elena threw another dart.

"So she wants to kill Katherine?" Riley queried. "Can't we just... let her?"

"Agreed," Matt muttered. Katherine had been nothing but trouble; he didn't understand why one of the vampires hadn't killed her months ago.

"Look, this isn't about Katherine," Caroline reminded them. "We need to get Elena back to her old self."

Rebekah grabbed a bottle of slightly yellow alcohol from the bar, poured it into a shot glass, and cupped her mouth with her hand. "Elena! Get over here."

Elena gave an exasperated huff as she threw another dart, before turning to her group of 'friends' and walking over, her footsteps harsh and confident.

Rebekah handed her the glass of alcohol. "Drink. You're putting everyone on edge."

Elena took the shot from Rebekah and drank it straightaway, slamming the small glass down on the table and looking at them all as if to say 'now what?'.

"So, what's the deal?" Rebekah asked. "I'm new to this whole 'emotional switch' situation."

Elena would have laughed if she wasn't so angry. In fact, forget anger, she was past anger. Her hatred for Katherine left her seething with rage.

"I get that we had our 'Thelma and Louise' thing back when I had my humanity off," Elena addressed Rebekah. "But let me make one thing clear: we're not friends."

Riley raised her eyebrows without saying anything. Even though she'd had her humanity off for so long, it was weird to see Elena like this. The Elena she knew was nice and compassionate, the complete opposite of Katherine Pierce. This Elena was like a Katherine in training.

"What about us?" Caroline asked her. "Are we still friends?" She was trying the Salvatore brothers' original tactic of using emotion to elicit some kind of response. "When you told me that I was a 'repulsive, bloodsucking control-freak monster', did you mean it?"

Elena sighed. She knew this would happen. Turning her humanity back on meant that everything she'd done when it was off had come flooding back. She was sure that if she didn't have Katherine to focus on, she'd never stop crying – so now definitely wasn't the time to let any feelings back in.

"I can't let myself feel bad," she explained. "If I feel bad then I feel everything."

Riley frowned. "I get that you don't want to feel every bad thing that's happened to you. But can't you choose to feel something... positive?"

"When Katherine's dead," Elena answered. Every time she thought about her doppelganger, her heart raced faster. She had never felt any emotion this strongly. She had to kill Katherine, not out of choice, but out of necessity.

As she said the word 'dead', the lights in the Grill went out, leaving them completely in the dark. The worried murmurs of the other patrons were drowned out by the sound of a strong wind blowing outside. Riley, Rebekah, Caroline and Matt ran outside to see that the wind was blowing debris of leaves and dust through the air. Anyone who was already outside was now running and ducking for cover. For some reason, this didn't feel like an ordinary storm.