For several days after her kidnapping, Arabella has been avoiding Tyler Lockwood in the risk of not knowing what to do or say. On her fourth day, however, avoiding him seems to be impossible.
"Where have you been?" Tyler asks her in a panic. He leans his forearm against the lockers besides her own, trying to appear calm in front of the student body. "I've been trying to talk to you for days."
Arabella swallows hard as she turns to face him. She is unsure of what to say or what to do to make Tyler feel any better about his situation. He has been thrust into the world of the supernatural. From now on, every full moon will provide a painful transformation.
How in the world does she explain that to a teenage boy? "Let's just say I've had a rough week," she responds cryptically.
She sighs and closes her locker door. "I understand that you've been freaking out about this whole thing and you have a lot of questions—"
"Damn right!" Tyler exclaims. He narrows his eyes suspiciously at Arabella. "Like, how did you know about the curse?"
Glancing around the packed hallway, Arabella makes a spontaneous plan that she knows she'll regret later. "Would you be okay with skipping school and getting some answers?"
Tyler eyes her quizzically before nodding his head. As she leads him out of the school building and towards the woods, he cannot help but wonder what he has gotten himself into.
Arabella slowly leads him through the woods towards a large clearing full of beautiful flowers. She runs her fingers along the leaves of a bush, glad for the strange warmth she feels from it. After her big escape, this is the first place that Arabella found to be the most relaxing in all of Mystic Falls. It's far enough from society where she can enjoy some quiet and natural sounds.
"This is where I go when I need time to think without the loud noise," she informs him.
Sitting in the middle of the meadow, Arabella turns to face the curious young werewolf. "In order to understand how I know things, you must know of my past."
In that meadow of green grass and colorful flowers, Arabella tells Tyler her entire life history without ousting her brothers, Caroline, and Bonnie. She manages to weave a tale of truth for him without telling him the entire story.
The boy stares at her for a long time, unsure of what to make of the situation. "So, you're an immortal werewolf who wants to become mortal again?" He asks. The way he said it made it sound a lot more simpler than it actually is. What Arabella truly wants is to stop going through the pain of transforming every full moon.
For his sake, however, Arabella will go along with the over simplification.
Fiddling with a short strand of her gray hair, Arabella slowly nods her head. "I have experienced over seventeen hundred full moons." She pauses for a moment and stares out distantly. The idea of it truly just hit her. She has gone through more transformations than any werewolf should and ever will. She should be an expert at being a werewolf by now, but she isn't. Despite all that she has been through, she is still new to the supernatural world.
"You shift faster every time," she murmurs. "But it never gets any easier."
A large lump forms in Tyler's throat as he stares at the century old werewolf. If she's gone through so many transformations and it still is hard on her, then what hope does he have? "How am I supposed to handle it? What am I supposed to do?" His voice quivers a little in fear, which truly bothers him.
He didn't realize how close they sat next to each other until that moment. The only way he truly noticed was through the slight glisten of her eyes, almost as though she is repressing her tears.
"When the full moon comes, that's when we'll worry." She racks through her brain for a moment, searching for anything positive to say about becoming a werewolf. Now that she's scared the hell out of the teenage boy next to her, there must be something that she can do to ease some of his worries.
A small smile blooms across her features. It's the look of mischief and fun. "Now seems like an appropriate moment to show you the perks of being a werewolf."
Tyler raises an eyebrow at Arabella in piqued interest. "There's perks? I thought that it would be all bad."
Arabella smiles as her eyes begin to glow a gold color. Before Tyler can even prepare himself for anything, Arabella jumps insanely high into the air and lands softly onto a tree branch. Tyler honestly looks really impressed by her work. "You've gotta teach me how to do that!" He exclaims with a large grin on his face.
Producing a flirtatious smile, Arabella jumps down onto the ground from the tree. She slowly approaches the awestruck teenage boy. "I will, in time," she responds.
Taking a moment to think though any possible consequences, Tyler brings his face to hers and deeply kisses her.
They spend the rest of the school day out in the woods keeping each other company.
Arabella stares at the computer screen, uncomfortably watching Mason shift for the twentieth time this morning. Swallowing hard, she quickly hits the pause button on the screen. She watches Tyler grab more resources around the room.
"I don't understand why you keep torturing yourself by watching this video," she states. She's never seen another werewolf's transformation before and she can feel the ghost sensations of Mason's pain just by seeing it. She cannot even fathom what Tyler must be thinking right now.
Tyler press the play button on the video again before rushing over to grab some chains. "I don't want any surprises when I go through it," he responds sharply.
As Mason throws his bicycle across the garage, Arabella's heart quickens. She swallows back a large lump in her throat. "You said that Caroline found this in the Lockwood cellar. Does that mean she knows?"
Immediately, Tyler begins to search for excuses. "Um, well, yeah, but I don't want to drag her into this."
