The box is lighter than it looked, but that could be there werewolf strength that makes Arabella able to lift it with ease. She follows Damon around with the box, noting his empty arms and how he refuses to offer some help. Quite the gentleman, her brother.
"Tell me again why you volunteered me to help with this new park?" Arabella states in a form of a question. She has never liked to volunteer for things because they have always, somehow, ended in a tragedy.
"Because volunteering is a nice way to give back to the community," Damon states, causing the girl to roll her eyes. Arabella doesn't believe that Damon wants to give back to the community for one second.
"Besides," he continues with a side grin. "Mason Lockwood is supposed to be here and I want to see just how our favorite werewolf is going to engage a war."
Pausing for a moment, Damon stares long and hard at Arabella's hair. "God, it's weird seeing you with that hair," he states.
Arabella smiles as she brings a hand to her head. She can feel the slight curl of her hair that now stops just below her shoulders. She pulls a strand forward to admire the silver color to it. "I like it," she states. "I've always wanted silver colored hair."
"It suits you," Damon states. His eyes gaze off into the distance to find Stefan talking to Mason Lockwood.
"It appears that our brother wants to play peacemaker," Damon states.
With an amused facial expression, Arabella follows his gaze towards Stefan and Mason. "He's always tried to play peacemaker, Damon. It's in his nature."
"Well, it's in my nature to be an instigator," he replies with a smirk before walking over towards Stefan.
Matching Damon's long strides, Arabella glares at her older brother. "Damon, do not cause trouble," she commands angrily. "It only tends to end in pain and bloodshed."
Damon gives her an annoyed look. "Relax. I'm not going to ruin the peace." He grins as an idea crosses his mind. "Not unless it's fun."
Arabella rolls her eyes as they catch up to Stefan, who is staring after Mason Lockwood. "Do you really believe that Mason is going to keep the peace?" Damon asks his brother.
Stefan doesn't remove his gaze from the werewolf. He seems to be smart enough to know that Mason Lockwood is not a man to be messed with, but is ignorant enough not to worry about it. "I think that the first chance he gets, he is going to drive a stake right through your heart and then mine."
"Then why bother bargaining with him?" Arabella asks. "If you're going to have to kill him anyway, why not just take care of it now?"
Sending Stefan a smirk, Damon nods his head in agreement. "Our baby sis is right, Stef. Mason Lockwood is a problem that needs to be taken care of."
The vampire shakes his head in response. "Not yet," he states. "He's here for something, and we need to find out what that is."
Damon shrugs. "Suit yourself."
Arabella tips her head to the side as her brother retreats. Something tells her that Damon is up to no good.
"We should stay with him," she comments. "Just to make sure our charming brother doesn't do anything arrogant."
Stefan nods and follows Arabella to stand beside Damon. For the first time in over a century, the Salvatore siblings walk together in the small town of Mystic Falls.
Arabella eyes the refreshments table across the park, a small smile dancing across her face. "What kind of refreshments are they serving at that table over there?" She asks.
Damon barely glances at it. "I believe they're serving lemonade," he responds. He quickly brings his attention to the table and finds Mason standing next to it.
He raises his eyebrows in curiosity. "I think it's about time you tasted the twenty-first century version of lemonade," he states.
Frowning, Arabella follows him to the small stand. "Doesn't it taste the exact same?"
Shaking his head, Damon keeps his focus on Mason. He will not allow his target to slip away from him. "No, no, I believe they've added more sugar to it."
Contemplating on who exactly they are, Arabella watches as the small, young girl pours her a cup of lemonade. She smiles as she thanks the child and brings the see through cup to her lips. She is surprised to find that the lemonade tastes strange. Almost as though someone has added a new herb to it.
"This lemonade tastes strange," Arabella comments with a furrowed brow.
With a smile, Stefan shakes his head at his younger sister. "You're probably just not used to it. People put a lot more sugar in their drinks now."
Damon grabs a cup for himself and brings it to his mouth while Arabella continues to frown at her drink. "Have they added a new herb to it?"
Before her brother can answer, Damon spits out all the lemonade that was in his mouth and hacks violently. "Vervain," Damon wheezes as he chokes on the substance the lemonade carried.
