Visitation (Vampire Diaries) (Book Six)

Chapter 18__I Never Could Love Like That

After dark, Caroline and I had nothing be better to do than go to the Skull Bar after closing.

The bartender had almost finished cleaning up, about to go home for the night, turning off the lights, hearing Caroline rush behind him. When he turned around, the chair he had just stacked on top of a table was back on the floor.

The bartender was confused. "Okay..." He out the chair back up on the table. Caroline rushed by the bar, knocking off a bottle of alcohol, making it shatter on the floor. The bartender looked at the mess in annoyance. "Oh, come on." He walked toward the bar. "Okay, who's messing with me? Chris, you up there?" There was no answer. "Dick!" He started to clean up the spilled alcohol when Caroline dropped the body of Chris onto a nearby table from the balcony up above. His throat was bloody. The bartender was horrified. "Oh, God! Chris? Chris!"

I looked at Caroline. "Boo!"

I shook my head.

Caroline appeared on the steps of the upper level, looking offended, scoffing. "Are you booing me?"

I cup my lips with my hands sarcastically. "Boo!"

"I scared him!" Caroline told me indignantly. She looked at the bartender. "I scared you, right? With the whole chair-flipping, and the bottle thing?"

I shrugged, unimpressed.

The bartender looked between us in fear. "Who are you people?"

"Oh," Caroline said. "I'm Caroline." She gestured to me. "This is Nicola." I smiled, waving. Caroline pointed to Chris' body. "And that? Mm... Was delicious." She looked at me. "Taste!"

I walked over to the body, leaning over to taste the blood on his neck, standing happily. "Mm!"

"What's going on?" the bartender asked.

"Well, Caroline and I had a little bet that she would scare you to death," I explained.

"Like, literally, scare you to death," Caroline told him.

"But, you have to understand," I told him. "This is our first time messing with somebody, and we're both fairly new vampires, and we just turned our emotions off, but I grew up with a family of vampires while she didn't, so she didn't realize the whole 'dead body shock-drop thing is a complete cliche."

"Cliche?" the bartender repeated incredulously. "That guy was my friend!"

"Well, then why aren't you freaking out?" Caroline asked. "A heart attack? Come on, give me something." The bartender turned to run. Caroline appeared in front of him, compelling him. "I don't think you heard me. You're having a heart attack!"

The bartender scoffed. "What are you-" He started to groan and cough painfully. "My... My chest. What's happening?"

"She's cheating," I answered. "That's what's happening."

The bartender gasped. "Please, help me."

I sighed. "All right, just relax. It's mental. You only think you're having a heart attack."

"Now your throat's tightening!" Caroline told him mockingly, faking coughs. The bartender grabbed his his throat, gagging. "You can't breathe!" Caroline giggled. The bartender fell to his knees, gasping for breath. "Oh, my God! Are those spiders all over your body?" The man groaned in pain, rolling all over the floor. I sighed in exasperation. After a long moment, his heart stopped beating as he finally died. Caroline looked at me smugly. "Hmm. Look at that. I won. Poor guy was so scared that he died of a heart attack."

"No, that's not fair," I told her. "Technically, he died of a loophole."

"A win is a win," Caroline told me. "We did things your way when we spent the day torturing Stefan. It is my turn. So, you know what we do now?"