Barely A Memory

Chapter 16

Once again, Katherine rolled her eyes, and after a long moment of silence, uncrossed her legs. Elena furrowed her brows, puzzled by the unreadable expression on her doppelganger's face. But when she blinked, Katherine was gone out of the couch. Panicked, Elena scanned the room until she located the older Petrova beside the bed, gently running her slender fingers along the strip of exposed skin on Stefan's lower back, where his t-shirt had risen up. Confidently, Katherine gave Elena a challenging glare before speaking. "Boom. He's dead. And neither of you would have even had time to react. It'd be that easy to snap his neck."

Elena gritted her teeth.

XXXX

I hate her, Elena thought over and over again. I absolutely hate her.

Twelve hours later, and guess who was now in the car with the three of them? Yes. Katherine. And what was even worse? The fact that it was Katherine in the backseat with Stefan, with her hands all over him... and he was letting her do it. Why wasn't he stopping her?

Gosh, the way they were acting... it was plainly uncomfortable. Lewd, almost.

"Damn it, Katherine," he muttered, fishing through his half-empty bag of M & M's. "Why did you take all of the red ones?"

She giggled like a schoolgirl, and Elena was pretty sure that, at this point, it was only to make her so furious. "Because clearly, the red ones are the best," Katherine flirted, watching as he poured a huge handful into his palm, searching for one final red chocolate. When he found one, she quickly snatched it and held it up in front of him.

She didn't even like M & M's. She was a vampire!

Not to mention the fact that they all tasted exactly the same...

Nevertheless, Stefan's eyes went wide. "I will do anything to get that from you."

An amused smirk curled on Katherine's plump lips. "Anything, huh?"

Elena was about ten seconds away from telling Damon to pull over. She was going to be sick.

XXXX

They finally ended up in a small town on the coast of New Jersey. It didn't exactly look like the ideal place for a vacation, but it was close enough. Katherine had claimed that this was a great place to settle in: small enough to go undetected, but big enough to easily get lost. Katherine knew everything about everything.

They wound up in an old, creaky bed and breakfast at around three in the morning. It was a miracle that anything was open at this hour in such a town. The woman at the counter was old, but friendly enough. Stefan pitied her; did she stay up all night, every night, hoping someone would visit?

"We have two rooms available now," the lady explained warmly. "We should have more tomorrow if you need them. My cleaning ladies come in every other day to brush up the rooms, you see, and we can't exactly get anything at this kind of hou—"

Damon was far from patient. "Yes," he groaned. "Two is fine. It's late, and we'd like to get into our rooms if you don't mind."

The woman went silent and quickly started typing on her ancient computer. Stefan bit his lip. "Excuse my brother," he said after an awkward pause. "He's been driving all night. He gets a little... testy when he gets tired."

The lady chuckled, and just like that, her welcoming demeanor was back. Elena couldn't help herself from smiling just a little bit; he was just so charming. "So, where are you folks from?" the woman asked.

Stefan opened his mouth, but Katherine interrupted before he could get a word out. "California. We're trying to do a road trip all across the country for our college spring break," she lied smoothly.