CHAPTER NINE | THE CELL
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
THE SOUND OF DRIPPING WATER HITTING THE CONCRETE FLOOR WAS WHAT FINALLY BROUGHT RILEY ROUND. She groaned out loudly, and once her eyes finally opened, she noticed the cold damp cell that she had been placed in. With the help of the bars, the strawberry-blonde got to her feet and began to rattle the bars. She focused her eyes against the lock, mumbling underneath her breath but it was no use.
"Trying out a little hocus focus?" Wes' voice echoed from the shadows, causing Riley's attention to lift up from the locks and toward him. "Your magic is useless. Especially since this has been running through your veins." He held a syringe that contained a dark yellow liquid in the glass end.
"What the hell is that?" Riley questioned viciously. The liquid looked horrific, and she feared its use.
"Well, you see, I can't tell you exactly what it is, because then that would ruin my research. But, what I can tell you, is that one dose of this disables your magic for twelve hours." Wes tilted his head, his eyes on the witch.
He began to approach her cell, the syringe still in hand as he unlocked the door. The witch stumbled backwards, her eyes viciously locked with his as she backed up against the wall. "If you hurt me, I swear—"
"You'll do, what? I don't think you'll be able to do much without your magic, Riley." Wes shrugged. "And, your boyfriend won't be able to do much either."
All fear for her own life faded away at the mention of Damon. She was consumed with worry about him. "Where is he? What the hell have you done to him?!"
"Resting. He endured quite the experiment earlier, and I'd imagine it takes a lot for a vampire to heal after all that's running through their system is vervain." In one quick motion, Wes lunged forward stick the syringe into Riley's arm. "Now, rest up, Riley. You've got a big day ahead of you."
Moments after he injected her, she began to feel the immediate effects of the toxin. She desperately fought against the urge to close her eyes, but it was no use. Riley couldn't fight it anymore, and so she dropped back against the cold, concrete floor
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
"Riley. Come on, wake up, please." He begged his girlfriend with panic in his eyes. He was desperate for Riley to wake up, and to make sure that she was okay. His eyes drifted to the cell directly opposite him which contained a vervain induced Elena, who was also unconscious. "Riley, please."
"Damon?" A soft echo left Riley's lips, and suddenly all hope was restored. He watched Riley slowly roll over onto her stomach, her eyes scanning him as she noticed the blood against his neck. "Are you okay? What did he do to you?"
"I'm fine." He breathed out with a light smile on his face. Though, he knew their current situation was nothing to smile at. "I'm more concerned about what he's doing to you. I swear if he touches you again, I'll kill him."
"Riley? Damon?" Elena's voice echoed in the tunnels as she sat up straight and looked over to them. The doppelgänger had been cornered by Wes, and dumped into one of the cells opposite Riley and Damon. "What the hell is going on? Why are you here? Why am I here?"
"It's pay back for what happened to Jesse last night." Riley explained why she and Damon were both captured. The little witch slowly began to sit up in her cell.
"Wes is carrying out the grand Augustine tradition. Getting his kicks out of vampire torture." Damon explained, his eyes shifted over to the doppelgänger.
"Did he tell you that?"
"He didn't have to." Damon's face instantly hardened as he noticed Riley's sympathetic gaze catch his own. "I've been here before. Someone in my family sold me out to the Augustines in 1953. Every day this nut job, Dr. Whitmore, tortured us, cut into us, took pieces of our eyes out. Pushed us to every limit he could imagine, and he had quite the imagination. He kept me in this very cell, don't think I haven't appreciated the irony."
The strawberry-blonde listened intently to her boyfriend's story before she took a deep breath. "How long were you here?" She asked, though she was terrified to hear the answer.
"Five years, give or take." Damon answered, honestly.
Elena's eyes widened with fear. "How did you not go crazy?"
"Believe it or not, I made a friend." The Salvatore explained. "His name was Enzo. He was a solider in Europe during World War Two."
"But, how did Enzo end up in this creepy little basement with you?" Riley asked as she watched Damon through the gap between their two cells.
"Dr. Whitmore was working in a battlefield hospital when he discovered Enzo was a vampire. So, he drugged him, locked him a coffin and shipped him overseas. He'd been here ten years by the time I'd joined the party." The Salvatore stopped explaining his history with the Augustines and finally sat back down on the cell floor.
"Guys." Elena's voice broke the silence that surrounded them, both sets of eyes clapped onto hers. "Wes knew my dad. They worked together. He said that my dad was an Augustine, too."
"You're kidding me, right?" Riley took a breath. "Elena, I wouldn't believe anything he tells you, okay?"
"I know that my dad was a vampire hunter, but he was also the town doctor. He was kind and gentle and loving. He wouldn't be part of a place that would cut your eyes out."
Damon just rested his head against the concrete wall while emotions ran high in Elena. "People are full of surprises."
The doppelgänger let emotions get the better of her, and she immediately sank her head down into her hands. She didn't understand any of it, and Riley couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
"Elena. Elena, listen to me. We're going to get out of here, all of us. I promise." Riley then looked toward her boyfriend with a sure smile. "Stefan will notice we're gone. I mean, of course he will, why wouldn't he? He'll find us."
"Points for optimism, but unfortunately Stefan doesn't even know this place exists."
