"Damon?" Emma called out as she entered the boarding house, she was here to get some answers and she didn't plan to leave until she did.
She heard a commotion in the main room and started running that way. When she finally reached the room she saw Damon and Stefan fighting, but more than that, they were each holding a weapon. Damon had a stake and Stefan was fending him off with a fire poker. When they both heard Emma's boots hitting the floor and stopping, they both turned towards her.
"Emma, run," Damon shouted at her.
It took her a moment too long to register what he had commanded her to do and by the time she had turned around Stefan was in front of her, forcing her into the main area with Damon. Stefan's eyes had the tell-tale veins around his eyes, his fangs were exposed as he hissed at her to scare her back faster.
"Vampire," Emma said quietly in disbelief as she continued to back towards Damon.
She flicked her wrist and a stake popped out of the contraption that Alaric had made, and into her hand, she held it up and showed that she was ready to defend herself.
"Looks like Alaric has been showing you some of his toys," Stefan said menacingly before straightening his stance and turning his head to the side, "I wonder if he has shown your sister the same gadgets?"
Emma threw the stake at him like a throwing knife and hit him in the center of the chest, he pulled it out without even flinching, "You missed by about two inches."
Stefan looked at his fire poker for a moment before moving like lightening and throwing it in the same style at Emma, he hit her in the side of her thigh and she fell to her knee.
"Emma!" Damon yelled before he ran over to her and tried to assess the situation.
"I'd love to stay, but I've got to say good-bye to Klaus, he is off on a road trip," Stefan turned to walk out the door, "maybe I'll stop somewhere in-between for a drink there before I get there."
After the door slammed behind him Damon turned to Emma's wound, she wasn't bleeding as much as she would have been if he had hit anything major. Emma hissed in pain and she worked to move into a sitting position.
"Just pull it out, we have to go after him," Emma pointed at her leg before her tone changed to disbelieve, "Stefan is a vampire."
"Apparently," Damon said as he looked for a good way to pull out the fire poker.
"Oh my God, Damon, he is your brother," Emma's eyes widened, "are you okay? Did you know? Is this why you were acting so weird the other day?"
"Emma," Damon forced her attention back to him, "let's focus on this right now, we can focus on that in a minute."
He turned back to her leg and had almost made the decision to just take her to the hospital when she grasped her hand around it and yanked upwards. The only sound she made was a slight gasp, after she tossed it to the side and it clanked against the tiles she looked up at Damon, whose only facial expression was just shock and awe.
"Damon," Emma looked down at the floor before she spoke and then looked back up at him, "he is going to kill someone, assuming he hasn't already, I know he is your brother, but we have to end this."
"I know," Damon said as he helped Emma back up to her feet, he tried to pick her up, but she refused and began to limp towards the front door.
"You knew what he was, didn't you," Emma stopped walking and accused Damon as if she had just realized something, "you were defending yourself with a stake. You know about everything, don't you."
"Yes," Damon said quietly as he walked behind her, "like you said, he is my brother, what was I supposed to do Em."
She turned to face him, "A warning maybe to me or Alaric would have been helpful. I have been in rooms by myself with him and he could have killed me before I even saw it coming. At least when I was out hunting I had an idea of what I was facing."
"Emma, before we go-," Emma held up her hand and cut him off just as he was about to tell her everything, at least let him heal her before they walked out the door.
"Later Damon, right now Stefan is emotionless and stalking people about fifty feet from where I live and..." Emma stopped talking suddenly and gasped, "Katie."
Emma took off as best as she could, running towards her new motorcycle, Damon was shocked with how quickly things were getting out of hand.
"Emma wait," he called after her but she had already climbed on her bike and had turned the key.
"Call Alaric now!" She shouted over the roar of her engine before she pulled back on the throttle and tossed gravel as the tread in her tires picked it up, as soon as the tires hit the dirt Emma threw the throttle back harder and kicked the bike into a higher gear.
"Shit," Damon ran to his car and started, peeling out of his driveway much like Emma had just done, he picked up his cell phone and called Alaric.
"Huge problem, get over to the girls apartment now," Damon said as calmly as he could even though he was screaming internally, "Emma knows about Stefan."
"I'm across town," Alaric informed him.
"And I'm trying to keep up with a panicked girl on a motorcycle that can weave through traffic that I can't," Damon yelled into the phone, "if she doesn't kill herself on the way there then Stefan will kill her if he is where she thinks he is, which is going after Katie."
"He hasn't been to the apartment or invited in."
"Maybe, but Katie knows he is my brother, so maybe at least give her a damn heads up that a psychopathic vampire may be headed her way."
