Text to; unknown number

Happy birthday.

Text from; unknown number

Stay safe.

"RUDY!" THE WOMAN YELLS INTO THE DARK, STICKY NIGHT. She whistles on her fingers once in the hope that it will bring her dog back to her. "Rudy. Come on! It's too hot to make me come looking for you!" It is too hot. There are mosquitos swarming in the air and my jeans stick to my sweaty skin. The moon is out in her full force today, lighting Tennessee up from above.

"Excuse me ma'am?" She turns around when she hears my voice and lets out a little gasp when she sees Klaus and I, his hand over my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She smiles and waves her hand a bit. She's hardly a woman, her blonde locks remind me of my cousin back home. She wears a pink top and blue jean shorts, she looks nice. Someone I might've been friends with if it weren't for this situation.

Women are always more trusting towards their own sex.

"Can I help you?" she asks, she has a twangy accent. I nod and feel Klaus's cold hand on the back of my neck, my shoulders rise a bit when the wave of cold goes through my body.

"Yes! Our car broke down a couple miles back. Your house is the first one we up on, we've been walking for what feels like forever. Could we use your phone?" It doesn't matter how nice she is, she will die tonight. I wonder who will take care of her dog.

She laughs and her smile is sweet, "Don't you have a cell phone?"

Klaus awkwardly caresses my collarbone, pressing just a bit too hard on the bone. I shake my head. He takes his phone out of his pocket and shows it to her, "battery died. Look, I promise we're not serial killers. We just want to use your phone." He always has to be this demanding, never learned anything else. She looks between us and I guess that she sees the way he is holding me, how uncomfortable I look in his grip. Her opinion of us changes in a flash, the smile vanishes.

A sigh flows from her small mouth, like she has been keeping in her breath for a while and can finally come up for air, "Sure." Klaus immediately lets go of my neck and a huge grin decorates his face. I smile too, it might calm her down a bit.

"Sooo, we can come in?" He asks. She shakes her head and starts to walk towards the front door of her house. That was my brilliant attempt of taking it easy.

"No, I'll get the phone and bring it out to you." Klaus sneers next to me.

"I though you country folk were supposed to be more trusting." I curl my lip up at him.

"She was fine until you started talking." He shoos me.

"Let's not make this a competition, darling." The woman is walking backwards a little bit faster now, but it won't make a difference either way. I know how this will end. He speeds over to her and grabs her by the throat violently.

"Now, show me a little southern hospitality sweet pea."

Inside of the house it smells like homecooked meals. Like a little bit too much oil and bad ventilation. It's a sweet little home, with a lot of white detailing and a white and red checkered tablecloth decorating a small table in the corner. I used to call them picnic blankets.

"I bet you a hundred dollars that dog ran off to a house with air conditioning." She is carrying what looks like a heavy frying pan from one side of the counter to the other side when we walk through the kitchen door. Klaus is still holding the first woman by the nape of her neck. She is sobbing loudly, taking heaping breaths of air. The other lady has a head full of black curls. She looks almost motherly.

"What's going on?"

"Please don't be alarmed." I answer , "we were told Ray Sutton lives here."

The woman with the black hair is holding onto the counter tightly, she has put her frying an down, "He's almost never here. He's on the road, mostly." She is shaking like a leaf, I can see some sweat starting to form on her upper lip.

"But I expect he makes it home, once a month." Klaus never lets me finish the interrogations, why he doesn't just compel them has to do with the fact that he's a psychopath.

"That's what I thought at least. Where is he now then?" She keeps her cherry lips tightly sales, like she has thrown away the key. A commendable action, if I didn't already know its outcome.

"If I have to tell you it's going to be infinitely more painful for you, hmmm." He smiles through this last part, sometimes when he does that he genuinely scares me. He just already knows her next move. She swipes the pan of the counter, in some attempt to distract us, and runs through the kitchen to the front door. Where I know Stefan is already standing in wait. She screams when she sees him standing there, casually leaning against the door frame.

"I love it when they run!" Klaus yells into the void, I just roll my eyes at this pathetic display of masculinity. Like we didn't already know that Klaus is biggest, baddest vampire of all. We come up behind the woman at the same time, she doesn't understand that I am just a measly human, that I haven't fought a person in my entire life. For a second Stefan looks at me. He really looks at me, a look that we have shared often over this summer. He looks like a senseless killer, his eyes bloodshot and grey veins covering his face. But even through these accoutrements I can see him, really see him. I send him a wistful smile and I don't think either of us knows what it means, but I know that he sees it and that's all that really matters.

