Clair de Lune - K.M.

c h a p t e r e l e v e n

The morning after Caroline's disaster of a birthday I'm awakened by the sound of my phone ringing on my nightstand. I attempt to ignore the shrill sound, groaning and flipping over. Even though I sobered up pretty quickly last night, I still have a raging headache from drinking half a bottle of tequila. My phone rings again and I reach up to grab my pillow, bringing it down to cover my head and sighing in annoyance when it does little to dull the noise.

When the sound of the phone ringing for the third time sounds through the room I huff and grab it off the nightstand. I roll my eyes at the sight of Damon's name and answer it before bringing the device up to my ear.

"What do you want?"

"Morning she-wolf," he says.

"Fuck off," I groan. "Why are you calling me so early?"

"It's the middle of the afternoon."

I turn and notice the time displayed on my alarm clock.

"Yeah, well, I had a busy night."

"I heard. Is blondie alright?"

"Awww, Damon," I coo. "You do care."

"Shut up," he tells me firmly. "Forget I asked."

"Relax," I laugh, rubbing the side of my head to try and get some of the pain to fade. "She's okay."

"Good. Now get your ass out of bed."

"Come on," I whine. "I had a really hard day yesterday. It turns out that tequila is not my friend and my head hurts. All I want to do is lay in bed all day and read."

"You're not the only one who had a bad night, Stella."

His tone of voice makes me pause. I sit up slowly, the last wisps of sleep fading away. 

"What happened?"

"Stefan got Klaus to get his hybrids out of town."

"And how exactly did he do that? Is that why he took Elena?" I realize. 

"Yep," he says, confirming my fears. I take a deep breath, rage flaring inside me.

"What did he do?"

"Fed her his blood and threatened to drive her off Wickery Bridge."

My stomach drops at his words and I bring my hand up to cover my mouth.

"What? Is she okay? God, the next time I see Stefan..." 

"Tell me about it," he agrees, a dark tone to his voice. "Elena's okay. Shaken up, but she seemed to be alright. She's off with Bonnie, they're trying to figure out how to open one of Klaus' coffins."

"Can we please not talk about that?" I ask, sure that trying to think about the vexing personality or anything else to do with Klaus Mikaelson will only make my headache worse. "If I ever think about an original vampire being held hostage again it'll be too soon.

"Luckily for you that's not why I called," he assures me. "I need you to meet me at the hospital."

"What? Why?"

"Because the medical examiner was murdered last night and I'm going to accuse Ric's girlfriend of killing him."

I take a second to process his words, screwing up my eyebrows in confusion.

"First of all, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Second of all, why do I have to go?"

"She'll be less likely to make a scene if I bring a teenager."