Arabella sets down her cup and grabs a water bottle from nearby to thrust into Damon's hands. He immediately chugs it down and plots his revenge.
"That's it," he growls. "I'm done playing nice. I'm gonna kill him."
Immediately, Stefan begins to hold him back and tries to convince his brother otherwise, but there is no reasoning with Damon at this point. Whatever peace that could have been obtained is long gone.
It takes Stefan a moment to agree with Damon, but he understands the greater threat Mason poses to both of them.
"Mason's helping out in the woods," Arabella states. She points a finger in his exact direction.
Soon, they are all surrounding him in a remote place in the woods. Arabella leans against a tree a few feet away from the werewolf, anger showing in her eyes.
Damon and Stefan stand on either side of him, the former looking at Mason with pure hatred. Mason glances between them, shock registering across his face. He quite possibly wasn't expecting a retaliation so soon.
"Oh, don't look so surprised. You knew this was inevitable." Damon begins. He takes a step forward, almost as though he is toying with his food. "Go ahead and run, I'll give you a head start."
The sound of a stick snapping causes Arabella to whip her head in that direction. By the time she can see the person, a gun shot rings out. This shot is followed by another and before she knows it, both of her brothers are on the ground.
It is then Arabella realizes the trap that Mason laid out for all of them. She turns and growls at him angrily, watching as he stands from the ground. "You came out here alone on purpose," she accuses.
Mason sends her a wicked smirk as the attackers approach. "Did I?" He asks in fake innocence before he looks at Arabella in fear. "She's one of them, too!"
Arabella can feel three bullets rip through her body before she can even blink. She collapses to the forest floor in pain as Mason walks over to her.
He gives her an evil smile as she stares up at him in shock. "Don't worry, you'll bleed out before you even make it to where I'm leading them. You'll miss out on the torture." He shakes his head at her in disappointment. "It's a shame you sided with the vampires. I would have spared you from this."
Her lungs burn from the amount of effort it takes to continue breathing. All she can do is gape at Mason like a fish before dark spots cloud her vision. She watches his blurry figure stand and look over to the people approaching before darkness closes around her.
"You said she was a vampire!" Sheriff Forbes exclaims in frustration.
Damon tries to remain silent as he tries to understand what is going on. His eyes, which could be whole lot better with blood in his system, tell him that he is somewhere underground. Somewhere where sunlight doesn't reach the inside. Somewhere where a gigantic cell with chains can reside and go unnoticed.
"It was my mistake, Liz," Mason responds. From Damon's vantage point, Mason does not look anywhere close to sorry for whatever mistake her made. "She was attacking me, so I thought she was one of them."
The sheriff and Mason stand over someone's body, but from where Damon is lying on the ground, he cannot see who it is.
"You had my men shoot at an innocent little girl!" Liz bellows angrily. Something cracks in her voice, almost as though she feels the death personally.
"She was siding with the vampires! That makes her just as bad as they are!"
Liz shakes her head in shame. "She could have been compelled!" A moment of silence fills the underground place before Liz sends Mason a hard glare. She will quite possibly never forgive him for this. "Go home, Mason. You've done enough help for today."
Stepping backwards, Mason grits his teeth in anger. "Fine," he growls as he leaves.
As he walks away, Sheriff Forbes takes deep, heavy breaths to calm her nerves. She will never forgive herself for what happened either. She's learned from the shoot first, ask questions later mentality.
When the sheriff steps away from the dead body, Damon spots who it is and feels as though he was being killed all over again.
"Arabella," he murmurs quietly. The sheriff hears this, and immediately turns to face him. She points her gun at his face, prepared to shoot him if she has to. She will not leave anything up to chance with him now that she knows he's a vampire.
Without hesitation, she shoots Damon in the leg and causes him to cry out in pain. "This is how it's gonna work." A glare makes its way to her face as she stares angrily in Damon's directions. "I'm going to ask you a question, you're going to answer it, and I won't shoot you."
She draws in a deep breath as he looks over to Stefan's direction. His brother is knocked out cold because he doesn't drink human blood.
"How many of you are there?" She asks angrily.
Damon releases a groan of pain. "Liz, please," he whispers.
Immediately, he gets shot in the other leg. This is the first sound that Arabella comes back to life to. That and his bellows of pain.
