Wayward Heart: Book 1

Part 25

"Have a great day, thanks for coming by," Damon said as he closed the door to Alaric's apartment in Elena's face, not allowing her a chance to say anything else, "walking down the stairs...opening the front door...and she's gone."

Damon stepped up next to Emma and watched as Alaric started his saw and started cutting the Wickery Bridge sign into eleven stake sized pieces. Each of them took a few to start sharpening into points.

"This needs to be sharper," Stefan badgered Damon about one of his stakes.

"I got it," Damon muttered annoyed.

"We finally have our own stakes to kill an Original," Stefan countered, "I'm not going to miss because you can't whittle."

Damon glared at him, "I said I got it, stop micromanaging."

Alaric started putting on his jacket, "Well it looks like you have this under control."

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Emma looked up from her work.

"To talk to Sheriff Forbes," Alaric explained, "I'm going to turn myself in."

"Like hell you are," Emma put down what she was working on and stood up.

"I have a homicidal alter ego. Unlike some people in this room, I would like to take responsibility for the people I've killed," Alaric explained his reasoning.

Damon tsked, "If you wanted to turn yourself in, you wouldn't be saying it out loud, just saying."

"Hey, listen, out of all the people you cannot psychoanalyze me," Alaric fired back, "I killed Caroline's father; I nearly killed Meredith. Everything has changed."

"You aren't turning yourself in, Bonnie's herbs are working just fine," Emma joined the argument again.

"And we have Originals to kill," Stefan added, "Klaus needs to die, we finally have a chance to kill him. You aren't turning yourself in."

Damon fished something out of his jacket pocket and presented it to Alaric, it was the Gilbert resurrection ring, "Here, put this on."

"That ring is the reason I have killed people, I killed Emma!" Alaric backed away.

"It's also the reason you're alive," Damon explained, "we are going vampire hunting Ric, put it on."

Alaric reluctantly took the ring from Damon and glanced over to a hopeful Emma, grateful that he couldn't remember the image of himself stabbing her, before he put it on his ring finger.

"Let's go meet some reckless teens in the woods," Damon smiled.

"Where is Bonnie?" Stefan questioned as soon as they convened in the agreed meeting spot.

Caroline answered, "Um, her mom bailed on her, again. So maybe let's leave her out of this one."

"Fair enough," Damon shrugged.

Matt, Elena, Caroline, Damon, Stefan, and Emma and grouped together.

"What are we doing here?" Matt asked.

"We found some more white oak," Damon said proudly.

Elena was taken back for a moment, "Wait, white oak? You have a weapon that can kill Klaus."

"Nope, we all have weapons," Stefan threw a duffle back full of white oak stakes in-between the group, "Klaus has always been one step ahead of us, but now we have the advantage. We're all armed and they are all linked, meaning we only need to kill one of them. We need to seize the best opportunity, which means we need to prepare for every opportunity."