Damon threw his phone onto the passenger seat and kept his eyes on the road, trying to find the purple bike that could easily be two or three miles ahead of him by now. He pushed down the accelerator even more and tried to pass traffic as best as he could to make up for lost time. A flash of purple gave him slight hope when he could see that it was Emma, but he lost her again when she pushed through a red light and only by a thread of a needle did he miss getting slammed into by a lifted Ford three fifty who had to slam on his breaks, causing the car behind him to run into his rear, effectively causing a traffic jam.
"Dammit," Damon slammed his back against the seat and tried to figure out what his next move should be.
He was only a couple of miles from the apartment, he might be able to make it in time and catch up to her. Damon pulled his car off to the side of the road and hopped out, rushing to an alley where he wouldn't be seen when he suddenly disappeared when he did start running. It took a minute but he made it to the complex before he thought he would. Emma had just pulled up and jumped off her bike, letting it drop as she ran as best as she could to the third floor apartment. Damon saw her grab a stair several times instead of the railing to help pull herself up when the pain in her leg got to be too much. He just kept telling himself that she was over reacting and Katie was fine, Stefan couldn't get into the apartment.
His phone began to buzz and he looked to see that it was Alaric, he closed his eyes and answered, "Yea."
"I'm a mile out, but I can't get a hold of Katie," Alaric said just as alarmed as Emma had been.
"No, no, no," Damon kept repeating as he hung up and began running as fast as he could.
"Emma!" He began shouting as soon as he got close enough for her to hear him.
"Please don't," he heard her beg as he rounded the corner and saw her standing in the door way looking into her dark apartment.
"Emma," he said with a sigh of relief, but he smelled blood that wasn't hers and his relief was quickly diminished.
"Just let her go Stefan," Emma tried to keep her voice even as she spoke but Damon could hear it crack slightly, "Katie doesn't need to get hurt."
Damon knew how his brother was when his emotions were turned off, he was ruthless, he would play sick games, and his bloodlust was worse than any other vampire he had ever met, but worst of all, they called him a ripper for a reason; and he enjoyed it. Damon saw the outline of his brother standing next to the couch and the outline of someone sitting on it. Downstairs Alaric's had just pulled in and he was beginning his ascension of the stairs.
"Emma," Damon reached out and touched her shoulder but she didn't turn around, he just needed her to turn around before Stefan finished his game, "Emma look at me."
"Hello brother, just in time to enjoy the show," an evil smile grew on Stefan's face as he reached towards the wall and switched on the living room light before using his speed to jump out the window and down to the ground, escaping for the time being.
The sound that Emma made was unlike anything Damon had ever heard before. A cross between a sharp gasp followed by a quiet cry that was almost a scream. She grabbed onto the door frame in a desperate attempt to hold herself up, but it only took a second for her to sink down to her knees as she took in the scene that Stefan had created just for her. Stefan had clearly tricked Katie into let him in using the guise that he was Damon's brother, and it would have been only a few moments before he had grabbed her and began his attack, biting down deep into her neck. It probably only took him a moment to completely drain her body of blood; and in true ripper fashion, Stefan separated Katie's head clean off of her, then in a sick form of art he had placed her lifeless body on the couch and then balanced her head back onto her body.
Alaric finally reached the top landing of the stairs and saw Damon solemnly looking into the apartment, his rush to get inside suddenly slowed down. He heard the small whimpers that Emma was making and took in her defeated position. Slowly he approached the door and Damon stepped to the side slightly so Alaric could stand next to him.
When he saw the state of Katie's body his hand flew to his mouth in shock, "Jesus."
Damon could tell that Katie's balanced head was beginning to slide, "You need to get Emma out of her before-"
He didn't even have enough time to get the warning out before the weight of one side caught up with everything else and Katie's head rolled off of her shoulders, landing with a soft thud onto the couch, the rest of her body slumped down slightly. This time a full scream of terror escaped Emma. The sound snapped both men from their own horror and down to the person who truly needed them. Damon stepped over Emma and sat down next to her curled up body. Emma was in too much shock to even process that he was there, much less Alaric who had now begun to speak to her, but she never actually heard a word of what he had said.
"Emma you need to go with Alaric across the hall okay," Damon pushed away a sweat covered piece of her hair face just before Alaric began to pull Emma to her feet.
Before he could get her all the way up she pulled herself free and fell backwards, Damon barely catching her before she could land on the floor again.
"No," she said sharply before she shoved Damon to the side and rushed to her bed room.
Both men looked at each other to see if the other had an answer to her bizarre behavior and then ran over to her room to see what she was doing. Her room was methodically being torn apart as Emma shoved things into a backpack. Damon recognized stakes and vervain bombs. Emma pulled the sleeves to her leather jacket up and reloaded her wrist holster.
