"A Huntress?" Riley asked as she and Damon made their way back to the house. "A freaking Huntress?!"
"Rayna was lying," Damon tried to assure her, but even to him, his voice sounded unconvinced.
"Do you remember what happened the last time we battled a Huntress?" Riley asked, ignoring him. "We all completely separated. Stefan went on the run for three years, and we had to bring the Armory in to capture her." She tried to take a deep breath but her lungs weren't working properly. "Well, we have no Armory, and there's no way we're killing Bonnie, so what do we do?"
"We assess the situation," Damon said calmly. Riley looked at him like he was insane.
"Assess the...?" She trailed off. "You do know that as a witch, Bonnie wanted to kill you, right? As a Huntress, she will not hesitate to rip your heart out."
Damon shrugged. "Maybe when we go in there, Bonnie will be the same annoying witch we all know and love."
"And if she's not?" Riley countered. "If she's the demon creation of Rayna Cruz and her vampire-hating ancestors? Then what? Because we can't kill her, and we can't just... snap her out of it."
Damon sighed, saying the three words that he never wanted to say. "Then we run."
Riley's mouth fell open in surprise. "So, the first sign of trouble and you and Stefan make your second great escape? Because that worked out so well the first time?"
Damon stopped walking and turned to her. "I wasn't talking about me and Stefan."
Riley's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Then who? Because there's no way in hell Care or Enzo would run with you."
Damon rolled his eyes, not sure if she was deliberately avoiding the topic or if this was something that she'd never consider.
And suddenly, she got it.
"Me?" she asked, to which he said nothing. "You're asking me to run with you?"
"I'm saying that I don't think I'll have to run," he clarified. "But if I do... you wouldn't be the worst company in the world." He smirked, but then his face became more serious. "I've already left you once, and I can't make that mistake again."
Riley tried to form words that would make a coherent sentence, but all she could come up with were stuttered sounds that didn't make any sense.
"You don't have to answer," Damon said after a while of watching her struggle. "I'm just... doing what I should have done the first time."
They started walking again, bursting through the door of the Salvatore house to see Enzo, Caroline, Ric and... Bonnie.
"Hey," Bonnie greeted them. When neither of them said anything, she frowned. "What?"
"Uh... are you okay?" Riley asked warily. Bonnie was sitting up, smiling, and everything looked as normal as it always did.
"Yeah. Whatever Rayna did, it worked," she said hesitantly, looking from Riley's shocked face, to Damon, who didn't know whether to be freaked out or ecstatic. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Damon said, a smile on his face. "Rayna used her dying breath to feed us false information."
Enzo's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What did she say?"
Riley sighed, shaking her head. "Something ridiculous about Bonnie waking up as a Huntress." A smile crept onto her face as she looked at Bonnie. "You feel like killing any vampires?"
Bonnie raised an eyebrow, looking in Damon's direction. "No more than usual."
Ric frowned. "So what did Rayna mean?"
"She was messing with us," Damon answered immediately. "Trying to get to me, probably. Obviously whatever she was planning didn't work."
Suddenly, Riley's vision became clouded. Everything blurred and her head started spinning. She saw bright painful flashes of things that she couldn't make out. "Ah!" she groaned, clutching her head as a sharp pain gripped her.
"Riles?" Caroline asked.
"Fletch?" Damon said at the same time, grabbing her arm. "You okay?"
She wanted to say yes, or no, or anything, but she couldn't find the words, as the pain got worse. Then, before she knew it, everything went black.
***
When she opened her eyes, it took her a few moments to realize where she was. Her old house, in her old bed.
"What the hell?" she asked under her breath, slipping out of the bed. Her head was no longer hurting, but clearly something was wrong. She hadn't been inside this house in years.
"I lied. Sorry, but I had no other choice," a voice said from behind her. She whirled around in a panic to find Rayna Cruz watching her. "It was always you, Riley."
"What was always me?"
Rayna smiled an insidious grin, walking towards Riley while dragging something along the ground behind her. The Phoenix Sword.
"I thought that got blown up?"
Rayna nodded. "It did. But this isn't real, Riley. I'm dead. And when you wake up, you'll be a Huntress."