The woman in between us gives up, "He's in Toll. It's near the border. A bar called Southern Comfort. It's on highway 41." Klaus gently strokes her hair, holding her in his arms, "Thank you my love." He wraps a lock of her hair around his finger. "Now, may my friend come in"

The woman cries out, "Yes." They both look terrified, like they should, they know what's coming for them just as well as we do. Stefan passes through the open door, sets a cocky first step inside the house and Klaus pushes the woman he was holding in his arms into Stefan's chest.

"Kill this one quickly," he then looks at the other woman, "and make that one suffer. We'll be in the car." A grin decorates Klaus's face. This is his illusion, the illusion of mercy. There is no mercy in this senseless killing, not even when it happens quickly. And when I see Klaus grin all I can think is that I am not that far in yet, that I'll be able to enjoy a murder so fully.

But I can ignore it, my brain can push it to the back of my head, deny it ever happened at all.

"Please don't!" the plea leaves her mouth, I don't even know which one of the two it is who pleads for her life. All I know is that it won't work. Klaus puts my hand into his and guides me to the car, holds the door open for me and waits until I get in.

It's the screams. Those screams will never leave me again, they will haunt me for the rest of my lives. There's an entire pile of them dumped in my brain.

The car door closes and silence washes over me. Nothing happened, I am fine.

The bar is old and washed up, with only a few patrons sitting at some worn down tables. It has it's charm, but it really isn't my scene. In one of the corners a television playing constant reruns of football games, on the wall an old dartboard, filled with tiny holes. Sometimes when I look at the television I expect to see my self, a reward for finding me. Missing girl, red hair, answers to the names Lola and Paloma. Killed her parents once.

The man I am searching for is sitting at the bar, his back turned to me. He is wearing a red flannel shirt and in my head I giggle at these horrific choices in fashion.

"Hey there," I sit down next to him, I place my heels over the planks connecting the stool at it's base.

He smiles at me, he has a kind smile. "Hello there." He checks me out, I don't mind the feeling and I can't blame him. I did wear some very short shorts and a booby top just for the occasion.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

I smile cheekily, "I heard this place has the best tequila in town."

"Red," he addresses the bartender ,"a tequila for my lady friend here." The bar keep slides a shot glass my way, I down it immediately. The burn in my nose and throat is a pleasant one.

Somewhere behind me Stefan is compelling everyone in the bar, I need to keep Ray as distracted as possible so he won't notice ahead of time.

"My name is Paloma," I stick out my hand for him to shake, he does, "Ray. Ray Sutton."

"Very nice to meet you Ray." I speak coyly, he is still holding my hand, I would have preferred it if he had let go.

"That's my girl mate." Klaus appears behind Ray. He turns his head and lets go of my hand in one swift swoop, like he's done it before. A ladies man this one is.

"Well she has been both our girls' it's gotten a bit jumbled over the decades." Stefan appears behind me, Ray has been officially surrounded by vampires. Also, I am there.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

Klaus nods and frowns, pretending to be deep in thought, "Ray, Ray Sutton, right?" Ray looks around suspiciously.

"Who wants to know?"

"I've been looking everywhere for you. We started in Florida, Pensacola. I met a young chap there who you used to work with before you moved to Memphis, now he directed me to two lovely young women. And they led me here, to you."

"I think I'll be going."

He starts to get up, but Klaus keeps him down easily, with just one hand. Vampire strength is good for something, at least.

"Not so fast mate. You only just got here, now your type are very hard to come by." He tries the other direction this time, but Stefan is still standing there, all broad shoulders, what a superhero he is, and stops him.

"I wouldn't do that." He pushes him back roughly towards the bar counter. Ray stumbles into the dark wood.

"Vampires." He gasps out, like he's never seen one before.

Klaus laughs, "You're swifty swift Ray! Yes! My friend here is a vampire. He compelled everybody in the bar so don't look to them for any help. I however, I'm something else, a different kind of monster. I've got some vampire, I've got some wolf." Jesus Christ. I've already heard this speech around a hundred times this summer. Every single supernatural being on this earth must know of Klaus's status as a hybrid now. It must be the gossip of the century.

Ray, however, wasn't aware of this fact as of yet, so he takes a surprises step back. "You what?"

Klaus raises a self-obsessed eyebrow, "A hybrid Ray, I'm both. You see I want to create more of me. Now you being the first werewolf that I've come across in many a moon, pun intended Ray! I need you to direct me to your pack. So, where can I find them Ray?"

He shakes his head in some kind of defiant act, "you can't compel me, it won't work."

"I can't bloody compel anyone Ray, I'm just a measly little human."

"She's totally immortal though," Stefan presents.

"It's the only thing I've got going for myself to be honest. Also I am quite pretty as became apparent a minute ago. Also, I know my way around darts."

Stefan scratches his head, Klaus sends him a look and nods. Stefan turns around and takes a baggie out of his back pocket.