"Emma, what are you doing?" Alaric asked cautiously.
Behind her dresser Emma had hidden a cross bow, she grabbed it and threw it over her shoulder, "Depends on who I locate first."
She continued to throw cloths from her dresser and pulled a quiver out of her shirt drawer, it held long stakes that had been modified for her bow, she also had vervain darts her. Damon watched as she took the crossbow off for a moment to load it with a stake so she could hit the ground running if she needed to.
"Who?" Alaric asked.
Damon already knew the answer to his question, "Stefan or Klaus."
"Or Rebekah," Emma added, "I thought that the Original family was just a legend. I spent two years trying to prove they exist, turns out, all I needed to do was to come back to my home town. Go figure."
Emma shrugged before she pushed past the guys again but Damon caught her hand before she could get very far past him, "Em, you can't do this alone."
"You're right," Emma turned to Alaric, "you coming?"
"What about me?" Damon said offended.
She looked Damon right in the eyes, "We get put in a position where you have to save me or your brother, who are you choosing?"
"You," Damon thought he said confidently, but it wasn't enough for Emma.
Emma shook her head, "You have already covered up the fact that he has been a vampire for God only knows how long. If the legends are true then Klaus may have him under his control. If I can kill Klaus then, I can break that compulsion and maybe, just maybe, we can get your brother under control long enough to figure something out. I have friends I can call about this kind of thing."
Damon was dumbfounded about her level of knowledge about everything, he motioned to her crossbow, "That won't kill him Em."
"I know, all of this, is in case I run into any of his thralls, or your brother," Emma couldn't look at Damon as she said this, "Damon, I will not hesitate to kill him, not after this; but I will try to incapacitate him if I can."
"What do you have to kill Klaus then?"
Emma reached into her bag and pulled out a white oak stake, "This."
Both Alaric and Damon looked at each other in shock, but it was Alaric who spoke, "And what exactly is that."
"My dad kept it in his kit, and considering I've never seen anything like it before, my guess is that it was designed for a very special kind of vampire; and if Klaus is an Original I have no problem getting it bloody testing it."
Alaric spoke again before Damon could, "Emma we have been trying to take out Klaus for months-"
"I'm sorry, what the hell did you just say? Months!" Emma shouted and gestured towards the living room where her sister still lay dead, "I am a hunter Alaric, that was literally my job for the past three years, to hunt down vampires; I could have prevented everything out there if you had just said something, anything."
Emma walked over and slapped Alaric across the face, he made no attempt to retaliate against her anger; she walked over to Damon and slapped him as hard as she could, just like Alaric he made no move to stop her, but he was shocked with how hard should could hit.
"You are just as guilty Damon, I had only been here two weeks when I met you and we went out to the quarry; and I'm sure Alaric told you I was a hunter if you guys were already hunting this bastard."
Alaric left the room, he had nothing to say to Emma that would have made the situation better, leaving Damon with Emma and her rage. She glared at him while he looked back at her in pity.
"Em, we were just trying to keep you safe," Damon said.
"Safe," Emma scoffed before she swung her fist at Damon's face again, this time he caught her wrist and held it, she was shocked with how much ease he seemed to be holding her strength back.
"Don't do that again," he said with a slight growl in his voice, it was more menacing than he meant it to be, "you know now, so let's get this over with. If you still hate me after that then fine, hate me, everyone else already does."
Damon stormed out of the room ahead of Emma. As Emma passed the living room she tried her best not to look to her left where Katie's body was being covered by Alaric, she took a few deep breaths before she opened the front door and began to try her best to get downstairs.
"Em," Damon sighed and stopped her before she could get to the second landing, "trust me, Klaus isn't going anywhere; but you can't fight with that bad of a wound in your leg."
Emma knew he was right and didn't fight him this time, she allowed him to put his arm under her so she could support herself. Instead of going back into Emma's apartment, Damon went across the hall and into Alaric's. He sat her down carefully on the sofa and walked briskly walked over to the kitchenette and grabbed every rag he could find, wetting some and leaving others dry. Emma took off her quiver and cross bow, placing them on Alaric's coffee table. She put her head back and closed her eyes, now that all the adrenaline was leaving her body she was beginning to feel just how much pain she was actually in. When she looked forward again she saw Sheriff Forbes walking into her apartment.
"I can't even imagine what kind of story I could possibly spin for this," Emma looked out the window.
Damon had made his way back over to Emma and sat on the couch gently, "Liz will get it all figured out Em."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you guys ever go over the founding families?"
