CHAPTER TWENTY ONE | PROMISED LAND
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
IT HAD BEEN JUST OVER FOUR DAYS SINCE EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. After Enzo's sabotage, the Traveler's were able to locate the doppelgangers, and they managed to take both Stefan and Elena right from under their noses. Since then, everybody else had been completely focused on was finding a way to get them back. Their only lead was Mystic Falls innocents that had Travelers inside of them.
"Damn, baby. Do you think you tied those ropes tight enough?" Evelyn spoke with a hint of sarcasm. She watched Damon smirk gleefully as she handed him a spray bottle of water.
"Wakey, wakey," Damon muttered in a patronizing tone. He sprayed the water in the man's face a few times before he pulled a business card from his upper pocket. "Mr. Sikes. Head of corporate accounts." He read, then scoffed.
Evelyn got to her feet and moved next to Damon once heard the man attempt to speak, but Damon kept a cloth in his mouth. "Might wanna remove that before you interrogate him, genius."
"Whoops. Sorry about that." Damon apologized insincerely, then he removed the gag from the man's mouth. "Yeah, can't have you mumbling any of those annoying traveler ditties. It's a sure migraine. So, here's the deal. My brother and his ex-girl have both been kidnapped by travelers, and we can't seem to find them anywhere. I mean, like, poof, gone. So besides the completely clueless Hybrid in my basement, and a cave full of sleeping travelers, we've got nothing to go on except you. So, I'm gonna need you to tell me where I can find you leader, Markos."
"I should probably say that unless you co-operate, your life is looking extremely bleak right about now, and I'm not in the best of moods considering the small fact that my friends have been kidnapped," Evelyn growled before she grabbed the man by the throat. "So, tell us where the hell Markos is."
"What's up, Blondie?" The Salvatore vampire asked as soon as Caroline entered with his eyes fixed to her phone screen.
"Liv and Luke aren't answering any of my—" She gasped immediately when she noticed the tied up man in the middle of the room. "Oh, my God. Mr. Sikes?"
"Wait, what?" Evelyn tilted her head.
"You know him?" Damon rested his head back on the armchair while he glanced back at the blonde vampire.
"Yeah, he helped me open my first savings account. He gave me a lollypop."
"Well, unfortunately, Mr. Sikes here is occupied by some low-life traveler. We saw him and his buddies chanting in the town square last week. I also know that Markos and your passenger comrades are planning some big flashy spell to undo some super boring ancient witch curse, and where that sucks for us, it just happens to undo all the witch magic, I.E. kill me, my girl, and my sexy, blonde frenemy here."
Caroline gulped, then stepped forward with a look of determination. "If you know where Markos took Stefan and Elena, you need to tell us."
He didn't seem to want to divulge any traveler secrets to the trio, so Damon gave Evelyn a nod. The brunette vampire began to circle him with a smirk. "Mr. Sikes. Buddy. Please, do yourself a favor and speak up before I'm forced to tear out your vocal cords." He remained silent until she forcefully gripped his throat, applying pressure that made him gag. "There we go. So, we now know that you actually have a voice in you."
"I think he's trying to say something." Damon chuckled as he removed the gag from the traveler's mouth. "Come here, sweetie pie."
"It doesn't matter where Markos is. Nothing you do can stop him now." The traveler spoke with conviction. The trio just exchanged anxious looks.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
"Seriously? Collect calls are still a thing?" Damon chuckled in disbelief as he dropped his phone onto the table in front of him and Evelyn.
"Four days, Damon. Four days and you couldn't track us down? What, did you think we were having a nice spa getaway?" The younger Salvatore spoke in a frustrated tone.
"Woah, woah, woah. Evelyn and I have been searching 24/7, okay? Maybe if you would've been a little more perceptive, you wouldn't have gotten yourselves doppelnapped." Damon rolled his eyes as the brunette vampire nodded.
A loud shattering sound echoed through the speakerphone and which caused Damon and Evelyn's brows to furrow. "Stefan, what the hell was that?" The brunette asked.
"Travelers drained us of our blood, so we've had to do a little bit of hunting."
"You have Elena participating in squirrel slaughter?" Damon asked with a raised eyebrow of disbelief.
"Believe me, she's no happier about it than I am." The younger Salvatore hummed out softly.
A small chuckle left Evelyn's lips as she leaned closer toward Damon's phone. "Look, where are you guys? We'll come get you."
"I have no idea where we are. We're in the middle of nowhere. Listen, we'll make our way back, but Markos drained most of our blood, and considering the kinds of spells he was able to do with just a little bit of it—"
"—Yeah, I know. Find Markos; kill Markos; save Mystic Falls from becoming traveler home. It's going to be a busy day for me, Stefan. Time to strap on the hero hair." Damon smirked toward Evelyn, who rolled her eyes. "Get both yourselves home safely, brother. I'd hate to have to her ass for losing you."
Evelyn remained on the couch with her legs up, and a Bourbon in her hand while Damon stood opposite her with a smirk, that was until an object threw an object into his chest. "Bonnie!"
