"The sacrifice happens tonight?" Riley asked, walking into the Salvatore house the next morning and being greeted by Stefan and Elijah.
"That's what Ric said," Stefan told her. "Klaus let him go."
"Oh, that was so nice of him!" she said sarcastically. "What's the plan?"
Stefan folded his arms, letting out a breath. "Elijah has an elixir that will resurrect Elena. During the transition, Klaus will be vulnerable. Bonnie will weaken him, and Elijah will kill him," he told her.
Riley raised an eyebrow. "So we're placing all of our hopes on a magical elixir, Bonnie, and Klaus's brother?" When neither of them responded, she frowned. "Please tell me there's a plan B?"
"I'm confident that plan A will be successful," Elijah asserted.
"OK, so where do you want me?" she asked. She didn't want to be anywhere near Klaus, but she couldn't go home and wait for news when so many things could go wrong.
"You're kidding right?" Stefan asked.
"Don't start with me," she warned him.
"Riley, surely I don't have to remind you of how important tonight is?" Elijah asked. "We can't afford for anything to go wrong, and that includes you being hurt."
Stefan tilted his head, seeming to hear something upstairs. Ignoring the conversation, he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
"I can't promise to stay home Elijah," Riley told him. "But I can promise to stay out of the way, away from Klaus. If you answer me honestly."
"Ask me anything," he said, looking at her with genuine curiosity.
"Can we trust you?" she asked. "I know you want to kill Klaus, but he's your brother. If this was Stefan and Damon, there's no way they could actually go through with it."
"Riley," Elijah said. She liked the way her name sounded with his accent. "Klaus isn't my only brother. I used to have a family. And Klaus has managed to take every single one of my siblings from me. I'm not killing Klaus tonight out of revenge, but out of necessity. So that I can live a life unclouded by misery and regret."
She was about to speak, when she heard shouting from upstairs.
"What's going on?" she asked him, benefitting from his vampire hearing.
Elijah sighed. "Damon fed Elena his blood."
Riley's eyes widened. "What?! How could he do that?"
"He doesn't want to lose her," he responded, annoyed. "He's rendered my elixir useless."
"So she's gonna be a vampire?" Riley asked, trying to take in the information. This couldn't happen, she couldn't be the only human going through this. "She can't be, not Elena."
They heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. Damon left the house in a hurry, with Ric following him.
She rolled her eyes. "They're going to the Grill. I should go too."
"Damon has just proved how irrational he is right now. The last place you should be is with him," Elijah said, frowning.
Riley sighed. "Damon is irrational, but he's one of my best friends, and... I know how he thinks – I need to talk to him."
She walked towards the door, before turning back and smiling.
"I'll see you tonight," she promised.
He nodded, letting her leave. When he came to Mystic Falls in search of the mysterious doppelganger, he'd never expected to meet someone so human. She made him remember what it was like to live a life without immortality.
***
Of course they were in the Grill. When Damon did something wrong, he had to drink, and this was his favorite spot.
Riley sat down next to Damon, Ric on his other side.
"I screwed up," he said.
"You did," she confirmed with a nod. "What were you thinking?"
"He wasn't," Ric answered for him.
The men took silent gulps of their drinks as a mysterious figure stood behind them.
"Why so glum?" the person asked.
Riley turned instantly and inwardly gasped. This was Klaus, it had to be. But why did he look so familiar?
"Klaus, I presume?" Damon asked.
"In the flesh," Klaus smiled, an evil glint in his eye.
"Weird, since you seem to love jumping into other people's flesh," Riley said with a disapproving look. For a second, she seemed to forget that it was Klaus she was talking to – the man who'd been an invisible threat for such a long time that he was now part of the group.
"About that, thanks for the loner mate," Klaus said, clapping Ric on the back. Considering he was Elijah's brother, they didn't look alike.
"Any reason you stopped by to say hi?" Damon asked.
Klaus smiled. "I'm told you and your brother fancy my doppelganger. Just thought I'd remind you not to do anything you'll regret."