Riley shook her head vehemently. "That's never gonna happen. Vampires are my family, I'd never hurt them."
Rayna raised a faux-surprised eyebrow. "Wow... even after they hurt you?"
Riley could hear her heart beating in her ears as she answered. "What are you talking about?"
Rayna laughed. "Three years. You spent three years alone, running after the Armory because no one else gave a crap about you. Your sister was living her perfect family life in Dallas, Enzo was too busy falling for Bonnie to be there for you, and don't even get me started on Damon. The guy who used you, cheated on you, made you fall for him time and time again, just to crush your heart with his bare hands because he could." Her tone was sinister. "The only reason you're here is because those vampires don't care about you. And you want to kill them."
"No I don't," Riley said, but with less conviction. Everything that Rayna said brought back memories that she wanted to forget. Being so alone that she waited by the phone for the Armory to call, just so she'd have a purpose.
"Yeah, you do," Rayna told her. "You remember it like it was yesterday. The quietness that even TV couldn't drown out. Moving through life like you were living in a bubble that no one could pop. Spending each day in a repetitive cycle of nothingness because vampires took away everything you had to offer to the world. You want to kill them for all the times that you were sitting in that tiny apartment in Portland waiting for them to bring more danger to your door. Well they did, they brought me. But you can end this. And you will." Her sinister smile stayed in place. "Why do you think you're connected to the Stone? This is who you are."
When Riley blinked, Rayna was gone. She looked down and saw that the Phoenix Sword was in her hand. She couldn't remember taking it. Maybe she didn't.
"Riles," someone said. She looked at the spot where Rayna had been standing, but now Caroline was standing in her place.
"Is this real?"
"Not really," Caroline told her sister. "I'm in your head. We moved your body to Damon's bedroom after you passed out. What's going on?"
Riley gripped the Sword. "Everything Rayna said was true, only instead of Bonnie, it happened to me."
Caroline nodded. "That's what we guessed. Does that mean... you're a Huntress?"
"I don't know," Riley said, her voice shaky. "Rayna was saying things, things that she couldn't know about."
"Because she's not real," Caroline reminded her. "Everything she said... it's from your own subconscious."
Riley nodded, because of course this was true. "But, if it's from my subconscious, then that means that it's all true," she said, looking at her sister in a way that she never had before. "You abandoned me. You had your fiancé, and your perfect daughters, and you didn't give a crap about what I was going through."
"That's not true," Caroline said in a calm voice.
"Like hell it's not!" Riley argued. "You don't have to pretend anymore, Care, you can admit it. You don't care. You never cared about me – we're not even real sisters!"
"You are my sister," Caroline said defiantly, keeping her distance. She had never seen her sister look this mad before. "This is your lizard brain talking. Fight it."
Riley frowned. "I've been fighting it, holding it back, for way too long. This is who I am."
"I know you, Riley," Caroline told her. "I know who you are. You'd never hurt me."
Riley nodded, laughing under her breath. "I thought that too. But strangely, all I can remember is how it felt to be alone. To be abandoned by my so-called sister."
Caroline didn't know how to respond. When she spoke, her voice was soft, fearful. "Your brain is rewiring itself to hate vampires."
Riley nodded again. "I know... it's working."
She lunged at Caroline, taking her by surprise, not giving her any time to fight back. Before she knew it, the sword was embedded in her sister's chest, and then Caroline was gone.
---
"What happened?" Enzo asked when Caroline gasped and jumped up, clutching her chest.
"Is she okay?" Damon added hurriedly. "Why isn't she waking up? What's wrong with her?"
Caroline sighed. "We were right, Rayna turned her into a Huntress." She ran to the mirror and looked at herself. "She marked me."
"She marked you?" Stefan, who had joined the group after copious voicemails from his brother, said. "She must have created some sort of psychic link. You need to get as far away from her as you can."
Caroline raised an eyebrow. "Look, I get that it's easy for some people to completely abandon everyone they love for their own self-interest, but I'm not you, Stefan. I'm not leaving her."
