"What happened to Vicki Donovan?" Ciara Fletcher asked her daughter, glaring at her with her arms crossed. "And don't even think about lying to me."
"It wasn't my fault," Riley mumbled.
"I don't care whose fault it was. A teenager is dead, and your father wants to know who's to blame."
"I didn't know her. Whatever happened, it's not my fault and I know nothing about it."
Ciara rolled her eyes. "After 17 years, you really think I can't tell when you're lying?"
Riley thought about lying again, about keeping the secret about Vicki quiet until the end of time. But her mother wanted answers, and she couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Vicki Donovan was a vampire."
Ciara nodded, this answer suspected. "Stefan Salvatore? Did he turn her?"
"No, Stefan wouldn't do that," she said, before admitting the truth. "It was Damon Salvatore, his brother."
"Right," Ciara nodded again. "So he turned her into a vampire. How does that translate to her being dead?"
"Vicki wasn't like Stefan and Damon. She was new, and she was volatile. She was in love with Jeremy Gilbert. When Elena tried to protect her brother, Vicki attacked her. And then Stefan killed her. He had to, he had no choice."
Ciara tried not to let the disgust show, but she couldn't stand the fact that her daughter knew about any of this, let alone that she was somehow involved. "And who buried her?"
"I don't know, either of them. The point is, they didn't have a choice, and you can't tell anyone."
Ciara sat down, sighing. "Riley, I'm going above and beyond to keep this stuff from your dad. But the deeper you get into it, the harder it is. The last thing I want is for him to find out."
"Are you sure?" Riley asked. "I mean, if he knew about it, at least he would be able to keep himself safe."
"It's not happening," her mother snapped, her voice taking on an 'end-of-discussion' tone that shut Riley up.
"So, what are you gonna tell dad?"
Ciara frowned. "You should be in school."
Riley stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "This is all gonna come out. The longer you keep it a secret, the worse it'll be."
***
"Honor your partner," Carol Lockwood said. "Stay focused, right hand around. Flirt with your eyes."
Riley and Caroline winked at each other and made fake flirty faces as they practiced for the 'Founder's Court'. Caroline was competing against Elena and a few other girls to win 'Miss Mystic Falls', a beauty pageant-type competition that she was taking extremely seriously.
"Remind me again what you get out of this?" Riley asked curiously as they danced.
"Pride, adoration... a tiara and sash," Caroline giggled excitedly. It meant a lot to her.
Riley smiled. "Well hopefully Matt will do a better job at this stupid dance than I am."
"It doesn't matter," Caroline said, the smile falling from her face for the first time. "I won't win. I mean, even without the Fell cousins and Amber Bradley, Elena totally has the sympathy vote since her parent's died. How can I compete with that?"
Riley frowned. "Look, what Elena went through is tragic and awful, of course. But I don't think it translates to winning a beauty pageant."
They both glanced outside at Elena, watching her talk to Bonnie.
"Bonnie's back?" Riley asked, more to herself than to anyone else. The previous time they'd spoken, it sounded like the last place Bonnie wanted to be was in Mystic Falls.
"Yeah, she came in this morning," Caroline answered. "By the way, where were you this morning?"
"Dealing with Vicki Donovan again," she rolled her eyes. "My dad's trying to work out how she died."
"It was probably a drug overdose," Caroline said. "Matt's distraught, so he's throwing himself into work at the Grill. His mom's a flake, and now his sister's dead. I don't know how he's coping."
Riley nodded sympathetically. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose anyone she loved, let alone someone in her actual family.
"He's got all of us," she said. "We may not be family, but we're here for him."
Caroline nodded. "Yeah. We are."
***
The girls were all at the Founder's hall, getting ready for the competition.
"There," Riley said, zipping up Elena's blue dress. "Now I really have to go. Caroline will kill me if she knows that I'm helping the enemy."
Elena laughed. "Caroline deserves this a lot more than I do," she said honestly. "I'm just doing it because it meant a lot to my mom."
"That's nice," Riley smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure she'd be really proud of you."
The door opened without warning and Damon walked in, looking around wildly to make sure that they were completely alone.
"Hey, you can't be back here," Elena said, jumping up.
Damon glanced at her, then rolled his eyes. "Normally, I'd have a completely different outlook on what I'm about to tell you, but since it could really inconvenience me, I'll squeal."
"What's wrong?" Riley asked, worried.
"Stefan's still drinking human blood."
There was a silence as the three of them looked at each other.
"And that's... bad?" Riley asked. Neither of them answered, but seeing the look on Elena's face, she knew just how bad it was.
"With the council back on the alert, and your vampire-hating uncle John in town, it is not a good time for Stefan to fly off the handle."
"So what can we do?" Riley asked, aware that Elena had yet to speak. "I mean, it's not like we can force him to stop drinking it."
"No, we can't," Damon agreed. "Stefan on human blood is... dangerous. He'll do anything, and say anything because he's not gonna want to stop."