Damon thought quickly, taking a shot in the dark. "I don't suppose I could talk you into a postponement by any chance?"
Klaus laughed as if Damon had told him a joke, before his face became serious. "Let me be clear... I have my vampire, I have my werewolf. I have everything I need. The ritual will happen tonight."
He walked away, leaving the three people reeling.
Damon frowned. "Do you think, if I took his werewolf out of the equation, Elena might get over the fact that I tried to turn her into a vampire?"
"I think it won't matter, because you'll be dead," Ric said. Riley nodded in agreement.
"But I'll have bought her another month," Damon thought aloud. In his mind, there was no comparison; he had to make it up to Elena. He looked at Ric, then Riley.
"Are you guys gonna help me or not?"
Riley looked at Ric, who shrugged his shoulders, signaling his agreement.
"You want us to help you do something that's probably gonna piss off the Original Asshole and get us all killed?" she asked. When he didn't respond, she sighed. "I'm in. What do you want me to do?"
***
Riley was walking through the forest, following Damon's instructions. Apparently the vampire and werewolf that Klaus was planning to use were in the tomb. However, on her way there, she ran into the person that she never expected to see.
"Matt, what the hell?"
"Riley, what are you doing here?" Matt asked, equally as shocked to see her. They stood opposite each other with squinted eyes, trying to work out if the other knew the secrets of Mystic Falls.
"I'm... walking through the woods," she said warily, nodding to the weapon in his hands. "What's with the gun?"
"Just... hunting," he said, gripping the rifle. "There's no real bullets in there, just wooden ones."
Riley's eyes widened. "You know!"
"You know?" he asked.
"Of course I know! Who the hell told you?"
They heard fighting ahead of them. Matt ran on, while Riley tried to keep up. A shot rang out from Matt's gun before Riley even knew what was happening.
"What are you doing here?" Damon asked. An unidentified man lay on the ground, probably one of Klaus's witches.
"Where's Caroline?" Matt asked.
"Caroline?" Riley interrupted. "What does Care have to do with this?"
Damon ignored both of their questions, vamp-speeding over to them and hitting Matt in the head with the butt of his rifle, knocking him unconscious.
"Did you have to do that?!" she asked.
"Did you bring him here?" Damon responded.
"No!" she said. He picked up the rifle. "Matt knows, by the way. He has wooden bullets."
"Great," Damon said sarcastically, handing her the rifle. "Take this, stay here, shoot anyone that comes."
He sped into the tomb before she could ask how to use the gun. She stood with it shaking in her hand, turning towards every rustling leaf.
Suddenly, she felt someone hug her from behind. She turned and enjoyed the comfort of hugging her best friend.
"Did you hit him?!" Caroline accused Damon over Riley's shoulder when she spotted Matt lying on the ground.
Tyler growled and held his chest. They looked up to see that the moon was practically full.
"It's starting," he said. He was beginning to transition into a werewolf.
Caroline grabbed Matt, who was starting to wake up. Tyler fell to the ground.
"Get out of here!"
They started to run, but Tyler was too quick for them. He tried to tackle Caroline, but Damon got between them, falling to the ground with Tyler on top of him. They fought for a second, before Damon stood up and Tyler kept trying to slow down the transformation.
"Damon," Riley said, noticing the mark on his arm. It looked like Tyler had just bitten him – and a werewolf bite was fatal to a vampire.
"Get to the Lockwood cellar," Damon commanded. "If it held him in, it'll keep him out."
"Damon!" Riley said again. He looked into her eyes, before taking her hand and pressing wooden bullets into it.
"I'll be fine," he promised her. "Go."
"Come on," Caroline said, forcefully grabbing her arm. Reluctantly, she started running towards the cellar. With Matt's new knowledge of vampirism, Damon's werewolf bite and Elena's possible vampirism, it was clear that tonight would be a night that would change everything.
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So Matt knows about vampires, Elena has vamp blood in her system, and Damon has a werewolf bite - could this day get any worse?
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