Bonnie, who was standing by the bedroom door, looked at her friend sympathetically. "Care, you should go."
"What?" Caroline asked incredulously.
"This isn't just about you. It's about Ric, and the girls. We both know that if Riley was standing here, she'd tell you to run."
Caroline hesitated, thinking about her daughters. If Riley was really a Huntress, she couldn't stay here, and she couldn't lead a Huntress back to her family in Dallas. She had no choice. With one last look at Riley, she hugged Bonnie and left the room with Stefan following closely behind, determined to keep her safe whatever it took.
"You should probably get out of here too," Enzo said to Damon. "I can get through to her."
Damon looked at him like he was insane. "You really think I'm gonna leave her?"
"You hurt her more than anyone else," Enzo reminded him. "Whether she marks you or not, once she wakes up, you're number one on her hit list. If I can't get her to resist this new side of herself, then you're the one who should be as far away as possible.
Damon immediately shook his head. "If she wants to kill me, then she can tell me to my face. But I'm not leaving her... not again."
"Even if leaving saves your life?"
Damon looked over at Riley, lying unconscious on the bed. "She is my life."
***
As soon as Riley stabbed Caroline, the scene around her went black once again, and her anger at vampires seemed to kick itself up a notch. Just in time for Enzo to make his appearance, as they found themselves in her Portland apartment.
"You're causing a scene out there," he told her casually, maintaining a healthy distance. "You marked Caroline."
"Then she should start running," Riley warned, pacing up and down. "Because as soon as I find out how to get out of this dream... I'm gonna kill her."
Enzo shook his head. "You don't mean that. Caroline is the last person in the world you'd hurt."
Riley shook her head, sighing. "You have no idea how this feels, Enzo. 90% of the people that I love are vampires... and all I want is to kill you guys."
"Riles, you don't want to kill me, or Caroline. And even after everything that Damon's done, you'd never want to hurt him," he said.
Riley groaned angrily. "First Care, now you. You guys can't tell me how I feel, or what I want to do. You have no idea how much self-control it's taking not to kill you right now."
"Then why am I still here?" Enzo asked, moving closer to her. "Rayna wouldn't hesitate, I'd already be dead. So why aren't you doing anything?"
She shook her head, frustrated. "I don't know."
"Yeah, you do," Enzo countered. "If you really wanted to kill us, you'd be awake right now, doing just that. You're still asleep because, deep down, you know that this isn't you."
Riley rolled her eyes. "If this isn't me then why am I daydreaming about ripping your heart out? Why am I connected to the Phoenix Stone?" she asked. "I may not have been born a hunter, but you weren't born a vampire. Things change."
"Rayna is messing with your head," he told her. "And you're letting her. You have to fight against whatever she's doing to you."
Riley chuckled. "Rayna isn't doing anything to me, Enzo. You guys did. Vampires ruined my life, and the lives of so many innocent humans. All Rayna tried to do was even the score... but I guess that's my job now."
She reached for the nearest object, a vase, and smashed it over his head. While he was down, she swung the Sword and stabbed him in the heart. And just like that, he disappeared.
---
"The hell happened?" Damon asked when Enzo was forcibly ejected out of Riley's head, bearing a scar that resembled Caroline's. "Perfect."
"She marked you?" Bonnie asked, the shock written on her face as she saw the red mark that the Phoenix sword had made in her boyfriend's skin.
"I'm okay," he tried to reassure her.
"She's not gonna sleep forever," she reminded him. "And when she wakes up, you need to already be gone. She can't find you."
Enzo nodded. After all, he knew what running from a Huntress did to people.
"Come with me," he said to Bonnie, his eyes pleading. But Bonnie shook her head before he could even finish the request.
"You'll have a better chance of getting away without me dragging you down," she told him. "And if she really wants to kill you guys... she's gonna need someone who's not a vampire to talk her out of it."
Enzo knew she was right, but he still hated the idea of leaving her behind.
Damon sat beside Riley, watching as Bonnie and Enzo kissed. Watching Bonnie send him away, not knowing when they'd see each other again. All he could think about was how much time he'd wasted rotting in a coffin, when he could have been trying to win back the love of his life.