Nodding her head in agreement, Arabella twirls her brand new ring around her middle finger. "Good idea," she begins. "There's no reason for her to get too wrapped up in this."
Slowly zipping his full bag, Tyler prepares to head downstairs. "So, we're meeting up at the Lockwood cellar at five to get everything set up?" He asks with a raised brow.
Arabella stands. "Yep!" She responds.
He begins to escort her to the front door when the doorbell echoes throughout the house. Tyler immediately opens it to reveal a woman with medium length curly brown hair and vibrant green eyes. She stares at Tyler for a full ten seconds to take in his appearance.
"Hi," she states calmly with a full smile that reveals her straight, white teeth.
"Hi?" Tyler responds in a questioning tone. It's obvious to Arabella that he has no clue who she is. And, judging by the look on her face, neither does the new mayor.
The woman shakes her head. "Sorry, I'm being rude. You have no idea who I am," she states. "My name is Jules. I'm a friend of Mason's from Florida. You must be Tyler?"
Staring at the woman skeptically, Tyler reaches out to she her hand. "Yeah, nice to meet you." He sounds as though he automatically doesn't trust the woman.
Frankly, neither does Arabella, who can sense that this woman has ulterior motive for being here. It probably has nothing to do with Mason and everything to do with Tyler.
"I know it's weird of me to drop by, but I'm trying to track down Mason."
The mayor narrows her eyes at the sketchy woman. "Mason's been in Florida for a while now," she adds calmly.
Jules's polite smile drops from her face as she shakes her head. "No, he's not." She pauses for a moment with raised brows. "When's the last time you saw him?"
Carol Lockwood's eyes widen in surprise. "Would you like to come inside and discuss this somewhere else?" She asks. Her eyes flicker over to the two teenagers before she leads Jules inside.
As they walk away, Tyler glances at Arabella. "On second thought, we might need a little bit of help and more time to prepare." He considers all his options for a moment before formulating a plan. "Do you wanna pick up Caroline from the Grill and head there now?"
Blinking in shock by his sudden change in plans, Arabella nods her head in agreement. "Yeah, sure," she states as they head out to his car.
By the time they finish chaining both Tyler and Arabella in the opposite corners of the cellar, the full moon has already began to rise into the night sky.
Patience has never been Arabella's virtue when it comes to transformations. She just wants it to be done and over with so she can move on for the next month.
"How long are you a wolf for anyway?" Caroline asks quietly. The blonde vampire looks in Arabella's direction with curiosity from where she is standing. She stands in the center of the room, pacing in anticipation and asking thousands of questions that aren't helping Tyler with his nerves.
Arabella shrugs her shoulders. She's never truly paid attention in the past. All she was really focused on was hoping that she will be her strongest that night and she'll be able to escape from Katherine's hold. It never happened, but a girl could always dream.
"It depends. It's different every time."
Tyler stares uncomfortably at the wolfsbane filled water bottle before taking off the lid. He has spent most of the night debating how much effort he needs to put in to keeping himself contained. Earlier, when he touched the strange plant, it had burned his hand and hurt a lot. Was he really up for drinking the stuff?
Caroline's blue eyes widen in horror. "Are you sure you want to do that?" She asks.
Still staring at the bottle, he nods his head in confirmation. "Mason said it would diminish my strength." He chugs a good amount of it before he coughs and chokes some of it back up. He felt like he just shoved a bunch of hot coals down his throat.
Tears start to form in his eyes when he realizes that he truly can't do this. He can't go through this type of pain once a month for the rest of his life.
Arabella walks as far as her chains allow her, wanting nothing more than to comfort Tyler. Caroline, who is not limited by chains, does it for her. Slowly consoling him back to his calmed state.
Only an hour later, Tyler begins to feel the true pain of transforming on a full moon.
He begins to hyperventilate in between his groans of pain. "Breathe, Tyler!" Arabella shouts from her side of the cellar. "Breathe."
"I'm trying!" He cries out. He begins to convulse in pain. His arm breaks and reshapes itself into what a wolf's would look like before it changes back.
His pain goes on for hours, and Arabella feels useless for every single minute of it. Then, Arabella begins her own transformation, which means that they will both be wolves soon.
A loud cry of pain erupts from Arabella's mouth as the time comes. "Caroline, you need to leave," she warns through a moan of pain. She knows exactly what a werewolf bite will do to a vampire, and she doesn't want the vampire to get hurt.
Caroline doesn't have time to argue before Tyler snaps at her. Arabella's vision slowly begins to black out as pain takes hold of her entire body. Soon, she loses complete and total consciousness.
When she comes to, Arabella finds herself in the cellar completely naked. She feels around for her spared clothing and covers herself with it. Caroline rushes into the room and immediately goes to help Tyler, who is crying about the trauma he went through.
Tyler knows for a fact at that moment that being a werewolf never gets easier and that he will never live a normal life again.