Elena's eyes shot toward the vampire who was in the cell opposite her. "But, you were here for five years."
"Yeah, and the first year I thought he'd rescue me. He didn't. Once I escaped, there was no point in giving him more to feel guilty about, so I never told him what happened here. I never told anyone." Damon explained to the two girls who just sighed out hopelessly.
"But you escaped, Damon. That's the main thing." Riley's soft voice was enough to shake the Salvatore from the horrific memories he was reliving. "How did you do it?"
"They let us out of the basement once a year. Every New Year's Eve, the Augustine people had a little cocktail party with a vampire buffet on the side. We were weak from vervain injections, half starved from living on a glass of blood a day, chained up like animals. This little annual shindig is where Dr. Whitmore got to show all of his Augustine friends what he'd found in his research. He let his guests drink from us to demonstrate the healing power of vampire blood. But, on the plus side, that's how Enzo came up with his plan."
"Plan?" Riley echoed with a raised eyebrow.
The Salvatore turned his eyes toward Riley. "He worked out that if one of us gave up their ration every day for a year, we'd be able to fight when the next New Years Eve party came around."
"So, did it work?" Elena looked up, clearly intent on knowing more.
"More or less." The Salvatore's vague answer was an indication that he was hiding something. Riley was determined to press for answers, they needed to know.
"Damon, we need to know. Wes is gonna come down here and God knows what he's gonna do to us next. Damon, please." The witch protested again once she heard a sigh escape his lips. "You can tell me. I love you, and the last thing I'm going to do is judge you for what you had to do to survive. These people are animals and deserve everything they get."
"Alright, alright." Damon muttered quietly with his head pressed against the wall. "The Augustine's next party was in 1958. I'd been drinking Enzo's rations for an entire year. I mean, he kept a few drops here and there so he wouldn't desiccate and as he starved himself, I got stronger from all the extra blood. Just like he said I would."
The Gilbert vampire looked toward Riley with wide eyes and then back to Damon, who paused in his story. "Then what?"
"Enzo trusted me with his life. There was a fire, it was getting out of control. I would've burned or they would've captured me again and there was no way I would've ever gotten another chance to escape. So, I chose to save myself. And, I knew if I was gonna save myself I had to stop caring about Enzo, so I turned off my emotions." Damon spoke lowly, as if he was disgusted with his own actions. "And, I left my friend to die. After that, everything was fine. Everything was fine."
There was a sudden noise of a door opening and that's when Elena's college friend, Aaron Whitmore, entered the basement. His eyes scanned the cells in horror, with a gun tightly gripped within his hand. "What the hell is this place?"
"Aaron?" Elena immediately shot up to her feet as she saw the man stood in front of her cell.
"Great." Damon rolled his eyes. "Mini-Wes."
"Shut up, Damon." Riley rolled her eyes.
"I had no idea what Wes was doing. I didn't even know there was a basement down here." The young Whitmore boy's voice was shaky, though his eyes fell straight toward Elena. "I wanna know the truth. When you met me at Megan's memorial, you asked me a bunch of questions."
Riley watched intently with a suspicious glare as Aaron fumbled around with his gun, trying to load it, though he dropped a bullet on the ground. "You're great with that, huh?"
"Yeah, well I've never used a gun before!" Aaron shouted straight at Riley in a complete rage, then he turned back around to face Elena. "And I've never killed anyone, either. Unlike you."
The doppelgänger's brows knitted together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Wes said a vampire killed Megan." He lifted the gun up and aimed it straight for Elena's head.
Damon pressed his head against the bars and rolled his eyes. "And, you thought it was Elena?"
"No. Aaron, you've got this all wrong. Megan was inside the house when she died. Elena didn't even been invited inside, which means it wasn't—" Riley tried her best to explain but it wasn't enough for him.
"Shut up!" Aaron turned around and then aimed the gun toward Riley, though his eyes remained locked onto Elena's. "Wes also said that a vampire killed my parents. Maybe that was you, too. Why else would you be so interested in me? Why else would you pretend to be my friend?" He then turned to Damon and Riley. "She's a vampire!"
"Not the one that killed your parents." The Salvatore spoke honestly. "That was all me."
Shock filled the basement as Aaron slowly lowered the gun from Riley, and turned his tearful eyes toward Damon. "What did you just say?" He moved over to Damon's cell and aimed the gun right at him. "Start talking."
"Damon, don't be stupid. You didn't do anything." Riley just assumed that maybe Damon was doing it to save Elena's life, given Aaron was bent on blaming her for the deaths.
"In 1958, after the fire, Enzo was dead. So, I had to take on my revenge plan solo. Kill every member of the Whitmore family, all but one. Then, I'd let that one grow up, start a family then I'd take out that generation. And every generation after that." Damon explained slowly, his eyes shot over to Riley who just started at him in confusion. "And, that's exactly what I did."
"How many Whitmore's have you killed?" The last Whitmore asked, coldly.
"Since 1958? I lost count." Damon sent a guilty look toward his girlfriend. Just as the words left the Salvatore's lips, Aaron shot him straight in the head.
"No!" Riley screamed out loudly. She looked down and noticed the blood pooling from Damon's head where the bullet went in. "Oh my, God. No!"
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───