"Can I get a scotch on the rocks please?" He asks the compelled bartender, then he turns to Ray.

"Tell you what Ray, we're gonna play a little drinking game, something I like to call truth or wolfsbane." He opens the little pouch of the herb and pours it into his hand where he crushes it between his fingers.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun Ray." Klaus laughs.

I miss a throw and the dart nestles into the wall, Klaus smirks.

"The last time I did this I was on some serious drugs, okay." I was, yes. But I could hit him just as well right now. It's mainly that I don't really feel like impaling this man with the sharp end of a dart.

There are already more than enough of the little things in his body, anyway. Stefan is sitting at the table, slowly stirring the glass filled with wolfsbane and scotch with the end of his dart. He takes it out and throws it, it hits immediately.

"Very unfair, vampire skills don't count."

He raises a brow at me, "You have had all the time in the world to hone this skill, Lola." I roll my eyes.

He continues, "Ray, you can end this right now. Just tell me where the pack gathers at full moon."

A groan leaves his tired mouth, "I can't."

"I know, I know. You live by code and all that, but see he's not gonna let me stop until you tell me. And I do whatever he says so, that's the way it goes around here." He keeps staring at the man. The door to the bar opens and a woman walks in, she walks over to Klaus like she's on a mission. Must be under compulsion. She starts to whisper something into Klaus's ear that I don't understand. Damn you vampires and your magical hearing abilities.

"Well, thank you Claudine. You'll just tell your friends to keep up the good work with the neighborhood watch, okay?" the woman leaves the same way she came.

"My brother is still on our trail?" Stefan asks. Damon, Damon is still following us even after all the warnings I sent him. The annoying bastard.

"Why can't Damon just stay away?"

Klaus sighs, "He's getting closer, I'm gonna have to deal with that."

"Don't hurt him." I plead, he looks at me with a confused face. "You guys might be into this whole no feelings thing, but I never promised any of that, Niklaus."

Klaus starts to walk out the bar but Stefan grabs his arm and stops him, "No, no! Let me handle it."

"Why should I let you leave?" I reach out to Klaus's hand and take it into my own, I remember every little vein on that cold hand. It used to be warm.

"Because you know he'll come back, Nik." He takes my chin into his hand and turns my face, "Do I?"

Stefan answers for himself, "you saved my brother's life; I'm at your service."

"Ah, you sound so tedious and indentured. Aren't you even having the least bit of fun?" He points at Ray with a big smile and I am not sure what point he is trying to make.

"I'll make sure that my brother doesn't bother us anymore." He walks away. I turn to Klaus.

"He'll come back, for me."

He smiles and nods, "I know."

Ray is lying on his back on the large pool table, there is still a dart sticking out of his head and I pull it out as fast and painless as I can. Werewolves heal, but not as fast as vampires do.

"Okay, it's a three step process, Ray. This is step one. I want you to drink from my wrist."

"I already told you where to find the pack. What more do you want from me?"

"Have you been listening to a word I've been saying, Ray? I have great plans for you." Klaus cuts his wrist with a piece of glass and forces his wrist into Ray's mouth. I sit down on the far side of the pool table and look the other way, letting my legs swing in the air.

"You'll thank me for it later, huh. There we go, attaboy!"

The doors to the bar swing open again and when I turn to look at the door I see Stefan walking in. He looks distressed, Klaus might not be able to see it, but I am.

When I look that way I also see the desperate man laying on the table and I can't take my eyes off him again. I can't pretend this isn't happening, not when I'm right here, pretending comes later.

"What are you going to do now?"

"It's time for step two, Ray." He twists his neck in one swift movement. I still hear that sound in my nightmares, when I can't sleep and the hotel room fan is on way too loud but if I turn it off that sound will be all I can hear. Stefan looks emotionless, like he has to look. Like we both have to.

"You're back."

"Did you doubt me?"

"Not for a second. I knew you'd pass the test. You wouldn't leave this flower here all on her own. You care about her, like you care for your brother and your old life."

"Nah, I don't care about anything anymore." I swallow.

"You put on a good show Stefan. I almost believe you. Let's hope, for your brother's sake, he does. You never stop caring about family, do you? But, every time you feed, the blood makes it easier to let go."

At this time of the night the air is almost cold, the shorts I was wearing aren't comfortable any longer.

The phone beeps.

"Lola?"

"Damon."

He sighs as I whisper through the phone.

"I don't know what he did but please don't give up on him, he needs you."

"He killed Andie, Lola." I put a hand in front of my mouth to keep my way too loud gasp in.

"Please Damon-" he hangs up. The phone lays in my hand beeping away for another 5 minutes. I let the cold air lick my wounds.

rewriting this was hell, so you better like it.