***
"It was stupid of you to come here."
Part of Riley hadn't expected Damon to delve into her subconscious – after all, he knew how much danger he was in, even in her head.
"Yeah well, I do a lot of stupid stuff," he said, shrugging nonchalantly. They were standing in the crypt - he thought it would remind her of how she felt when he came back to life all those years ago. "Now how about you wake yourself up and we can discuss this like adults?"
Riley scoffed. "The second I wake up, I'm gonna kill you. Why are you still here?"
"Because I'm done making mistakes, Fletch. Especially when it comes to you."
Riley sighed. "So you're gonna let me kill you to absolve yourself of any guilt? Wow, you're even more selfish than I thought."
"I'm not letting you do anything," he told her. "If you want to kill me, you're gonna have to face me... in the real world."
"You don't get to tell me what to do," she told him. "You don't get to break into my brain and taunt me into killing you. You don't get to jump out of your coffin and try to make me fall back in love with you, that's not how it works."
He walked over to her, not caring about the fact that she still had the Sword in her hand. She didn't raise it, watching him walk towards her, until he got close enough to take her unoccupied hand.
"I'm gonna kill you," she told him in a whisper.
"So kill me," he rebutted. "Do whatever you have to do."
She shook her head. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to be the reasonable one. You don't deserve to love me, Damon."
"You're right," he nodded. "I never deserved you, Fletch." He put a hand to her cheek. "You are so much better than I could ever be. So be better. Fight against Rayna and her idiotic spell. Even if you can't do it for me, or Enzo or Caroline, do it for you."
"I can't," she whispered. She had no idea how to fight against what was now her instinct. She had no idea how to ignore the anger inside of her. "If you don't leave right now, I will kill you."
"Then kill me," he challenged her. "And when killing me breaks you out of this thing... come find me."
She swung the sword towards him, but there was no conviction in her hit. She was mad, madder at him than anyone else, but for some reason, the anger wasn't enough. Even when the sword made contact and he was marked, she didn't feel better. She needed to find him. And the bigger part of herself, needed to kill him.
This thought was enough to wake her up. She sat up on Damon's bed, glancing around the room to see that only Bonnie was with her.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Where's Damon?"
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "He left." She looked at her friend carefully. "Please tell me you're not-"
"About to kill him? And Enzo and Caroline?" Riley finished for her, a murderous glint in her eye. "Yes."
"Riley, this isn't who you are," she said desperately. "You don't want to kill our friends, you know you don't."
"I don't know what I want anymore," Riley told her angrily. "But what I do know, is that I hate vampires. They ruined all of our lives, and this thing inside of me won't stop until they're gone."
She ran down the stairs and flung the front door open to find Matt standing on the porch. Even without hunter instincts, he was as angry with vampires as she was.
"If you're gonna try and talk me out of this, it's not gonna work," the new Huntress said to Matt. "You helped Rayna Cruz escape from the Armory, you're a different person now, Matt. We all are."
"Yeah we've changed," Matt agreed. "But I refuse to believe that the girl I've known for years, the one who always fought for vampires, is gone for good. Because that girl would never put Caroline's life in danger."
Bonnie put her hand softly on Riley's arm. "Riles, you can fight this if you really want to. You are easily one of the strongest people I've ever met. If anyone can fight against their natural instincts, it's you." When Riley's resolve wavered, she continued. "When we were figuring this whole 'vampire' thing out, you were the one who convinced me that they weren't our enemies, that we could co-exist with them, be friends with them, even love them. Don't tell me you've forgotten that."
Riley thought about everyone she loved, everyone who was involved in this world. As angry as she was with vampires, flashes came to her, as she thought about all the good things that had come into her life because of vampires. Her nieces, her closest friends who were now nothing short of family. Then she thought about how many of those people she'd be hurting if her head won over her heart.
"I need you two to keep me connected to my human side," she said finally. "Remind me that this isn't what I want, or who I am."
"We can do that," Matt nodded, happy that they managed to get through to her.
