𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 ━━ stefan salvatore

viii. Killer Queen

         Stefan got up, bringing her a glass. She could smell the blood and her senses went haywire before she grounded herself. Blood, any blood was so tempting. So delicious. She wanted to devour it. But she wasn't a monster, so she reeled herself in.

         "What is it?" Vicki peered inside.

         "It's what you're craving."

         Damon laughed. "Don't lie to the girl. It's not what you're craving, but it'll do in a pinch, right, Stef?"

         She repeated herself. "What is it?"

         "Yeah, what is it? Is it a skunk? Saint Bernard? Bambi?" Damon edged on.

         "Knock it off," Lux stared at him.

         "Go on. Give it a try," Stefan ignored him, gently coaxing her.

         "She's new. She needs people blood. She can't sustain on that stuff," Damon shook his head.

         Vicki frowned. "Yeah, why can't I have people blood?"

         "Yeah?"

         "Because it's wrong to pray on innocent people, Vicki," Stefan told her.

         Lux shifted uncomfortably. She fed on innocent people. It didn't make her feel good, but she made sure they felt no pain and never remembered the event after. And she didn't kill anymore. Those days were behind her. She drank what she needed, compelled them to forget, then went on. No harm, no foul.

         Stefan didn't make it a big deal when she refused his offer of animal blood, but now him insinuating that she's doing something wrong made her feel off. She wasn't wrong, wasn't evil, but just a girl trying to survive. Sometimes that meant snatching a human to drink from.

         "You don't have to kill to feed. Just find someone really tasty and then erase their memory afterwards. It's so easy," Damon grinned. Him using the same method as her didn't ease her discomfort but worsened it. She didn't like that she could see parallels between herself and Damon.

         "No, no, no. There's no guarantee that you can control yourself, okay? It takes years to learn that. You could easily kill somebody, and then you have to carry that with you for the rest of your life, which, if I haven't made it clear, is eternity."

         Not for the first time, she wished that she had someone to guide her during transition. If someone was there, she wouldn't have killed all those people. Even though she was trying to be better now, it didn't erase what she did in the past.

         She had a feeling that Stefan experienced that same guilt.

         "Don't listen to him," Damon waved off his brother, "He walks on a moral plane way out of our eye line. I say snatch, eat, erase."

         The same thing he taught her.

         "Hey, look at me. We choose our own path. Our values and our actions, they define who we are," Stefan caught Vicki's attention.

         Damon groaned. "Okay, count Deepak. I am outta here."

         He stood up gracefully and left the room. Vicki downed the blood in her cup then raised it to Stefan. "Can I have some more?"

         The doorbell rang downstairs as Stefan went to get some more blood for Vicki. Lux stood up to get the door before hearing Damon open it. Elena. Elena was here, and that was her voice – she was looking for Stefan.