"This is my fault," Elena spoke up, sitting down as she felt blood rush to her head in a panic. "I'm the one who fed him the blood in the first place."
The door opened suddenly, and Stefan walked in. There was strange look in his eyes.
"What's going on here?"
They all stayed quiet, not knowing how to react to the person standing in front of them.
"I'm gonna go... check on Caroline," Riley said, exiting the room. Whatever was going on with Stefan, they could handle it without her.
***
The guests were all waiting at the bottom of the stairs, watching as the contestants began to walk down the staircase and towards their escorts.
"Where's Stefan?" a voice beside Riley asked.
"I have no idea," she answered Damon, facing forward. "Should we be worried?"
"Yes," Damon whispered, to-the-point. Vampires had the choice to turn off their humanity, all of their feelings, making them completely ruthless, the worst that a vampire could be. Stefan on human blood was almost as bad as this. "I'm gonna look for him."
Riley nodded, before she spotted Elena looking down from her place at the top of the stairs.
"Wait," she hissed, reaching out and grabbing his arm. "Elena needs an escort."
"I have more important things to do than to dance around for an audience," Damon scoffed. Riley looked up at him.
"You really want Elena to be embarrassed in front of everyone?" she asked. When he hesitated, she smiled. "Didn't think so. Look, I'll find Stefan. I won't get too close, and I'll call you as soon as I spot him."
After a second, Damon nodded. "OK. Be careful."
She nodded and left the court, turning towards the woods, because she doubted that he'd be walking down the main road.
It didn't take long for her to find him... she just followed the trail of blood.
"Stefan?" she called, walking slowly towards him as he stood with Amber Bradley, one of the contestants.
"Go away, Riley," he ordered, not looking at her.
"Believe me, I want nothing more than to leave and never turn back," she told him truthfully. She kept saying that she didn't want to be involved in vampire business, but for some reason, she couldn't tear herself away. "But I know you Stefan, and you're not the person that the blood is making you."
"You have no idea who I am," he growled, still holding on to Amber.
"I know that you don't want to hurt Amber more than you already have," she soothed. "Heal her, and let her go, please Stefan."
He thought about it.
"It doesn't matter," he shook his head. "If it wasn't her, tonight, then it would have been someone else, some other night. The blood controls me, and I can't stop it."
"Yes you can," Riley said, noticing the sky getting darker. "Let her go and go home. Damon and Elena will help you, they're counting on you."
Stefan breathed heavily, looking into Amber Bradley's eyes.
"Run," he told her. She didn't hesitate, running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
Stefan vamp-ran to Riley. "You're wrong," he said. She couldn't take her eyes off his teeth – ready to attack. "I can't stop."
He bit her neck. The feeling of his teeth piercing her caused a pain like she couldn't believe, triggering a scream that had never come out of her body before. And as he began to drink her blood, she couldn't help but think that, maybe, this was it. After all that she'd been through, Stefan, the vampire that she trusted, would be the one to end her life.
"Stefan!" a voice called. Startled, Stefan removed himself from Riley's neck. She fell to the ground, whimpering.
"Stefan," Damon said softly. "Come on, get control."
As he walked towards his brother, Stefan ran towards him and threw him into a tree.
"Stefan, stop it!" Elena shouted, almost in tears herself. All of a sudden, Stefan grabbed his head as pain hit him. Bonnie stood behind Elena, casting a spell to incapacitate the vampire. When she stopped, Stefan looked around. He saw Elena's scared face, Damon's pity, and Riley's terror as she cried and held her bleeding neck. He ran, not looking back.
Damon, Elena and Bonnie all ran to Riley.
"It's OK," Damon said, trying to calm the hysterical girl down.
He was about to bite his wrist and feed her his blood, when her father came running towards them, having heard her cries.
"Riley?" he asked, running to his daughter and spotting the blood pouring from the wound on her neck. "What happened?"
"It was an animal attack," Elena said quickly.
Chris Fletcher examined his daughter's neck. The teeth marks looked as if they'd come from an animal that he'd never seen before.
"I think you should go to the hospital."
Riley shook her head. "I-It's OK. I just need to go h-home. I need to s-see mom."
"I can take her," Elena volunteered quickly.
"No," Bonnie said forcefully, not looking at either Elena or Damon. It killed her to see Riley in pain, and it hurt even more to know that her best friend's boyfriend was the one who had done it. "It's OK. I'll take her."
"Thank you Bonnie," Chris said, not taking his eyes off of his daughter. "Are you sure you don't want me to come?"
Riley nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In all honesty, she wanted her father to wrap her in a hug and tell her that everything was going to be OK. But he couldn't, because she wasn't allowed to tell him the true cause of her pain.
Instead, she allowed Bonnie to take her home, and tried not to think about the monster that bit her neck.
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How will Riley react towards vampires now that she's been attacked by Stefan?
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