"I know the real story if you're asking that," Emma hissed slightly as Damon ripped her jeans so he could get to her wound, after a breath she spoke again, "they were a superstitious bunch who happened to be correct. One night they trapped twenty-seven vampires in a tomb under the church and then burned it down."
"Yeah, and after that night they formed a council of sorts to deal with any other vampires that may make it into Mystic Falls."
"You're not telling me that the council still exist after this long?"
Damon nodded.
"And I'm assuming you are on it."
"More like a consultant really."
Damon wiped some of the dried blood away from Emma's wound and she yelped slightly. He winced every time she squirmed away slightly, the wound itself wasn't bad; but the lack of treatment and Emma's reckless behavior may have caused more damage than the initial attack had.
Sheriff Forbes poked her head into Alaric's apartment and saw Damon tending to Emma's leg, obviously frustrated that he couldn't just take the easy way out and give her his blood, "Do I need to call for a medic?"
"No."
"Yes."
Both Damon and Emma answered at the same time. Instead of inciting an argument between the two of them the Sheriff went into damage control mode, "Emma did you see anything?"
It was barely audible but Damon heard Emma's voice hitch slightly before she spoke, "I already know everything Sheriff Forbes."
Forbes looked to Damon briefly for an answer. Damon just nodded at her.
"Do you have somewhere you can go for tonight until we get this all dealt with?" Liz Forbes looked at Emma with an abundance of empathy.
Emma started to answer, but Damon noticed that she began to choke on her words like everything had just hit her in the face at once, so he took over for her and nodded to Liz as he pulled Emma into his chest. Sheriff Forbes was contented with Damon's wordless answer and grabbed onto Alaric's arm in a show of sympathy as she passed him as he was entering his apartment after trying to deal with the things they normally would have bothered Emma with. He began to close the door behind him but Emma suddenly burst into an explosion of fury.
"No," she shouted at him, making him jump and release the door, "leave it open."
Alaric knew that they were about to bring Katie's body out in a bag and was trying his best to shield Emma from having to see that, "Emma..."
"I said leave it open," Emma's voice never lowered as she got up from the couch and limped her way out into the hall, "I had to identify my parent's remains after they had been crushed to death; this is nothing compared to that."
Both men exchanged looks of concern, Damon knew Emma was heading down a dangerous path that he had ridden down several times. Reckless revenge. It rarely ended well, he was just glad that she wasn't a vampire so there wasn't going to be much collateral damage, but the damage that she would do to herself, would be intense. Damon watched Emma as they wheeled her sister's body out in a body bag, she stood as still as stone, but her mind was clearly turning faster than a spinning wheel as she planned her next moves. That was why she had wanted to see them bring her sister out, Emma wanted that image stuck in her head so that any time she second guessed herself she could bring it up and keep herself going; but for now all it did was break her as soon as they closed the door to the coroner's van. She leaned against the brick wall but it failed to support her and her knees buckled under her and she slid down the wall and almost balled herself up.
"I'm going to call Bonnie to meet us at the boarding house, see if she can't voodoo Emma's leg to heal a little faster, and I'll grab some of her stuff," Damon looked on as Alaric picked Emma up and brought her down to Damon's car, Emma surprisingly didn't protest, Damon suspected that she didn't have much energy left in her body to protest and if she hadn't already fainted from exhaustion, she was going to soon.
Damon sped into Emma's apartment and into her room, he grabbed the first bag he saw and began stuffing it full of cloths, her hair brush, toothbrush, and he grabbed her school bag. Anything else that she needed he would get for her later. He also took a family photo that he found framed which she had sitting on a nightstand next to her bed. Before he left he pulled his phone out and called Bonnie Bennett.
"What do you want Damon," he rolled his eyes at the greeting.
"I need a favor," he continued on to explain to Bonnie that he needed her to come over and do some pretend spell on Emma's leg so he could sneak her just enough of his blood that she would be healed by morning but think nothing of it, "come on Bon-Bon, a just little razzle-dazzle and you can go."
"Fine," she said firmly and hung up.
Damon closed the door behind him and ran down the steps but started walking again once he was close to the bottom. Alaric had already loaded Emma into the Camaro and was now picking up her bike and wheeling it to a parking spot in front of the building.
"I don't even know who to be mad at anymore," Alaric rubbed his face as he tried to wipe away his own mental exhaustion.
"Klaus seems like a good place to start, then I'll just move down the list from there," Damon shrugged as he opened the back door of his car and put Emma's belongings inside, when he looked in it was just as he guessed, she was sleeping, her brain had forced her body to shut down so it could process everything.
"Just take care of her okay," Alaric was almost mad at himself for letting Damon take her, but he knew that she was much safer with Damon that him.
Damon nodded and got into the driver's side and started up the car.