"On one condition," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I need to kill Damon first." She had even surprised herself with this, but it was the one thing that made sense. No matter how she felt about him, he had caused her more pain than anyone else. "The vampire who has ruined my life in more ways than I can count." She looked at Bonnie. "The vampire who claims to love me, but hurts me every chance he gets. The guy who abandoned us for three years so that he could lie in a coffin next to his ex-girlfriend." Then, she turned to Matt. "The vampire who killed your sister because he was bored."
Bonnie couldn't speak, she had no words. But after a moment, Matt nodded.
"I'm in."
***
The marks created some sort of psychic link. She could see Caroline and Stefan planning their next route, she could see Enzo getting out of town, and she could see Damon walking around the woods, waiting for her.
"Well, you caught me," he said. He was leaning against a tree.
"Why are you still here?" she asked. She held just two of the many weapons that she kept in her car. "You really think I won't do it?"
Damon raised an eyebrow. "I can see your inner torment from here. Trust me, Fletch, I can get through to you before it's too late."
She aimed a gun in his direction, pulling the trigger. He dived out of the way just in time.
"It's already too late," she told him, walking towards him slowly. "You let me catch you – it's over. You're dead."
She aimed the gun at him again, but this time he ran towards her, snatching it from her hand. When she reached for another weapon, he grabbed her from behind, pinning her against him.
"Let me go," she said, trying to fight against him. But even with her new Huntress instincts, he was stronger.
"I can't," he said. "I let you go once already and it was the biggest mistake of my life."
"Stop," she said, still fighting against him. "Stop talking. Stop reminding me of what you did. Stop trying to make yourself feel better."
In his moment of weakness, she got the upper hand, pushing him to the ground and leaning over him with a stake in her hand. She saw fear in his eyes.
"Listen to me," he told her, fighting against her. "If you're gonna kill me, the least I deserve is two seconds of talking."
"Talk fast," she warned, the stake getting closer to his chest.
"You know what the worst thing about the last three years was?" he asked her. "I couldn't die, and I couldn't live. All I could do was replay the same memories over and over again." He looked into her eyes as she started to push the stake into his chest. "Over the last three years, I fell in love with you a thousand times. Fletch, I will never love anyone the way I love you. And if you have to kill me, know that this isn't your fault. I did this to us, I ruined us. But I never stopped loving you. I will love you forever."
For a moment, she stopped pushing the stake.
"Damon, you have to run," Riley whimpered, her eyes filling with tears as she tried to fight against the urge to kill him. "Please run."
He shook his head. "Not without you. I'm not leaving you again." He stroked her cheek. "This isn't your fault, okay? I love you."
Tears fell down Riley's face. "I love you too. I always loved you, I never stopped." She pushed the stake further into his chest, sobbing as she did so. "I'm sorry."
"I love you," he said in response, not fighting against her anymore.
As she prepared to push the stake in as far as it would go, Matt, who was standing behind her, shot her in the back with multiple tranquilizers, instantly knocking her out.
Damon held her unconscious body, nodding at Matt and Bonnie, who had just joined them. "Thanks."
"Enzo said something before he left," Matt ignored him, looking at Bonnie. "He said that Rayna's life was linked to the final Everlasting. If you sever the link, it might sever the curse."
The Everlastings were the bodies of Shamans that were being held in order to track Rayna's lives. When one of the Everlastings died, one of Rayna's lives were taken, and vice versa. Now, there was one left.
"Great, so we find the last Everlasting and kill it?" Damon asked, as if this was an easy task. "Piece of cake. Where is it?"
"It's in the Armory," Bonnie answered. "The Armory that I spelled shut with something evil inside." She sighed. "Damon, I don't have access to my magic anymore, I can't undo the spell."
"Well, then we'll have to find another way in," Damon remarked, looking at his Riley's unconscious body. "Evil be damned. We're gonna open the place back up."
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This was an extra-long chapter, which seems really fitting because this week Unstoppable hit 100K views! Thank you so much to anyone who's currently reading the story, or who has read any of the chapters. It means so much!
Did you expect that Riley was going to be the Huntress?
Next chapter is the Season 7 finale - do you think Riley will be able to fight off her Huntress instincts?
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