Using most of her effort to keep the sound of her breathing quiet, she focuses on getting air into her slowly healing lungs. One of the bullets must have punctured the left one, because she is finding that one hard to breath out of. Thankfully, someone removed all the bullets from her body in the time she was out.
Arabella swallows and glances around the place, trying to identify her location. Based on the iron bars and chains alone, Arabella knows exactly where she is. The old Lockwood slave quarters. Or, at least, what they wanted everyone to think.
This was the place where George, her fiancé, would turn every full moon to avoid hurting people. This was also the place where they would sneak away for a small little make out session when nobody was looking.
The sound of another gunshot pulls Arabella from her thoughts. Swiftly following the sound is the cry of pain leaving her brother's mouth.
Arabella silently staggers to her feet, trying to push back the overwhelming dizziness that threatens to knock her back into her back.
Her most vulnerable, yet strongest state is after she comes back to life. Time and space seem to blur together for at least an hour after she comes back to life.
The sight of her brothers lying helpless on the ground triggers a memory that she has long since buried. The memory of her first kill: the innocent human man.
A growl of anger rips through her throat at the memory. Her eyes glow gold as her werewolf side releases itself as much as it can without the full moon.
Six people turn to train their guns upon the werewolf. Shock registers on all their faces as they stare at the girl they believed to have died.
"They turned her!" A man shouts before firing is gun at her.
The bullets fly through her harmlessly, the curse placed upon her taking full effect. The only good they seem to do is make her angrier.
Another growl echoes through the cave and before the sheriff can blink, Arabella rips the deputy's heart right out of his chest.
Cries of terror echo through the cave with two men running to escape imminent death. At the entrance, they meet death at the hands of a blonde vampire.
The sheriff watches all of her deputies die in horror before she turns to face the vampire standing on the other side of the cave.
In her shock, Liz drops the gun in her hand onto the ground. She shakes her head in denial. Her eyes must be playing tricks on her, for the vampire standing before her looks exactly like her daughter.
"Hi, mom," Caroline states. A large ring of blood surrounds her mouth.
Arabella huddles in the far corner of the underground cell in fear. Katherine entered the room. Whenever Katherine comes to see her, she brings along misery and pain.
She hugs her knees to her chest and watches as Katherine helps Stefan.
Damon stares at his sister in disbelief. "Remind me not to get on your bad side," he states. He slowly rises to his feet to stand in front of her.
Noting the terrified look in her eyes, Damon squats so that he is at her eye level. He gives his sister a somber look. "She really did a number on you, huh?" He mumbles quietly.
Arabella lurches forward into his arms with tears streaming down the sides of her face. "Can we just go home?" She asks him in a small voice.
The sound breaks Damon's heart. Had he not hate Katherine before, Damon sure would promise a long and painful demise now. As soon as he gets his hands on her, Damon will make sure that Katherine pays for all she had done.
Standing, Damon turns to face the sheriff, who is still suffering from shock. "Now what am I going to do with you?" He asks in honest confusion.
Arabella tunes out the rest of the discussion and instead focuses on all the people she murdered. How many of them had families? Wives? Children? How many of them had the best days of their lives leading up to their deaths?
"Don't do that to yourself," the doppelgänger orders. Arabella meets her gaze, trying not to flinch away from the intensity of he girl's eyes. "Don't wrack yourself with guilt over a bunch of jerks who were going to kill you and yours brothers. You don't deserve that."
It is the first time in her entire existence that someone has told Arabella what she doesn't deserve. The idea warms her heart ever so slightly as she stares at Elena. Could this girl truly be the opposite of Katherine?
Arabella stands by her open window and stares at the sliver of the moon. It's one of the first times in a long while that the werewolf can just look at the moon and stare.
Heavy footsteps creak from behind her, signaling the presence of one of her brothers. She doesn't turn to look at him and continues to stare at the moon.
"If you ever need to talk about anything, your big bro is always right here," Damon states.
Damon makes his way up to her side, allowing her enough space to breathe. "You'll always be here for me," Arabella responds with a small smile. "You always have been."
Standing in the light of the moon, the relationship between the oldest and youngest Salvatore strengthens.