"What a surprise, Enzo's here." Evelyn rolled her eyes. She knew that the object that had flown across the room and into Damon's chest was Enzo's doing.
"He says you promised to bring him back," Bonnie translated for the vampire who could no longer speak to the living. She rolled her eyes and glanced behind her a second time. "Whatever."
"Hello," Damon snapped, seeming a little on edge. "We're still here, and I know what I said."
"Please, stop talking." The Bennett girl mumbled in the spot behind her, took a breath, then turned back to Damon and Evelyn. "You two need to fix this before I lose my mind."
"I'm sorry, okay? I've got two missing doppelgangers. I've got a traveler that wants to rid our town of magic, and I've got the friendly banker, Mr. Sikes in the coat closet. So, escape from the never-world is gonna have to wait until tomorrow." Damon yelled into the air, clearly addressing Enzo who responded by throwing a bottle of Bourbon into the fire.
Evelyn bit her lip awkwardly as she saw the flames grow due to the alcohol. "Well, I guess that's our answer."
"I think he wants to be penciled in for today." Bonnie shrugged again, but Damon seemed more concerned about the wasted alcohol.
"Then you bring him back," Damon answered bluntly before pushing past her. "Liv is cooking up a spell to pull you back from the Other Side before it goes kaboom. So, whatever you're doing, just include Enzo in it. You hear me, Enzo? Just hitch a ride with her, okay? See? There delegating. I feel better."
"That's not a great idea—" Bonnie began until the younger Gilbert sibling entered.
"You called?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow toward the Salvatore vampire as he sauntered into the room.
"You." Damon pointed at him. "I need you, and your xBox buddy to run an errand for me. Come on, let's go." Damon grabbed his fiancé's hand, then they headed out of the house.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Evelyn and Damon had gathered all of the left-over traveler bodies from the tunnels and dotted them around the Salvatore house in an attempt to lure Markos to them. Damon urged the girl to go and spend some time with her friends but she knew what he was getting at— he didn't want her anywhere near Markos in case something happened. Reluctantly, Evelyn agreed and headed to Whitmore College.
"So, Julian is trapped inside of Tyler forever." The blonde vampire began as she and Bonnie packed up their dorm. "Or until he dies. So, I was thinking what if he does die? Maybe that's how we do it, that's how we get him out."
"You wanna kill your boyfriend? Morbid, Care." Evelyn chuckled softly as she pushed the door open and wandered inside. Bonnie shared the same look— A look of confusion with a hint of hesitation cast over it.
"He'll go to the Other Side, and then when Liv does the spell to help you and Enzo, Tyler can come back," Caroline explained but silence seemed to fall around the room. "And, speaking of— shouldn't you be like preparing, or talking to Liv or doing anything other than packing up our dorm room?"
"We have to be out of here right after finals which I might skip due to the potential extinction of magic in the place where I was spending my summer break," Bonnie nodded her head in response but continued to pack her belongings up.
"No, Bon. I think Caroline's right. That could actually work." Evelyn agreed with the blonde vampire. "Besides, I think the Other Side falling apart takes the win on top priorities around here, don't you think?"
Bonnie turned on her heels, dropped her belongings angrily on the bed, then glanced up at both girls. "There is no spell. I made it up. The Other Side is collapsing and everyone in it, including me, is going away for good. So, no. I don't think you should kill Tyler."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The minute that Bonnie dropped the bomb about there being no spell to bring people back from the Other Side, Evelyn's world began to crumble around her. She needed to warn Damon. She needed him to tell her that everything was going to be okay and that there was another way to save Bonnie.
When she headed inside the Boarding House she saw Julian, the traveler inside of Tyler's body, bite Markos. "My fangs." He threw himself off the leader of the travelers and brought his hand to his mouth in panic. "What the hell happened to my fangs?"
"What?" Damon questioned. Then, he heard Evelyn wince in pain as her arm began to sizzle due to the direct exposure to the sunlight that poured into the room.
"You've gotta be kidding me," The brunette immortal groaned out, exasperatedly. "As if my day couldn't get any worse."
With that, a pool of blood appeared on Damon's chest. It was in the same shot as the gunshot wound that had killed him before he became a vampire. He winced pain as he applied a little pressure. The same happened to Evelyn, a large slit grew on her throat as she began to violently choke.
"Like I said, the spell will continue to unravel spirit magic as it spreads." Markos turned around with a devilish smirk across his lips. "Which means you're not long for this world. The suns about to set, feel free to buy yourself a little time to say your good-byes. You, your fiancé, and the traitor here can try and outrun the spell for a little while."
Julian ran out of the house first, and then Damon's eyes widened as he looped his arm around Evelyn's waist. He knew that the pair of them needed to get as far away from Mystic Falls as possible in an attempt to outrun the spell before it killed them. It was their only option of survival against the spell. He effortlessly grabbed Evelyn's waist and guided her out of the front door while he clutched his gunshot wound tightly.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───